The End Game has arrived  The End Game has arrived  The End Game has arrived

The End Game has arrived

Steen Jakobsen

Chief Investment Officer

Summary:  The global economy has suffered two major shocks in the short space of two years: The Covid pandemic in 2020 and the war in Ukraine in 2022. Read how this has affected the market.


The global economy has suffered two major shocks in the short space of two years: The Covid pandemic in 2020 and the war in Ukraine in 2022. Both will have a tremendous impact on markets and especially on economic policy as these shocks have created new geopolitical priorities by exposing huge vulnerabilities in what turns out to have been an excessively tuned globalised economy. This outlook addresses the tectonic shift already underway in global macro and politics. Gone are the days of ever-falling real interest rates and ever more financialisation, to be replaced by a new rise in productivity as we move the economic agenda to a better and more rational place, despite the gruesome humanitarian news we get day by day from the war in Ukraine. 

The starting point for this paradigm shift is that the fiscal restraints that have been a central premise in global economic policies since the 1990s are now gone! The shift was already enormous during the pandemic, but was most stark in the case of the German response to the war in Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz tossed decades of fiscal orthodoxy out of the window in a speech before an emergency Sunday convening of the Bundestag, committing Germany to massive new defence spending and diversification of its energy imports. Now we have the full power of government coming down the pipeline, ending the era when the onus was entirely on the private sector for economic growth. 

This is by no means a blessing of what is going on (more deficits), but a reaction to the recent one-two punch of the pandemic and a hot war in Europe bringing with it enormous implications. Foremost among these will be higher productivity gains through new military and energy spending that will increase the full economy’s net spending on infrastructure, basic research and innovation. Take Germany’s sudden commitment to upgrading its armed forces. This is the country with internet connections so slow that they couldn’t home-school during Covid lockdowns. I predict that, through its newfound focus, Germany will be a leader in digital and communications inside the next three years, simply because they must if they want to optimise defence infrastructure.  

Many may not realise that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 brought with it a collapse in not only military spending, but also basic research. In the private sector, the focus shifted to constant schemes to boost dividends and buyback schemes that optimised short-term returns. Now, strategic goals will force investment into long-term planning, and with it basic research which will benefit the private sector both in terms of flow of investment funds and innovation spinning from it. Products such as Teflon, Gore-Tex, the internet, GPS and many other basics of modern life started in military research labs. 

Let me underline that my belief in the potential benefits of military spending is based on the hope that it can act as a deterrent and on what civilian economies can gain from it, not because I am hoping for increased tensions. I would even argue that this paradigm shift from buybacks to basic research, from short-term gains to strategic resilience, and not least from non-productive to productive, will not only leave the economy in better shape but in the longer term will reduce inflation risks and improve price discovery.  

Through the years, the Saxo Strategy Team has always argued that “shocks” are a necessary catalyst for any real change—and these twin shocks will prove to have marked the end of an era. That era began in 1998 when Chair Greenspan bailed out LTCM and in the process created a policy model in which every crisis was met by easier financial conditions which brought no real CPI inflation, even if they did create new asset bubbles that ensured the cycle would rinse and repeat. This cycle died in November 2021 when the Fed and the White House finally got the inflation in everyday goods that all of the previous cycles had avoided. This time the old policy response won’t work, which is why we have the Fed initiating a new rate hike cycle despite US equity markets under severe strain with inflation at a 40-year high. This is the most significant pivot point for geopolitics and markets since at least the Berlin Wall falling in 1989 and China’s inclusion in the WTO in 2001.   

I will argue that it’s even bigger as the double whammy of Covid and the war in Ukraine has created the necessary conditions for a macro pivot away from the trend of falling real rates that began all the way back with Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s victory over inflation in the early 1980s. This trend deepened badly into non-productive negative real rates territory in the wake of the global financial crisis and deeper still as inflation broke out with a vengeance after the Covid pandemic. Positive real rates are a necessary precondition for higher potential growth without inflationary costs. Both the fall of the Berlin Wall and China’s WTO entry was really an arbitrage of the cost of labour and energy. The fall of the Berlin Wall created a bigger world with fewer borders to trade and cheaper labour, and the WTO admission of China took this one step further, adding even more cheap labour and cheap energy (China’s explosion of cheap coal-based production). The potential gains from these new forces were already well diminished and even in reverse before Covid, and productivity was on the decline due to over-financialisation, rent-seeking, zombification of companies: all hallmarks of negative real rates. Now, the supply-side shocks of Covid and the war in Ukraine have accelerated our path toward more productivity. Policy simply must take us toward more price discovery and positive real yields as market and government actors fight for investment in a world we now understand is highly constrained by absolute energy, environmental and capital limits. 

