The Stock Market’s Future Ain’t What It Used to Be
Kanebridge News
    HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $1,614,335 (+0.67%)       Melbourne $994,236 (-0.05%)       Brisbane $963,341 (+1.45%)       Adelaide $854,556 (-1.91%)       Perth $827,309 (-0.33%)       Hobart $759,718 (-0.29%)       Darwin $667,381 (+0.62%)       Canberra $1,007,406 (-0.44%)       National $1,037,260 (+0.22%)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $750,961 (+0.91%)       Melbourne $497,942 (-0.57%)       Brisbane $535,693 (+0.31%)       Adelaide $419,051 (-1.28%)       Perth $437,584 (-0.67)       Hobart $516,868 (-0.64%)       Darwin $347,954 (-4.64%)       Canberra $497,324 (-0.10%)       National $524,930 (-0.09%)                HOUSES FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 10,416 (-208)       Melbourne 14,951 (-211)       Brisbane 8,223 (+52)       Adelaide 2,527 (+10)       Perth 6,514 (+149)       Hobart 1,343 (+29)       Darwin 248 (-7)       Canberra 1,065 (+22)       National 45,287 (-164)                UNITS FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 8,842 (+1)       Melbourne 8,108 (+15)       Brisbane 1,720 (+26)       Adelaide 459 (+19)       Perth 1,750 (+6)       Hobart 209 (+4)       Darwin 403 (+1)       Canberra 928 (+7)       National 22,419 (+79)                HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $790 (+$10)       Melbourne $600 ($0)       Brisbane $630 ($0)       Adelaide $620 (+$20)       Perth $660 ($0)       Hobart $550 ($0)       Darwin $700 ($0)       Canberra $690 (-$10)       National $662 (+$2)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $750 ($0)       Melbourne $590 ($0)       Brisbane $625 ($0)       Adelaide $480 (+$5)       Perth $590 (-$5)       Hobart $470 ($0)       Darwin $550 (+$15)       Canberra $565 (-$5)       National $589 (+$1)                HOUSES FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 5,061 (-35)       Melbourne 5,308 (+108)       Brisbane 3,854 (+1)       Adelaide 1,161 (-25)       Perth 1,835 (+6)       Hobart 376 (-10)       Darwin 138 (+1)       Canberra 525 (-5)       National 18,258 (+41)                UNITS FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 6,806 (-66)       Melbourne 4,431 (+62)       Brisbane 1,997 (-30)       Adelaide 323 (-15)       Perth 609 (+30)       Hobart 153 (+3)       Darwin 210 (-15)       Canberra 537 (+30)       National 15,066 (-1)                HOUSE ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND       Sydney 2.54% (↑)      Melbourne 3.14% (↑)        Brisbane 3.40% (↓)     Adelaide 3.77% (↑)      Perth 4.15% (↑)      Hobart 3.76% (↑)        Darwin 5.45% (↓)       Canberra 3.56% (↓)     National 3.32% (↑)             UNIT ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND         Sydney 5.19% (↓)     Melbourne 6.16% (↑)        Brisbane 6.07% (↓)     Adelaide 5.96% (↑)        Perth 7.01% (↓)     Hobart 4.73% (↑)      Darwin 8.22% (↑)        Canberra 5.91% (↓)     National 5.84% (↑)             HOUSE RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 0.8% (↑)        Melbourne 0.7% (↓)     Brisbane 0.7% (↑)      Adelaide 0.4% (↑)        Perth 0.4% (↓)     Hobart 0.9% (↑)        Darwin 0.8% (↓)     Canberra 1.0% (↑)      National 0.7% (↑)             UNIT RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 0.9% (↑)        Melbourne 1.1% (↓)     Brisbane 1.0% (↑)      Adelaide 0.5% (↑)      Perth 0.5% (↑)        Hobart 1.4% (↓)     Darwin 1.7% (↑)      Canberra 1.4% (↑)      National 1.1% (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL HOUSES AND TREND       Sydney 25.8 (↑)      Melbourne 26.6 (↑)        Brisbane 26.8 (↓)     Adelaide 22.5 (↑)      Perth 31.4 (↑)      Hobart 24.3 (↑)        Darwin 26.7 (↓)     Canberra 25.5 (↑)        National 26.2 (↓)            AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL UNITS AND TREND       Sydney 24.5 (↑)      Melbourne 25.5 (↑)      Brisbane 26.1 (↑)      Adelaide 23.6 (↑)      Perth 31.2 (↑)      Hobart 24.6 (↑)      Darwin 38.8 (↑)      Canberra 28.0 (↑)      National 27.8 (↑)            
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The Stock Market’s Future Ain’t What It Used to Be

In recent years, investors often were rewarded for taking reckless risks, but in unforgiving markets, it’s harder to recover from mistakes.

