Of all the fears investors have faced over the past 30 years, high inflation wasn’t among them. In 2021, that’s changed.

Today, the biggest questions for investors revolve around inflation: How high will it go and how long will it last? Is it “transitory” as the Federal Reserve claims? Or is elevated inflation the new normal amid labor shortages, supply chain bottlenecks and a severe energy crunch?

The uncertain path of the pandemic makes near-term conditions difficult to predict but, over the long term, the picture comes into better focus.

Economic growth should slow due to high debt levels and fading stimulus, resulting in a return to GDP gains of 1.5% to 2.5% a year. Consequently, interest rates should stay relatively low as well.

Two types of inflation

Sources: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Refinitive Datastream. Sticky and flexible prices reflect the Atlanta Federal Reserve sticky and flexible consumer price indexes (CPI). If price changes for a particular CPI component occur less than every 4.3 months, that component is a “sticky-price” good. Goods that change prices more frequently are “flexible-price” goods. As of August 2021.

Sticky or Flexible Inflation?

A source of uncertainty today is that there are two different types of inflation: sticky and flexible. Sticky inflation, currently around 2.6% annualized, tends to exhibit longer staying power. Sticky categories include rent, owners’ equivalent rent, insurance costs and medical expenses.

Flexible inflation has climbed this year to nearly 14% — the highest since the 1970s. However, this level of inflation likely won’t last. The flexible category contains products such as food, energy and cars, where prices can move a lot higher or lower over time. For instance, that’s already happened with lumber, copper and soybeans. Prices for those products skyrocketed this spring and have since come down.

Price flare-ups in key commodities are starting to level out

Sources: Capital Group, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Refinitiv Datastream. Inflation is measured by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) as of 8/31/21. Commodity prices are as of 9/30/21.

Watch out for sticky inflation

As anyone who has tried to buy a used car knows, flexible inflation categories have spiked due to pandemic-related shortages, a lack of available labor and supply chain disruptions. A quick resolution to these challenges is unlikely, but more normal conditions should return by mid to late 2022.

What that means is, the upside risk is in the sticky components. Many of the flexible price categories moved higher for transitory reasons, but inflation in those areas may come back down to zero or even go negative. The sticky components will drive inflation in 2022 so that’s what investors need to keep an eye on.

The Fed will not be in a hurry to raise rates and potentially derail the COVID recovery if inflation remains in check. In short, flexible inflation is transitory, but sticky inflation could be troublesome.

Overall inflation as measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index should gradually decline in the months ahead, eventually falling into a range of 2.50% to 2.75% by the end of 2022.

If that prediction holds, there’s a good chance the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates in 2022. The Fed might officially announce in November that it will begin reducing its bond-buying stimulus program. That process will take several quarters. And the Fed’s first rate hike will come in 2023, which is later than market expectations.

What if this benign inflation outlook is wrong and consumer prices move sharply higher?

That is by no means our base case, but it is a big enough risk that it should factor into portfolio construction.

What inflation means for investments

For stocks, there are a few rules of thumb to consider. Historically, higher prices have boosted commodities, as well as sectors that benefit from higher interest rates (such as banks) and companies with pricing power in must-have categories like semiconductors and popular consumer brands.

Before making portfolio adjustments, it’s important to remember that sustained periods of elevated inflation are rare in U.S. history. People of a certain age will remember the ultra-high inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. But in hindsight, it’s clear that was a unique period. In fact, deflationary pressures have often been more difficult to tame, as students of the Great Depression will attest.

Over the past 100 years, U.S. inflation has stayed below 5% the vast majority of the time. More recently, in the aftermath of the 2007–2009 global financial crisis, inflation has struggled to hit 2% on a sustained basis. And that’s despite unprecedented stimulus measures engineered by the Fed in an attempt to reach the central bank’s 2% goal.

Another important point: It’s mostly at the extremes — when inflation is 6% or above — that financial assets tend to struggle. Stocks have also come under pressure when inflation goes negative, as one would expect.

For investors, some inflation can be a good thing. Even during times of higher inflation, stocks and bonds have generally provided solid returns as shown in the chart below.

Stocks and bonds have done well in various inflation environments

Sources: Capital Group, Bloomberg Index Services Ltd., Morningstar, Standard & Poor’s. All returns are inflation-adjusted real returns. U.S. equity returns represented by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Index. U.S. fixed income represented by Ibbotson Associates SBBI U.S. Intermediate-Term Government Bond Index from 1/1/1970–12/12/1975 and Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index from 1/1/1976–12/31/2020. Inflation rates are defined by the rolling 12-month returns of the Ibbotson Associates SBBI U.S. Inflation Index.

Platt Wealth Management offers financial plans to answer your important financial questions. Where are you? Where do you want to be? How can you get there? Our four-step financial planning process is designed to be a road map to get you where you want to go while providing flexibility to adapt to changes along the route. We offer stand alone plans or full wealth management plans that include our investment management services. Give us a call today to set up a complimentary review. 619-255-9554.

The world in 2030 may seem a long way off, but as investors it’s important to spend some time thinking about the distant future.

