One of the hottest trends in finance is prepaid muni bonds structured to help local utilities buy decades worth of renewable electricity. They’re good for the environment, but even better for the banks that will profit from cheap financing, trading profits and federal tax breaks.
Socially responsible investing, marketed under the moniker “ESG” (short for environmental, social and governance), is a huge and growing business. In 2015 global ESG-related assets were $2.2 trillion, according to PwC, growing to $9.4 trillion in 2020 and nearly doubling in 2021 to $18.4 trillion. Sustainable bonds are a big slice of this pie.
Globally, over the last two years, an average of more than 400 bonds have been issued per quarter, totaling over $1.7 trillion, according to the London Stock Exchange’s Refinitiv group. European issuance is more than double that of the U.S., but a wave of new green bonds is coming here.
One particularly vibrant corner of this market: ESG-certified municipal bonds, such as those designed to help local communities prepay for decades’ worth of green electricity. According to Monica Reid, the founder of Kestrel, which charges “a fraction of a basis point” of a new bond deal’s face value to verify new issues as “social,” “green” or “sustainable,” there have been $85 billion worth of these municipal bonds issued in the U.S. in the last two years.
Reid’s Hood River, Oregon–based team of 27 analysts and engineers certified nearly a third of them. “Not everything is green or sustainable or socially beneficial because it’s financed with municipal bonds,” Reid says. “The muni market is also where coal ash dumps are financed, ports and airports. It’s where turnpikes and toll roads are financed.
We are very discerning. Internally we have a do-no-harm criteria. If repayment is from oil royalties or gambling revenues, that’s a problem.” Like so many environmental trends, this one started in California. Over the past 14 months enormous Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have persuaded ultra-green electric power agencies in Northern California to hand them roughly $2.7 billion, with $2 billion more in the works.
The power agencies raise that upfront cash by selling tax-free municipal bonds of the type Kestrel certifies. In return, the banks so far have promised to deliver into the California power grid 2.2 million megawatt hours per year of “green” electricity, sourced from solar, wind and hydropower.
There are many winners. The banks get cheap loans to spend on whatever they want. Californians, like the residents of 15 other states and the District of Columbia, get to pick their provider and can choose to put their money toward greener power. And investors can hold the bonds comforted by the knowledge that they have invested in something not only green but backed by a big bank’s guarantee.
The loser? Uncle Sam. If Morgan Stanley issued its own similarly structured corporate debt to raise funds, it would likely pay 6% or so interest, subject to federal tax. But when Morgan raises cash via a municipal prepaid green electricity deal at a 4% interest rate, it incurs no federal tax. On $3 billion in green power munis so far, that would equate to some $50 million a year in forgone tax revenue.
Maybe it’s worth it. After all, it’s a model that could quickly spread across the nation and help underwrite the development of enormous amounts of greener energy. But it also could add up to billions of dollars in hidden annual subsidies to rich Wall Street banks. That might not play well in Peoria.
California is one of 10 states that have enabled the creation of local electricity-purchasing cooperatives called Community Choice Aggregators. They have names like Marin Clean Energy and Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and were formed to enable Californians to buy power marketed as 100% “green.” In recent years these co-ops have entered multidecade contracts directly with the owners of solar fields and wind farms to buy their electricity output.
But these electric co-ops are utterly unequipped to manage a host of complex contracts with financial counterparties. So last year the Marin co-op joined with sister entities in places like Silicon Valley, Berkeley and Carmel to set up what’s known as a conduit issuer, the California Community Choice Financing Authority (CCCFA), essentially a shell agency with the power to issue tax-free municipal bonds.
In the last 14 months, CCCFA has issued $2.7 billion in three different Clean Energy Project Revenue Bond deals, with tax-exempt coupon rates of 4%, courtesy of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. The money goes toward prepaying for 30 years of renewable electricity. Prepaying comes with a discount. CCCFA members, for example, expect to save $7 million per year on their electricity purchases. Continue reading…..
Billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard paid $59 million for a Manhattan townhouse in March. Just two months later he obtained a $30 million mortgage from Citigroup Inc.
