admin

Federal Budget Summary 2022

In this special report, our Head of Professional Standards & Technical Services, Craig Meldrum, looks at the key takeout’s from the 2022 Federal Budget and what it means for individuals and businesses, for tax, superannuation and social security that may impact wealth creation and retirement funding strategies for Infocus’ advisers and clients.

The macro

While the global pandemic forced the 2021 Federal budget to be handed down 21 weeks later than it would normally have been delivered, this year’s impending Federal election has meant the 2022 Budget has been handed down 6 weeks earlier than normal (the election is expected to be announced on the 14^th or 21^st of May 2022). And while the 2021 budget was all about the monumental task of managing the health impacts of the pandemic and delivering a budget to provide a road to recovery out of the catastrophic economic black hole caused by the Covid-19 turmoil, that was all largely forgotten about as the Treasurer considered the war in Ukraine, the global supply chain shocks, rising inflation and cost of living pressures (especially in the price at the petrol bowser), stagnant wage growth and the recent flood events in Northern NSW and South Eastern Queensland.

This was Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s fourth and (given the state of the LNP Coalition’s standing in the polls) potentially last Federal budget, so it was expected there would be lots of giveaways and prizes to woo the electorate. There was also some criticism that if it did promise too much, was it going to be an economically responsible budget or might it actually exasperate the cost of living pressures given the perception that we are entering a period of higher inflation? In other words, did it achieve enough to help ease the cost-of-living pressures for Australians and secure another term for the Coalition while remaining fiscally responsible?

The Treasurer led with a great statistic – a 4% unemployment rate – the equal lowest in 48 years (which is expected to drop further to 3.75% in the September 2022 quarter). Economic theory would suggest that full employment translates to greater demand from employers and a higher cost of labour. Or does commodity-driven inflation, a high rate of immigration, no effective union ownership of the labour market and a technology-driven structural disruption to deployment of human capital lead to sustained wage stagnation to the point that only Government intervention will bridge the gap? The Government has been very proud that there are more women in work, that there are more jobs paying higher wages and that the Jobkeeper program saved 700,000 jobs during the height of the pandemic. But stagnation in wages growth is not so easily solved, so, yes, this budget had to be about spending to address (in some sense) the rising cost of living pressures.

In terms of the high-level numbers, the Treasurer was very proud that we are $100 billion better off than last year, largely off the revenue generated from trade in iron ore, gas and coal. Can we then afford a “cash splash” of a budget? A budget deficit of $78 billion for 2022-23 (3.4 per cent of GDP) is down from the $79.8 billion of a year ago and is projected to more than halve to 1.6% with net debt of $714.9 billion for 2022-23 peaking at $864.7 billion (33.1%) in 2025-26, so maybe?

The goodies (without the detail)

This budget contained a range of individual measures impacting taxation, superannuation, housing, business, health, family, infrastructure, employment, cost of living and national security. The following summary is not complete and focusses only on those areas particular to financial advice and strategy, namely superannuation, taxation, social security, small business and measures designed to ease cost of living pressures. Some of the following announcements are described in more detail further on in this report;

Temporary reduction in the fuel excise – one of the first announcements was a halving of the fuel excise from about 44 cents per litre to 22 cents per litre for 6 months (starting from midnight on Budget night), at a cost of $3 billion. The fuel excise is a bit of a sacred cow and governments are loathe to meddle with it, but as instant sugar hits go, that’s about a $12 saving per tank for most people.
$250 cost of living payment – the Government announced that in April 2022, it will provide a one-off cost of living payment of $250 to eligible pensioners, welfare recipients, veterans and concession card holders.
The Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (LMITO) will be increased by $420 for 2021-22 – while the LMITO is legislated to cease this year (and no announcement was made that it would be extended), the Government did announce a one-off $420 cost of living tax offset for the 2021-22 income year which will see the LMITO increased up to a maximum of $1,500 (for 2021-22 only).
No changes announced regarding personal tax rates – the legislated Stage 3 personal income tax cuts remain unchanged and will commence in 2024-25.
Super pension drawdowns – the 50% reduction in the minimum annual payment amounts for superannuation pensions and annuities that was provided during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic will be extended by a further year to the 2022-23 income year.
Super Guarantee rate – the Budget did not contain any change to the legislated Super Guarantee rate rise from 10% to 10.5% for 2022-23.
Small business 20% deduction boost: skills training and digital adoption – businesses with aggregated annual turnover less than $50 million will receive a 20% uplift on deductions for eligible expenditure on external training courses and digital technology (the cost of business expenses and depreciating assets that support digital uptake), or, as the Treasurer described it, for every $100 spent, businesses can deduct $120. The measure will apply to eligible expenditure incurred from 29 March 2022 until 30 June 2024 (for skills training) and 30 June 2023 (for digital adoption).
Digitalising trust returns – the Government has announced that from 1 July 2024, all trust tax return filers will be given the option to lodge income tax returns electronically.
Paid Parental Leave – the Paid Parental Leave scheme will integrate existing schemes to give eligible families access to up to 20 weeks leave to use in ways that suit their specific circumstances.
Employee Share Schemes – the Government will expand access to employee share schemes and further reduce red tape so that employees at all levels can directly share in the business growth they help to generate. Where employers make larger offers in connection with employee share schemes in unlisted companies, participants can invest up to $30,000 per participant per year, accruable for unexercised options for up to 5 years, plus 70 per cent of dividends and cash bonuses; or any amount, if it would allow them to immediately take advantage of a planned sale or listing of the company to sell their purchased interests at a profit. The Government will also remove regulatory requirements for offers to independent contractors, where they do not have to pay for interests.