Imagining life in 2030 is not a hypothetical. In the portfolios we manage, the average holding period is about eight years, so we’re living that approach to investing. So, projecting out how life might change in the next decade is smart.

Here are seven portfolio managers’ perspectives on the world in 2030, and how these shifting trends influence their investment decisions.

• COVID could be this generation’s Pearl Harbor
• Cash is an endangered species
• A cure for cancer may be around the corner
• Health care innovation reaches warp speed
• Renewable energy powers the world
• Electric and autonomous vehicles hit the fast lane
• What’s not changing? Successful investing

1. COVID could be this generation’s Pearl Harbor

Ten years from now we will look back on COVID as our generation’s “Pearl Harbor moment” — a period when extreme adversity spurs innovation and behavioral changes to help address some of the era’s biggest problems. When Pearl Harbor happened, the U.S. artillery was 75% horse drawn. Let’s put that another way: In 1941, three quarters of our artillery depended on horses. Yet by the end of the war we had entered the atomic age. That incredible transformation sparked a period of innovation and growth in the U.S. economy that lasted for decades.

COVID could be the trigger that spurs us to tackle critical issues over the next decade, such as the cost of health care, education and housing. We’ve already seen an almost magically rapid development of COVID vaccines at a speed few thought possible. And we’re doing things in our daily lives we never imagined would happen this quickly.

In 2030 we may be living, working, studying and playing in a radically new world. Our lives could be better, richer, healthier, cheaper and profoundly more digital, virtual and data centric. Many of the technologies already exist, but there’s still so much untapped potential for innovative companies to think bigger and use them in ways that solve societal problems.

2. Cash is an endangered species

A decade from now digital payments will be the norm, and people will give you odd looks if you try to pay with cash.

This is one area where emerging markets are ahead of the U.S. We’ve seen this trend for several years in developing countries — where many consumers had no bank accounts but did have mobile phones and adopted mobile payment technology quickly. The pandemic accelerated use of digital payments around the world, including places where it hadn’t previously been ingrained in daily life. Once this crisis is over, more people will be comfortable making digital payments, and they probably won’t feel the need to use cash as much as they did before.

While cruising has resumed in Europe, the U.S. Centers for Disease As consumers become increasingly comfortable with the technology, companies with large global footprints could be poised to benefit. We’ve also seen strong growth in smaller companies outside the U.S. that offer mobile payment platforms for merchants.

3. A cure for cancer may be around the corner

A cure for cancer may be closer than you think. In fact, some cancers may be functionally cured with cell therapy between now and 2030. New, reliable tests should enable very early detection of cancer formation and location. Beyond that, cancer could largely be eradicated as a major cause of death through early diagnosis.

Vastly reduced costs and scientific developments have contributed to phenomenal growth in medical research. We’re in a renaissance period for R&D, and companies are investing aggressively to find unique ways to battle cancer and other illnesses. Genomics research and therapies derived from genetic testing have the potential to extend lives and generate billions of dollars in revenue for companies that develop them.

We should see increasing amounts of pharmaceutical innovation come from outside the U.S. In fact, many blockbuster drugs from China by 2030. The country has the biggest population of cancer patients in the world, and it’s significantly easier to enroll those patients in clinical trials. They will probably begin to produce novel drugs within five to 10 years and sell them at one-tenth the cost in the U.S.

4. Health care innovation reaches warp speed

Star Trek, the classic sci-fi TV series, depicted a far-off future where space explorers traveled the galaxies equipped with cutting edge technology such as the tricorder, a hand-held medical device that scanned a person’s vital signs, issued a diagnosis and prescribed treatment in minutes. While there may not be a single tricorder that does everything, by 2030 many of us might have devices like it that will analyze blood, do cardiology monitoring and even remotely check our breathing while we sleep, some of which are available today.

We are already experiencing a massive wave of innovation and disruption across the health care sector that has the potential to drive new opportunity for companies, reduce overall costs and, most importantly, improve outcomes for patients. Breakthroughs in diagnostics will help lead to earlier detection of illnesses, which can help make drugs more effective — or in some cases treat disease before it progresses. One of the most exciting things today is something known as liquid biopsy, whereby a sample of your blood can be used to identify a tumor at its earliest stages.

A broad range of traditional technology and medical technology companies have been working to develop home diagnostics for some time, and patients are now benefiting from their innovation. These are cost-effective devices that can collect all kinds of health-related metrics that not only help coach us to improve our own health, but can be immediately sent to our doctor for further consultation. We’re still in the early stages of development, but by 2030 it should be a routine part of our daily lives.

5. Renewable energy powers the world

We’ll see a dramatic shift toward renewable energy over the next decade. We are in the early stages of the transition to an electrification of the grid and green energy, and there are strong tailwinds that could drive growth through 2030 and beyond. Automation and artificial intelligence are setting the stage for a golden age in renewables — pushing costs down while boosting productivity and efficiency. 

Renewable energy has historically been perceived as expensive, impractical and unprofitable — but all that is quickly changing. Some traditional utilities are already generating more than 30% of their business from renewables and are reaching an inflection point where they are being recognized more as growth companies rather than just staid, old-economy power generators and grid operators. The move toward renewables is most pronounced in European utilities, where their governments have set high decarbonization targets. For example, the Renewable Energy Directive stipulates that a minimum of 32% of energy in the European Union should come from renewable resources by 2030.

