Portfolio Intelligence podcast: how should investors approach portfolio positioning as rate cuts begin?

This podcast is being brought to you by John Hancock Investment Management Distributors, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers, are subject to change as market and other conditions warrant, and do not constitute investment advice or a recommendation regarding any specific product or security. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy discussed will be successful or achieve any particular level of results. Any economic or market performance information is historical and is not indicative of future results, and no forecasts are guaranteed. Investing involves risks, including the potential loss of principal. 

Duration measures the sensitivity of the price of bonds to a change in interest rates.

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John P. Bryson

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Portfolio Intelligence Podcast. I'm your host, John Bryson, head of investment consulting and education savings here at John Hancock Investment Management. Today is September 23, 2024. And we've started fall. So I've invited Emily Rowland and Matt Miskin, our co chief investment strategists here at John Hancock Investment Management, to the podcast to talk to us about what's going on in the economies around the world and markets as well.

Matt. Emily, welcome.

Emily R. Roland

Hey, John.

Matthew D. Miskin

Thanks for having us.

John P. Bryson

You got it. Hey. Exciting week last week. the Fed met and they cut 50 basis points. Walk us through the reasoning and the market reaction, if you could, Emily.

Emily R. Roland

Yeah, sure. So that was probably the most anticipated Fed meeting that I could remember in recent history, and it was pretty notable. We actually didn't know what the Fed was going to do. The bond market was oscillating between pricing in 25 basis points versus 50. But over the days leading up to the meeting, 50 became the base case. And that’s what the Fed came through with. And really, I think the idea behind the 50 basis-point cut is that the risk has really moved away from higher inflation and more towards the risk of a further weakening in the labor market. So, core PCE, which is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, was as high as about 5.5% at its peak. And it’s now down to about 2.6% year over year. So not quite back down to the Fed's 2% target but going there … they're moving in the right direction as inflation kind of fades into their rearview mirror here as the key risk. And meanwhile, we're starting to see more cracks in the labor market. We've seen a couple of months of weaker nonfarm payroll report.

The unemployment rate has been rising and is now sitting at 4.2%. So, the Fed really wanted to preempt any further weakening in the labor market by doing this 50 basis-point cut. I mean, in terms of the market reaction, markets loved it. It was a “risk on” reaction, really. Some of the most notable things that we saw was a steepening in the yield curve. So the 10-year Treasury yield went up. And really, the idea is that by lowering the Fed Funds rate by a significant amount, the theory or the idea is that, you know, perhaps that staves off the likelihood of a recession. So more of a “risk on” perspective there. You also see that, in … in areas like Bitcoin, which was up 9%, the momentum factor and sort of junk … or less profitable companies, doing really well.

Small caps, one of the leaders across equity markets, reflecting that more cyclical rotation “risk on” view. And then you saw high-yield bond spreads went below 3%. That's incredibly tight. The 20-year average is 500 basis points. So that's the credit market telling you there's not a lot of concern about any type of liquidity event, financial accident, even recession.

And then you also saw the equity market reaching a new all-time high. So I think, you know, certainly markets loved it. And we want to be mindful here. There's a lot of good news that's being priced into to riskier assets. And I know we'll talk about how we want to think about positioning from here. But broadly, we would sort of fade this rotation into lower quality parts of the market and think about notching up on quality, both from an equity and a fixed-income perspective.

John P. Bryson

Okay. That's really helpful. We're going to certainly dig into that. I got to kind of put this under the, “shows what I know” category. I was surprised by the 50 basis-point cut. I was thinking more 25 when we look at economic data for August. Matt, it wasn't that bad. Were you surprised by the 50 basis-point cut?

Matthew D. Miskin

Yeah. A week before the … the meeting, actually, 25 basis points was the consensus. And then if you asked economists of … you know, the consensus of economists, almost all said 25. And I think from an economist standpoint, that's what you would have thought. Initial jobless claims fell to 219,000 last week. That is at the lower end of the last year’s range, industrial production improved, retail sales beat. So what we're seeing is this strong data and then S&P 500 hits all-time highs. Amidst this, you know, a lot of things looking actually pretty positive. And so, you know, I think this … the economic backdrop, the key is the inflation piece. And really, the Fed has two mandates: one is to have full employment and the other is to have stable prices.

The … the stable prices piece is no longer as big of a deal to them, and inflation is coming down. And so they are really, you know, restrictive here at five before when they were 5.5%, Fed funds rate and inflation was down to 2.6% or so. So that's in our view why they went for it. But the thing that, you know, we look at this as … is that it's incrementally positive for the economy and risk assets.

