On Balance
What we witnessed was the market re-rating the sector, taking it from trading at extreme discount to FV in October 2022, to trading at historically high premium in late February / March 2023 – an extraordinary re-rating to a point where red flags in the form of the Apollo Risk Adjusted Return signals were appearing.
Outside of Banks the clues at a stock, sector and market level that give guidance to investors as to what to do or not do right now are few and far between. Both the S&P 500 and Stoxx 600 are no longer in the re-rating phase of the Apollo investment cycle and that points to more volatile times and as a consequence many sectors have transitioned from Re-rating to De-rating or Value
The consequence of recent events (SVB) meant that the market had to reconsider the discount rate being applied to future cash and the repricing meant the sector has come back to the Orange line – FV. A moment that we call ‘back to value’ – zero premium to present value so surely an opportunity to buy?
For years now we have been extolling the obvious virtue of knowing where value is at any point in time – looking at the expected returns and the discount rate being applied to those cash flows.
In the Spring of 2022 European Banks started to generate Accelerator long signals, slowly but surely, one by one until the sector itself lit up in a green tinge from April – June and here we are today coming out of a positive earnings season, seeing the sector re-rating.
So, when asked the question ‘Why did you own BP?’ you point at the image of the Apollo Investment Cycle. Answering the more difficult question, ‘Why did you not own BP during the last 2 years ?’ That’s more awkward.
At Libra we think differently and deliver the best user experience for Active equity investors applying the years of experience and understanding that we have in equity markets. We not only know what information is going to make a difference to client performance but provide the best experience.
It’s the big calls that make the big difference to both Equity and Cross Asset investors and we’ve been doing this successfully for years.
The latest signal / indicator to be added the Apollo EDGE platform has been the Investment Cycle which we discussed in an earlier comment – the ability to show the transition from Value to Re-rating to Growth and De-rating (the cycle) is proving very informative.
The Federal reserve is now perceived to be of a Dovish disposition while the China Opening Up story is now prevalent. Risk assets are on the rise and Copper is back to $9000 / tonne. Maybe we should be buying commodity stocks and copper related names in particular. Antofagasta anyone?