6. Electric and autonomous vehicles hit the fast lane

In 2030 we will have widely deployed fleets of autonomous electric vehicles operating in most major and many secondary cities around the world. Ownership of a personal vehicle will go from being a necessity to a luxury. Many people will still have vehicles — just like people ride horses or bicycles for fun. But personal vehicles will no longer be necessary as the primary form of transportation for most people in major cities.

This is an area where the market hasn’t fully appreciated yet. Right now, the market leaders are embedded in other companies — such as Alphabet’s Waymo, Amazon’s Zoox or the Cruise division of GM — so investors can’t buy a pure-play autonomous driving company. But as these fleets roll out more publicly, the market should start to reevaluate these companies and realize this is a real business, not a science project.

2030 is when we’re likely to see hybrid electric engines and hydrogen engines introduced into commercial aircrafts, with widespread deployment over the following 5–10 years. The impact on global emissions could be significant if we transition to a world where we’ve got huge fleets of autonomous electric vehicles on the road and aircraft transportation shifting from oil-based fuel to a mixture of oil, electricity and hydrogen.

7. What’s not changing? Successful investing

We may be able to look at the future and imagine new products and trends, but we’d like to predict one thing that won’t be different in 2030. Despite all the change going on in the world, the nature of our work and focus as financial advisors will be exactly the same.

In 2030 — just as we did in 2020 and 2010, and every year before that — we will come upon the right solutions for our client’s unique needs. That is our true north.

Platt Wealth Management offers financial plans to answer your important financial questions. Where are you? Where do you want to be? How can you get there? Our four-step financial planning process is designed to be a road map to get you where you want to go while providing flexibility to adapt to changes along the route. We offer stand alone plans or full wealth management plans that include our investment management services. Give us a call today to set up a complimentary review. 619-255-9554.

GameStop: A David and Goliath story or a cautionary tale of feverish gambling?

The GameStop David and Goliath story has given us a short break from 2020 doom and gloom. It’s a surprising story of how masses of small amateur investors managed to bid the share prices of three largely-unprofitable companies—GameStop, AMC Entertainment Holdings, and Blackberry—up nearly 1,000 percent, collectively. GameStop alone rose more than 14,300%—a record for a firm whose market share is eroding and which most analysts think is clinging to an outmoded business model. (The company sells video games through bricks-and-mortar retail outlets competing in a streaming internet world.)

The story was allegedly about David (the small investors) pitted against Goliath (several prominent multi-billion-dollar hedge funds). The only reason you heard about it is that the small investors won and nearly put the hedge funds out of business.

The GameStop short squeeze: a pessimistic gamble

Market professionals recognize the story as a classic short squeeze. Investors on one side (in this case, the hedge funds) borrow the stock of companies they think are overpriced, expecting to buy them at a discount after the price falls. They pocket a quick profit. These short sales have an expiration date, so if the stocks unexpectedly rise in price, the short-sellers have to scramble to buy the stock at the inflated price to limit their losses.

On the other side of the gaming table were a group of amateur investors who engage in online conversations on subreddit r/wallstreetbets, who ganged up to raise each others’ bids. When the hedge funds had to buy to close out their positions, the share prices went through the roof. The hedge funds, meanwhile, lost an estimated $5 billion on their bets. Roughly $1.6 billion on January 29, when GameStop’s stock jumped 51%.

The financial media neglected to mention that this activity is not investing; instead, it is a form of gambling, and the story tells us a great deal about the mindset of many retail investors these days.

When their goal is to make bets and destroy other gamblers at the table, the game for everybody else becomes increasingly dangerous. Take a look at the past six months of GameStop’s stock price and see if you can pinpoint when the gamblers started taking an interest.

GameStoppers take note: the gambler always loses

Toward the end of every bull market cycle, there is an invisible line crossed. The public starts to look at the stock market, not as participation in the growth and profits of public enterprises, but as a roulette wheel where the ball keeps stopping at a higher price. These shareowners cease to be long-term investors and bid prices up- not based on the underlying value of the companies- but on the expectation that whatever you buy, at whatever price, someone else will come along and pay even more.

Of course, markets only work that way for a short time, typically at or around market tops. Eventually, the share prices of GameStop, AMC Entertainment Holdings, and Blackberry will return to something that more closely resembles the real value of the actual company. Long-term investors have tended to win the kitty over every past historical time period. Gamblers have seen their short-term winnings evaporate in the ensuing bear market. The jubilant traders on subreddit r/wallstreetbets can enjoy their winnings today, but it may not be long before they’re counting their losses and wishing they hadn’t gambled away the money they could’ve used to buy shares when they finally go on sale.

Platt Wealth Management offers financial plans to answer your important financial questions. Where are you? Where do you want to be? How can you get there? Our four-step financial planning process is designed to be a road map to get you where you want to go while providing flexibility to adapt to changes along the route. We offer stand alone plans or full wealth management plans that include our investment management services. Give us a call today to set up a complimentary review. 619-255-9554.