Denis Sverdlov, worth $6.1 billion thanks to his shares in electric-vehicle maker Arrival, recently pledged part of that stake for a line of credit from the same bank. For Edgar and Clarissa Bronfman the loan collateral is paintings by Damien Hirst and Diego Rivera, among others. Philippe Laffont, meanwhile, pledged stakes in a dozen funds at his Coatue Management for a credit line at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
In the realm of personal finance, debt is largely viewed as a necessary evil, one that should be kept to a minimum. But with interest rates at record lows and many assets appreciating in value, it’s one of the most important pieces of the billionaire toolkit — and one of the hottest parts of private banking.
Thanks to the Bronfmans, Howards and Sverdlovs of the world, the biggest U.S. investment banks reported a sizable jump in the value of loans they’ve extended to their richest clients, driven mainly by demand for asset-backed debt.
Morgan Stanley’s tailored and securities-based lending portfolio approached $76 billion last quarter, a 43% increase from a year earlier. Bank of America Corp. reported a $67 billion balance of such loans, up more than 20% year-over-year, while loans at Citigroup’s private bank — including but not limited to securities-backed loans — rose 17%. Appetite for such credit was the primary driver of the 21% bump in average loans at JPMorgan’s asset- and wealth-management division. And at UBS Group AG, U.S. securities-based lending rose by $4 billion.
Borrowing Binge
“It’s a real business winner for the banks,” said Robert Weeber, chief executive officer of wealth-management firm Tiedemann Constantia, adding his clients have recently been offered the opportunity to borrow against real estate, security portfolios and even single-stock holdings.
Spokespeople for Howard, Arrival and Laffont declined to comment, while the Bronfmans didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Rock-bottom interest rates have fueled the biggest borrowing binge on record and even billionaires with enough cash to fill a swimming pool are loathe to sit it out.
And for good reason. With assets both public and private at historically lofty valuations, shareholders are hesitant to cash out and miss higher heights. Appian Corp. co-founder Matthew Calkins has pledged a chunk of his roughly $3.5 billion stake in the software company — whose shares have risen about 145% in the past year — for a loan.
“Families with wealth of $100 million or more can borrow at less than 1%,” said Dan Gimbel, principal at NEPC Private Wealth. “For their lifestyle, there may be things they want to purchase — a car or a boat or even a small business — and they may turn to that line of credit for those types of things rather than take money from the portfolio as they want that to be fully invested.”
Yachts and private jets have been especially popular buys in the past year, according to wealth managers, one of whom described it as borrowing to buy social distance.
‘Significant Benefit’
Loans also allow the ultra-wealthy to avoid the hit of capital gains taxes at a time when valuations are high and rates are poised to increase, perhaps even almost double. Postponing tax is a “significant benefit” for portfolios concentrated and diversified alike, according to Michael Farrell, managing director for SEI Private Wealth Management.
Critics say such loans are just one more wedge in America’s ever-widening wealth gap. “Asset-backed loans are one of the principal tools that the ultra-wealthy are using to game their tax obligations down to zero,” said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.
While using public equities as collateral is the most common tactic for banks loaning to the merely affluent, clients further up the wealth scale usually have a bevy of possessions they can feasibly pledge against, such as mansions, planes and even more esoteric collectibles, like watches and classic cars.
One big advantage for the wealthy borrowing now is the possibility that rates will ultimately rise and they can lock in low borrowing costs for decades. Some private banks offer mortgages on homes for as long as 20 years with fixed interest rates as low as 1% for the period.
The wealthy can also hedge against higher borrowing costs for a fraction of their pledged assets’ value, according to Ali Jamal, the founder of multifamily office Azura.
“With ultra-high-net worth clients, you’re often thinking about the next generation,” said Jamal, a former Julius Baer Group Ltd. managing director. “If you have a son or a daughter and you know they want to live one day in Milan, St. Moritz or Paris, you can now secure a future home for them and the bank is fixing your interest rate for as long as two decades.”
Risks Involved
Securities-based lending does comes with risks for the bank and the borrower. If asset values plunge, borrowers may have to cough up cash to meet margin calls. Banks prize their relationships with their richest clients, but foundered loans are both costly and humiliating.
