"Soft landing" scenario strengthening. 1980s inflation broken when "goods" inflation peaked. Consumer discounts ahead. Target confirms. Manheim Index shows Luxury + Full-sized tanking.

The Fed doesn't want every stock to fall, but they want to tighten financial conditions

Investors tell us they don't want to "fight the Fed" and as long as the Fed is tight, they will not touch equities. This is intuitively sound, but here are some issues with this thinking:

  • The Fed is fighting inflation, and probably has White House consent to drive a recession, if this is needed
  • Inflation, however, could cool faster than Fed and markets anticipate = dovish turn

  • The Fed is trying to tighten financial conditions broadly -- stocks, housing, cost of money, etc.
  • The Fed is not targeting specific stocks -- ie, FAANG doesn't need to keep getting pummeled
  • Why doesn't Fed just short oil futures and tank commodity speculators if they were being specific

In other words, this current Fed policy stance doesn't means stocks have to keep falling. There is simply no way for the Fed to titrate and create equilibrium in stock prices this way. In fact, looking at scenarios below:

  • In our view, markets are focused on the "left tail" risks of Hard landing, recession
  • Our base case is that US is facing a "growth scare" and means 20% decline fully discounted this
  • FAANG valuations are attractive and we favor OW FAANG/Tech here
Spectrum of Economic outcomes for markets in 2022Sou...

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