Portfolio Intelligence podcast: where does the U.S. economy stand entering mid-year 2022?

John Bryson:
Hello, and welcome to the Portfolio Intelligence podcast. I'm your host, John Bryson, head of investment consulting at John Hancock Investment Management. Today is June 3, 2022, and the markets continue to be volatile. That's why I've invited back popular guests Emily Roland and Matt Miskin, our co-chief investment strategists at John Hancock Investment Management. Emily and Matt are the architects behind our quarterly capital markets outlook piece titled Market Intelligence. Emily, Matt, welcome.

Emily Roland:
Thanks for having us.

Matt Miskin:
Yeah, good to be here, John.

John Bryson:
Excellent. Emily, I'm going to start with you. We've seen a lot of important economic reports come out this week, consumer confidence, PMIs, job numbers; as a matter of fact, we had a job's numbers report this morning. How did it come in, and where does the U.S. economy stand today?

Emily Roland:
Yeah, John, payroll Friday is one of our favorite days of the month, I'm sure it's one of yours as well. But we did see a nice little beat on payrolls this morning: 390,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy here in the month of May, some slight downward revisions to prior months, but pretty, pretty good report today. We also saw a modest upside surprise on the ISM PMI data earlier this week. So that is kind of the gold standard to us in terms of critical or key economic data to monitor its monthly surveys of manufacturing firms, where anything over 50 is expansionary, anything below 50 is contractionary.

Emily Roland:
And we saw some nice data there, suggesting that the U.S. economy is seeing a bit of a bounce here in May after a pretty tough stretch over the last couple of months. So we're seeing, again, a tight labor market. It's probably keeping the Fed on track here to continue raising rates aggressively. So there is a bit of a bad news or a good news is bad news reaction in the markets, as we're seeing some pressure on equities and some backup in Treasury bond yields, but as it relates to the economy, holding up okay for now.

John Bryson:
Great. So, Matt, I want to build on that. Where do you think we go from here? What's your read on the direction of the U.S. economy?

Matt Miskin:
So our number one tool to kind of get more of a sense on the direction of where we go from here is using our leading economic indicators, and those are always the first thing we show in Market Intelligence. And in the most recent reading, what we saw was actually a deceleration in April. So relative to March at a 6.13% year-over-year reading, it went down to 4.75% in April. And if that current trend continues in terms of the leading indicators, we're looking at about a 0% year-over-year growth rate in three months. So that would put us, kind of, let's see, July, August, at zero.

Matt Miskin:
And then if that continued to go down, then we'd be negative by the end of the year. And usually if that goes negative for two consecutive months or so on a year-over-year basis, then a recession is forthcoming. So while the economic data is holding up well, the leading economic data, things like ISM index of new orders, consumer expectations, things that are kind of more up front in terms of where the economy's going, that's showing us that the economy likely decelerates. And we need to start thinking about that as the Fed raises rates and mortgage rates are higher, as gas prices are higher, and that's going to weigh on the consumer in the back half. So some that can prepare for, in terms of where the economy is going.

John Bryson:
Got it. Now, Emily, when we talk about the Fed and we talk about inflation, there's a lot of talk about them getting it just right, threading the needle, and avoiding a hard landing going for a soft landing. What's it going to take for the Fed to get that right?

Emily Roland:
Yeah. It's going to be tough to engineer a soft landing. And just to kind of recap, a soft landing would be the Fed raises rates and we don't see a recession. A hard landing would mean the Fed would be raising rates and that would ultimately lead us into a recession, which is typically the way that cycles work. And it can be tough to engineer that soft landing because monetary policy works the lag. It takes several quarters to see the impact of the Fed's moves on rates really kind of filter through to the economy. So that's what makes it so tough. I think what it would take for the Fed to engineer a soft landing here would be for commodity prices to come down and for supply chain issues to start to really unwind or get fixed here. And we've seen commodity prices and oil prices just on a tear so far this year.

Emily Roland:
Just this morning, WTI oil price is at $117 a barrel. They were rising before the Russia-Ukraine crisis, and that really added to this move higher that we've seen in the energy markets. And that's putting a lot of upward pressure on inflation. Also, the zero-COVID policies in China, which are just starting to come off this week, those have created a situation in which these supply chain challenges have really been exacerbated as economic activity has essentially come to a halt in China, which has put pressure on supply chains. So I think in terms of those two key elements, if you can see commodity stop advancing, if you can see this supply shock start to moderate, perhaps the 10 rate hikes that are—11 now—that are being priced in to the bond market can start to come off, and perhaps the Fed can move less aggressively, but we really need to see those things happen in order for the Fed to succeed here.

John Bryson:
Great. Thank you. Now, going to the market, Matt, we've seen, I said at the beginning, we've seen a lot of volatility this year, in the last month some sharp moves. I would say about in the last week it's settling down some. Are we starting to see a bottoming process develop for stocks and bonds?

