As market expectations of interest-rate cuts solidifies, the investment case for fixed-income asset is likely already well telegraphed. The story for equities, however, could be slightly more complex. Might U.S. stocks extend their 2023 winning streak into the new year as the lagged effects of monetary tightening make their way into the real economy? Will current valuations—and, crucially, earnings expectations—hold up as economic growth slows? Podcast host John P. Bryson, head of investment consulting and education savings at John Hancock Investment Management, caught up with Emily Roland and Matt Miskin, co-chief investment strategists at John Hancock Investment Management to get a clearer sense of where stock prices and corporate earnings could be headed. He also asked them to share their views on where investors might find opportunities.
John Bryson:
Hello and welcome to the Portfolio Intelligence Podcast. I'm your host, John Bryson, head of Investment Consulting and Education Savings here at John Hancock Investment Management. Today is January 12th, 2024, and this is our first podcast of 2024. So I've invited Emily Roland and Matt Miskin, our co-chief investment strategists here at John Hancock Investment Management to the podcast to talk about their views going forward. Matt, Emily, welcome.
Emily Roland:
Thanks for having us.
Matt Miskin:
Yeah, thanks John.
John Bryson:
All right, Emily, I'm going to start with you. Where are we in the economic cycle as we kick off?
Emily Roland:
Yeah, John, as you know, we're very much cycle-based investors. We look to where we are in the economic cycle to think about where the opportunities and risks are in the market. And unfortunately, it actually wasn't that helpful in 2023. We look at things like the Leading Economic Indicators Index, which is published by a third-party think tank called The Conference Board and it's actually been negative for 17 months in a row. We've never not had a recession unfold with the leading indicators this deeply negative, but it just hasn't happened yet. We've had some, what we would refer to as pandemic-era distortions to the economic backdrop.
We poured $5 trillion in fiscal stimulus in response to the pandemic into the economy, and that resulted in obviously explosive inflation, excess savings across the consumer landscape as well as a really, really resilient labor market. Companies really haven't contended with shrinking margins yet, which happens later in a cycle as the cost of capital goes up at the same time that revenue grows, which was explosive during the height of the pandemic, because inflation was elevated. I think people often forget that inflation is good for corporate profits.
Typically, what happens later in a cycle is that demand starts to slow. The cost of capital or higher interest rates rise, and then you see margins compress and companies deal with that by cutting costs. And we know that the biggest cost most companies have is labor, and we haven't gotten to that part of the cycle. Companies are hoarding labor. They don't want to lay people off because they know how hard it was to hire them over the last few years. We still have consumers with savings that are being drawn down here.
So the economy's actually held up pretty well even though it's been decelerating for quite some time. And in fact, even last month we did see a little bit of a tick up in the leading indicators. The biggest component that drove it higher though was stock prices. That's one of the 10 underlying components. So we need to think about how that's actually been a resilient stock market, it's actually been a big driver of economic activity, helping the wealth effect, helping the consumer here. But all in all, it's a choppy macro environment. It's sort of a muddle-through growth picture as we head into this year.
And we do think that growth will likely decelerate as companies deal with the lagged impact of Fed tightening as consumers start to look at higher interest rates around mortgages and credit cards and auto loans and start to potentially pull back on their spending, especially on the discretionary side. So to answer your question, firmly planted still here in late cycle territory. Again, markets were very resilient last year on multiple expansion, even though the economy was slowing. And we think that maybe markets start to look at the economic backdrop as potentially being a more important factor into this year.
John Bryson:
Thanks, Emily. Hey, Matt, we talked a lot last year and every year about the Fed and will it stick this soft landing, et cetera, and we're still talking about it. What are your expectations for the Fed as we start '24?
Matt Miskin:
So the bond market is still pricing in a cut. The first cut of the cycle in March, which is kind of amazing to think about. The last couple economic reports rose, the jobs market looking strong, the CPI data a little bit firmer, the bond market's still pricing in a March cut. And then it's pricing in six cuts over the course of 2024. Now you may think, "Well, six cuts, that seems like a lot." And given that it's already pricing in a March cut, may be aggressive.
The one thing we would think about though is that that is probably just pricing in less inflation than anything else. Inflation has come down. We did get a CPI report. We are looking with a three handle on core CPI, that was over six at the peak. And what we're seeing is the lagged impact of housing is still the biggest driver. It's two thirds of the CPI inflation is housing. And in our view, the higher mortgage rates in the housing markets still haven't really reset the prices. It's almost like a standstill right now in the housing market. There's lack of buying, lack of selling, and it's hard to have price discovery at that kind of juncture. But we do see housing prices normalizing, at least flatlining here. That's what Zillow says. Zillow says it's 2.2% over the last 12 months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics are saying rents and housing prices are up over 6% over the last 12 months. But it's lagged.
