The unemployment rate is one of my favourite indicators for measuring the level of advance of an economic cycle. When it is high, with the risk of inflation increasing, excess of monetary restrictions or speculative bubbles are less probable and so the chance of change on the direction of the economic cycle tends to be very limited. But when the unemployment rate reaches levels that are too low, the opposite is also true. Today unemployment rate makes us anticipate a downturn before 30 months.

Exhibit 1 shows the minimum unemployment rates in the last six economic cycles, the dates when they took place and also the date when the S&P500 index reached its maximum. The average delay between the date of the minimum unemployment rate and the moment when the S&P500 index reaches the maximum is 6 months. The chart below also shows that the lowest unemployment rate in the last 50 years was 3.4% in 1968 and apart from that year, unemployment has never been lower than today since then.

Exhibit 1

It is not difficult to guess that the current unemployment rate in the USA at 3.8% is low after having a look at Exhibit 2 below, or taking the Federal Reserve reference for Natural Rate of Unemployment into account. In this second case, the estimation is 4.2%-4.8% but as the FeD Also recognises, “the lowest level of unemployment that the economy can sustain is difficult to determine, and has probably changed over time due to changes in the composition of the labour force…” Actually, not so long ago, the Natural Rate of Unemployment for monetary policy reference was 6.25%.

Exhibit 2

Nonetheless, the main questions are still the following: How much could the unemployment rate still fall or how far are we now from the minimum? Or, how long could it remain at the current levels?

One thing is clear – an increase in work hours will be necessary to achieve economic growth. In this sense, the correlation between the number of employees and the GDP has been 99.4% since January 2010, as Exhibit 3 shows. We are pretty sure that this correlation is going to remain very high in the short and medium term. In this sense, economic growth in the short term, that could be around 2.5% stimulated by the tax reform and infrastructure investment, should find work supply to take place. To maintain the expected GDP growth of 2.5% at the end of 2021, 10.5 MM additional employees will be needed and one must consider that in February 2018 there were only 6.07 MM people unemployed. It is therefore necessary to consider other sources of supplying working hours, and four can already be identified:

1.    Increase in population.

2.    Changes in labour participation: Activity Rate.

3.    Increase in working hours per employee.

4.    Decrease of unemployment rate.

Exhibit 3

11MM increase in working population vs 18MM demand in 2014-2030.

From 2014 to 2030, the population in the USA is expected to increase by 12.9%, from 318 to 359 million. Nevertheless the employable pollution aged between 16 and 64 will probably grow at a considerably lower rate (5.4%) than the total population. The contrast will be even more significant as the growth of the population aged above 65 could be 61% in the same period.

In absolute numbers, the population between 18-64 is expected to increase by 6MM from 2014 to 2020, and by 5MM between 2020-2030. Meanwhile, the expected demand of employees will be 18MM for the next five years if the economy continues to grow at a rate of 2.5% in real terms.

As a conclusion, it can be said that to maintain the expected future economic growth, it is highly probable that a higher participation in the labour force of persons above 65 years of age will be necessary, among other factors. The effect on the Labour Force of postponing retirement by one year is an increase of 4MM employees.

Exhibit 4

Changes in labour participation: The Activity Rate is expected to keep falling.

The Labour Force Participation (LFP) has been decreasing since the end of the 90’s, as shown in Exhibit 5.

Exhibit 5

The reasons for this performance are the following:

1. Increase in retirement as an effect of an ageing population. The oldest ‘baby boomers’ have become eligible for Social Security retirement benefits in the last decade.
2. Disability or illness.
3. Increase of educational period, as further studies are considered as a valuable advantage, due to the economic incentives associated with higher wages and better employment opportunities.
4. Family responsibilities. This factor is the only one that has had a positive impact on the LFP, mainly because the rate of female non-participation for family responsibility reasons has been generally declining.
5. Shadow labour force. These are people that the Bureau of Labour Statistics do not consider as employable because they do not fulfil certain criteria, such as being available to work or seeking actively employment but are marginally attached to the labour market. The increase in the shadow labour force between 2008 and 2011 brought the labour force participation down by about 0.7%. Since then, the increase has reversed.