I am probably too early in prognosticating this necessary shift and I fear a runaway inflation end game before we get to the point described above; central banks are not only late to the party but may have entirely missed the opportunity to bring down inflation in the medium term. Into this reality there is now a dire need for central banks to stop chasing inflation from behind and to get ahead of the curve. This will mean communication and actions that increase the “risk-free rate” dramatically. The market hopes or prays that this will end as demand destruction kicks in, but how can it? The US S&P 500 in price/earnings terms is still at the 80th percentile (extremely expensive), housing prices are at all-time highs, as are art, fine watches and—not least—the savings and investment accounts of the average investor. And as if that were not enough, governments are now moving to mitigate the costs to lower-income households of rising energy. This is done with good intentions but is unproductive in the long run as demand remains high and will only make energy even more expensive. 

In conclusion we have three simultaneously cycles impacting the market: 

  1. The ongoing supply crunch from Covid and the war in Ukraine, but also from the world’s physical limits
  2. The repricing of assets with a backdrop of rising inflation
  3. The new Fed tightening cycle lifting off in March and set to continue 

These will eventually lead to two key outcomes 

  • Strategic macro policies: an increase spending on energy and defense priorities, but also supply chain diversification to remove single points of failure for strategic industries. 

  • Negative real rates turning more positive as an indication that the global economy is set for a major productivity boost: away from short-term financial gains and rent-seeking and toward tangible assets, infrastructure and a reaffirmation of the social contract. 
Let me by saying I am the most optimistic I have been in my 35 years of business, but for one reason only: I don’t think it get can get much worse.  Steen Jakobsen 

PS: I have actively decided not to comment on the war in Ukraine specifically, but everyone should know that the SaxoStrats team and I believe in freedom and self-determination, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine violates those principles. 

Explore products at Saxo

Disclaimer

The Saxo Bank Group entities each provide execution-only service and access to Analysis permitting a person to view and/or use content available on or via the website. This content is not intended to and does not change or expand on the execution-only service. Such access and use are at all times subject to (i) The Terms of Use; (ii) Full Disclaimer; (iii) The Risk Warning; (iv) the Rules of Engagement and (v) Notices applying to Saxo News & Research and/or its content in addition (where relevant) to the terms governing the use of hyperlinks on the website of a member of the Saxo Bank Group by which access to Saxo News & Research is gained. Such content is therefore provided as no more than information. In particular no advice is intended to be provided or to be relied on as provided nor endorsed by any Saxo Bank Group entity; nor is it to be construed as solicitation or an incentive provided to subscribe for or sell or purchase any financial instrument. All trading or investments you make must be pursuant to your own unprompted and informed self-directed decision. As such no Saxo Bank Group entity will have or be liable for any losses that you may sustain as a result of any investment decision made in reliance on information which is available on Saxo News & Research or as a result of the use of the Saxo News & Research. Orders given and trades effected are deemed intended to be given or effected for the account of the customer with the Saxo Bank Group entity operating in the jurisdiction in which the customer resides and/or with whom the customer opened and maintains his/her trading account. Saxo News & Research does not contain (and should not be construed as containing) financial, investment, tax or trading advice or advice of any sort offered, recommended or endorsed by Saxo Bank Group and should not be construed as a record of our trading prices, or as an offer, incentive or solicitation for the subscription, sale or purchase in any financial instrument. To the extent that any content is construed as investment research, you must note and accept that the content was not intended to and has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such, would be considered as a marketing communication under relevant laws.

Please read our disclaimers:
Notification on Non-Independent Investment Research (https://www.home.saxo/legal/niird/notification)
Full disclaimer (https://www.home.saxo/legal/disclaimer/saxo-disclaimer)
Full disclaimer (https://www.home.saxo/legal/saxoselect-disclaimer/disclaimer)

Saxo Bank (Schweiz) AG
The Circle 38
CH-8058
Zürich-Flughafen
Switzerland

Contact Saxo

Select region

Switzerland
Switzerland

All trading carries risk. Losses can exceed deposits on margin products. You should consider whether you understand how our products work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. To help you understand the risks involved we have put together a general Risk Warning series of Key Information Documents (KIDs) highlighting the risks and rewards related to each product. The KIDs can be accessed within the trading platform. Please note that the full prospectus can be obtained free of charge from Saxo Bank (Switzerland) ltd. or the issuer.

This website can be accessed worldwide however the information on the website is related to Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. All clients will directly engage with Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. and all client agreements will be entered into with Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. and thus governed by Swiss Law.

The content of this website represents marketing material and has not been notified or submitted to any supervisory authority.

If you contact Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. or visit this website, you acknowledge and agree that any data that you transmit to Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd., either through this website, by telephone or by any other means of communication (e.g. e-mail), may be collected or recorded and transferred to other Saxo Bank Group companies or third parties in Switzerland or abroad and may be stored or otherwise processed by them or Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. You release Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. from its obligations under Swiss banking and securities dealer secrecies and, to the extent permitted by law, data protection laws as well as other laws and obligations to protect privacy. Saxo Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. has implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect data from unauthorized processing and disclosure and applies appropriate safeguards to guarantee adequate protection of such data.

Apple, iPad and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.