Dan Denning on Where to From Here?

Welcome back to the Fatal Conceits podcast, a show about money, markets, mobs and manias… not necessarily in that order. In today’s episode, we’re joined by Bonner Private Research’s macro analyst, Mr. Dan Denning, who’s been monitoring the markets from his “fortress of solitude” up on the high plains of Laramie, Wyoming. After the worst first six months for stocks in half a century… the worst market for bonds in over two centuries… and the worst for a standard, 60-40 portfolio in… ever, we wanted to get Dan’s take on where he thinks we’re headed from here. We talk fed hikes, inflation, jobs, housing, energy, BPR’s “trade of the decade” and the looming threat of China’s imploding housing market… and all in (just) under half an hour! For the less audio-inclined, there’s a full transcript of the show (lightly edited for clarity) below. Otherwise, happy listening… Cheers, Joel Bowman Thank you for reading Bonner Private Research. And welcome to our new listeners! Just so you know, this post is public, so feel free to share it with friend and foe alike... Joel Bowman: All right. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Fatal Conceits podcast, dear listener, dear viewer, as it were, if you're joining us on the YouTube channel. If you haven't already done so, please head over to our Substack page. That's bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com. By now, you'll be able to catch hundreds of articles from myself, Dan Denning, Bill Bonner, and Tom Dyson, about everything from high finance to lowly politics, and plenty more in between. There's plenty of research reports up there as well and also many more conversations just like this, which you'll find under the Fatal Conceits podcast tab at the top of the page. I'm delighted to welcome back our in-house macro analyst Mr. Dan Denning, who joins us today from the high plains of Laramie. Dan, how are you doing? Dan Denning: Yeah, good. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but still blazing hot summer here, so no complaints. Joel Bowman: As I sit here shivering in my sweater at four degrees Celsius. Mate, you and I were just speaking before we jumped on the recording here, we should make a special mention to a lot of new readers who have just joined us over the past few weeks or the past month. Welcome if you're joining us for the first time. I thought we might start with just getting up to speed with where we've been both with the project and with the markets for the first half of this year. I think most of our readers probably know the basic setup. Worst first six months for stocks in half a century, inflation at a 40-year high, worst first six months for the bond market maybe ever, and likewise for a balanced portfolio. Do you want to just catch us up to where we are now, eight months-ish into the new year? I know we've had a bit of a bounce of the June lows. There's talk about whether or not that's a bear market bounce or the road to recovery. Where do you map us at this juncture? Dan Denning: Yeah. I think that's the right question because there's the price action in the market and then there's the big picture. Taking our lead from Bill, we always start with the big picture, which is taking over decades, not just months or weeks or even years. From that point of view, not much has changed since the first half of the year or really since we started in January. That forecast or that prediction, if you will, is that the markets were extremely overvalued, mostly as a result of interest rates that had been left way too low for way too long. Then we expected lots of inflation because of both the fiscal policy, which is to say the stimulus spending from commerce. Then the support that the Fed gave to markets, which translated into higher consumer prices. There were a few other complicating factors like the result of the pandemic lockdowns and their impact on the supply chain. That is a really important story for investors ,that the de-globalization that the pandemic has kicked off is probably going to push inflation higher or keep it higher for longer than we think the stock market expects. But it was almost inevitable that after such a terrible first half of the year, you would get some sort of recovery or bounce in markets. Really the important question is, is that the end of the bear market, or is it a bear market bounce or a rally? I think our view, and I speak for Tom as the investment director and Bill as well, is that it falls pretty squarely within the definition of a bear market rally, which is easy to say academically, because you can look at it and say, "Well, the S&P is up by almost 20% from the June lows." Some of the more aggressive growth-oriented indices and stocks like Apple, the NASDAQ, they're up more than that. These are really challenging moves for investors looking at the long term, because in the short term you feel like I'm missing out and maybe I'm wrong, but from our point of view, nothing has changed technically or fundamentally to suggest that the primary trend in the markets is still down. So that's what our investment strategy is set up to address is, how do you preserve your capital? How do you avoid the big loss and how do you prepare for this stagflationary environment where you have high prices that are sticky and lower stock prices? There's a lot involved. There's interest rates involved and real interest rates and things like that. I'd say we got initial confirmation in the first half of the year that our macro thesis was spot on and since then we've seen sort of a counter cyclical reaction in stock markets. You never want to say the stock market is wrong. You never want to say that the price action is wrong, just because it disagrees with your thesis. But I'd say based on the levels in the stock market right now, we're not going to change our call about where we think things are headed. Thank you for reading Bonner Private Research. This post is public, so feel free to share it friend and foe alike... Joel Bowman: You mentioned stagflation there and prices. We've obviously got financial asset prices on the one hand but then prices of everyday goods and services that people consume on the other hand, that's obviously a big part of the picture. What do you say to people who make the case that inflation has peaked? I heard somebody use the metaphor the other day that the pig had moved through the python, this massive $6 trillion cash giveaway is moving through the system and now we're on the other side of that. What do you say to that argument? Dan Denning: Yeah. I mean, I'd say it's wrong. I think there's certainly an element that inflation was exacerbated by one-off factors, but that to me seems like the conventional explanation that it came easily and it will go away easily. History suggests that's not the case, that there's a lot of inertia once inflation gets hold. Part of that is just monetary and then part of it's psychological. If you look at real interest rates, so you look at the Fed funds rate adjusted for the inflation rate, it's still negative. It's around 6%, maybe almost 7%. Markets seem to have gotten ahead of themselves in saying that inflation will come down and the rate of interest rate increases has probably already peaked as well so they might continue to go up by 50 basis points or 25 basis points. But 3% is probably where the Fed will stop and therefore it's okay to go buy growth assets again at really high premiums, at high price to sales ratios, high price to earnings ratios. Those ratios are down a little bit from last November, but they're still elevated based on their historic high, so things aren't cheap right now. They're not cheap either especially if you think that we're headed toward either a recession or we've been in a recession, or that we'll have stagflation. You're pricing stocks as if interest rates were going to be lower or inflation was going to be lower and earnings were going to be higher. To me, that's a very rosy scenario and the risk if you're wrong is that there… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/subscribe