By Jason Zweig
Thu, Apr 21, 2022 1:31pmGrey Clock 3 min

With U.S. stocks off more than 7% and the bond market down almost 9% so far this year, many investors seem to feel they have to take more risk to catch up.

In fact, you should take less. In unforgiving markets, it’s harder to recover from mistakes. Over the past decade or more, stocks, bonds, real estate and cryptocurrencies—just about every asset—boomed. You often got rewarded for reckless risks and, even if you got punished, rising markets helped you recover quickly from your blunders. That won’t last forever.

A global survey of nearly 300 professional investors by BofA Global Research found in March that the percentage of fund managers with greater than average exposure to U.S. stocks climbed 27 percentage points from February. That happened even as many of them say their holdings of cash have edged up.

And fund managers’ trigger fingers are itching even worse than usual, with 42% reporting that their investment horizon is three months or less, up from 26% the previous month.

Individual investors don’t seem to be pulling in their horns, either.

“Alternatives” such as private equity, private debt, hedge funds and nontraded real estate have become so fashionable that investors are forsaking flexibility and low fees in order to buy them.

One of the most popular ways to invest in alternatives is through unlisted closed-end funds, portfolios of alternative assets that are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission but don’t trade on an exchange.

Investors generally can’t get their money out daily, as they can at traditional mutual funds or exchange-traded funds. Instead, they can sell only at predetermined times, often four times a year, sometimes only twice—or even whenever the fund manager happens to permit it.

Holding on for years could help the managers produce gains; in the meantime, it enables them to harvest fat fees. Management expenses often exceed 1.5% annually. Such funds managed a total of $93.7 billion at the end of 2021, up from $54 billion in 2018, according to Patrick Newcomb, a director at Fuse Research Network in Needham, Mass.

The glory days for approaches like these are probably over, says Antti Ilmanen, an investment strategist at AQR Capital Management in Greenwich, Conn. He’s the author of a new book, “Investing Amid Low Expected Returns.”

Mr. Ilmanen’s volume isn’t beach reading; it’s full of subtleties and complexities. But its message is stark and simple. With many assets still near all-time highs, future returns will likely be lower, says Mr. Ilmanen—across the board, for traded and untraded investments alike.

Yes, I know: That’s what many market commentators have been saying for years. And the markets kept going up anyway. Isn’t this just more negativism?

Nope. High recent returns make you feel rich, naturally leading you to extrapolate further gains. But you’re just borrowing them from the future. The more highly valued your holdings are, the lower their return is likely to be down the road.

To see why, let’s pretend you own a hypothetical bond. To keep things as simple as possible, imagine a plain $1,000 bond paying 3% a year for 10 years.

If you buy it for $1,000, this bond’s $30 annual interest would earn you a 3% yield. If, however, you pay $1,200 for a bond with the same terms, your $30 interest yields you 2.5%.

The higher the price you pay, the lower your return on the bond; there’s no way around it.

Unlike with a bond, a stock’s future income stream can grow. If it doesn’t meet expectations, though, the same general principle applies—without any assurance of getting your original investment back in the end.

To make general judgments of how expensive stocks are, Mr. Ilmanen uses a modified version of a measure developed by Yale University economist Robert Shiller. Mr. Ilmanen’s math indicates that U.S. stocks could return less than 3% annually, after inflation, over the next five years or more—among its lowest estimates ever. Although you can’t use such data to tell exactly when stocks are overpriced, says Mr. Ilmanen, “the message is that the prospect of low expected returns should be taken seriously.”

What can investors do? A few suggestions are obvious.

Save more, spend less (especially on investment-management fees).

Avoid chasing illiquid assets—some of which, like private equity, are no longer definitively cheap relative to publicly traded stocks, Mr. Ilmanen’s research suggests.

Look outside the U.S., where stocks are considerably cheaper.