For further information, please refer to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta report:

As Exhibit 6 and 7 show, in the last two years the LPD has been more or less stable, which has facilitated the flattening of the falling slope of the unemployment rate. Exhibit 6 shows that this has been possible because:

1.    Slightly increase in LPD for lower rate of disability or illness.

2.    Positive contribution of the Shadow labour force.

3.    Fewer people abandoning the work force because of family responsibilities.

Exhibit 7

Nonetheless, the experts are still considering a decrease in LFP. We have considered three different forecasts (Exhibit 8) for the next years produced by important institutions:

·         U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (done in December 2015).

·         Congressional Budget Office (June 2017).

·         Daniel Aaronson and colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (September 2017).

The last one, by Daniel Aaronson, is the trend component of LFP absent cyclical factors.

The mentioned expectations for the Labour Force Participation are:

Exhibit 8

These estimations already consider postponing retirement and therefore longer working life. Actually the BLS (the most pessimistic) with projections of a 1.8% decrease in LFP in the period 2016-2026 is also considering the highest increase in LFP for the age range 62-64 (4.6%) and 65-69 (4.4%). These increases suppose raising the retirement age by 0.9 years between 2016 and 2026, according to our calculation. BLS expects that this increase will be compensated by a decrease in LFP in the age range 16-24 (-2.7%). On the other hand, as Exhibit 8 shows, the most optimistic projections considering a decrease of LFP from 62.8% in June 2017 to 62.4% in Dec 2020.

Increase in working hours per employee: more a possibility than a reality.

The increase in Labour Force Participation is not the only source that could attend the need of employees. In the USA, there are more than 27MM workers with part time contracts that potentially could increase its working hours and attend the demand of the economy.

Unfortunately we do not consider average working hours for full time employment and part time employment separately. Assuming the average number of working hours for full time employment is 40 hours a week the implicit working hours for part time employments would be 8.5 hours a week if we want to get the total working hours of 34.5, that is the last data for May 2018. Increasing the working hours of part time employees from 8.5 to 15 hours a week the total number of working hours would increase from 34.5h to 35.5 hours. That would be enough to attend to the work demand up to 1Q 2019 without significant decrease to the unemployment rate considering the highest labour participation rate of the three estimations shown in Exhibit 8. In this situation in 2Q2021 the unemployment rate could fall below 3.4%, the lowest level in the last 50 years.

The aforementioned need to increase working hours (1.1 hours) seems to be a very relevant amount if we compare this figure with the maximum increase in the last decade that has been below 1 hours (see Exhibit 11). In addition, in the case of the USA, we shouldn’t expect a recovery to the level of working hours for part time contracts at the pre-crisis level, as they are already at that level, in both cases close to 9 hours a week. Moreover, as Exhibit 9 shows, the number of hours worked per week has been proven to be very inflexible to the change in unemployment rate. The current value of 34.5 hours with an unemployment rate of 3.8% is very near (34.4h) to the 2011 level, when the unemployment rate was 9%.

Exhibit 9

There are no dates of part time contracts per age of workers but we could suppose that people from 18 to 24 would be dominant in this type of contracts. The total population in the USA in that age range is 30MM, of which 21MM are employed. On the other hand, there are 20MM of university students in the USA. That makes us think that many part time workers are university students, and therefore the increase in the number of weekly working hours are limited by the aforementioned circumstances.

Part time employment

Exhibit 10

Average Weekly Hours

Exhibit 11

Decrease in unemployment rate

In absolute numbers, there are 6.07 MM unemployed people, supposing an unemployment rate in the USA of 3.8%. We could say that many of these 6.07MM unemployed people could represent fictional unemployment, and we think that this level is below the Natural Rate of Unemployment. In this sense, further reduction of the unemployment rate would be at the expense of inflation pressures. Even if we were wrong, making a very optimistic assumption that the Natural Rate of Unemployment could be at the lowest level of unemployment of the last 50 years, the total available employees that could be hired without provoking a rise in inflation would be just 1MM compared with the 8.5 MM new employees that the economy is expected to need before December 2020. We could therefore be certain that currently unemployed people will not be a relevant source of work force in the near future.

The maximum in the markets could be August 2018 at the earliest or December 2020 at the latest.

Taking all of the above into account, we estimate that the maximum of S&P500 could be somewhere between August 2018 and December 2020. For this estimation, we have considered the following assumptions:

1. The most optimistic future Labour Force Participation (CBO). If we were to consider any other two more pessimistic estimations, our longest estimation for the downturn would be sooner than June 2019.
2. We considered an increase in the average number of working hours for part time contracts from 9 to 15 hours per week. We think that this estimation is already very optimistic, and increases above that level are very improbable given that many of these part time employees are students with limited time resources. In addition, the current level is very close to the highest that it has been since 2006, the first year that we have dates for. It has been very stable since 2011 and inflexible to variations in the unemployment rate. Considering a more realistic hypothesis of 9 hours for part time contracts per week, our estimation for the time of the maximum of S&P500 index would be before April 2019.
3. We consider that an unemployment rate below 3.5%, the lowest level in fifty years, is also improbable.
4. In line with the last six cycles, we expect the maximum in the S&P500 prices index would take place 6 months after the minimum in the unemployment rate.
5. Although our lower estimation for the unemployment rate is 3.5%, the current level is 3.8% which is almost in line with the lowest level in 50 years. In addition, it is very likely that the unemployment rate could drop below the Natural Rate of Unemployment and so the probability of already reaching the maximum employment in the cycle is considerable.

When the unemployment rate is so low, a change in tendency is near to come.

As we have already explained, there are many ways to increase the supply of working hours but only two generate less inflation risk: increase in population and reduction of the unemployment rate when it is above the Natural Rate of Unemployment.

As we have already explained, in the short and medium term all additional increases of working hours that come from these aforementioned free inflation sources would not be enough to cover the demand and most probably will generate inflation risk. In this sense, it can be assumed that if some employees decide to postpone their retirement, this will be most probably be because they are offered better economic conditions than they had before taking that decision. The same argument could be applied to part time employees that decide extend their working hours per week – shadow workers that decide to accept a working contract, or workers who were thinking of leaving their jobs to attend to family responsibilities and finally decide to remain employed. In any case, if not all of these circumstances will make inflation rise, at least some of them will do and, as we have explained, the job demand is expected to be high enough to need many of these employment sources.

This situation is especially dangerous, much more than it was when the unemployment rate was higher. In that situation, the monetary policy did not have to be very precise. If the monetary expansion was too loose there was no problem as there was enough free capacity in the economy to absorb the overstimulated demand provoked by a monetary excess. If that situation did not remain too long, the risk could be minimised. But the situation is now completely different. As we have explained above, there are already many inflation forces that will push prices upwards. This situation will be more accused, encouraged by the continuation of working hours demand which will be even stronger with tax reforms and the infrastructure investment plan mentioned in other publications. But now the monetary policy must be very accurate indeed, so much that the need for preciseness is not possible for the nature of the issue. In this sense it is unavoidable that it will fail sooner or later. On the one hand, there is a risk of being too lax that could take inflation out of control and create possible speculative bubbles. On the other hand, there is a risk of a too-tight monetary policy that could excessively repress the economy and provoke a recession.

When the unemployment rate is so low, we are right to think that change in the market tendency will come in the near future. In this situation, one of the key variables to watch is inflation, but we will write about this in other report.

Is Russell 2000 overvalued? This is the question that we answer in the last six articles. In this publication we put them all together trying to provide a more completed view of the issue to the readers.

In most cases, nobody is surprised to hear that American equity markets are, if not overvalued, at least more expensive than many other markets. However, Russell 2000 is possibly the clearest example of this. It is one of the main American stock exchange indexes, composed of 2000 small caps that have the distinguishing feature of having trailing 12 months P/E ratio of 130.5x and 120.3x after cyclical adjustments. It seems to be a very good opportunity to be short, or at least to keep in mind  in the case market tendency changes.  Our trading algorithm has given already a signal to take a short position in Russell 2000. We will now try to analyse the fundamentals of its valuation in more detail in this article, and in the following ones.

Valuing Russell 2000 by discount of dividends.

As was the case on other occasions, the method that we will use is discount of dividends, using the following equation:

Where the dividend is expressed by  and we consider every kind of shareholder remuneration including share buybacks as dividends.

The dividend’s calculation is performed in three steps:

1. Estimation of the American GDP for 2018.
2. Estimation of the Russell 2000 EPS for 2018 using the historical correlation between Russell 2000 EPS and the American GDP.
3. Estimation of dividend starting with the EPS and using the historical Payout ratio.

Nine years after the market bottom in March 2009, we are pretty sure that the economic stage could be somewhere between the last third and last quarter of the cycle. Certain information makes us think this, such as the employment rate in the USA dropping near to the lowest that it has been for fifty years, the output Gap already being in positive levels, the inflation evolutions that have moved from below zero at the beginning of 2016 to 2.1% currently, and the interest rates of 1.75% in the USA after six upward movements, five of them in little more than one year.