More detail on a few of the measures

Personal taxation

Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (LMITO) (for 2021-22 only)

The LMITO will be increased by $420 for the 2021-22 income year so that eligible individuals will receive a maximum LMITO benefit up to $1,500 for 2021-22 (up from the current maximum of $1,080). This one-off $420 cost of living tax offset will only apply to the 2021-22 income year. It remains legislated to only apply until the end of the 2021-22 income year (up to $1,500 instead of $1,080).

The $420 is not subject to tapering so other than where an individual’s tax liability is less than that, all LMITO recipients will benefit from the full $420 increase. The full benefit will be available to those individuals earning between $48,001 and $90,000 (but phasing out up to $126,000). Those earning up to $48,000 will also receive the $420 one-off tax offset on top of their existing $255 LMITO benefit (phasing up for incomes between $37,001 and $48,000).

Taxable Income (TI)	LMITO (2021-22) Current	LMITO (2021-22) Proposed
$0 – $37,000	$255	$675
$37,001 – $48,000	$255 + ([TI – $37,000] × 7.5%)	$675 + ([TI – $37,000] × 7.5%)
$48,001 – $90,000	$1,080	$1,500
$90,001 – $126,000	$1,080 – ([TI – $90,000] × 3%)	$1,500 – ([TI – $90,000] × 3%)
$126,001 +	Nil	Nil

Marginal Tax Rates

There were no changes to personal tax rates announced in this budget. The Government’s legislated three-stage tax plan that was announced in 2018 and enhanced in 2019 is as follows;

Stage 1 amended the 32.5% and 37% marginal tax brackets over 2018-19 to 2021-22 and introduced the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset (LMITO);
Stage 2 was designed to further reduce bracket creep over 2022-23 & 2023-24 by amending the 19%, 32.5% and 37% marginal tax brackets; and
Stage 3 was aimed at simplifying and flattening the progressive tax rates for 2024–25 and increasing the Low Income Tax Offset (LITO). From 1 July 2024, there will only be 3 personal income tax rates – 19%, 30% and 45%. The Government estimated that around 94 per cent of taxpayers would be on a marginal tax rate of 30% or less (as shown in the tables below).

Amended tax plan (changed amounts in red)

Tax rates (2019-20)	Thresholds	Tax rates (2020-21 & 2021-22))	Thresholds
Nil	$0 – $18,200	Nil	$0 – $18,200
19%	$18,201 – $37,000	19%	$18,201 – $45,000
32.5%	$37,001 – $90,000	32.5%	$45,001 – $120,000
37%	$90,001 – $180,000	37%	$120,001 – $180,000
45%	$180,000 +	45%	$180,000 +
LITO	Up to $445	LITO	Up to $700
LMITO	Up to $1,080	LMITO	Up to $1,080 (Up to $1,500 proposed for 2021-22)

Tax rates (2022-23 & 2023-24)	Thresholds	Tax rates (2024-25) onwards	Thresholds
Nil	$0 – $18,200	Nil	$0 – $18,200
19%	$18,201 – $45,000	19%	$18,201 – $45,000
32.5%	$45,001 – $120,000	30%	$45,001 – $200,000
37%	$120,001 – $180,000	–	–
45%	$180,000 +	45%	$200,000 +
LITO	Up to $700	LITO	Up to $700
LMITO	–	LMITO	–

Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) – unchanged

The low income tax offset (LITO) will continue to apply for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 income years. The LITO was intended to replace the former low income and low and middle income tax offsets from 2022-23, but the new LITO was brought forward in the 2020 Budget to apply from the 2020-21 income year.

