Thematic, innovative and bespoke investment solutions and thinking
Before you use our website we need you to know this. Click on each section for the full information.
We do not offer investment advice to private investors

Absolute Return Partners does not offer investment advice to private investors (Retail Clients as defined by the UK Financial Conduct Authority). All such investors are advised to contact Quartet Investment Managers on +44 20 8939 2920 or visit quartet-im.com.

Our website does not give investment advice

The information contained on the website you are about to access (Website) is for information purposes only and does not constitute and should not be construed as advice on which reliance should be placed, nor is it an offer by Absolute Return Partners LLP (ARP) to enter into any contract or investment agreement or a solicitation to buy or sell any investment in any jurisdiction or in any circumstances. Any information provided in relation to a specific fund is not intended to provide a sufficient basis on which to make any investment decision as any such decision requires careful study of the offering memorandum of the relevant fund.

Information about Unregulated Collective Investment Schemes is not intended for the general public

No information on the Website is intended to amount to the financial promotion of Unregulated Collective Investment Schemes which are not authorized or recognised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and cannot be promoted to the general public. Any such information is intended solely for certain classes of investors permitted to receive it under relevant legislation and regulations, including investors falling within the qualifying categories set out the Conduct of Business Rules contained in the FCA Handbook or in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Promotion of Collective Investment Schemes) (Exemptions) Order 2005, in each case as amended or replaced from time to time. This is because such investors are sufficiently experienced and sophisticated to understand the risks associated with such investments, including the possibility of a substantial loss or complete loss of their investment.

Our website stores information on your device

Our website uses technologies, such as cookies, to distinguish you from other users of our website, which helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. We do not use these technologies for third-party related advertising or for storing/collecting personal information. For more information please see our Privacy Policy.

You accept our Terms and Privacy Policy when using our website

Before accessing the Website you should carefully read the terms set out in our Terms of Website Use and our Privacy Policy as these will apply to the entire contents of the Website and to any correspondence between us and you.

By accessing any part of the Website you are indicating that you accept these terms and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not accept these terms, do not use the Website.
Agree and close
November 2024

Time to Switch from Equities to Commodities?

Time to Switch from Equities to Commodities?

Historically, the relationship between commodity and equity prices has gone through cycles of relatively low commodity prices followed by great commodity bull runs relative to equities. Are we currently at such an inflection point and what does this mean for how investors may want to position their portfolios?

Open this issue (PDF)
Preview

What is the cost of being early?

Leigh Goehring & Adam Rozencwajg

A brief follow-up from last month

Following last month’s Absolute Return Letter, I received a fair number of responses accusing me of being biased and being unnecessarily negative on Trump, blah, blah, blah. Of course, I was negative (and still am). I am a European, and Trump is outright dangerous for us Europeans. Why should I pretend otherwise?

It is about time that Americans (on both sides of the political spectrum) begin to accept that we are all entitled to having an opinion. I wish certain diehard Trumpists would put their eagerness to criticise us Europeans aside ‘just’ because most of us don’t like their candidate.  We can’t all agree on absolutely everything.

Time to go big on commodities?

Now to something far more important. About five weeks ago, I wrote a research paper called Time to Go Big on Commodities? where I argued that we could be close to an inflection point where commodities begin to outperform equities again (as they have done for long spells before). Equities have dramatically outperformed commodities for years, but there are some very solid reasons why that could be about to change. If you subscribe to ARP+ and haven’t read it yet, I suggest you do so.

More insight, more advice, more in-depth.

Professional investors can now subscribe to a range of our research and strategic thinking. Sign up now for access to in-depth papers and webinars!
Learn more about ARP+

In the paper, I used some information from Goehring & Rozencwajg that I cannot publish in the public domain (I have no permission), meaning that I cannot simply copy and paste from the research paper. That said, I can certainly share some of my observations which I will do now.

Four times over the past 125 years, commodities have reached extreme levels of undervaluation relative to equities. It happened in the late 1920s, in the mid to late-1960s, again in the late 1990s, and we are now in the fourth episode of severe undervaluation since 1900. After each of the first three episodes, commodities went on to dramatically outperform equities; hence why it is tempting to conclude that the same is going to happen this time, but is it?

I have managed to locate a chart which, at least partially, illustrates this dynamic. The chart only goes back to 1970 but, as you can see in Exhibit 1 below, commodity valuations are now in line with, or even lower than, previous inflection points.

Exhibit 1: GSCI Commodities Index vs. S&P 500
Source: visualcapitalist.com

What do those four episodes have in common?

A closer inspection of the four troughs mentioned above reveals several similarities. To begin with, in the lead-up to all four inflection points, commodities plummeted by 50% or more, i.e., the underperformance has, in all four instances, been significant.

Secondly, the four episodes of commodity despair have all been accompanied by stock market manias. In other words, dual forces – declining commodity prices on one hand and exuberant equity markets on the other – have, in all four cases, driven the commodity-to-equity return ratio to extremes.

