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2021-09-03

It’s easy to advocate picking high quality stocks with solid profits & dividends but it’ll be even better if you may list down a number of them which tick the boxes

What Will Happen When Trillions In Stimulus Run Out In 2022?

Summary The US economy and stock market have benefitted from an unprecedented amount of stimulus in

What Will Happen When Trillions In Stimulus Run Out In 2022?

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Notable examples include multiple rounds of stimulus checks, the student loan pause, mortgage forbearance/eviction moratorium, PPP, and enhanced unemployment benefits. So far, this effort seems to have been successful, although critics point out that it has resulted in significant increases in inflation. However, the political and economic reality is that the US can't run $3 trillion deficits forever, at least without everyone implicitly paying for it via higher consumer prices compared to their earnings.\nThe weight of theevidence suggeststhat prices are rising faster than wages. In turn, the government has stepped in to fill this gap with stimulus payments, but the trillion-dollar question is what happens when the economy has to run on its own productivity–rather than on temporary transfer payments. For 2021, thanks to pent-up demand and stimulus, S&amp;P 500 components are expected to smash the record for the highest amount ever earned in a year (somewhere between $200 and $205 per share for 2021, vs. the previous record of $163 in 2019). Wall Street analysts additionally expect the S&amp;P 500 to earn~$215 per share in 2022, which would be yet another record. When you pull numbers forproductivity and economic output, the picture isn't as great, which helps explain why there are so many shortages of goods and services right now. If you feel that the change in nominal economic output is more indicative of what corporations can earn over the medium term (taking away the impact of consumers spending temporary transfer payments), you get an earnings number for the S&amp;P 500 closer to $180, which is about 15 percent lower than Wall Street is currently expecting.\nPutting further pressure on earnings is the potential corporate tax hike from 21 percent to 25 percent, which will decrease S&amp;P 500 earnings by 5 percent, all else being equal. Political betting markets show that this has a roughly50/50 chance of becoming lawat the moment. With many investors making easy money piling into low-conviction, high momentum names, the consequences of unwinding stimulus could be a shock to their portfolio balances. Helping me make sense of the stimulus unwind is fellowSeeking AlphaauthorSam Kovacs.Although living halfway across the world from me here in suburban Texas, Sam and I think eerily alike about the markets, gravitating to high-quality stocks with solid earnings and dividends.\nSam–Within the first couple of months of the Fed’s reaction to the pandemic, I was concerned that they would be placing themselves between a rock and a hard place. I would not have wanted to be in Powell’s shoes, but then again there aren’t many government jobs I’d consider taking. Striking a balance between pulling stimulus too early and risking runaway inflation is no easy task. The government has looked to prior crashes and decided that risking inflation was the way to go.\nKeep telling the people that it is “transitory” and surely it will be. But anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows that inflation feeds on itself. At first, companies are reactionary, but then they become proactive in pricing measures. Here are a few snippets.\nFrom Hormel's (HRL) latestcall:\nWe have taken numerous pricing actions across the portfolio to protect profitability. The actions will take place early in the third quarter with additional pricing actions likely.\nFrom Conagra's (CAG) latestcall:\nAnd the short answer is yes. In fact, we began implementing pricing actions on some of our products in the quarter related to the initial inflation we experienced. The very early read on the data from those actions is that our elasticities look good so far. And we have more pricing coming.\nThere will be no shortage of inflation in food in upcoming quarters. Oil price still has a couple of quarters of weak comparables which continue to contribute to higher headline inflation rates.\nFood &amp; transportation, along with housing are the major costs of US households. For1/6thof adults, you can throw in student loans as well. US consumers have been able to absorb the inflation on the back of various stimulus efforts.\nBut the stimulus can’t last forever. Part of it is being extended as Delta is slowing (not killing) the recovery. What happens when the different forms of stimulus fade? That’s what we’re going to look at in the rest of the article.