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US election: Comment from Morningstar investment management Europe

10 November 2016 Dan Kemp, Morningstar
Dan Kemp, Chief Investment Officer for Morningstar Investment Management Europe.

Dan Kemp, Chief Investment Officer for Morningstar Investment Management Europe.

Dan Kemp, Chief Investment Officer for Morningstar Investment Management Europe comments on the positions and asset allocation for the Morningstar Managed Portfolios and investing opportunities following the US elect result announced this morning.

Donald Trump and the markets: the short-term versus the long-term

“Capital markets have been jolted by the Trump victory resulting in a flight to safety and panic in some key markets. While such episodes always create opportunities for investors who are prepared to think independently and adopt a long-term, valuation-driven approach, they nevertheless contain dangers for investors too. Chief among these is the temptation to react too quickly or with too much confidence. While these are uncharted waters politically, volatility in capital markets is nothing new and on this occasion (as in the past) prudence and patience will win. For this reason, we favour research over reaction and urge other investors to do the same.

Morningstar’s view of the election implications

“The US election outcome and Brexit are different in one key way: timeframe. Brexit is likely to be a permanent phenomenon, which could have a significant impact on long-term economic growth and therefore be more likely to adversely affect our calculation of “fair” or “intrinsic” value. A Trump presidency is not permanent, which leads itself to sentimental change with less long-term significance. As long-term investors, we need to appreciate and acknowledge this important difference, if we are to avoid the hype and focus on the real drivers of investment returns.

“On this note, we must come back to the two variables to successful investing: the current price and the long-term fair value. Ultimately, the real risk to investors of a Trump government is that it results in an impairment of the fair value of assets. At this stage, our early judgement is that a significant impairment is unlikely due to the political cycle. As we view risk as the permanent loss of capital, as opposed to short-term volatility, a Trump government is unlikely to materially shift our already conservative positioning in this regard. As always, buying assets that have a wide margin of safety is the key to successful investing.

Mispricing opportunities

“The key question on many investors lips is whether they should sell, hold or buy. To our eye, the knee-jerk price changes within key equity markets are providing us with an opportunity to increase exposure to high conviction assets that have become cheaper and reduce exposure to some ‘defensive’ assets that are likely to become more overvalued. In this sense, turbulent markets can create great opportunities for value investors to purchase assets that will add meaningfully to returns in the future.

“As we investigate this, it is important to remember that falls in asset prices often create their own momentum, pushing prices further from fair value in the short term. Investors may therefore get even better opportunities to buy assets in the coming days, weeks and months and so should retain some ammunition available to buy more if asset prices fall further.

“Buying in the dips can be a profitable exercise providing the investor buys the right assets and those with a margin of safety. We believe a framework to identify these assets is essential, as it may otherwise tempt investors to buy assets that do not have fundamental appeal. In this respect, we continue to believe US equities are expensive relative to fair value and are therefore unlikely to advocate buying into any initial weakness in this market.

“At a portfolio construction level, it is also important to differentiate between a cautious investor who is concerned about losing money, versus an adventurous investor who is willing to take risk. Our exploitation of the valuation-driven opportunities that arise will seek to take account of these differences.

“Of course, the spike in volatility is uncomfortable for many, and the change in the status-quo may have an impact in matters of global trade and domestic confidence. At a geopolitical level, it is easy to build an ugly bear case, but at Morningstar we urge investors to keep a level head and remain sceptical towards most of this noise.”

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