Taxable Income (TI)	LITO (2021-22 & 2022-23)
$0 – $37,500	$700
$37,501 – $45,000	$700 – ([TI – $37,500] × 5.0%)
$45,001 – $66,667	$325 – ([TI – $45,000] × 1.5%)
$66,668+	Nil

Superannuation

Pension drawdowns – 50% reduction extended to 2022-23

Superannuation did not really get any mention in this year’s budget. The only announcement of note concerned the extension by one year of the temporary 50% reduction in minimum annual payment amounts for superannuation pensions and annuities to 30 June 2023. It is worth noting that there is no requirement for a pension recipient to take the minimum, however people did find it valuable during the period of market turmoil during the pandemic to take less than the standard pension amount to help preserve their pension capital.

Age of beneficiary (years)	Standard percentage factor (%)	Minimum drawdown for 2019-20 to 2021-22 (and 2022-23 proposed) (after 50% reduction)
0 – 64	4	2
65 – 74	5	2.5
75 – 79	6	3
80 – 84	7	3.5
85– 89	9	4.5
90 – 94	11	5.5
95+	14	7

Allowing commutation of certain income streams

The Government had previously announced that the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 (SIS Regulations) would be amended to allow commutations to be made from certain non-commutable pensions to resolve excess transfer balance amounts. It appears that the Government will be proceeding with these amendments to the SIS Regulations.

Social Security and Aged Care

One-off $250 cost of living payment

Social Security and Aged Care also missed out on any big reforms in this budget. The Government has announced that it will make a $250 one-off cost of living payment in April 2022 to eligible pensioners, welfare recipients, veterans and eligible concession card holders.

The $250 payment will be tax-exempt and not count as income support for the purposes of any Government income support. The payment will only be available to Australian residents who are eligible recipients of the following payments and to concession card holders; Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, Parenting Payment, Carer Payment, Carer Allowance (if not in receipt of a primary income support payment), Jobseeker Payment, Youth Allowance, Austudy and Abstudy Living Allowance, Double Orphan Pension, Special Benefit, Farm Household Allowance, Pensioner Concession Card (PCC) holders, Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders and eligible Veterans’ Affairs payment recipients and Veteran Gold card holders. Note that a person can only receive one economic support payment, even if they are eligible under more than one category.

Business taxation

Apart from the deduction boosts for small businesses with skills and training and digital adoption and some measures regarding PAYG instalments and tweaks to the PAYG and GST instalment uplift factor, further assistance for businesses employing apprentices and the announcement regarding changes to reduce red tape and accessibility of employee share schemes, there was not a lot to mention with regard to business measures.

Conclusion and where to from here?

While this budget has all the trimmings of a pre-election cash splash with a few goodies, it was pretty light on in terms of any reform. There was mention of some of the big ticket east-coast infrastructure projects including nearly $10 billion in enhancing Australia’s national cyber security efforts, recommitment on spending on women’s health and more on stopping violence against women, recommitment and more funding towards the housing guarantee scheme and the full funding of the NDIS and some efficiency measure, but not a lot more.

With the election so close, voters will be closely watching Labor’s budget reply to see what goodies are on offer, with cost of living relief high on everyone’s agenda. We’ll see.

As with all budget announcements, the measures are proposals only and need to be enacted by Parliament.

I urge readers to contact your financial adviser with any specific questions you may have.

General Advice Warning

The information in this presentation contains general advice only, that is, advice which does not take into account your needs, objectives or financial situation. You need to consider the appropriateness of that general advice in light of your personal circumstances before acting on the advice. You should obtain and consider the Product Disclosure Statement for any product discussed before making a decision to acquire that product. You should obtain financial advice that addresses your specific needs and situation before making investment decisions. While every care has been taken in the preparation of this information, Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd (Infocus) does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information. Infocus does not guarantee any particular outcome or future performance. Infocus is a registered tax (financial) adviser. Any tax advice in this presentation is incidental to the financial advice in it. Taxation information is based on our interpretation of the relevant laws as at 1 July 2020. You should seek specialist advice from a tax professional to confirm the impact of this advice on your overall tax position. Any case studies included are hypothetical, for illustration purposes only and are not based on actual returns.

Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 47 097 797 049) AFSL No. 236 523.

Market volatility & Europe

In this update we provide an overview of the market volatility and the impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Why has Russia invaded Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main motive for launching the invasion of Ukraine appears to be to prevent NATO’s expansion going further East into the Balkan states. That said, there is also another motive which is much closer to home for President Putin. Ukraine’s people and culture have drifted to the West and have become more European since independence from the former Soviet Union and Putin is also concerned about the impact of having a Western leaning democracy on Russia’s border. This is because economic success in Ukraine would highlight the corruption, underperformance and inequities of autocratic Russia. So, the invasion of Ukraine is also about protecting Putin’s reign from enemies within Russia and to strengthen his position in the upcoming Russian elections this year.

What has been the response of the rest of the world?

Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so Europe and the USA are not obligated to defend Ukraine militarily. To date it seems that the West is unwilling to engage Russia militarily, which is wise given Russia’s substantial nuclear arsenal. To date, the main response to the invasion by the West has been economic sanctions, which are targeted to hurt Russia’s economy and the Russian oligarchs.

How is the Ukraine war likely to play out?

While Ukraine has a strong military, it is not a match for the Russian army. That said, the Ukrainians are willing fighters and will provide strong resistance. While the actual invasion and defeat of Ukraine’s military is expected to come relatively quickly, much like the US occupation of Iraq, many military analysts believe that a full longstanding occupation of Ukraine (including taking Kiev) could prove to be very costly for Russia. Though Putin has said he does not intend to occupy the Ukraine.

The war with Ukraine does not seem to be that popular in Russia, Putin’s plan may therefore be to play the long game, seeking to only take part of the country (not including Kiev) and destabilise the Ukrainian government with the goal of putting in a Russian leaning leader in charge.

How does Russia’s invasion of Ukraine impact the markets?

Russia’s economy is only marginally bigger than Australia’s and less than 2% of the world economy. This is despite Russia having nearly six times as many people as Australia. So, the economic impact of the war is likely not material in terms of the global economy.

However, Russia’s economy has some similarities to Australia and is driven by commodity prices, with Oil and Gas being Russia’s main exports. From a market’s perspective, the key concern about the Ukraine war is Energy prices. Energy prices are a key driver of inflation, which is already very high in the USA and the West. Given that interest rates are already set to rise this year in developed economies to quell inflation, so the focus of markets is on how the Ukraine war will impact the decisions of central banks.

On this point, since the situation in Ukraine has escalated, the implied chance of a 0.50% interest rate hike by the US Fed in March has dropped from 60% to 11% today. (Essentially the markets are implying that a hike of only 0.25% is now all but guaranteed and the implication here is that central banks will not hike rates as aggressively as was expected prior to the invasion.)

How are we thinking about the impact of the war on portfolios?

While we obviously don’t know how the Ukraine war will play out, there are a few lessons from history we should head from previous geopolitical events:

Markets are unpredictable in the short run and market timing is difficult
Growth assets outperform over the very long run and being out of the share market on its best days can be extremely costly
Markets tend to overreact to geopolitical events and then rebound over the next few months (see table below)

Geopolitical Events and Stock Market (S&P 500) Reactions

Generally, we believe that the best approach is to stay the course with our investment strategy/asset allocation, unless an impending major market failure in the near term is apparent (i.e. the global shutdown at the start of the COVID pandemic or the Lehman Brothers collapse) or if the markets reach a state of hyper panic.

The Key Questions We Are Asking Ourselves

Are we seeing any evidence of an impending market failure spiraling from the Ukraine war? No, we think the impact on markets will be not significant unless the war escalates to include fighting by another nuclear power (i.e. direct intervention by NATO).
Is the Ukraine war going to send the world into recession in the next 6 months? Probably not given Russia’s economy is almost insignificant in terms of the global GDP.
Are the markets in a state of hyper panic now? No. Measures of market volatility are elevated, as expected, but not markedly so.
How will the Ukraine war impact the Fed’s decision on US interest rates in March? Even prior to the situation in Ukraine escalating, we expected the Fed to be less aggressive than the market in raising interest rates and did not anticipate the US to hike interest rates by 0.50%. We are now in line with the market’s implied forecast and believe that the most likely change is a 0.25% hike.

Conclusion

While our sympathy is clearly with the Ukrainian people at this time, from an investment perspective, our assessment is that this event as destabilising as it is and for the reasons expressed above will not be material for investment markets in the near term. Hence, our view is that based on the information we have and continue to monitor very closely, current portfolio positioning remains appropriate, not withstanding that we could revisit this assessment if the situation escalates further.

General Advice Warning

Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 47 097 797 049) AFSL No. 236 523.

At a Glance: Federal Budget 2021

Please find below a high-level overview of key takeout’s from the Federal Budget Summary 2021 as delivered overnight.

Taxes

-The Stage 3 personal income tax cuts will proceed as originally planned, commencing on 1 July 2024. The tax rate above taxable income of $45,000 will drop from 32.5% to 30%, and the rate of 45% will apply above $200,000, eliminating the 37% tax bracket.
– The LMITO will be extended to 2021–22. Originally legislated for 4 years, the LMITO was then reduced to 2 years and due to end on 30 June 2021. The 12-month extension means it will end 30 June 2022. The rates and thresholds remain unchanged.
-The reduction in tax provided by LMITO will remain at $1,080 per annum ($2,160 for dual-income couples) with the base amount at $255 per annum for the 2020-21 income year.
– The $250 threshold for self-education expenses is to be removed.

Superannuation

– The work test will be removed completely. This measure is expected to take effect from 1 July 2022.
– The current minimum income threshold of $450 per month will be removed. The measure is expected to start from 1 July 2022. This means lower income earners, many of them women, will become entitled to superannuation guarantee support regardless of their level of income.
– The legislated Super Guarantee rate increase from 9.5% to 10% will apply for 2021-22.
– The age for making downsizer contributions (up to $300,000 of proceeds per member of a couple from selling the principal residence of at least 10 years) will be reduced from 65 to 60. This measure is expected to take effect from 1 July 2022. Downsizer contributions are not included in the NCC cap.
– The maximum amount of voluntary contributions that can be released under the First Home Super Saver Scheme will increase from $30,000 to $50,000. This measure is expected to take effect from 1 July 2022.
– The residency requirements for SMSFs and small APRA funds will be relaxed by extending the central management and control test safe harbour from 2 to 5 years for SMSFs; and removing the active member test for both fund types. This measure and is expected to take effect from 1 July 2022.
– The Government will not proceed with a measure to extend early release of superannuation to victims of family and domestic violence. The measure was previously announced on 21 November 2018.
– Individuals will be permitted to exit certain legacy retirement income stream products (excluding flexi-pensions or lifetime products in APRA-funds or public sector schemes), together with any associated reserves, for a 2-year period. Any commuted reserves will not be counted towards an individual’s concessional contribution cap. Instead, they will be taxed as an assessable contribution for the fund.

Social Security

– The Government has announced that they will be increasing the flexibility of the Pension Loans Scheme (PLS) by allowing participants to access up to two lump sum advances in any 12-month – period up to a total value of 50% of the maximum annual rate of the aged pension.
– The total PLS is currently around $12,385 per year for singles and $18,670 couples (combined). The Government has also announced it will introduce a No Negative Equity Guarantee which means that when the house is sold, the Government will not claim back more than the sale price of the house used to guarantee the payment
– The new Family Home Guarantee will allow single parents with dependants to purchase a home with as little as a 2% deposit.

Aged Care

– The Government will invest a total of $17.7 billion on aged care reform over five years, including:
– $6.5 billion for 80,000 additional Home Care Packages over the next two years;
– $798.3 million for to provide greater access to respite care services and payments to support carers;
– $7.8 billion for a new funding model for residential aged care, with a $10 per person per day supplement of the Basic Daily Fee;
– $189.3 million over four years from 2020-21 to implement the new funding model, the Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC); and
– $117.3 million to support structural reforms, including the implementation of a new Refundable Accommodation Deposit (RAD) Support Loan Program.

Small businesses

– The Government will extend the 2020-21 temporary full expensing measures for 12 months until 30 June 2023. This will allow eligible businesses with aggregated annual turnover or total income of less than $5 billion to deduct the full cost of eligible depreciable assets of any value, acquired from 7:30pm AEDT on 6 October 2020 and first used or installed ready for use by 30 June 2023.
– The loss years in respect of which an eligible company (aggregated annual turnover of up to $5 billion) can currently carry back a tax loss (2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22) will be extended to include the 2022-23 income year.
– The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) will be given the power to pause or modify ATO debt recovery action in relation to disputed debts of small businesses. This is expected to improve efficiency by keeping these matters out of the courts.

General Advice Warning

Infocus Securities Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 47 097 797 049) AFSL No. 236 523.

Economic Update April 2021

Within this month’s update, we share with you a snapshot of economic occurrences both nationally and from around the globe.

Vaccination nationalism!

– US COVID-19 infection rate starts to climb again despite vaccine rollout
– US and global economic growth strong – but not yet inflationary
– Bond yields rise strongly as inflation expectations increase in response to economic recovery and maintenance of stimulatory policy settings

We hope you find this month’s Economic Update as informative as always. If you have any feedback or would like to discuss any aspect of this report, please contact our team.

The Big Picture

The race against COVID-19 continues but at very different speeds around the globe. Some countries have not yet started a vaccination programme and we have only just begun ours. We sadly found out at the end of March we hadn’t yet vaccinated all of the front-line health workers in Brisbane! The NSW and federal governments are in a stoush about vaccine shortages and misinformation.

The UK is well ahead of the US in terms of the proportion of their populations having been vaccinated but the US has delivered 150 million shots ‘into arms’.

While it might seem like a priority to get a whole nation’s population vaccinated first, the virus can only be eradicated when a sizeable proportion of the whole world’s nearly 8 billion people are immune through vaccination or having contracted the virus. And the longer some countries stay behind the vaccination curve, the greater is the chance of new, more virulent strains of the COVID-19 virus developing.

It is also important to note that those who have been vaccinated are not necessarily immune. The clinical trials data provide clear evidence that vaccinated people can contract the virus. Indeed, the efficacy rate of a vaccine is calculated from the relative infection rates of those who have been vaccinated versus those who haven’t (the placebo or control group).

Only 100% efficacy implies total immunity from vaccination. The best vaccine so far is about 95% effective. It is widely thought that 60% is the minimum rate to make a vaccine worthwhile.
One of the major public health problems now emerging is that some countries are practicing ‘vaccination nationalism’. They are unwilling to share the doses they have control over.

The European Union (EU) is pressuring member states not to supply orders from its production to nations outside the EU while there remains a backlog of unfulfilled orders within the EU. Australia’s orders for the vaccine have been hindered at least by France and Italy. We are well behind our objectives stated by the government a few months ago.

The US, from President Biden’s speeches, has on order many more doses than it needs this year. Bloomberg reported that the US had secured twice the number of doses needed to vaccinate everyone. Given many in the US do not want to be vaccinated, it is logical that some of the US’ stockholding would be better directed elsewhere. The US just offered 1.5 million doses to Canada ‘on loan’ even though it has secured so much more than it needs in the immediate future.

The third wave of US infections peaked after its holiday season at around 250,000 new cases per day on a 7-day moving average. That infection rate almost got down to 50,000 per day in early March but it has started to climb steadily to around 65,000 per day in spite of the success of its vaccination programme.

There have been other issues hampering the fight against the virus – specifically regarding the AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccine. This vaccine is especially important as it is the planned solution for most of the world including Australia. AZ is reportedly new to the vaccine business and seems to have over-promised. Deliveries are reportedly well behind schedule.

Three unrelated problems have emerged with the AZ variant. The first was that, due to a bungle over administering the correct dosages, it emerged that it might not be sufficiently efficacious for the over 65s – the people who are at most risk.

A significant number of countries in the EU and beyond then stopped vaccinating that age group with the AZ vaccine – and some suspended the vaccine altogether. It later appeared that the evidence wasn’t sufficiently strong to warrant suspension of its use consequently, many countries started reversing their earlier decisions.

The second issue related to blood clots. Some people – but not that many – suffer from blood clots whether or not they have been vaccinated with any relevant drug. In the trials, some thought too many people in the AZ vaccinated group – as opposed to the placebo or control group – contracted blood clots.

The numbers of people so affected in each group are so small that it was hard to form a compelling statistical relationship. The jury is now swinging back to the fact that AZ does not cause blood clotting but, perhaps, those with certain pre-existing conditions might avoid AZ.