Matt Miskin:
Yeah, I mean, it does look like the valuations across stocks and bonds have gotten more attractive in a pretty sure window here. And I think investors are taking a look at it and saying, some of these stocks on the high-quality side of the market are down 20%, 30%, and that's representing an attractive entry point. So I think the valuations coming down across a balanced portfolio is starting to get investors interested. But just as you said, it's a process, it's not a moment. I think there's going to be time here we're going to be chopping around where we still got to get through these Fed rate hikes, as Emily said. I mean, we've got three 50 basis point rate hikes right now that we're looking at into the summer.

Matt Miskin:
And I think that's going to be tough to get through, but if we can see the Fed starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as it relates to inflation, the supply chain disruption, so on and so forth, then you can really see more of a recovery in broader markets. And I think for us, right now, we see this as kind of more of a later-cycle development or environment unfolding, but even in the late-cycle environment, there's opportunities. High-quality stocks, higher-quality bonds—both have sold off a lot. They typically do better in a late-cycle environment. So those are opportunities we would consider amidst this volatility.

John Bryson:
Let's talk a little bit more about opportunities, Emily. You and Matt talk a lot about earnings growth and how important it is to find it. Where around the world are you finding earnings growth?

Emily Roland:
One of the reasons that we have remained constructive on equities in general is because the earnings backdrop remains supportive. So you've heard us talk a lot about the fact that, over time, stock prices follow earnings. There can be dislocations over time, but that relationship is pretty tight, historically speaking. And when we look at this price action that we've seen, the market's moving lower over the course of the year, it's really been the result of multiple compressions. So fears of Fed tightening, fears of elevated inflation pushing prices lower, and, meanwhile, earnings estimates have continued to go up. And the place that that's been the most apparent has been in the U.S. So we continue to watch FactSet next 12-month earnings estimates as our key barometer and the earnings engines on in the U.S. and it sputtered a bit overseas.

Emily Roland:
So we look at MSCI EAFE next 12-month earnings, we look at it for the emerging-markets indices, and we've seen a kind of a sideways or even downward move there, reflecting some of the economic challenges that have plagued those markets. And we just, actually, this month started to see a bit of a tick back up, which has reflected some of the pretty decent performance across non-U.S. markets as well. So earnings estimates still around the world, best in the U.S, still, you're going to get more quality in the U.S. equity market, which Matt just talked about, as being our key component of a more late-cycle playbook portfolio, which we're developing now. But looking at that earnings bounce overseas is a reason to continue to hold on to stocks there as well. And we're really following our portfolio managers in terms of their positioning, and they do continue to find opportunities in areas like Europe right now.

John Bryson:
Great. And then last question, Matt, for you, we talk a lot about a 60/40 portfolio, 60 equities, 40 in bonds. Where are you seeing the best opportunities in the 40, in the bonds portfolio? Is it time to start taking on more risk?

Matt Miskin:
We actually are seeing higher-quality opportunities that weren't around even six months ago, and we've been underweight Treasuries in Market Intelligence. We actually believe more core-type fixed income is going to be increasingly attractive into the back half of this year, and core plus also looks to be an opportunity to us. So investment-grade corporate bonds now yielding 4.5%; we think 4% to 5% income right now is actually really attractive and competitive across assets. There's actually a Twitter hashtag of “hold bonds and chill” right now going on, and I think investors are saying, look, if I can get 4% to 5%, even 3% to 4%, in Treasury bonds, and I can wade through this volatility, that's an attractive opportunity.

Matt Miskin:
In terms of taking on more risk, you got to be careful. In our view, the more lower credit-quality parts of the market, the more illiquid parts of the market on the bond side, is it actually something you want to trim, something you want to reposition into more core and core plus? So kind of when we think about Market Intelligence and our views there, before we were saying 70% of a fixed-income portfolio of core, core plus, and then 30% more aggressive-type fixed income, high yield, bank loans, et cetera. Now we're kind of looking at more 90% core, core plus, 10% of that more alternative-type income or alternative strategies. So actually moving more intermediate-term duration, up in quality, we have been underweight duration, we're looking to move that to about six years. But again, the yield isn't that different. I mean, we can still get similar yield you used to be able to get in high yield now just in higher-quality bonds, and we think that's something that you want to gravitate to as growth slows in the back half of 2022.

John Bryson:
Hashtag hold bonds and chill. I love it. I think that's going to go in the back of Emily's I love bonds t-shirt that she's getting made up. Well, Matt, Emily, it's always great to talk to you, get some great insights. You mentioned you're working on a late-cycle playbook. Is that something we can look forward to being available on our website sometime soon?

Emily Roland:
Yes. We have a new white paper that should be out shortly on late-cycle investing and some of the key themes.

John Bryson:
Excellent. I think that would be a great piece for our audience to look out for. Folks, you can follow Matt and Emily on LinkedIn and on Twitter. They drop some great insights out there. You can also find everything that John Hancock Investment Management has to share about managing through volatile markets on our website, jhinvestments.com, and you can also subscribe to the Portfolio Intelligence podcast there. So, as always, to everybody dialing in, thanks so for listening to the show.

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 speaker, 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. Diversification does not guarantee a profit or eliminate the risk of a loss.