\nThe Eviction/Foreclosure Moratorium\nLogan–Foreclosures have started again, and the Supreme Court recentlystruck downthe eviction moratorium imposed by the CDC. By my last count, there are about1.5 million householdswho are in forbearance programs at the moment (i.e. not paying their mortgages), against somewhere in the ballpark of 50 million mortgages in the US. Foreclosure is a process, not an event, and the most common outcome is that people get behind on their payments, try to work with the bank for 6-12 months, and then eventually sell, collect their equity, and move somewhere cheaper. The problem in 2008 was that borrowers had negative equity on their mortgages, so it short-circuited this process. This isn't the case now–I don't see a systematic risk to the economy from foreclosures. Around 6-7 million houses in the US are bought and sold in a typical year, meaning in a vacuum, most people who are behind could sell over a 6-12 month period, and it would be a win-win for those struggling with the shortage of houses to buy and those who can't make payments on the ones they own. The Fed taper might complicate this. If mortgage rates go back up to the ~4 percent they've averaged over the last 10 years at the same time people are unloading houses they've been in forbearance on, prices are going to come down more.\nEvictions are messier–there are millions of people not paying rent and living off the extra money. When they have to start paying rent again somewhere else, their household budgets are going to dramatically shrink. Roughly 2-3 percent of American households are significantly behind on rent, so I would expect a lot of both formal and informal (cash for keys) evictions. This has to negatively affect consumer spending, and earnings estimates that ignore the unwind of stimulus are not properly accounting for it.\nSam–The risk here is not so much on the real estate market, as Logan correctly summarized, but rather the knock-on effects on consumption.\nThe end of the federal eviction moratorium is a boon for apartment REITs which can resume collecting rent. However, that doesn’t mean investors should pile into residential REITs. have gone from deeply undervalued back to historically overvalued, as the below MAD Chart for Essex Property (ESS) shows. We previously suggested investors sell ESS.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dc5c631a8b25f6a52735e699fbc69b29\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"293\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nSource:Dividend Freedom Tribe\nLooking at the other residential REITs on the block, the same picture emerges. AvalonBay Communities (AVB) also is historically overvalued.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e17980a72bfba653b02553382a920419\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"315\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nSource: Dividend Freedom Tribe\nNone seem more overvalued relative to their historical normal range of prices than Camden Property Trust (CPT) which could easily come down by 1/3rdon a change in sentiment.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/136a7707c3add17401e4dd4047278e14\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"303\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nSource: Dividend Freedom Tribe\nI believe that this trade has passed. We bought ESS about a year ago, and have been selling it throughout the past few months.\nTaking profits now in these industries makes sense: “buy the rumor/sell the news”.\nIf we’re looking ahead, we’re seeing one lever which will pressure consumption for a certain part of the population.\nStudent Loan Forbearance\nLogan–The Biden Administration extended the student loan pause until January 31, 2022. 1 in 6 adults in the US has student loans, with an average balance of ~$40,000. Most borrowers are under 30, a group that spends a higher percentage of their income than, say a 50-year old saving for retirement. Hit 1 in 6 American adults with an average$400 per month payment, paid with mostly post-tax dollars, and that's like stimulus in reverse. Anecdotally, almost no one I know who has student loans is currently paying them. The extra money they're getting from not paying loans is generally either being spent on consumption, invested in cryptocurrency, or in meme stocks like GameStop (GME). This is a decent threat to consumer spending, and there isn't an easy way out. The left wing of the Democratic Party in the US wants to cancel most or all student loans, but the main problem with this is that much of the debt is held by middle and upper-middle-class professionals, which would create a moral hazard as well as redistribute wealth from people lower on the socioeconomic ladder (for example, people who work in trades and pay their income taxes) to those of higher social class (for example, indebted white-collar college graduates). We're talking$1.7+ trillion in US student loansthat are generally not being serviced by those who owe it for this 21 month period. When those kick in again, consumer spending is not going to be higher than it is now. 2022 earnings estimates are mostly blind to this fact.\nSam–When Logan and I initially discussed this article, this seemed to be the easiest form of stimulus for the government to keep giving. Since most of the loans are federal, a pause on the payments doesn’t explicitly hurt anyone enough to complain. And since the handouts are not direct, critics aren’t as vocal as they are with stimulus checks. The money which has been put into various investments, be it stock or crypto, will come out when they have to start servicing debt again. Whether this has enough of an impact to move markets is questionable, but the retail meme stocks could finally have their day of reckoning as a large portion of the population has to resume payments. The aftermath of removing the pause on debt servicing will be harsh for an important part of the population. At least you’ll still be able to watch a movie at AMC Theater (AMC).\nEnhanced Unemployment &amp; Stimulus Checks\nLogan- Enhanced unemployment runs out on September 6, and there are 11 million people who won't be getting it after that week. This is $3.3 billion per week that the Federal government is dripping out to unemployed persons, which in turn is a lot less than it was 12 months ago. When it's gone, it's yet another piece of the puzzle that will rein in consumer spending. Stimulus checks were another source of income for many Americans over the last 18 months. A family of 4 making the median income would have seen a stimulus check in March of $5,600, in addition to the prior payments under the Trump Administration. These aren't going to be going out anymore, and for middle-income Americans, this means that they won't be able to spend as much money as they have before. The expanded child tax credit may make up for this and is probably a more efficient means of getting money out, but it expires also in its current form in December.\nSam–Enhanced Unemployment is running out in a few days, we’re likely to see many of the 8 million Americans who are looking for a job finally find one amongthe 10 million job openings. As of the time of writing, job data is to be posted in the next few hours. Strong job numbers could kick off a Fed taper sooner than expected.\nConclusion: What Is Yet to Come?\nLogan–High profile earnings misses from the likes of Amazon (AMZN), Zoom Video (ZM), and Peloton (PTON) suggest that at least on a micro level, analysts assumed that good times would last forever for companies that benefitted from temporary changes resulting from the pandemic. Whether this is true on a macro level is a strong possibility, and depending on how the rest of earnings results come in for the rest of the year, it may end up becoming a reality. While it isn't set in stone that the market should necessarily go down significantly in price because of this, it's hard to deny that the risk-reward tradeoff for the market has deteriorated over the past 6-12 months. Now is a good time to dial back risk, if at all possible. A good defense, in both of our views, is to invest in high-quality companies rather than popular high-momentum stocks with middling fundamentals, and to take a long-term perspective.\nSam–The inflation train has left the station. Powell believes it is transitory, I believe that it might be partially transitory, but the abundance of fiscal stimulus has kicked up a cycle of inflation which will be above 2% for quite some time. The Covid delta variant has softened some economic indicators like eating out in restaurants or travel, but as the country’s case count is already peaking, the economy is set to continue heating up.\nThis will lead to a taper. Higher rates, or even the expectation of higher rates, will lead to a change in discount rates, which is a fancy way to say future profits are worthless.\nInvestors want to take a hard look at their portfolios and ask whether they have positions which are overvalued beyond reason?\nNo need to look at obscure parts of the market, this is playing out in the S&amp;P 500 (SPY).\nFor instance, I cannot fathom how a stock like Intuit (INTU) currently trades at 16x sales? Even on its lofty usual measure of 8-9x sales, this is unusually high. Compare it to the stock's historical dividend, and the reading is off the wall.\nInvestors want to focus on companies with strong earnings power, large-scale operations, which are trading at relatively cheap valuations.\nAmong those that come to mind in the top 100 stocks are Amgen (AMGN) which currently yields over 3%.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/cd53f68bc9f02f82e05458098625b0a7\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"297\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\nSource: Dividend Freedom Tribe\nPhilip Morris International (PM), Broadcom (AVGO), and Morgan Stanley (MS.PK) are also undervalued relative to their historical valuations.\nIn such an environment, focus on quality is a must. Focus on value is a close second. We’re looking to buy the highest quality assets with growth prospects at a decent price. We’re very cautious that stimulus unwinding will hit consumption which will hit earning results. Big misses from overvalued names spells trouble. The responsible thing to do is to scale out of stocks when they become overvalued.","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>What Will Happen When Trillions In Stimulus Run Out In 2022?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nWhat Will Happen When Trillions In Stimulus Run Out In 2022?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-09-03 11:59 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453272-what-will-happen-when-trillions-in-stimulus-runs-out-in-2022>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nThe US economy and stock market have benefitted from an unprecedented amount of stimulus in 2021.\nWith expanded unemployment set to end, student loan & mortgage forbearance to end, and a ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453272-what-will-happen-when-trillions-in-stimulus-runs-out-in-2022\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".DJI":"道琼斯",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".SPX":"S&P 500 Index","SPY":"标普500ETF"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453272-what-will-happen-when-trillions-in-stimulus-runs-out-in-2022","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1115112299","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe US economy and stock market have benefitted from an unprecedented amount of stimulus in 2021.\nWith expanded unemployment set to end, student loan & mortgage forbearance to end, and a possible corporate tax rate hike on the horizon, it's possible 2022 earnings estimates for stocks are simply too high.\nIn light of this, the broad stock market faces an unattractive risk-reward proposition.\nI break down the possibilities and game plan with expert value/dividend investor Sam Kovacs.\n\nIntroduction\nLogan–The United States government has turned to an unprecedented amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus to help the economy through the COVID-19 pandemic. Notable examples include multiple rounds of stimulus checks, the student loan pause, mortgage forbearance/eviction moratorium, PPP, and enhanced unemployment benefits. So far, this effort seems to have been successful, although critics point out that it has resulted in significant increases in inflation. However, the political and economic reality is that the US can't run $3 trillion deficits forever, at least without everyone implicitly paying for it via higher consumer prices compared to their earnings.\nThe weight of theevidence suggeststhat prices are rising faster than wages. In turn, the government has stepped in to fill this gap with stimulus payments, but the trillion-dollar question is what happens when the economy has to run on its own productivity–rather than on temporary transfer payments. For 2021, thanks to pent-up demand and stimulus, S&P 500 components are expected to smash the record for the highest amount ever earned in a year (somewhere between $200 and $205 per share for 2021, vs. the previous record of $163 in 2019). Wall Street analysts additionally expect the S&P 500 to earn~$215 per share in 2022, which would be yet another record. When you pull numbers forproductivity and economic output, the picture isn't as great, which helps explain why there are so many shortages of goods and services right now. If you feel that the change in nominal economic output is more indicative of what corporations can earn over the medium term (taking away the impact of consumers spending temporary transfer payments), you get an earnings number for the S&P 500 closer to $180, which is about 15 percent lower than Wall Street is currently expecting.\nPutting further pressure on earnings is the potential corporate tax hike from 21 percent to 25 percent, which will decrease S&P 500 earnings by 5 percent, all else being equal. Political betting markets show that this has a roughly50/50 chance of becoming lawat the moment. With many investors making easy money piling into low-conviction, high momentum names, the consequences of unwinding stimulus could be a shock to their portfolio balances. Helping me make sense of the stimulus unwind is fellowSeeking AlphaauthorSam Kovacs.Although living halfway across the world from me here in suburban Texas, Sam and I think eerily alike about the markets, gravitating to high-quality stocks with solid earnings and dividends.\nSam–Within the first couple of months of the Fed’s reaction to the pandemic, I was concerned that they would be placing themselves between a rock and a hard place. I would not have wanted to be in Powell’s shoes, but then again there aren’t many government jobs I’d consider taking. Striking a balance between pulling stimulus too early and risking runaway inflation is no easy task. The government has looked to prior crashes and decided that risking inflation was the way to go.\nKeep telling the people that it is “transitory” and surely it will be. But anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows that inflation feeds on itself. At first, companies are reactionary, but then they become proactive in pricing measures. Here are a few snippets.\nFrom Hormel's (HRL) latestcall:\nWe have taken numerous pricing actions across the portfolio to protect profitability. The actions will take place early in the third quarter with additional pricing actions likely.\nFrom Conagra's (CAG) latestcall:\nAnd the short answer is yes. In fact, we began implementing pricing actions on some of our products in the quarter related to the initial inflation we experienced. The very early read on the data from those actions is that our elasticities look good so far. And we have more pricing coming.\nThere will be no shortage of inflation in food in upcoming quarters. Oil price still has a couple of quarters of weak comparables which continue to contribute to higher headline inflation rates.\nFood & transportation, along with housing are the major costs of US households. For1/6thof adults, you can throw in student loans as well. US consumers have been able to absorb the inflation on the back of various stimulus efforts.\nBut the stimulus can’t last forever. Part of it is being extended as Delta is slowing (not killing) the recovery. What happens when the different forms of stimulus fade? That’s what we’re going to look at in the rest of the article.\nThe Eviction/Foreclosure Moratorium\nLogan–Foreclosures have started again, and the Supreme Court recentlystruck downthe eviction moratorium imposed by the CDC. By my last count, there are about1.5 million householdswho are in forbearance programs at the moment (i.e. not paying their mortgages), against somewhere in the ballpark of 50 million mortgages in the US. Foreclosure is a process, not an event, and the most common outcome is that people get behind on their payments, try to work with the bank for 6-12 months, and then eventually sell, collect their equity, and move somewhere cheaper. The problem in 2008 was that borrowers had negative equity on their mortgages, so it short-circuited this process. This isn't the case now–I don't see a systematic risk to the economy from foreclosures. Around 6-7 million houses in the US are bought and sold in a typical year, meaning in a vacuum, most people who are behind could sell over a 6-12 month period, and it would be a win-win for those struggling with the shortage of houses to buy and those who can't make payments on the ones they own. The Fed taper might complicate this. If mortgage rates go back up to the ~4 percent they've averaged over the last 10 years at the same time people are unloading houses they've been in forbearance on, prices are going to come down more.\nEvictions are messier–there are millions of people not paying rent and living off the extra money. When they have to start paying rent again somewhere else, their household budgets are going to dramatically shrink. Roughly 2-3 percent of American households are significantly behind on rent, so I would expect a lot of both formal and informal (cash for keys) evictions. This has to negatively affect consumer spending, and earnings estimates that ignore the unwind of stimulus are not properly accounting for it.\nSam–The risk here is not so much on the real estate market, as Logan correctly summarized, but rather the knock-on effects on consumption.\nThe end of the federal eviction moratorium is a boon for apartment REITs which can resume collecting rent. However, that doesn’t mean investors should pile into residential REITs. have gone from deeply undervalued back to historically overvalued, as the below MAD Chart for Essex Property (ESS) shows. We previously suggested investors sell ESS.\n\nSource:Dividend Freedom Tribe\nLooking at the other residential REITs on the block, the same picture emerges. AvalonBay Communities (AVB) also is historically overvalued.\n\nSource: Dividend Freedom Tribe\nNone seem more overvalued relative to their historical normal range of prices than Camden Property Trust (CPT) which could easily come down by 1/3rdon a change in sentiment.\n\nSource: Dividend Freedom Tribe\nI believe that this trade has passed. We bought ESS about a year ago, and have been selling it throughout the past few months.\nTaking profits now in these industries makes sense: “buy the rumor/sell the news”.\nIf we’re looking ahead, we’re seeing one lever which will pressure consumption for a certain part of the population.\nStudent Loan Forbearance\nLogan–The Biden Administration extended the student loan pause until January 31, 2022. 1 in 6 adults in the US has student loans, with an average balance of ~$40,000. Most borrowers are under 30, a group that spends a higher percentage of their income than, say a 50-year old saving for retirement. Hit 1 in 6 American adults with an average$400 per month payment, paid with mostly post-tax dollars, and that's like stimulus in reverse. Anecdotally, almost no one I know who has student loans is currently paying them. The extra money they're getting from not paying loans is generally either being spent on consumption, invested in cryptocurrency, or in meme stocks like GameStop (GME). This is a decent threat to consumer spending, and there isn't an easy way out. The left wing of the Democratic Party in the US wants to cancel most or all student loans, but the main problem with this is that much of the debt is held by middle and upper-middle-class professionals, which would create a moral hazard as well as redistribute wealth from people lower on the socioeconomic ladder (for example, people who work in trades and pay their income taxes) to those of higher social class (for example, indebted white-collar college graduates). We're talking$1.7+ trillion in US student loansthat are generally not being serviced by those who owe it for this 21 month period. When those kick in again, consumer spending is not going to be higher than it is now. 2022 earnings estimates are mostly blind to this fact.