Ask JPMorgan. The bank helped arrange a $500 million credit facility for WeWork founder Adam Neumann, pledged against the value of his stock, according to the Wall Street Journal. As the value of the co-working startup imploded, Softbank Group Corp. had to swoop in to help Neumann repay the loans and avert a significant loss for the bank. A spokesperson for JPMorgan declined to comment.
Still, for the banks it’s a risk worth taking. Asked about securities-backed loans on last week’s earnings call, Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya said they’d “historically seen minimal losses.” Among the bank’s past clients is Elon Musk, who turned to them for $61 million in mortgages on five California properties in 2019, and who also has Tesla Inc. shares worth billions pledged to secure loans.
“As James [Gorman] has always said, it’s a product in which you lend wealthy clients their money back,” Yeshaya said, referring to Morgan Stanley’s chief executive officer. “And this is something that is resonating.”
A handful of Wall Street’s biggest firms are slashing their S&P 500 forecasts for the year, predicting lower stock market returns thanks to a difficult quarterly earnings season ahead as companies wrestle with surging inflation and rising interest rates.
With the stock market down roughly 20% so far this year amid fears of a looming recession, there are “lots of reasons to be concerned” about upcoming corporate earnings—with an incoming “flurry of downward revisions,” Bank of America warned in a recent note.
Though quarterly earnings season has just started, Wall Street analysts are slashing forecasts—with seven out of 11 S&P 500 sectors facing reduced earnings estimates, according to FactSet data. UBS on Monday slashed its earnings forecasts due to slowing economic growth and rising costs, with the firm also reducing its year-end price target for the S&P 500 to 4,150—down from a previous estimate of 4,850.
Evercore ISI also cut its year-end S&P 500 target the same day, to 4,200 from 4,300, as analysts sounded the alarm on corporate margins and earnings being “under pressure as prospective recession scenarios develop.”One of Wall Street’s biggest bears (who has also warned of further downward earnings revisions) is Morgan Stanley chief strategist Mike Wilson who is maintaining a year-end S&P 500 target of just 3,900, while also predicting the index could fall as low as 3,000 if a recession hits.
Even some of Wall Street’s most optimistic strategists are slashing their S&P forecasts somewhat, including Oppenheimer chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus, who reduced his estimate to 4,800 from 5,330 amid “palpable risks of recession.”
Despite the gloomier forecasts recently, most Wall Street firms still predict a market rebound by the end of 2022, with the majority of price targets implying modest upside from the S&P 500’s current level of around 3,850. UBS and Evercore ISI’s most recent forecasts for the benchmark index both imply roughly 8% upside from current prices, while Oppenheimer’s price target suggests the market will rally nearly 25%. Even Morgan Stanley’s bearish outlook of 3,900 would mean stocks post a slight gain by the end of the year..
Even as recession fears remain front and center, not all Wall Street firms are forecasting an economic downturn. Analysts at Credit Suisse, for instance, also slashed their S&P 500 price target (to 4,300 from 4,900) but argued that the economy’s current slowdown is not recessionary. “Recessions are most accurately characterized by a meltdown in employment accompanied by an inability of consumers and businesses to meet their financial obligations,” Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Golub said in a note on Tuesday.
“While we are currently experiencing a meaningful slowdown in economic growth (from extremely high levels), neither of the above conditions are present today.” UBS strategist Keith Parker similarly sees slowing growth “but no recession,” with modest gains for the stock market ahead as he predicts high inflation will eventually subside.
Investors remain “nervous” about the upcoming inflation report on Wednesday, with experts predicting that consumer prices for June will surge higher than the 8.6% recorded in May.
I am a senior reporter at Forbes covering markets and business news. Previously, I worked on the wealth team at Forbes covering billionaires and their wealth.
The S&P 500 Index (US500) has reacted to the US Federal Reserve (Fed)’s ultra-hawkish stance by shedding over 20% in the first six months of 2022.
As Fed chair Jerome Powell puts his foot on the pedal and accelerates quantitative tightening, investors now fear that decreasing money supply will push the US economy into a recession. Analysts remain divided on the likelihood of a recession as they await economic data, which remains key in anticipating the severity of rate hikes in the second half of the year.
S&P Global summed up the current market sentiment in its third quarter US economic outlook report: “We expect that the Fed raising interest rates and reducing its balance sheet will be enough to eventually begin to tame inflation and help restore real wage strength and purchasing power. The question is whether it will push the US into recession as well.”
After hitting its lowest level since December 2020, the S&P 500 rebounded by over 6% in the fourth week of June, breaking a three-week losing streak in the process as short squeezes caught bears off guard. Jefferies called the current market sentiment “extreme” in a note dated 27 June, having seen net S&P 500 futures turn to net short, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) S&P 500 speculative net positions data for week ended 24 June.
“Thoroughly depressed sentiment, an extreme in short positions and rising cash levels are creating a vicious short squeeze,” said Sean Darby, global equity strategist at Jefferies. Despite seeing a recent rally in prices, the S&P 500 posted losses of close to 9% in June. As of 6 July 2022, the US benchmark index has lost close to 20% year-to-date (YTD).
In comparison, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index has slumped nearly 30% in the same period, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average index has shed about 15%. Based on the 5 July close of 3,831.4, the S&P 500 remains below its 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) of 3866.9. After dropping to near oversold zones on 16 June, the index’s 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) has risen to a near-neutral zone of 56 points, as of 6 July.
The Jefferies report said that “investors are now holding high levels of cash after one of the worst drawdowns in modern history”. The report showed that the S&P 500’s 12-month forward price-to-earnings was “just above” its long-term average. “The multiple correction has been driven by long rates and not necessarily earnings revisions,” added Jefferies. As of 6 July 2022, the S&P 500index was about 20% away from its all-time high of 4,818, which it reached on 3 January 2022.
Fears of global recession and the worst inflation in more than 40 years have wreaked havoc on the nascent cryptocurrency market this year—unleashing a fierce crypto winter that’s forced once high-flying firms into bankruptcy and pushed investors into panic-selling mode. The turmoil has already claimed trillions of dollars in market value, billions of dollars in frozen funds and thousands of jobs, but current casualties may only mark the beginning of the storm.
“There will be others that come forward with trouble—I don’t think it ends here,” Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at London digital asset brokerage GlobalBlock, tells Forbes, noting that close to a dozen firms—including Peter Thiel-backed Vauld—face an uncertain fate after locking customers out of their funds or initiating restructuring proceedings over the past month. “It’s going to be a sustained period of pain,” he says.
It’s anyone’s guess whether the current crypto bear market will ultimately rival the years-long crypto winters of 2014 and 2018—the latter wiping 80% from bitcoin’s price while crushing hundreds of then buzzy new tokens. Sotiriou posits this downturn could last up to 12 months unless persistent inflation soon cools down, allowing the Federal Reserve to ease up on aggressive interest rate hikes that make risky assets less attractive to investors. Analysts aren’t so sure that will happen.
“This is necessary for any financial market to mature and evolve,” argues Matteo Dante Perruccio, a partner at crypto investment firm Wave Financial who envisions that cryptocurrency prices will take at least six months—and up to two years—before recovering, similar to cycles past. “But this time, there’s a difference,” he adds, pointing to a wave of institutional money—from the likes of Tesla, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and more—that fueled widespread adoption during the pandemic:
“When we inevitably come back into an appreciating market, it’s going to be more sustained and healthier, with less speculation and more tried and true investment philosophy.”As crypto investors wait for brighter days ahead, Forbes is tracking all the carnage from the latest crypto winter, including layoffs, price plunges and record selling—as well as the lifelines and acquisitions that may help cushion the blow. Here’s the damage, so far:
Trillions In Value Erased
Low interest rates and government stimulus measures fueled skyrocketing cryptocurrency prices during the pandemic, but the Federal Reserve’s decision to curb rising inflation by hiking interest rates has since battered investor sentiment—ushering in some of the crypto market’s biggest losses in history. After amassing a record value above $3 trillion in November 2021, the cryptocurrency market posted its worst first half ever and has plummeted to about $950 billion, a nearly 60% drop this year, according to CoinGecko.