Thirdly, each instance of extreme commodity undervaluation was preceded by an extended period of benign monetary policy. In the 1920s, the Fed experimented with its first round of QE. In the 1960s, President Johnson toyed with his “Guns and Butter” policy programme. In the 1990s, Greenspan steered the Fed towards ever-easier monetary policy, and the 2010s were characterised by worldwide money-printing, following the Global Financial Crisis.

Fourthly, as commodities fell out of favour and equities soared, capital was diverted away from capex programmes in various commodities. During the first three episodes, the supply/demand imbalance eventually pushed commodity markets from surplus to deficit, resulting in years of strong commodity returns.

Last but not least, the first three episodes coincided with a shift in the global monetary system. In 1931, economic hardship forced the UK government to come off the gold standard. In 1971, under President Nixon’s leadership, the US also abandoned the gold standard which led to the collapse of Bretton Woods. And, in 1999, the fallout from the Asian currency crisis led to a wave of EM currencies being pegged to the US dollar at artificially low levels.

The link to our megatrend philosophy

I first wrote about the concept of wealth regimes in early 2008, where I argued that wealth-to-GDP is long-term stable, and that it will always mean-revert, should the ratio diverge significantly from its long-term mean-value. It happens that wealth regimes and equity-to-commodity performance cycles are linked. There is almost always a wealth regime change around the inflection point in the equity-to-commodity performance cycle.

Take for example the inflection point in the 1960s and compare it to the two wealth regimes depicted in Exhibits 2a-b below, identified by Woody Brock of Strategic Economic Decisions, Inc. As you can see, equities delivered a robust return of +8.3% annually in the years leading up to the inflection point in the 1960s only to deliver a miserable -4.9% per annum in the years following the inflection point. As you can also see, the annual increase in household asset wealth dropped from +5.7% in the prior regime to only +0.6% in the latter.

Exhibit 2a: Annualised growth in US household asset wealth, 1952-1965
Source: Strategic Economic Decisions, Inc.
Exhibit 2b: Annualised growth in US household asset wealth, 1966-1980
Source: Strategic Economic Decisions, Inc.

I draw two conclusions from that observation:

1. Equity returns have a significant impact on overall household wealth, particularly in the US where investments in public equities account for a much higher proportion of overall household wealth than it does elsewhere.

2. Given the close link between equity returns and wealth and given the fact that I expect commodities to do better than equities in the years to come, overall household wealth will probably be negatively impacted by this dynamic.

The latter of those two conclusions syncs with “Mean Reversion of Wealth-to-GDP” which is (I believe) the aggregate result of the seven megatrends we have identified. In the US, wealth-to-GDP has averaged about 3.8x over the last 75 years. (Before 1950, the data available is less accurate.) It is 5.7x at present, meaning that the ratio must mean-revert in the years to come. If we are close to another inflection point, and commodities begin to deliver higher returns than equities, that could also mark the starting point for the long-awaited mean-reversion process of wealth-to-GDP.

Could I possibly be too early?

The present inflection point looks more like the one in the mid to late-1960s than it looks like the two other inflection points, both of which were much sharper (the late 1920s and the late 1990s respectively). This raises the inevitable question: could I possibly be too early?

I provide a much more elaborate answer to this question in the research paper but, to cut a long story short, if one can stomach a fair amount of volatility, and commodity investors have indeed been confronted with plenty of it over the years, history suggests that the cost of being early in commodities is negligible, and that investors will be handsomely rewarded when the tide turns.

Final few words

Many of the observations in this month’s Absolute Return Letter are based on comments made in the most recent quarterly letter from Goehring & Rozencwajg – a letter which you can find here. I strongly recommend you read it. It is very interesting indeed.

A few days before we posted this letter, a new research paper from Goldman Sachs landed in my inbox. ”Updating our long-term return forecast for US equities to incorporate the current high level of market concentration” is the name of it and, in the paper, the research team at Goldman Sachs argue that equity returns will be much lower over the next ten years than what we have experienced since the GFC, i.e., not a conclusion too dissimilar to the one I am presenting today.

Goldman Sachs are admittedly not near-term bullish on commodities. As they say:

We are more selective and less constructive on commodities amid softening cyclical support for the complex, with a more cautious stance on oil, copper, and other industrial metals but still bullish gold, though a potential disruption in energy supplies owing to the Middle East conflict could push oil risk premia and prices higher. Higher tariffs would likely further weigh on global commodity demand, though gold would likely find support.

In other words, the research team at Goldman Sachs definitely think I am too early, but that’s what makes a market, I suppose.  

Niels

1 November 2024

Investment Megatrends

Our investment philosophy, and everything we do at ARP, is driven by the long-term Investment Megatrends which are identified and routinely debated by our investment team.

Related Investment Megatrends

Our investment philosophy, and everything we do at ARP, is driven by the long-term Investment Megatrends which are identified and routinely debated by our investment team. Read more about related Megatrend/s for this article:

About the Author

Niels Clemen Jensen founded Absolute Return Partners in 2002 and is Chief Investment Officer. He has over 30 years of investment banking and investment management experience and is author of The Absolute Return Letter.

In 2018, Harriman House published The End of Indexing, Niels' first book.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment