Morgan Stanley s’accroche à son message de prudence sur les actions, qui lui a fait louper le rebond des indices boursiers depuis cet été. L’argument ? Les niveaux de valorisation des actifs dans les pays développés sont tels qu’ils ne supporteraient pas une mauvaise nouvelle. Or, le risque fiscal aux Etats-Unis et en Europe prend de l’ampleur et pourrait provoquer une correction dans les six mois à venir.
« Markets are signaling a world returning to normal. Credit spreads are narrow, and all-up yields typically are now lower than before the crisis. The sharp outperformance of equities versus bonds over the past year is consistent with a marked improvement in leading indicators of developed world growth.
The PE expansion that has driven equity markets higher from the June lows has been concentrated in global cyclical sectors. Exhibit 2 shows the change in the prospective PE for the 10 GICS sectors for the MSCI All-country index. Also shown is metals and mining (a component of the materials sector), which has seen PE expansion of over 50%. Rising PE ratios have driven a large wedge between index performance and earnings expectations over the past few months.
Earnings drove equities until mid-year. Exhibit 3 shows the change in consensus 2013 EPS forecasts for global cyclical sectors since the start of this year. Note the dispersion in estimates for cyclical sectors: technology and consumer discretionary sectors have seen earnings upgrades through this year (also shown is the US technology sector, which has outperformed global peers). On the other hand, materials and energy have seen significant downgrades; even larger in metals and mining (a component of materials). Put simply, commodity-related cyclicals have suffered big downgrades; other cyclical sectors have not.
The dots in Exhibit 3 show the price performance of the sectors year-to-June and year-to-date. The price performance was highly correlated with earning revisions over the year to June; since June, performance has disconnected from subsequent earning revisions. »