Piling on to bearish sentiment, Terra’s luna token, a once top cryptocurrency worth more than $40 billion, lost virtually all its value within a week in May after sister token TerraUSD, a stablecoin meant to hold a price of $1, broke its dollar peg as markets collapsed. Meanwhile, top cryptocurrencies bitcoin, ether and BNB have plunged 70%, 75% and 65% from record highs, respectively. It’s taken the market years to recover from similar declines: When growing regulation sparked a fierce crypto winter beginning in 2017, it took more than 1,000 days for the world’s largest cryptocurrency to nab a new high.
Thousands Laid Off
Faced with steep market declines, cryptocurrency companies have laid off more than 2,000 workers in less than five weeks. By far the biggest blow, popular brokerage Coinbase laid off 1,180 employees, or about 18% of its workforce, on June 14—weeks after the firm’s billionaire CEO, Brian Armstrong, warnedinvestors that a potential recession could lead to a prolonged bear market for cryptocurrencies. In a note announcing the layoffs, Armstrong said he was planning “for the worst” and acknowledged the firm “grew too quickly” during the pandemic bull market.
“It was surprising, and it was hard,” one former employee posted on LinkedIn. Others described the cuts as “abrupt” and “sudden.” Also in June, Gemini, the exchange founded by the billionaire Winklevii twins, said it would cut about 10% of its 1,000 employees, and exchanges Crypto.com and BlockFi said they would terminate 5% and 20% of their workforces, affecting some 260 and 170 employees, respectively. Since then, lending platform Celsius reportedly laid off 150 workers, and Austrian trading platformBitpanda cut 270 jobs, calling the move “necessary . . . to navigate the storm and get out of it financially healthy.”
Record Selling
Investors piled out of cryptocurrency investment funds at a record pace as bitcoin plunged to an 18-month low last month. Outflows totaled $423 million in the week of June 17, virtually erasing all inflows this year and eclipsing the prior record of $198 million from January, according to crypto asset management firm CoinShares. The turbulence pushed the assets under management of crypto investment products to a record-low $21.6 billion last month, down 37% from May, as “looming liquidation threats” fueled “panic” among investors after Luna’s crash, CryptoCompare analysts wrote in a report.
Meanwhile, Bank of America reports the number of its customers using cryptocurrency tumbled more than 50% to fewer than 500,000 since the market’s highs in November. Even bullish crypto firms have had to reckon with the changing market. On Tuesday, top miner Core Scientific revealed it sold a majority of its bitcoin pile at an average cost of $23,000 last month, raising more than $167 million. In a statement, CEO Mike Levitt attributed the sales to “tremendous stress” driven by weak markets, higher interest rates and “historic inflation.”
Canada-based Bitfarms, which made headlines in January by joining Tesla and former billionaire Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy in buyingbitcoin for its balance sheet, also offloaded a large sum, dumping 3,000 bitcoins, or nearly half its pile, for $62 milion late last month. “It’s typical behavior for bitcoin miners to sell during the final stages of a bear market,” explains Sotiriou, noting some firms may need to shore up funds to cover expenses or stay solvent as high inflation tacks on to operating costs.
Billions In Frozen Cash
Citing “extreme market conditions,” crypto lender Celsius became the first major platform to pause withdrawals and transfers between customer accounts on June 13. Within days, others followed suit: Babel Finance, CoinFLEX and Voyager all froze withdrawals. None have re-enabled access, thus making billions of dollars in funds inaccessible to their investors.
“They’re in a really sticky situation because they’ve been irresponsible with clients’ funds, somehow lost out and are now unable to pay back their clients—and there’s no guarantee they’ll pay the money back,” explains Sotiriou. In its most recent quarterly filing, publicly traded Coinbase warned of the risk, disclosing customers would be treated as “unsecured creditors,” or lenders without collateral to fall back on, in the event the company goes bankrupt.