And so we see inflation coming down, we see the Fed cutting. If we get a recession though, that will likely bring the tenure down more and the Fed to cut more aggressively. So historically in the last three recessions, the Fed has on average cut by 17 rate cuts or 4.25%, so 25 basis point increments. So when you hear six cuts baked into 2024 and think, "Oh wow, that's already a lot," just realize that that's not even encountering a recession probably. If it's a recession, there's more cuts to come. We think bonds actually could act as a diversifier again into 2024 and reclaim their more prominent status in portfolios as the year goes on.
John Bryson:
Okay, that's great to hear. Emily, with your comments on where we are in the economic cycle and Matt's comments there around the Fed, how are you talking to folks about how to allocate their fixed income sleeve?
Emily Roland:
Yeah, as Matt mentioned, we do think bonds should play a bigger role in portfolios this year, especially higher-quality bonds. So we look to our overweights within Market Intelligence on the fixed income side, and we continue to lean into areas like mortgage backed securities, investment-grade corporate bonds really being our favorite place to generate good total return and also manage risk in portfolios. Municipal bonds, which you're seeing rates near 10-year highs today. Another high quality area of the bond market that we think deserves a look. We're modestly underweight high yield bonds, emerging-market debt and bank loans. It doesn't mean we have a zero weight to credit, but we've seen spreads come in considerably.
High yield bond spreads to treasuries over the course of 2023 came in a remarkable roughly 150 basis points. So that's really reflecting no real risk or concerns about a liquidity issue there in the high-yield bond market. So fundamentals there not looking great to us. And broadly our view is that we continue to see rates coming down over the course of 2024. It was a really odd dynamic that we were monitoring last year, which was that the 10-year Treasury yield actually kept going up after the Fed's final pause. And as Matt mentioned, it does look like the July hike last year was the final one of the cycle.
Typically what happens is that the 10-year Treasury yield peaks right around the same time or just before the Fed pauses. So bond yields are going to be kind of forward-looking, if you will. So the Treasury market's going to price in where growth expectations and where inflation expectations are going before the Fed reacts to it. And so what was really unusual to watch the 10-year Treasury continue to rise after July, and we were looking to each one of those backup and bond yields as an attractive entry point. And we still see bonds as really attractive even though the yields have come down since topping 5% back in October.
In fact, we looked in Market Intelligence, the most recent version that we just put out, we did some new analysis to look at what happens in the 6 to 12 months after the Fed pauses and we found that bond yields on average or the 10 Year Treasury yield on average falls between 1%-1.5% six and 12 months later. So I think it's really important to look at that today as an opportunity to lean into higher quality bonds and get paid 4%, 5% income here in a period where we may see some more choppy markets, where we may see the lagged impact of Fed policy start to bite. As far as the economy goes, we think that, again, the total return potential in bonds, the math on bonds is simply really a compelling portion of an investor's portfolio this year.
John Bryson:
That's great and it's an exciting opportunity and sets us up well on the fixed-income side. So thank you. Matt, I want to pivot to equities with you. How are equity valuations versus earnings expectations looking as we move forward into '24?
Matt Miskin:
So a lot of optimism built into valuations and earnings estimates. So over the course of 2023, the market S&P 500 was up about 26%. Nearly 70% of that return was just from multiple expansion, meaning the valuation of the market from the beginning of the year to the end of the year grew. There was actually inflation more in the stock market valuation than actual inflation in other parts of the economy. And so as we came to the end of the year, we got to rich valuations and the large-cap growth space in particular is trading at about a 44% premium to its 20-year average. That is the third-largest premium of the last 30 years. Other periods where like the tech bubble and right out of 2020. And so to us that's going to be hard to squeeze much more return out of a higher rerating in the valuation of the market.
Next stop is the earnings backdrop. So the S&P 500 earnings estimate's growth for 2024 is nearly 12%. That would be an amazing earnings growth year. In fact, earnings didn't really grow in 2023. The S&P 500 earnings grew at less than 1% and stocks were up 26%. So you could see there was a big rerating, even though the earnings weren't there. All the estimates got pushed into 2024. And it's really into the last quarter. The analyst community is forecasting 20% earnings growth in Q4 of 2024. It's hard to see it at this point. That is gang-buster growth. And it just seems optimistic that that's being built into the valuation of the market, the estimates.
So what we're trying to do is find cheaper parts of the market. Mid-cap is the cheapest part. It is cheaper than large, it's cheaper than small. If you look at the Russell indices, it's also much higher quality than small cap because it's much more profitable in that part of the market. So that is where we're looking to allocate capital because it gives us cheaper starting valuations than large cap. It gives you higher quality than small cap. It can be used as a complement with large cap to bring down your overall valuation risk. And even though growth did very well last year and ran to start this year even a bit, we want to be careful with those assets as they get a little bit more expensive, and we want to think about reallocating some of that capital or even just rebalancing more into that mid-cap higher quality part of the market.
