Q2 earnings were worse than expected but investors are pricing a ‘new world’

Dividends futures pricing expected dividends in S&P 500 in FY21 have gone nowhere since late May and still sit 22% lower than prior to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. The most obvious explanation since earnings expectations are looking for a fast rebound is that companies with lower than payout ratio for years to come to repay the debt accumulation through the COVID-19 pandemic. The dividend futures curve is a bit more difficult to explain since it reflects a 2% growth in dividends after FY21 and never gets above the previous peak. One explanation for this phenomenon could be that companies recognize the lower yields everywhere and thus are under no pressure to compete with high dividend yields. Instead they can do what equities are supposed to do; namely invest in growth and deliver future growth and capital accumulation through investments in upgrading machines and processes to enhance productivity.

If investors are looking through a terrible Q2 earnings season and take the dividend futures curve at face value, what then are investors pricing? In our view, investors are pricing a new future which means stronger focus on fiscal impulse via monetization (“the magic money tree”), technology eating more of the world’s value, lower growth rates and lower yields for longer. As we have talked about in recent research notes this creates an environment where large stable technology companies with high ROIC and predictable growth and free cash flow generation will be bid up in value to be bond proxies. This will acceleration equity market concentration to levels not seen since the 1970s with IBM in the lead. All roads from here leads to inflation and one of the only asset classes that can protect investors is equities which have historically absorbed inflation well up to around 3.5% in inflation over a sustained period. As we have argued lately, the policy actions and the pricing of bonds leave investors with little choice than to race after equities, gold, real estate and other long duration assets.