But it's pulling forward that dry powder. This is something they could have used when things got a lot worse and they're using it now, you know. You could make, you know, you could make the argument that that makes sense. But it is something that's going to not be around later. And in our view, as Emily said, you know, because of this, you got this “risk on” pop.

And we think it's pulling forward this, you know, positive view on risk assets. And we think actually that gives you an opportunity to, you know, trim some of that and redeploy into … whether it's intermediate-term bonds that have cheapened up a little bit here, or some other parts in the higher-quality, mid-cap … mid-cap space that have underperformed lower-quality small cap. So it gives you an opportunity to make a little bit of a shift in the portfolio. And we welcome that opportunity.

John P. Bryson

That's great to hear. So, both of you had mentioned the kind of strong “risk on” rally that this has prompted. If we look back though, at past 50 basis-point cuts, they have often preceded … preceded a recession. What's the network … and your take on that possibility right now? Emily?

Emily R. Roland

Yeah. I mean, right now markets are pricing in a soft-landing scenario. And I think, you know, that's not the typical scenario. There's been one kind of official soft landing, which was in 1995, when the Fed really got ahead of the cutting cycle and started that early. So you're sort of not playing the odds if you're betting on a soft landing.

But one thing that may kind of help that narrative is that we have seen an incredible amount of fiscal spending. So we've really, you know … government officials have really, really extended this cycle by increasing the size of the deficit to the tune of almost 7% of GDP. So we're essentially paying for a lot of the economic growth that we're getting, which has left us in this sort of never ending late-cycle environment where the lagged impact of all of this tightening in the system just hasn't tipped us into recession.

So that could last for some time although that fiscal support is fading. And we would really be looking at a three … sort of three key things to embrace .. these things need to essentially happen in order for a soft landing to play out. And one is …  the bond … the Fed's got to deliver and what the bond market is expecting.

So the bond market’s pricing in another total of 2% of cuts over the next 12 to 16 months. And if the Fed cuts less than that, essentially they're tightening monetary policy. Which could create a “risk off” environment. So, you know, we need to see the Fed deliver. The other thing is the jobs market needs to hold steady.

And Powell has made it clear that the Fed does not welcome any further deterioration here in the labor market. So, you know, typically in a hard landing, the unemployment rate is has gone to about 5.1%. As we talked about earlier, right now we're at 4.2%. One thing we watch really closely are initial jobless claims on Thursday mornings.

And we're going … so far so good. We're sitting here in the low 200,000s. We've been there for … for weeks and weeks at this point. You know, if we saw initial claims, you know, jumping up to somewhere around 300,000, that would be a bit more cause for concern. But we're just not there. And then we just cannot see liquidity conditions drying … drying up here.

I talked earlier about high-yield bond spreads. If you look at the borrowing costs for these lower-quality companies that have been rallying from their low, the overall high-yield corporate bond yield right now is about 7.3%. That's the lowest level since mid-2022. We talked about spreads relative to Treasuries being around 300 basis points. So we're seeing this really favorable credit backdrop that can change really quickly.

If investors lose confidence, if we do see some type of, you know, credit event or exogenous shock, or just a typical economic contraction playing out … You know …  but for now, these credit conditions are really helping the economy, stay … stay, you know, stable. So, and again, those are the things we'd be looking at to sort of check the boxes for this soft landing to … to actually play out.

John P. Bryson

All right. I want to pivot from the economic conversation to kind of the … investor behavior conversation. Matt, you've done some, work around money market flows, drain rate, current environments. What does that data tell you going forward?

Matthew D. Miskin

Yeah. So we were looking at, you know, after the Fed starts a rate-cutting cycle, how do investors usually allocate capital after that? And we look back through the 90s to today and what we found was that actually, investors allocate to money markets right through the end of the rate-cutting cycle. So they basically see the biggest inflows across asset is … is money markets as the Fed is cutting rates. And they wait all the way till the rates hit the lowest point of the cycle and then they start going to bonds. So taxable bonds, according to Morningstar data, gets inflows after money markets … get a massive amount of inflows in the cutting cycle. And as you know we think about markets, this is of course not what you want to do. Because what you're doing is you're actually taking on the short end of the curve, you're positioning right where the Fed is going to be cutting.

So you're getting a lower and lower yield as the Fed's cutting. And you're not getting any benefit for the lower rates, which the bond market does. The bond market has interest-rate sensitivity. So as those interest rates go down, the bonds rally … at least the Treasury bonds rally and that duration can be a tailwind. And then also, if you allocate capital to bonds instead of money markets, your yield doesn't change. You're locking in a yield because you're having a longer maturity bond. So you can have the yields at the peak of the Fed hiking cycle for the next five to seven years instead of getting … you're not locking it in for more than maybe a month or two, because every time the Fed cuts, your yield goes down. You know, investors psychology has historically found that investors they … they chase returns.