Bankruptcies And Liquidations
A handful of crypto firms are simply collapsing. On June 27, Voyager issued a notice of default to beleaguered Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) for failing to make payments on $675 million in bitcoin and stablecoin loans. 3AC at one point managed some $3 billion, but Singapore financial regulators condemned the firm late last month, saying it provided false information and only had the authority to manage up to $250 million.
On top of that, 3AC’s troubles were exacerbated by the sell-off’s impact on its risky investments, which reportedly included overleveraged bets on the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and about $200 million in now-worthless Luna. On Friday, a British Virgin Islands court reportedly ordered 3AC to liquidate its assets, deeming the firm insolvent; it filed for bankruptcy the same day.
With 3AC’s fate sealed, Voyager itself filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday—a mere five days after it suspended trading. “While I strongly believe in this future, the prolonged volatility and contagion in the crypto markets require us to take deliberate and decisive action now,” Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich said in a statement. In a court filing, the firm disclosed that it had more than 100,000 creditors and up to $10 billion in assets. Vauld and Celsius have also announced they’re exploring restructuring options.
Lifelines And War Chests
Some crypto companies are hoping to be rescued before being forced to shut their doors by turning to more stable counterparts. On Friday, FTX, the exchange founded by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, entered into an agreement to buy embattled BlockFi for as much as $240 million. “You know, we’re willing to do a somewhat bad deal here, if that’s what it takes to sort of stabilize things and protect customers,” he told Forbes last month after providing BlockFi and Voyager with $750 million in credit lines between FTX and his quantitative trading firm Alameda.
More recently, he has said FTX has a “few billion” more to help struggling companies. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is reportedly looking to raise $2 billion to help buy up distressed assets from Celsius, and other legacy institutions are also showing interest. “I have this knee-jerk reaction that if you believe that the fundamentals of a long-term case are really strong, when everybody else is dipping, that’s the time to double down,”
Fidelity CEO Abby Johnson, who this year shepherded the firm’s industry-first decision to allow bitcoin in 401(k) plans, said last month when asked about what could be her third crypto winter. “That’s usually the right move.” “It’s incredibly encouraging,” says Dante Perrucio. “Big institutions looking for distressed crypto assets means they believe that the industry is going to come back—and come back strong—despite this very complicated period we’re all in.”
I’m a senior reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business journalism …
As a growing number of investment banks and company chiefs warn that the likelihood of a recession is increasing, analysts at Morgan Stanley are telling clients that the stock market—despite reeling from a steep selloff in recent weeks—has plenty of room to fall before hitting levels consistent with recession-era lows, which would be especially bad for cyclical industries like travel and hospitality.
Despite major stock indexes plunging more than 20% below recent highs, markets are still only down by about 60% of the average drawdown compared with previous recessions (which denote two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth), Morgan Stanley analysts told clients in a Tuesday note.
As the Federal Reserve works to combat decades-high inflation with interest rate hikes that will likely stunt economic growth, a recession “is no longer just a tail risk,” analysts led by Michael Wilson wrote, putting the odds of one over the next year at 35%, up from 20% in March.
They estimate the S&P 500 could plunge as much as 20% to 3,000 points, from current levels of 3,770, if the U.S. falls into recession, citing earnings that tend to fall an average of 14% during recessions—a marked turnaround from record profits and 25% growth last year.
“The bear market will not be over until recession arrives—or the risk of one is extinguished,” the analysts said, adding that market weakness will likely continue over the next three to six months in the face of “very stubborn” inflation readings.
With high prices deterring some consumer spending, Morgan Stanley says stocks tied to discretionary spending, like those in retail, hotels, restaurants and clothing, are at higher risk of a downturn, while those tied to the internet, payments and durable household goods (like appliances and computers) are less at risk.
The note comes the same day Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the U.S. economy will “more likely than not” face a recession in the near term, echoing concerns raised by several other top business leaders and financial institutions following last week’s steeper-than-expected hike in key interest rates, which tend to deter spending by making borrowing more expensive.
Morgan Stanley’s not alone in raising recession odds this week. In a note to clients Monday, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist, Jan Hatzius, said the firm now sees “recession risk as higher and more front-loaded,” given the Fed’s more aggressive rate hike, putting the odds of a recession over the next two years at 48%, up from 35% previously. The investment bank estimates tighter financial conditions could drag down GDP as much as 2 percentage points over the next year.
