Essential Factors To Watch For 2023 And Stock Indices Are The Short-Term Bond Yields
Aa
Share
„The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades”, or about shares and ETFs
„The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades” is the title that, unfortunately, we cannot use to forecast 2023. Although, the new year will have to really work hard to surprise anyone who has lived through the past couple of years. It appears that all investors’ eyes are on China and its success in resuming economic activity. A rebounding China will boost imports of oil, commodities and raw materials while fueling demand for airline tickets, hotel rooms and foreign real estate. „Surely it will push up global inflation if China reopens fully,” says Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING Group NV. There is a risk that China will act more inflationary in 2023, but this risk seems limited due to the very real likelihood that supply will also improve in many sectors of the economy.
Inflation and bond yields are the major risks for 2023 stock indices performance. While a mild recession in 2023 is almost certain, the Fed possibly will slow its rate hikes in case inflation starts to show signs of easing. With slowing growth, wage increases would slow, which, among others, would help stabilize corporate margins. „It’s astonishing,” said Harvard University professor Jeremy Stein, „If you told any one of us a year ago, ‚we’re going to have a bunch of 75 basis-point hikes,’ you’d have said, ‚Are you nuts? You’re going to blow up the financial system.’” Guess what? 75 basis-point hikes are done, and the financial system has not broken – and it is not even near that happening.
Stock indices are open to another downward phase (we didn’t have a capitulation yet), but by the end of 2023, they could be back on the upward trend even if the world is in a „mild” recession. Investors should watch the market and remain cautious until the new trend is proven. However, someone may say it might be a good to have some exposure and adjust when your asset allocation gets out of whack. Essential factors to watch for 2023 and stock indices are the short-term bond yields, put/call ratio and bank liquidity. Finally, one should remember that stocks are hostages to the tyranny of round numbers, so it might be good for the support and resistance lines to be always near them. As we move further, let us look at what the companies expect the year 2023 to bring. We have studied the earnings forecasts of all 30 companies that are part of the Dow Jones Industrials index (US30).
It’s going to be tough at first, and then it’s downhill for the Dow Jones
Collecting the data of Q1 2023 earnings per share forecasts, we can see that 12 of the 30 companies in this index (40%) are expected to improve their quarterly earnings, resulting in an 11.7% growth in EPS from Q4 2022 to Q1 2023. The average price-to-future earnings ratio within the index is expected to be 16.8, an improvement compared to the current average P/E ratio within the index of 18.5.
The most considerable improvement for the upcoming quarter is forecasted by the aircraft and missile manufacturer Boeing Co., which was the only company within the index to record a loss in Q3 2022. In fact, if we exclude Boeing Co. data from the calculations, the estimated EPS growth in the following quarter diminishes to a meagre 2.00%.
The second most substantial growth is forecasted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which is also expected to report the highest quarterly EPS (9.99) within the index. The investment bank would be able to boost its earnings by taking advantage of the increasing interest rate environment. Two companies expecting their EPS to decrease in the upcoming quarter are Chevron Corp. and McDonald’s Corp.
The cumulative annual earnings figures are similarly presented. Cumulative EPS is calculated by summing annual EPS for all companies within the index, allowing us to evaluate the EPS changes between two periods. However, to compare the full annual periods, we have taken the expected results for the last quarter of 2022. The data show that the anticipated annual EPS increase in 2023 within the index would be 10.37% (6.19% if we exclude Boeing Co. as an outlier). Furthermore, 26 of the 30 companies in the index are likely to report year-on-year earnings growth.
These results show that analysts are currently predicting a slowdown at a large proportion of companies in the medium term and a slow improvement by the end of next year. The companies’ employee retention activities and job postings share the same relatively gloomy sentiment for the upcoming year.
Good morning, but unfortunately you are fired
Last year, all major tech companies announced job cuts – some significant, some smaller. The motivation for companies to reduce the employee count comes from various factors, such as changing business models and a slowing economy. However, the biggest reason for the extensive tech firing in 2022 is the growth opportunities in cloud computing services and online shopping upon Covid-19 pandemic that drove people to organize their lives remotely. For example, due to this change in consumer behavior, Amazon doubled its workforce and had its most profitable period in the two years since the pandemic’s beginning.
As the pandemic slowed in most of the world, such companies as Amazon were left with the high costs of rapid expansions, slower sales, and high inflation. Amazon’s growth stalled to the lowest rate in 20 years in mid-2022. During the period between April and September, Amazon laid off around 80,000 people around the world. In November, it announced another 10,000-employee layoff (the number was increased to 20,000 in December) and froze hiring. In total, Amazon’s downsizing amount to approximately 6.6% of its total workforce. While this has been the biggest job layoff in the history of Amazon in absolute terms, Amazon is experienced in managing its workforce amid recessions – it cut 1,500 jobs during the dot-com crash (which at that time was 15% of the staff).
Besides large tech companies such as Amazon, Meta and Twitter, also startups – especially those emerging in response to the needs of a pandemic-hit world - and cryptocurrency companies are also feeling the pressure of inflation, the difficulty of raising new funding and, in the case of the latter, falling Bitcoin prices and investor sentiment. According to the Crunchbase database of public and private companies in the United States laying off employees, nearly 400 companies have announced layoffs, from which 21 reported a complete shutdown and 15 more fired 40% to 60% of their workforce. The major layoffs took place in Fintech, Crypto, E-commerce and Social media industries
If anyone is wondering whether redundancies continue into 2023, they will (at least at Amazon). It has been confirmed by the company’s CEO Andy Jassy. Although, it is relatively safe to say that the layoffs would continue in 2023 for other tech companies and may spread out to other sectors as well. While the US labour market still shows meager unemployment data, if taking a closer look, it is visible that a considerable part of the hiring takes place in those industries trampled by the pandemic. And the downsizing among Tech companies also seems to become a problem for other sector workers. Among other (potentially more logical) factors is that corporate leaders are just people with a sense of herd unity. Therefore, if their competitors announce layoffs to prepare for the coming recession, they would probably consider doing the same.
While it is harder to look for the silver lining in getting fired, it may be an absolute necessity for the company to undergo downsizing as part of a strategic restructuring. Downsizing allows companies to save cash, improve efficiency and, if necessary, survive economic slowdown. Nevertheless, it is crucial to do the due diligence and see what other activities the company is performing in order to optimize its operations – no company has earned billions by simply laying off employees.
While cutting jobs is not necessarily bad for the company, the overall market typically perceives it as a negative sign, which is clearly reflected in its stock price. Studies involving 141 companies announcing layoffs between 1979 and 1997 and 1,445 companies announcing layoffs between 1990 and 1998 clearly show that downsizing negatively affects the companies’ stock prices following the news and in the longer period after the announcement. Interestingly, even though the key objective for downsizing typically is cost-cutting and optimization, not all companies achieve reliable results in this field. On the contrary, as a result, companies face the risk of losing valuable employees, may need to rehire some of them at a later stage and is likely to deal with a fall in customer service quality, productivity, and innovation due to demoralized workforce.
The bottom line is that companies don’t fire employees if they are expecting a high growth period ahead. It is true whether we speak about one particular company or the market in general.
Investors should pay attention to employee retention activities, reasons for necessary downsizing, and how the company expects to handle any negative consequences. Based on current market trends, it is safe to say that further downsizing will continue as we officially enter a recession in 2023.
Good to watch ETFs
