BlackRock said there is a 20% risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the Fed starts to wind down stimulus in earnest. As The Telegraph notes, BlackRock’s risk indicator is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis.” Furthermore, the largest asset manager in the world warns, “troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, bring into question the sustainability of profit margins.” What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.
BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has warned that central banks are poised to tighten monetary policy in the Anglo-Saxon countries and China, advising clients to be ready to pull out of global stock markets at any sign of serious trouble.
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The group said in its 2014 Investment Outlook that investors have “jumped on the momentum train, effectively betting yesterday’s strategy will win again tomorrow”, but vanishing liquidity could leave them trapped if the mood changes. “Beware of traffic jams: easy to get into, hard to get out of,” it said.
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the global system is still in the doldrums and far from achieving sustainable recovery. “The eurozone, Japan and emerging markets are all trying to export their way out of trouble. Who is going to buy all this stuff? The maths does not work. Not everybody’s currency can fall at once,”
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BlackRock’s risk indicator – measuring “enterprise value” against earnings, adjusted for volatility – is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis,” it said.
BlackRock said there is a 20pc risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the US Federal Reserve starts to wind down stimulus in earnest.
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the eurozone is “stuck in a monetary corset”, failing to generate the nominal GDP growth of 3pc to 5pc needed for economies to outgrow their debt burdens.
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BlackRock said the profit share of GDP has soared to a modern-era high of 12pc of GDP, while the workers’ share has collapsed from 66pc to 57pc in one decade. “This speaks to troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, and brings into question the sustainability of profit margins.”
There is a 25pc chance that the world navigates these reefs and achieves a “growth break-out”. Even if that happens it will not help stocks, and will be “bad for bonds”. The Goldilocks outcome for markets is another year of feeble growth, buttressed by central bank largesse that leaks into asset bubbles. What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/eFGsPkgBJzM/story01.htm Tyler Durden