The economic evolutions in the near future in the USA will definitely depend on the Fed’s ability to establish the correct interest rate levels. The monetary authorities have to avoid  two abysms: first, the rise in inflation and creation (or increasing) of speculative bubbles, and secondly an excess of conservatism that could cause the economy to slow down, and therefore cause the beginning of a recession. Almost everyone knows how difficult this task is and the long time that the economy takes to react to the stimulus, making it even harder and riskier. To a certain degree, it is a game of trial and error. Sometimes the error can be corrected and sometimes it cannot.  In this sense, the FED can be compared to a funambulist – he can do it better or worse, but no one should expect him to walk the tightrope indefinitely.  He has already walked in the abysm for 9 years, which is a significant duration, considering that economic cycles are on average 9.2 years long.

For all of these reasons, we have decided to only discount the dividends for 2018, not only for Russell 2000, but for all the indexes that are under the valuation scope of our trading algorithm.  But as we will see after, in Russell 2000’s case, the conclusion would not change significantly considering a longer term for estimations.

The USA’s GDP evolution can be approximated to an exponential growth with the following equation:  e^(-63+0.0361*Year). This estimation is quite precise, particularly in the medium term, which is implicit in the R² ratio of 0.98x (Chart 1).

Chart 1

Our estimation for the USA’s GDP for 2018 is 20.230 bn USD, which supposes a nominal increase of 4.5% compared with 2017. The standard error of the estimation is 390 bn USD.

The correlation between and the USA’s GDP is also good if the recessional years are excluded. The reason for this elimination is that during the low periods, a significant number of companies incurred extraordinary losses and impairments that are not only a consequence of the state of the economy of the current year, but also the failure of longer term investments. During these periods, the correlation of the two magnitudes breaks down, and it reverts to high levels when the economy returns to a long term growth tendency. But as Chart 2 shows, the main difference between including recessional years or excluding them is not in the base estimation of the diverse models, which are very similar. The variation is more in the standard deviation, and therefore the precision of the predictions.

Based on the EPS dates since 1995, a three line regression with the USA’s GDP is represented. Option a) considering dates from 1995 to 2017 without exceptions, b) the same period but excluding 2001, 2008 and 2009 and c) excluding the period between 2000-2003 and 2008-2009.

Chart 2

As Chart 3 shows, the difference is more in the R² ratio than in the central estimation of the regression models.

Chart 3

We have adopted Option B but as we can see, the difference between the other options is negligent.

We consider a very bullish Pay Out ratio for Russell 2000 of 72%

Russell 2000 seams to be overvalued also considering its Pay Out Ratio. It is calculated as the historical Pay Out average since 1995, excluding 2001, and the period between 2007- 2009 which are years with
dates above 100% that we consider unsustainable in the long term.

Nevertheless, dividends are not the only source of remuneration for the shareholders. Share buyback programmes should also be considered, but unfortunately we do not have this aggregated information for the Russell 2000 index.  To mitigate the lack of this information, it is worth comparing the Pay Out ratio for Russell 2000 and the same ratio for S&P 500. In the latter case, the Pay Out ratio is calculated according to the following equation:

Pay Out = 1-g/ROE

Proceeding in this direction, we avoid forgetting other remuneration to the shareholders apart from dividends.

Chart 4

Despite the aforementioned lack of information, 72.33% is high enough to leave little room for erroneous estimation, considering that this Pay Out ratio implied a long term growth of 3.6% and ROE of 14.05%, which is significantly above the historical data.  In addition, the Pay Out is calculated by dividing the aggregated dividends by aggregated EPS, and only companies with positive EPS would contribute to the numerator, but the denominator is the EPS of companies with profits subtracted from the EPS of companies with losses which are 30% of the index. In this sense, the Pay Out is expected to be higher than the average of the Pay Out of the index members.

The expected tendency growth g is 3.68% vs 3.11% average growth from 2007 to 2017

The growth of the dividends is expressed by g. It depends on the evolution of the EPS and the Pay Out ratio. As we have already explained, the Pay Out ratio has very little space to grow when it is already discounting a ROE of 14.05%, clearly above 8.17% that is the maximum since 1995 for Russell 2000. So all potential growth is expected to come from EPS.