Restaurants are most at risk of a pullback in spending, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of some 2,000 consumers. Roughly 75% of respondents said they’ll cut back on dining out over the next six months, while 60% said they’d do so on deliveries and takeout from restaurants. Though driving much of the inflationary gains, essential items like gas and groceries should see more resilient spending, with roughly 40% of consumers saying they’d cut back on either.
Major stock indexes plunged into bear market territory last week ahead of the Fed’s largest interest rate hike in 28 years, and the gloomy sentiment has ushered in waves of layoffs among recently booming technology and real estate companies. “We don’t believe the Fed can stop the issues that are causing inflation on the supply side without absolutely wrecking the economy, but at this point, it looks like they are resigned to the fact that it must be done,” says Brett Ewing, chief market strategist of First Franklin Financial Services. Goldman Sachs has warned clients it expects another 75-basis-point hike in July.
The best hope for stocks right now is a recession that crushes inflation and allows the Fed to slow, stop or even reverse rate hikes.
Why it matters: Down 20.5% so far in 2022, it’s the ugliest year for the S&P since 1962. The drop vaporized $9 trillion in paper wealth, delivering a psychological shock to millions whose retirement is mostly in stocks.
The increase is the monetary-policy equivalent of stomping on the country’s economic brakes — sharply increasing the risk that growth contracts.
Despite the recent beating shares have taken, the Fed’s announcement was greeted with open arms by investors. The S&P 500 rose 1.5%. The Nasdaq rose 2.5%. Interestingly, the Russell 2000 — which is more closely tied to short-term ups and downs of the economy — rose less, at just 1.4%.
The big picture: A huge rate hike that raises the risk of recession may sound like a bad thing for stocks — but with inflation still rising, it isn’t.
Essentially, investors are saying they prefer a big, sharp Fed-induced economic shock now if it quickly gets inflation under control. In theory, that could allow lower rates to return after inflation is vanquished.
Low interest rates have been crucial to the performance of stocks over the last decade.
Context: While Americans have a habit of looking at the stock market as an economic indicator, the linkage between economic growth and stock market performance is surprisingly weak, and, some academics say, nonexistent. The most extreme example of this reality arose during the bleakest moments of the COVID-related recession.
In April 2020, the U.S. economy was essentially on life support. Unemployment that month was 14.7%. There were, quite literally, bread lines miles long.
That month the S&P 500 posted its best month in 33 years, rising nearly 13%.
What gives? Well, in late March 2020, the Federal Reserve had to cut interest rates to zero and restart money-printing programs do deal with the COVID crisis. (The Federal government also began dumping what would ultimately be trillions of dollars into the economy to keep people afloat.)
The intrigue: But don’t recessions hurt corporate earnings? Wouldn’t that make stocks fall?
Earnings are one ingredient in stock prices, and they can definitely fall during recessions. But recently, interest rates — essentially the yield on the 10-year Treasury note — have played a more important role in establishing stock prices than earnings.
TL;DR: Higher rates = lower valuations, and vice versa.
So, even if earnings are expected to fall, stock prices can still rise, if valuations rise enough. Those valuations are largely determined by interest rates — and those rates are largely determined by Fed decisions.
The Federal Reserve made an aggressive new move in its campaign to bring down inflation Wednesday, raising its target interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, the steepest rate hike since 1994 — and indicated another similar move could be coming next month.
Driving the news: In addition to increasing their target for short-term interest rates to a range of between 1.5% and 1.75% Fed officials projected that their target rate will reach 3.4% late this year, far higher than the 1.9% they envisioned in March. Mortgages, car loans and credit card debt are all about to get more expensive.
Yields on U.S. government bonds — known as Treasuries — rocketed in recent days, as Friday’s inflation report convinced many that a combination of persistently high inflation and aggressive Federal Reserve interest hikes, is on the way. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note surged to nearly 3.50% in recent days, a level not seen since 2011……
LLUSTRATION BY STUART BRADFORD FOR FORBES
