After the December Federal Reserve Press Conference where Jerome Powell appeared to pivot to rate cuts ahead, with a more dovish tune than just a few days before, markets dialed up their expectations of up to six rate cuts though 2024, and stock markets veered towards all time highs, while bond yields fell. Powell said at the press conference that it was premature to declare victory, though he did acknowledge the question of when to begin “dialing back” policy restraint was discussed.
Futures markets have been anticipating the Fed will cut rates six times this year, beginning with a likely quarter-point reduction in March. Traders have priced in a 67% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut in March though several Fed officials have pushed back against expectations of an imminent policy move in recent weeks.
Which begs the question, are markets fooling themselves?
Well, we now have the minutes of the Dec. 12-13 Federal Open Market Committee meeting which were released yesterday. “Participants viewed the policy rate as likely at or near its peak for this tightening cycle,” the minutes said.
Officials “reaffirmed that it would be appropriate for policy to remain at a restrictive stance for some time until inflation was clearly moving down sustainably.”
This helps to explain why markets are lower, and bond yields higher. So yes, markets are ahead of themselves.
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Well, the numbers are now in so today I am going to review the performance of our channel over the last year, and specifically highlight the top 10 most watched shows.
I want to thank you for being part of the DFA community, watching our shows, and supporting us by subscribing, liking the shows, and sharing them widely. Its greatly appreciated and I want to celebrate the momentum we created together. Especially around some of our campaigns, most notably addressing the issue of bank branch closures and the need to be able to access cash.
None of these top ten were my live shows, which generally run each Tuesday evening. Generally live events tend to do less well on YT compared with recorded shows. But the great positive of live is the audience participation, which is key to building and nourishing the community. So a quick word of thanks, to all those who turn out regularly to support our live events.
And if you stand back, its clear that housing related shows rate well, as do the regular chats with Tarric and his slides, and some of the more philosophical shows such as Down the Rabbit Hole and the BRICS discussion, also did well.
If you have specific subjects you would like me to cover, or guest suggestions, drop them in the chat!
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This is an edited version of a live discussion with Damien Klassen Head of Investments at Nucleus Wealth and Walk The World Funds. We reflected on the market switch from October, and what this means for 2024. Are we out of the woods yet? We also looked at some of the important mega-themes which will shape investing ahead.
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More from our Property Insider Edwin Almeida, as we make our predictions for 2024 and discuss the latest property trends.
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Wishing all our followers and supporters a happy 2024. We will be back with daily shows on finance and property, and we briefly touch on some of the items on our new year agenda.
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This is our annual review of the financial markets, and weekly update.
As we close out 2023, the analysts are talking about the great market rally in the year (perhaps conveniently forgetting the falls of 2022.) The S&P 500 slipped in the final session of 2023 to end the year up 24 per cent, but the two-year trip is back to where it started. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite both dipped on Friday but were 13.7% and 43.4% higher for the year, respectively, while MSCI’s world share index posted a 20% gain, its most in four years.
True, this year might go down as one of the most unusual ever in financial markets – mainly because everything seems to have come good despite a lot of turbulence and many predictions turning out to be wrong. And this against the backcloth of more regional conflicts, pressure on the consumer, and rising Government debt.
U.S. Treasuries finished the year broadly where they started after major swings for the benchmark in 2023. In the bond markets, just a few months ago investors were expecting the Fed & Co to raise rates and leave them there while recessions rolled in. Now bond markets are looking to central banks to embark on a rate-cutting spree with inflation apparently beaten.
Equity markets have gone up so quickly that they’re highly vulnerable to a pullback if the US economy slips into even a mild recession, according to Royal Bank of Canada’s fund management arm.
The greatest risk to the stock market in 2024 (bonds & metals) is the scaling down of market expectations for rate cuts as a result of renewed gains in inflation. Any credible and consistent signs of renewed inflation (not one-off bounces or base effects) would be punishing for markets. But even if you think the probability of such inflation rebound is minimal, there is always the typical volatility in a US presidential election year.
According to seasonality studies stretching to 1900, April and May tend to be challenging months during US election years, but October fares worst as far as consistency of selloffs.
A third risk is that of persistently swelling budget deficits and the ever-expanding amounts of new debt issues to refund existing deficits. This could easily ignite another “bond market event” similar to September 2019, March 2020, or September 2022 in the UK.
Regional conflicts might well proliferate, causing more market turmoil. And finally, next year won’t be quiet on the political front. There are more than 50 major elections scheduled next year, including in the United States, Taiwan, India, Mexico, Russia and probably Britain. That means countries that contribute 80% of world market cap and 60% of global GDP will be voting. Taiwan kicks it off with elections on January 13, followed just a few days later by the New Hampshire primary for the 2024 U.S. Presidential race.
And remember from just before that stock panic in late February 2020 to mid-April 2022, the Fed ballooned its balance sheet an absurd 115.6% in just 25.5 months for crazy-extreme monetary inflation! Other central banks did the same. That monetary base more than doubling in a couple years is the dominant reason inflation has raged in recent years. The FOMC finally realized how dangerous its extreme monetary excesses were in mid-2022 as reported inflation soared. So the Fed has shrunk its balance sheet 13.8% since then. Yet crazily over these past four years, that monetary base has still skyrocketed 85.4% thanks to the previous decade’s growth! Inflation therefore is still in the system, “This is an era of boom and bust,” BofA said. “We are not out of the woods.”
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In this show, we examine the main reasons why it is likely property prices will fall next year – this is a counterpoint to my earlier show which went through the Five reasons why they will rise – as trotted out by the property spruikers.
In summary, the risks from higher unemployment or a recession, the exit of property investors, higher delinquency and defaults, higher mortgage rates for longer, and dire housing affordability are all reasons why prices could fall in 2024.
And let’s be clear, the great Australian dream of owning a home is now totally out of reach, and many who were pulled into the market in recent years are in strife, to the point where rental costs have gone though the roof, and tent cities are becoming a thing. The very soul of Australia is decaying, unfortunately, that is unless you are fortunate enough to have family wealth or an existing property portfolio, which could now potentially fall in value.
Of course, the actual trajectory of home prices will vary across states, locations and types of property, and averages mask important differences. Which is why in our modelling we go granular – to a post code level, and also consider various scenarios based of the relative weightings of the positive drivers to prices we discussed yesterday, and the downward drivers we looked at today. So the answer is: it depends.
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News.com.au reported that a staggering 2,349 construction firms have collapsed in the past year – with fears more may fall soon.
A “perfect storm” of high interest rates, soaring material costs and an ongoing worker shortage across the Aussie industry have sent tradies into freefall.
Insolvencies in the construction industry have reached an annual record this year, according to fresh data published by the corporate regulator ASIC. The September quarter was the worst for the industry in 2023, where 785 construction businesses traded as insolvent. Just this month four building companies went bust in the first three days of the month.
And amid a chronic shortage of housing fuelled by Australia’s record overseas migration intake, the collapse of builders, contractors and subcontractors will not only have an immediate impact but could crimp future supply of new homes.
We look in more detail at the numbers…
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In this show, I will explore 5 reasons why home prices in Australia could rise in 2024.
If you take, low supply, high demand, easing lending, Government support and RBA/APRA stability concerns, the potential for home prices, especially houses to rise in 2024 seems pretty strong.
But in my next show, I will look at the arguments on the other side of the argument, because as you may have guessed, there are also a series of coherent arguments as to why prices might go sideways or fall!
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This is an edited version of a live Christmas discussion with Investment Manager Tony Locantro, as we reflect on the markets over the past year, and look ahead into 2024.