Above all, don’t take bigger gambles to try catching up. Riskier holdings, such as untraded equity and bonds, have looked safe during the bull markets of the last decade. But they could deliver “bad returns in bad times” that aren’t as fleeting as early 2020, says Mr. Ilmanen.

“If we get rising yields [as interest rates go up], more valuations will be challenged,” he says. “If you take less risk now, not more, you will be able to swing at the fat pitches when they come.”

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 15, 2022



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The 7 lasting impacts of COVID for Australian investors

A leading Australian economist says two years on, the long term implications of COVID for the economy have emerged

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AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver says the effects of the pandemic continue to reverberate across the world, with seven key lasting impacts leading to a more fragmented and volatile world for investment returns”.

Perhaps the biggest impact is that the pandemic related stimulus broke the back of the ultra-low inflation seen pre-pandemic,” said Dr Oliver. Together with bigger government and reduced globalisation, this means a more inflation-prone world. So, a return to pre-pandemic ultra-low inflation and interest rates looks unlikely.

Here is a summary of Dr Oliver’s explanation of the seven key lasting impacts of COVID for investors.

1. Bigger government

The pandemic added to support for bigger government by showcasing the power of government to protect households and businesses from shocks, enhancing perceptions of inequality, and adding support to the view that governments should ensure supply chains by bringing production back home. IMF projections for government spending in advanced countries show it settling nearly 2 percent of GDP higher than pre-COVID levels.

Implications for investors: likely to be less productive economies, lower than otherwise living standards and less personal freedom.

2. Tighter labour markets and faster wages growth

After the pandemic, labour markets have tightened reflecting the rebound in demand post-pandemic, lower participation rates in some countries and a degree of labour hoarding as labour shortages made companies reluctant to let workers go. As a result, wages growth increased, possibly breaking the pre-pandemic malaise of weak wages growth.

Implications for investors: Tighter labour markets run the risk that wages growth exceeds levels consistent with two to three percent inflation.

3. Reduced globalisation

A backlash against globalisation became evident last decade in the rise of Trump, Brexit and populist leaders. Also, geopolitical tensions were on the rise with the relative decline of the US and faith in liberal democracies waning ... The pandemic inflamed both with supply side disruptions adding to pressure for the onshoring of production [and] heightened tensions between the west and China we are seeing more protectionism (e.g.,with subsidies and regulation favouring local production) and increased defence spending.

Implications for investors: Reduced globalisation risks leading to reduced potential economic growth for the emerging world and reduced productivity if supply chains are managed on other than economic grounds.

4. Higher prices, inflation and interest rates

Inflation [due to stimulus payments to households and supply chain disruptions] is now starting to come under control but the pandemic has likely ushered in a more inflation-prone world by boosting bigger government, adding to a reversal in globalisation and adding to geopolitical tensions. All of which combine with ageing populations to potentially result in higher rates of inflation.

Implications for investors: Higher inflation than seen pre-pandemic means higher than otherwise interest rates over the medium term, which reduces the upside potential for growth assets like shares and property.

5. Worsening housing affordability

the lockdowns and working from home drove increased demand for houses over units and interest in smaller cities and regional locations. As a result, Australian home prices surged to record levels. Meanwhile, the impact of higher interest rates in the last two years on home prices was swamped by housing shortages as immigration surged in a catch-up. The end result is now record low levels of housing affordability for buyers

Implications for investors: Ever worse housing affordability means ongoing intergenerational inequality and even higher household debt.

6. Working from home

There are huge benefits to physically working together around culture, collaboration, idea generation and learning but there are also benefits to working from home with no commute time, greater focus, less damage to the environment, better life balance and for companies lower costs, more diverse workforces and happier staff. So the ideal is probably a hybrid model.

Implications for investors: Less office space demand as leases expire resulting in higher vacancy rates/lower rents, more people living in cities as vacated office space is converted, and reinvigorated life in suburbs and regions.

7. Faster embrace of technology

Lockdowns dramatically accelerated the move to a digital world. Many have now embraced online retail, working from home and virtual meetings. It may be argued that this fuller embrace of technology will enable the full productivity-enhancing potential of technology to be unleashed. The rapid adoption of AI will likely help.

Implications for investors: a faster embrace of online retailing at the expense of traditional retailing, virtual meeting attendance becoming the norm for many and business travel settling at a lower level.

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