The growth in EPS is very correlated with the growth of GDP in the long term (See Chart 5). In the last 23 years, the growth of GDP in the USA has averaged 4.11% compared with 4.16% of EPS.

Chart 5

In order to estimate future growth, we have make the assumption that it will be more or less in line with the growth of the regression based on the period between 2000 -2017. The valuation model is very sensitive to this factor, and because of that we will do one thousand simulations taking g values centered in 3.68% with a standard deviation of 0.55%. As we can see in Chart 6 below, all the different historic growth from the year 2000 for GDP is a little further away from central expected growth by one standard deviation. In this sense, many of the possible errors in this parameter are already considered in the valuation model.

Chart 6

We estimate a 7.3% of Cost of Equity for Russell 2000

The cost of equity is one of the factors that most affects the valuation and it is also useful to determine how much is Russell 2000 overvalued. It is calculated using the following formula:

Cost of equity = Risk free rate of return + Beta × (market rate of return – risk free rate of return).

The Risk free rate of return can be estimated by adding the expected inflation rate to the real risk free rate of return. We estimate the inflation in line with the Federal Reserve objective. As Chart 7 shows below, it is not far from the historic tendency that has been 2.16% in the last twenty years. Our trading algorithm considers inflation rates centered on 2% with a standard deviation of 0.1%.

Chart 7

There are a lot of discussions related to real risk free rate. Our estimation is 1%, which is in line with Bank of England’s and other projections of remarkable economic academics. But in any case, we are giving them a wide margin of error implicit in a standard deviation of 1%. Explanations about the reliability of this estimation are not included in the scope of this article. For further information, please consult the following websites:

Secular drivers of the global real interest rate – Bank of England

The equilibrium real funds rate: Past, present and future

Below, Chart 8 shows the historical evolution of the 10 Year USD Bond. Chart 9 also shows the histogram of the values of the expected risk free rate of return that our trading algorithm takes into account in order to calculate the value of Russell 2000, and also the asset allocation.

Chart 8

Chart 9

The other, and even more important, factor that affects the Russell valuation is the risk premium that is the minimum amount of money that the expected return on a risky asset must exceed on the known return on a risk-free asset in order to encourage an individual to hold the risky asset rather than the risk-free asset. Its formula is:

Risk Premium = expected market rate of return – expected risk free rate of return.

Although it is important to notice that the correct calculation should be based on expectations, it is also worth mentioning that the historical dates are one of our main references. In this sense, it is worth analysing what the historical market return has been compared with the risk free rate of return. Below you can see:

Chart 10

Chart 11

For further details about the calculation please consult:

Stern NYU

In addition, we have calculated the risk premium using different methods. Chart 12 describes the calculations:

Chart 12

Taking the former cosiderations into account,our expectation for risk premium is 3.9% with a standard deviation of 2.1%.

Chart 13

The last factor that we need to calculate for the Ke of Russell 2000 starting with Risk Premium of S&P 500, is the Beta correlation coefficient between the two indexes. As Chart 14 shows, our central estimation for Beta of Russell 2000 referenced to S&P500 is 1.1

Chart 14

Now we have all the factors to calculate the Ke of Russell 2000:

Ke=3%+1.098*3.9%= 7.28%

How much is Russell 2000 overvalued?

Below we can see the histogram of the values obtained for Russell 2000, making 1000 iterations. This has been done using random values for the described variables, centered on our main expectations and forcing the random iterations to follow the standard deviations of different variables. On the right, you can see a table with the values and their respective percentiles.

On the 5^th of March, 2018 the Russell 2000 index quotation was 1532. According to our calculations, the fair value of Russell 2000 is below the current prices with a probability of 94% and below 567 points with a probability of 50%.

So why is not Russell 2000 overvalued for some investors?

Firstly, it is important to mention the possible reasons that have facilitated such good performance over the last few years. In my opinion, these are:

• Trump’s tax reform that benefit small companies the most, as they are more exposed to the domestic market than the large caps.
• Infrastructure public investments could also benefit the small caps the most.
• Anti-trade policies that could give subsidies to non-competitive companies, and small caps would be one of the main beneficiaries.
• The financial sector makes up about 20% of Russell 2000. The higher long interest rates and more flexible regulation, could allow companies in this sector to take off.

Trump’s tax reform will most probably move growth from the long to the short term.

