La Grande Riconciliazione 2022

Quanti sono, nelle ultime settimane, quelli che vi hanno detto che “quando i mercati finanziari perdono, allora tutti gli investitori perdono, e tu quindi sei costretto a perdere i tuoi soldi, perché non esiste una alternativa”.

Recce’d nasce per mostrarvi che l’alternativa esiste, ed è a portata di mano.

Sarà sufficiente, per ogni investitore, riuscire a capire che investire è una cosa totalmente diversa dallo “andare su quando i mercati vanno su e poi andare giù se i mercati vanno giù.

Capito questo semplice principio, allora immediatamente capirete che una alternativa esiste, ed è a portata di mano.

Vo potrà essere utile parlarne con noi di Recce’d, ed anche leggere con attenzione i contributo presenti e futuri nella pagina del sito che abbiamo dedicato ai Metodi ed ai Criteri che contraddistinguono una efficiente gestione del proprio portafoglio titoli.

Ma di contributi, utili, a questo scopo, ne avete già letti moltissimi, e proprio qui nel Blog. Contributi utili a comprendere ciò che accade sui mercati finanziari, e per conseguenza anche a capire quali sono le mosse più appropriate per il proprio portafoglio in titoli.

In particolare, venendo al primo semestre 2022, e cercando di immaginare che cosa fare per il secondo semestre, è da da due anni che i nostri lettori si sentono ripetere che “la realtà deve riconciliarsi con la fantasia”. E si sentono anche ripetere che “i mercati finanziari devono riconciliarsi con la realtà”.

Per due anni, abbiamo spiegato come si basa una strategia di investimento proprio su questo elemento, oggi dominante, del quadro internazionale.

Di recente, e in particolare a partire da due mesi a questa parte, nel mese di aprile 2022, questa medesima osservazione sulla “riconciliazione” si legge anche su tutti i quotidiani italiani e del Mondo.

Sul tema della Riconcliazione (tra mercati finanziari e realtà) Recce’d aveva messo da parte in particolare un articolo, pubblicato dal Financial Times nell’aprile 2022, che a noi già allora era sembra di una particolare acutezza e utilità.

Come potete verificare voi stessi, lo è diventato ancora di più, e molto di più, a distanza di 60 giorni.

Se volete (finalmente) capire ciò che sta accadendo ai vostri soldi, non avete che da leggere, con la massima attenzione possibile, ciò che scriveva Mohamed El Erian due mesi fa.Anticipa alla perfezione ciò che poi tutti avete visto, negli ultimi due mesi.

Si tratta dell’inizio di un processo che noi di Recce’d chiamiamo “riconcliazione” e che ci terrà impegnati per anni. Forse per un decennio.

Un decennio di grandi opportunità e ampie soddisfazioni per chi sa investire in modo responsabile e consapevole, ma molto molto deludente per le masse degli investitori nel gregge dei private bankers.

Forget all the fancy talk about neutral interest rates and output gaps. The two basic questions facing the Federal Reserve are simple to state and complex to answer: is the world’s most powerful central bank finally committed to return monetary policy to serving the real economy rather than financial markets; and can it do so in an orderly fashion? These questions are yet to be sufficiently grasped by markets, and for good reason. Viewed from their perspective, the risk for the Fed of not following the market’s lead is too costly. Yet, even if they are ultimately correct, markets will very likely find themselves with much less of an influence on monetary policy than in recent times. The background to the current situation is well known. For too long, monetary policy has been essentially co-opted by markets.

The phenomenon started innocently enough with central bankers’ desire to counter the damage that malfunctioning markets inflict on economic wellbeing. Rather than occurring rarely with well-targeted implementation, massive liquidity injections and floored interest rates developed into a habit. Over and over again, the Fed felt compelled to use its powerful liquidity-creation weapons to counter asset price declines, even when the risk of disorderly and volatile markets was not apparent. At times, such “unconventional” measures were consistent with the needs of the real economy. Too often, however, they were not. Like a child successfully throwing tantrums to get more sweets, markets came to expect looser financial conditions whenever there was a strong whiff of instability. This expectation evolved into insistence. In turn, the Fed went from just responding to market volatility to also trying to pre-empt it. Central bankers were not blind to the unhealthy co-dependencies.

The current leaders of both the Fed and the European Central Bank, Jay Powell and Christine Lagarde, tried early in their tenures to change the dynamic. But they failed, and were forced into embarrassing U-turns that made markets feel even more empowered and entitled to insist on the continuation of ultra-loose policies. Today, however, the two-decade-long market dominance over monetary policy is threatened like never before by high and persistent inflation. Central banks have little choice but to relegate market considerations in the face of accelerating price increases that severely undermine standards of living, erode the future growth outlook and hit hardest the most vulnerable segments of society.

The situation is particularly acute for the Fed given its gross mischaracterisation of inflation for most of last year, together with its failure to act decisively when it belatedly recognised that price instability had taken root under its watch.

But how best to do so is a problem, given how much the Fed’s delayed understanding and reaction have narrowed the pathway for orderly disinflation. That is, the difficulty of reducing inflation without unduly harming economic wellbeing has only increased. For that, the central bank should have initiated the policy pivot a year ago. If the Fed now validates the aggressive interest rate rises that markets anticipate, starting with a 50 basis point increase when its top policy committee next meets on May 3-4, it risks seeing them price in yet more tightening. The outcome of this dynamic would be an even bigger policy mistake as the Fed pushes the economy into a recession. If, however, the central bank fails to validate market pricing, it could erode its policy credibility further. This would undermine inflation expectations, causing the inflation problem to persist well into 2023 if not beyond.

The situation is made more complicated by the likelihood that these two alternatives would result in a degree of financial instability in the US and elsewhere. Even worse — and this may well be the most likely outcome — the Fed could flip-flop over the next 12 to 24 months from tightening to loosening and then tightening again. The Fed may characterise such flip-flopping as nimbleness but it would prolong stagflationary tendencies, weaken its institutional standing and fail decisively to return monetary policy to the service of the real economy. And for those in the markets that would deem this a victory, it would probably prove a fleeting one at best.

The time has come to return monetary policy to the service of the real economy. It is a far from automatic and smooth process at this late stage. Yet the alternative of not doing so would be a lot more problematic.