\nSam–When Logan and I initially discussed this article, this seemed to be the easiest form of stimulus for the government to keep giving. Since most of the loans are federal, a pause on the payments doesn’t explicitly hurt anyone enough to complain. And since the handouts are not direct, critics aren’t as vocal as they are with stimulus checks. The money which has been put into various investments, be it stock or crypto, will come out when they have to start servicing debt again. Whether this has enough of an impact to move markets is questionable, but the retail meme stocks could finally have their day of reckoning as a large portion of the population has to resume payments. The aftermath of removing the pause on debt servicing will be harsh for an important part of the population. At least you’ll still be able to watch a movie at AMC Theater (AMC).\nEnhanced Unemployment & Stimulus Checks\nLogan- Enhanced unemployment runs out on September 6, and there are 11 million people who won't be getting it after that week. This is $3.3 billion per week that the Federal government is dripping out to unemployed persons, which in turn is a lot less than it was 12 months ago. When it's gone, it's yet another piece of the puzzle that will rein in consumer spending. Stimulus checks were another source of income for many Americans over the last 18 months. A family of 4 making the median income would have seen a stimulus check in March of $5,600, in addition to the prior payments under the Trump Administration. These aren't going to be going out anymore, and for middle-income Americans, this means that they won't be able to spend as much money as they have before. The expanded child tax credit may make up for this and is probably a more efficient means of getting money out, but it expires also in its current form in December.\nSam–Enhanced Unemployment is running out in a few days, we’re likely to see many of the 8 million Americans who are looking for a job finally find one amongthe 10 million job openings. As of the time of writing, job data is to be posted in the next few hours. Strong job numbers could kick off a Fed taper sooner than expected.\nConclusion: What Is Yet to Come?\nLogan–High profile earnings misses from the likes of Amazon (AMZN), Zoom Video (ZM), and Peloton (PTON) suggest that at least on a micro level, analysts assumed that good times would last forever for companies that benefitted from temporary changes resulting from the pandemic. Whether this is true on a macro level is a strong possibility, and depending on how the rest of earnings results come in for the rest of the year, it may end up becoming a reality. While it isn't set in stone that the market should necessarily go down significantly in price because of this, it's hard to deny that the risk-reward tradeoff for the market has deteriorated over the past 6-12 months. Now is a good time to dial back risk, if at all possible. A good defense, in both of our views, is to invest in high-quality companies rather than popular high-momentum stocks with middling fundamentals, and to take a long-term perspective.\nSam–The inflation train has left the station. Powell believes it is transitory, I believe that it might be partially transitory, but the abundance of fiscal stimulus has kicked up a cycle of inflation which will be above 2% for quite some time. The Covid delta variant has softened some economic indicators like eating out in restaurants or travel, but as the country’s case count is already peaking, the economy is set to continue heating up.\nThis will lead to a taper. Higher rates, or even the expectation of higher rates, will lead to a change in discount rates, which is a fancy way to say future profits are worthless.\nInvestors want to take a hard look at their portfolios and ask whether they have positions which are overvalued beyond reason?\nNo need to look at obscure parts of the market, this is playing out in the S&P 500 (SPY).\nFor instance, I cannot fathom how a stock like Intuit (INTU) currently trades at 16x sales? Even on its lofty usual measure of 8-9x sales, this is unusually high. Compare it to the stock's historical dividend, and the reading is off the wall.\nInvestors want to focus on companies with strong earnings power, large-scale operations, which are trading at relatively cheap valuations.\nAmong those that come to mind in the top 100 stocks are Amgen (AMGN) which currently yields over 3%.\n\nSource: Dividend Freedom Tribe\nPhilip Morris International (PM), Broadcom (AVGO), and Morgan Stanley (MS.PK) are also undervalued relative to their historical valuations.\nIn such an environment, focus on quality is a must. Focus on value is a close second. We’re looking to buy the highest quality assets with growth prospects at a decent price. We’re very cautious that stimulus unwinding will hit consumption which will hit earning results. Big misses from overvalued names spells trouble. 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