John Bryson:
Okay, thanks. Let's keep going. Emily, Matt painted a picture that equities are not quite as rosy as fixed income, but there are opportunities. Let's dig into some of the sectors and factors that you're getting excited about.
Emily Roland:
Yeah, sure. So Matt talked a little bit about moving down in market cap to mid-caps. And when we think about the opportunities from a sector perspective, in addition, it really does kind of play on this idea of diversifying from some of those more expensive parts of the market. And when we think about our factor overweights, we still like quality. It's companies with great balance sheets, lots of cash, low interest burdens. But the challenges, as Matt aptly pointed out, is that we just saw so much multiple expansion in high-quality stocks, which are largely represented by those mega cap tech names. They were up over 50% last year. We're not downgrading them, but we're looking for more participation from more defensive sectors into 2024, especially after a really brutal year in 2023.
We look at areas like healthcare, which is now trading at a 10% discount to the broad market on a forward P/E basis. Those stocks tend to be less susceptible to economic slowdowns. We think they could benefit from a rotation after, again, really struggling last year. And then we also look at things like utilities, which are trading at a 20% discount to the broad market. Who wanted a utility company last year? Of course when you've got the Magnificent 7... So really not seeing a lot of love. And we do continue to believe that consumer behavior is going to shift this year as people contend with those higher interest rates, they potentially pull back on their discretionary spending.
It's hard to imagine when all you have to do is go out and see everybody out and about and traveling. But we think that there's going to be a more thoughtful approach to spending this year as excess savings come down, forbearance goes away, student loan payments pick back up, credit card interest rates continue to remain elevated, and people are still going to do the things they need to do. So I think utilities will benefit from that rotation. And we just saw so much multiple expansion over the course of last year. Maybe this year's just more about earnings, it's more about dividends. And we think those more defensive names could really help potentially mitigate volatility as we wait for some better valuation opportunities across the broad equity market.
John Bryson:
That's really helpful. Matt, I'm going to come to you for some final thoughts. One of the things I've heard you talking about is almost like how healthcare can be a backdoor tech play. I'd love your thoughts on that and any other final thoughts that you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Matt Miskin:
Yeah, so healthcare is certainly the innovation there. I mean, there's some weight-loss drugs that have become really potential gamechangers and there's some rerating in valuations of businesses there because of better earnings. Also, frankly, the industrial space. One of the things we've been talking about a lot is onshoring and also the fiscal benefits of the Midwest and these mid-cap industrial companies. But as we do this onshoring into the U.S., it has to be highly efficient. It has to be very automated, very robotics driven. So technology is coming into the healthcare sector, the industrial sector. Almost every company is now like a technology company to some degree. I mean, we're all going to be relying on AI to some degree, and big data, and clouds and so on and so forth.
But that's what we need. We need productivity to grow the economy. We can't just throw money at it all the time, although we've been really good at that over the last decade. And productivity growth is going to mean technology is going to be a big part of that. It helps margins, it's disinflationary, it's what the market would love to see. So that's what we see as a huge driver of growth from here. We might need to get through some cyclical hurdles, as Emily highlighted, with the leading indicators, the Fed still pretty restrictive. But if productivity can come about, meaning doing more with less, so less work, more done, it sounds great, right?
Emily Roland:
That sounds good.
Matt Miskin:
That's what we all want to do. But that's what technology's about and that's what we actually actually see as the best global growth engine from here.
John Bryson:
I love it. And if we can't get more work done with less effort, why don't we call in some friends? And that's what the John Hancock Investment Management team's all about. So folks, if you need some help with this, if you need help with this from Matt and Emily, they'd be happy to get on the phone and talk to you. Folks, Matt and Emily are always pumping out great information. They're on LinkedIn, Emily R. Roland and Matthew_Miskin. They just published, as Emily had mentioned, their Market Intelligence piece. Check out the updates through videos on LinkedIn. And lastly, you can always go to our website to find out what's the latest thinking at John Hancock, that's jhinvestments.com. And the last thing I'll leave you with is we love our audience, we love that you're listening. If you have any fresh ideas for the podcast in 2024, reach out to your local business consultant. We want to hear from you. So have a great day. Matt and Emily, thanks as always for joining me.
Emily Roland:
Thank you.
Matt Miskin:
Thanks.
Important disclosure:
This podcast is being brought to you by John Hancock Investment Management Distributors, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speaker, are subject to change as market and other conditions warrant, and do not constitute investment advice or a recommendation regarding any specific product or security. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy discussed will be successful or achieve any particular level of results. Any economic or market performance information is historical and is not indicative of future results, and no forecasts are guaranteed. Investing involves risks, including the potential loss of principal.