And this would suggest similar because cash usually looks … or money markets look better … at usually the peak of a Fed cutting cycle relative to bonds. But they don't … but investors don't think about, well, on a forward-looking basis. Bonds can make that recovery. They can lock in the yield. And then finally, equities are usually the last … so equities wait in a cycle until Fed rates are all the way down.

They've already allocated to bonds, and then they look to stocks after that. We're not even there yet. But for us it's about that allocation. Thinking about fixed income today versus money markets, where we are in the cutting cycle.

John P. Bryson

Yeah I mean we've been having that conversation about people have cash in the sidelines and when are they going to move. They should lock in higher rates now. I mean now's the time. If you continue to wait, it's … it's a big mistake. So, for the investment professionals out there, certainly keep that in mind … that behavior is not going to pivot on a dime … we're going to have to encourage people.

Hey, Emily, when we think through these changes that are going on, and we think through the rate-environment dynamic, and we think through the market highs, has your outlook for investors changed going forward? And what would be your key takeaways for the rest of the year?

Emily R. Roland

Yeah, John, we continued to be positioned for this late-cycle environment where we really want to look underneath the hood to figure out what areas are potentially mispriced here or should expect to see leadership trends continue. And I think, you know, Matt really hit the nail on the head talking about the elevated income that's now available and high-quality bonds … getting that cash on the sidelines. Embracing a core or core-plus type bond strategy that's going to allow investors to lock in, you know, an elevated income stream here for years rather than sitting in cash or CDs or money market funds.

So I do think that, you know, in our view, that bonds can do some more heavy lifting in portfolios heading into the back half of the year and into 2025. It can happen quickly. So we … we always want to think about kind of, you know, repairing the roof while the sun is still shining. And so we really want to think about making those shifts within fixed-income portfolios.

You know, credit is just not really offering you a huge advantage relative to the potential risks that are there. On the equity side, we want to continue emphasizing higher-quality stocks. They do tend to do well as a factor in rate-cutting environments. So these are companies with lots of cash, great balance sheets, stable profit margins.

You know, we find a lot of quality in the U.S. technology space. We like that. There are some valuation concerns there … so … so we're really looking at where we can find quality at a reasonable price. Areas like mid-cap equities that Matt mentioned have cheapened up. We think that offers a nice opportunity  especially given some of the trends we're seeing around fiscal spending and onshoring activity that's leading to a really industrial renaissance in the U.S. midwest.

We think embracing mid-cap industrials, can really help us play that trend and do it at a reasonable price. So really thinking about quality, looking at the U.S. over international equities as we're doing slightly better from an economic growth and earnings growth perspective. And really just being mindful of risks. There is a lot of, you know, risk taking happening going on.

You know, and I think the Fed cutting 50 basis points has sort of added to that mood in the markets. Don't get me wrong. We want to be fully invested here. We just don't want to go over our skis and taking risks. So quality U.S mid-caps … and looking at high-quality bonds … we think is a good formula as we head into what's probably going to be a bit of volatility into the back half of the year and then into next year.

John P. Bryson

Yep. Makes sense. I think a lot of people wait till the beginning of the year to make allocation changes. Now is a great time to grab a pumpkin spice latte, grab your pencil, sharpen up your allocations. Extend, grab that higher yield and fixed income, upgrade the quality in a portfolio. Awesome. Awesome info folks. The markets are always changing and very dynamic.

If you follow Matt and Emily on LinkedIn, you can get their most recent updates. I highly recommend you do it. Emily, is at Emily R Roland and Matt is at Matthew underscore Miskin. You can keep up to speed. At the end of the quarter, they'll be updating a very popular market intelligence piece so keep an eye out for that.

And as always, if you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Portfolio Intelligence podcast on wherever you subscribe, or check out our website JH investments.com to stay up to speed on all the great business-building ideas and market commentary that we have for you. As always, thanks so much for listening to the show.

Important Disclosures:

This podcast is being brought to you by John Hancock Investment Management Distributors, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers, are subject to change as market and other conditions warrant, and do not constitute investment advice or a recommendation regarding any specific product or security. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy discussed will be successful or achieve any particular level of results. Any economic or market performance information is historical and is not indicative of future results, and no forecasts are guaranteed. Investing involves risks, including the potential loss of principal.

Duration measures the sensitivity of the price of bonds to a change in interest rates.