The law cuts corporate tax rates permanently, and individual tax rates temporarily which are expected to expire after 2025. The amount of tax reduction will be $1.46 trillion, and the impact on GDP growth expectation varies depending on calculations, but goes from 0.8% in ten years according to the Joint Committee on Taxation to 0.7% annually calculated by the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy.  The amount of public debt increase also fluctuates, depending on the source of calculation, and goes from $300 billion decrease to an increase of 2.2 trillion. Chart 16 summarises the results of the calculations for different organisms.

Chart 16

Infrastructure public investments could benefit the small caps the most, but only in the short and medium term.

The plan consists of $200 billion federal funding for infrastructure investments over a decade, mostly for incentive states, localities and the private sector to find another $1.3 trillion to complete the investment programme. It also includes a streamlined environmental review process, which in the past has added years to the completion time for infrastructure projects.

There are three possible financing sources for this programme (or a combination of them) and the three with similar consequences:

• Public funds as a combination of federal, state and municipality funds. In the short term, the domestic economy will benefit, and therefore the small caps will be in a better position than the large caps. Between them, the ones operating in the infrastructure sector or activities related with it, will most likely get the better part. But in the longer term, the public debt will have to be repaid by increasing taxes, that will suppose a burden for the domestic economy.
• Internal savings. In this case there is only one way to do it and this is by reducing other public or private investments in order to have funds to finance the infrastructure investment. Theoretically, there is another method to achieve this purpose, by incrementing internal savings by reducing the consumption. In any case, if the programme has to be financed by internal savings, it will reduce investments or consumption and so the net impact in domestic economy will be negligible.
• External Debt. We expect the attraction of this amount of funds to only be possible if there are increases in American interest rates, that could come about over the next decade. In addition, the interest rate will most probably increase as a result of growth in the domestic economy, fed by external funds that will raise the monetary demand. But the entrance of foreign funds will tend to rise the exchange rate of USD and reduce exportation. If the USA were a small economy, the increase in investment would be compensated by a reduction in exports, but this is not the case. On this occasion, the situation is more similar to a big open economy, which is clear considering that $1.5 trillion of investments is an amount equivalent to 50% or 128% of the German or Spanish GDP respectively, which it is a relevant quantity for the international economy. So we can expect that the international interest rates will also tend to increase as a consequence of the rise in monetary demand, and therefore the surge of exchange rates and exports will be mitigated. Although the net effect will be positive in the short term, boosted by an increase in domestic investment and subsequent reactivation of domestic demand, external debt will have to be repaid sooner or later. Consequently, in the longer term, national savings will have to increase at the expense of less consumption and/or investments in order to increase exportation, that will be the source for repaying external debt. In this sense, it is again a way to finance short term growth by reducing the longer term. For further clarifications, Spanish speaking readers can consult the following publications:
  • Explanation of the operation of a large open economy: Una gran economía abierta y sus implicaciones en política económica.
  • Explanation of a tax reform in a small open economy: ¿Bajar impuestos para estimular la economía? Depende. ¿Sabes por qué?
  • Explanation of the operation of a small open economy: El modelo de Mundell-Fleming, pero para que lo entienda todo el mundo

In addition there is another risk in the longer term. The programme supposes almost 8% of the annual national GPD, and with such an amount, expansion to production capacity will most likely be the result in the sectors involved in the investment plan. After the infrastructure investment is finished, there could be a risk of generating overcapacity with the withdrawal of aid. But being realistic, I do not expect this threat to be a great concern for the financial market, as it is very much a long term risk.

Anti-trade policies could provide subsidies to non competitive companies and small caps, and these would be the main beneficiaries.

At the beginning of March 2018, Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. One week later, he signed an order to make the tariffs effective after 15 days. Canada and Mexico will be exempt from the levy, and he left the door open for other countries that will have to be studied case by case. But the exemptions for Canada and Mexico are not permanent. They depend on renegotiating NAFTA to Trump’s liking.

If the protective policy ended here, the issue would not be at all relevant. However, this could suppose the beginning of a wider protection programme, extending to other sectors.

The possible consequences of these polices are summarised below:

1. Obviously steel, aluminum and any other sector (small caps between them) that could be affected in the future will benefit, but this will be offset by the increase in cost and reduction of competitiveness of companies that use these protected materials. Finally, the entire domestic economy will be negatively affected.
2. Tariffs reduce the incentives of improving competitiveness. In fact, they are a subsidy financed by consumers to sectors that are not able to be competitive in an open market with foreign operators.
3. It is a very dangerous zero-sum game. It could provoke similar measures of other countries, increasing the risk of a disintegration of international trade, with disastrous consequences to the global economy.

