It still makes sense to be optimistic

Stocks in the US and Europe are at or close to record highs, and the Vix index is quite low, as are key measures of credit spreads. That poses a conundrum: if nervousness and credit spreads are unusually low, and stocks are quite high, is the market too complacent? Are equities overvalued, and primed for a fall? To be sure, stocks are far from cheap. But there are reasons to think they still offer decent value, and there are few if any signs of irrational exuberance. Here are 10 charts that tell the story:

US and Eurozone stocks are at or very near all-time highs. Asian stocks, in contrast, are still substantially below their prior highs: Japanese stocks today are only half what they were at the end of 1989, and Chinese stocks are 40% below their mid-2015 high, As the chart above shows, US stocks have outpaced their Eurozone counterparts by more than 40% since early 2009, even after underperforming by some 7% since last summer. If the outlook for US stocks is still positive, Europe might well be even more attractive. 

Periodic bouts of nerves (as measured by the ratio of the Vix to the 10-yr Treasury yield) have invariably coincided with equity market corrections, as the chart above shows. Right now the market looks unusually complacent, so it's no surprise that prices are floating upwards. 

 

A number of recent economic indicators have come in on the weak side of late, but industrial production has proved surprisingly strong, rising 1% in April, and 2.2% over the past 12 months. In the year ended March, Eurozone industrial production rose 1.9%. Even in relatively stodgy Japan, industrial production rose 3.3% in the year ended March. There's a coordinated recovery in industrial activity underway, and its global in nature. 

For quite a few months I've been highlighting the strength of the Chemical Activity Barometer, and how it was likely foreshadowing a pickup in industrial production. With the latest news, the CAB has once again proven to be a good leading indicator of industrial production, as the chart above shows. Moreover, we're likely to see more good news in the months to come.

Housing starts in April were a bit weaker than expected, but sentiment among homebuilders remains quite healthy. This indicator is notoriously volatile on a month-to-month basis, but it's reasonable to think that starts will trend higher over the balance of the year given the strength in sentiment.

Swap spreads are excellent indicators of systemic risk and they have also been good leading indicators of the health of the economy. Currently, they are telling us that systemic risk in the US is quite low, and the outlook for the US economy is therefore positive. (The low level of swap spreads is also a sign that liquidity in the banking system is abundant, and that in turn contributes to a healthy economic outlook.) Eurozone swap spreads are still somewhat elevated, but have dropped significantly in the past month or two, driven in large part by a non-threatening resolution to the French elections and no indications that the ECB is going to take steps to restrict liquidity.

Yields on 5-yr Treasuries and TIPS are exquisitely sensitive to expectations for economic growth, inflation, and Fed policy. Both have been relatively stable now for the past several years. This is consistent with a market that expects the economy to grow at roughly 2% per year for the foreseeable future. If the market were optimistic, both yields would be much higher than they are today. Inflation expectations—the difference between the two yields—are at a non-threatening 1.75% on average for the next 5 years.

Industrial commodity prices remain relatively strong, despite the runup in the dollar's value over the past two years (usually the two move in opposite directions). This strongly suggests that global economic activity remains firm; commodity prices are up because demand has exceeded producer's expectations, not because there is a surplus of foreign exchange.

5-yr credit default swap spreads (see chart above) are a highly liquid and reliable measure of corporate credit risk. Spreads have been falling for the past year and currently are relatively low. This suggests that the outlook for corporate profits is healthy, and investors are reasonably confident that credit risk is unlikely to deteriorate. Confidence and increasing profits are the seed corn of future investment and stronger economic growth.

The earnings yield on stocks (earnings per share divided by share prices) is still substantially higher than the yield on 10-yr Treasuries, as the chart above suggests. This implies that investors are still worried about the potential for an equity market correction, since they are willing to forego a substantial pickup in yield in exchange for the greater safety offered by Treasuries. If the market were irrationally exuberant, the equity risk premium would be negative, not positive.

(Note to readers: The dearth of posts in the past week or so owes much to the fact that there hasn't been a lot of earth-shaking news to comment on, and so the near-term outlook—continued modest growth and low inflation—hasn't changed much if at all. Changes to this hinge crucially on whether Trump and the Republicans are able to pass meaning tax and regulatory reform. I remain cautiously optimistic that they will.)