We do not expect any positive consequences of the recent protective policy either in the short or long term. But neither do we expect significant negative implication. According to Trump’s declarations, until now, it seems just to be a signal to some countries like China that permit some of their companies to practice damping and other types of unfair trade. If we are wrong and it could suppose the beginning a broader protective policy it would be enough to expect the beginning of a recession period.

For further clarifications, Spanish speaking readers can consult the following publications:

• For an explanation of the historic context about protectionism: “El “America first” tiene muy malos antecedents”  

The higher long interest rates and more flexible regulations could allow the financial sector to take off.

Considering that the financial sector makes up 20% of Russell 2000, and even in the hypothetical case of an increase of 100% in EPS of companies of this sector, the PE of the index would only improve to 104x, that is still extremely high.

Russell 2000 overvalued almost in every considerable scenario.

We summarise the impact of the above estimations in our valuation of Russell 2000, considering the following stress scenarios:

Chart 18

Chart 17

Conclusion

According to our calculation, there is a probability of 94% for the fair value of Russell 2000 to be below the current prices and 50% to obtain a return of 64% or higher, holding a short position in the index.

Is Russell 2000 overvalued? We concluded that neither tax reform, not infrastructure investments plans nor protectionism can justify the extremely high valuations of Russell 2000. We estimate the currents levels are discounting a huge increase in EPS especially of the 30% of the index companies that today are not yet generating profits. Even assuming an increase of 135% of EPS of the index, it is still necessary to suppose other previously mentioned optimistic hypothesis to raise the fair value to the level of the current prices.

As we are pretty sure that the fair value of Russell 2000 is below the current level, we can account with a good safety margin and say that Russell 2000 is a good  investment opportunity to hold short position.

There are some current factors like Trump’s tax reform, infrastructure investment programme and trade tariffs, that most probably have affected the asset valuation in the last months. The question is if the impact of these Tump’s policies is so relevant to compensate the apparently overvaluation that American equity markets seem to have. However, Russell 2000 is possibly the clearest example of this. It is one of the main American stock exchange indexes, composed of 2000 small caps that have the distinguishing feature of having trailing 12 months P/E ratio of 130.5x and 120.3x after cyclical adjustments. It seems to be a very good opportunity to be short, or at least to keep in mind  in the case market tendency changes.  Our trading algorithm has given already a signal to take a short position in Russell 2000. We will now try to analyse the fundamentals of its valuation in more detail in this article, and in the following ones.

Firstly, it is important to mention the possible reasons that have facilitated such good performance of Russell 2000 over the last few years. In my opinion, these are:

• Trump’s tax reform that benefit small companies the most, as they are more exposed to the domestic market than the large caps.
• Infrastructure public investments could also benefit the small caps the most.
• Anti-trade policies that could give subsidies to non-competitive companies, and small caps would be one of the main beneficiaries.
• The financial sector makes up about 20% of Russell 2000. The higher long interest rates and more flexible regulation, could allow companies in this sector to take off.

Trump’s tax reform will most probably move growth from the long to the short term.

The law cuts corporate tax rates permanently, and individual tax rates temporarily which are expected to expire after 2025. The amount of tax reduction will be $1.46 trillion, and the impact on GDP growth expectation varies depending on calculations, but goes from 0.8% in ten years according to the Joint Committee on Taxation to 0.7% annually calculated by the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy.  The amount of public debt increase also fluctuates, depending on the source of calculation, and goes from $300 billion decrease to an increase of 2.2 trillion. Chart 16 summarises the results of the calculations for different organisms.

Chart 16

Infrastructure public investments could benefit the small caps the most, but only in the short and medium term.

The plan consists of $200 billion federal funding for infrastructure investments over a decade, mostly for incentive states, localities and the private sector to find another $1.3 trillion to complete the investment programme. It also includes a streamlined environmental review process, which in the past has added years to the completion time for infrastructure projects.

There are three possible financing sources for this programme (or a combination of them) and the three with similar consequences:

• Public funds as a combination of federal, state and municipality funds. In the short term, the domestic economy will benefit, and therefore the small caps will be in a better position than the large caps. Between them, the ones operating in the infrastructure sector or activities related with it, will most likely get the better part. But in the longer term, the public debt will have to be repaid by increasing taxes, that will suppose a burden for the domestic economy.
• Internal savings. In this case there is only one way to do it and this is by reducing other public or private investments in order to have funds to finance the infrastructure investment. Theoretically, there is another method to achieve this purpose, by incrementing internal savings by reducing the consumption. In any case, if the programme has to be financed by internal savings, it will reduce investments or consumption and so the net impact in domestic economy will be negligible.
• External Debt. We expect the attraction of this amount of funds to only be possible if there are increases in American interest rates, that could come about over the next decade. In addition, the interest rate will most probably increase as a result of growth in the domestic economy, fed by external funds that will raise the monetary demand. But the entrance of foreign funds will tend to rise the exchange rate of USD and reduce exportation. If the USA were a small economy, the increase in investment would be compensated by a reduction in exports, but this is not the case. On this occasion, the situation is more similar to a big open economy, which is clear considering that $1.5 trillion of investments is an amount equivalent to 50% or 128% of the German or Spanish GDP respectively, which it is a relevant quantity for the international economy. So we can expect that the international interest rates will also tend to increase as a consequence of the rise in monetary demand, and therefore the surge of exchange rates and exports will be mitigated. Although the net effect will be positive in the short term, boosted by an increase in domestic investment and subsequent reactivation of domestic demand, external debt will have to be repaid sooner or later. Consequently, in the longer term, national savings will have to increase at the expense of less consumption and/or investments in order to increase exportation, that will be the source for repaying external debt. In this sense, it is again a way to finance short term growth by reducing the longer term. For further clarifications, Spanish speaking readers can consult the following publications:
  • Explanation of the operation of a large open economy: Una gran economía abierta y sus implicaciones en política económica.
  • Explanation of a tax reform in a small open economy: ¿Bajar impuestos para estimular la economía? Depende. ¿Sabes por qué?
  • Explanation of the operation of a small open economy: El modelo de Mundell-Fleming, pero para que lo entienda todo el mundo

In addition there is another risk in the longer term. The programme supposes almost 8% of the annual national GPD, and with such an amount, expansion to production capacity will most likely be the result in the sectors involved in the investment plan. After the infrastructure investment is finished, there could be a risk of generating overcapacity with the withdrawal of aid. But being realistic, I do not expect this threat to be a great concern for the financial market, as it is very much a long term risk.

Anti-trade policies could provide subsidies to non competitive companies and small caps, and these would be the main beneficiaries.

At the beginning of March 2018, Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. One week later, he signed an order to make the tariffs effective after 15 days. Canada and Mexico will be exempt from the levy, and he left the door open for other countries that will have to be studied case by case. But the exemptions for Canada and Mexico are not permanent. They depend on renegotiating NAFTA to Trump’s liking.

If the protective policy ended here, the issue would not be at all relevant. However, this could suppose the beginning of a wider protection programme, extending to other sectors.

The possible consequences of these polices are summarised below:

1. Obviously steel, aluminum and any other sector (small caps between them) that could be affected in the future will benefit, but this will be offset by the increase in cost and reduction of competitiveness of companies that use these protected materials. Finally, the entire domestic economy will be negatively affected.
2. Tariffs reduce the incentives of improving competitiveness. In fact, they are a subsidy financed by consumers to sectors that are not able to be competitive in an open market with foreign operators.
3. It is a very dangerous zero-sum game. It could provoke similar measures of other countries, increasing the risk of a disintegration of international trade, with disastrous consequences to the global economy.

We do not expect any positive consequences of the recent protective policy either in the short or long term. But neither do we expect significant negative implication. According to Trump’s declarations, until now, it seems just to be a signal to some countries like China that permit some of their companies to practice damping and other types of unfair trade. If we are wrong and it could suppose the beginning a broader protective policy it would be enough to expect the beginning of a recession period.

For further clarifications, Spanish speaking readers can consult the following publications:

• For an explanation of the historic context about protectionism: “El “America first” tiene muy malos antecedentes”  

The higher long interest rates and more flexible regulations could allow the financial sector to take off.

Considering that the financial sector makes up 20% of Russell 2000, and even in the hypothetical case of an increase of 100% in EPS of companies of this sector, the PE of the index would only improve to 104x, that is still extremely high.

We will analyze in further publications if the rest of the mentioned factors could justify the current Russell 2000’s valuation.