Nevertheless, effective from the end of March both Germany and Canada have suspended vaccinations for the under 60 and 55 age groups, respectively. There seems to be no consensus!
The third issue with AZ is the manner in which the results of the trials have been disseminated. It seems to have been a case of distributing information by press release rather than by the traditional scientific reports.

AZ had produced a number of sets of seemingly conflicting data. Then, in late March, AZ announced again by press release that it had concluded its large US trials and the vaccine was 79% efficacious – quite a good number and better than in some other earlier trials. Then, two days later at 12:20 am (Washington DC time) a US regulator called AZ to task over the nature of the data they were using!

While AZ came back and lowered its efficacy rating from 79% to 76%, we expect there is more to come on this matter.

We reasonably surmise from all of these events that AZ is as safe to take as any other vaccine but there isn’t great clarity over its efficacy. It certainly seems to be a lot better than nothing but, perhaps, we should continue to practice social distancing etc after having been vaccinated with AZ – or, until we know better.

The major prevailing economic fear at the moment is that inflation will return and require central banks to start hiking interest rates sooner than previously expected. It is true, much of the economic data has exceeded expectations but catch-up is different from reaching new highs.

The US Federal Reserve (Fed) is now expecting 6.5% US growth in 2021. Since US GDP ended 2020 behind its 2019 level, 6.5% in 2021 will only have the US, by the end of 2021, where it would have been after two years of ‘normal’ growth in 2020 and 2021.

There are also 9.5 million unemployed in the US who haven’t yet got the jobs back that they lost in the shut-downs. Inflation woes look a very long way off to us. But it is encouraging to see strong economic progress.

China released an encouraging plan for ‘quality’ growth over the next five years at a rate above 6% per annum. While there are many significant geopolitical concerns about China, the strength of its economy is not one of them.

Australia is also experiencing strong growth in GDP and in house prices – but GDP is still largely playing catch up. The house-price conundrum is causing many to scratch their heads. Latest data also put US house price growth over the last 12 months at 11.2% which is the strongest in 15 years.

Our overall assessment is that the developed world is starting to return to normal but we see occasional resurgences of infections and shut downs here and elsewhere for at least the rest of 2021. And markets seem set to follow recent momentum along with all of the ample stimulus from both central banks and governments.

Asset Classes

Australian Equities

The ASX 200 had another strong positive month – making it six in a row – but the index stands well short of its February 2020 peak.

We are noting that returns in different sectors have been behaving quite differently in recent months. Investors are presumably trying to work out how best to set their portfolio ‘styles’ for a post-pandemic world or, indeed, see their way through any consequent volatility.

International Equities

The S&P 500 reached fresh all-time highs again in March. This index had a very strong month along with the London FTSE and the German DAX. China and emerging markets did not fare well.
The US Federal Reserve (Fed) has clearly stated that it will support quantitative easing (QE) or bond purchases for some time to come and it will give clear warning long before it plans to start to ‘taper’ the programme. That, and the trillions of dollars of fiscal stimulus being pumped into the US economy should ensure the momentum in US equities continues.

Our current estimate for the yield on the S&P 500 is about 1.6% (a little lower than historic averages) which is about the same as the 10-yr US Treasury yield. Given the prospect for capital gains in equities, we see the yield comparison still very much favouring equities for this year and possibly a lot longer.

Bonds and Interest Rates

The US 10-yr bond yield surge in February this year has largely dissipated. Since the yield is only back to pre-covid rates which we all thought at the time were low, we don’t see the current near 1.75% as problematic.

The Fed came out from its March meeting with a more optimistic view of the US economy. It upped its 2021 growth forecast from 4.2% (made in December) to 6.5%. It predicted 2022 and 2023 growth to be 3.2% and 2.2%, respectively. It expects the unemployment rate to fall to 4.5% by the end of this year.

The growth forecasts might have been enough to ‘frighten the horses’ a little but its inflation forecasts certainly did. Because of the price effects at the start of the COVID-shutdowns, there will be a ‘base-year’ effect in the inflation data series in 2021. The Fed expects a temporary increase to 2.4% (above the old target but not what the Fed has more recently been discussing) in the middle of 2021. That it expects inflation to then immediately dip down to below 2% means that we shouldn’t be bothered about consequent rate hikes. The bond market appears somewhat sceptical of this on the basis that ‘why would you have consequent interest rate rises if it were not in response to rising inflation?’

All seems more or less settled on the interest rate front again but we did observe a couple of weeks of jitters in bonds and equities during March.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced a doubling of its QE purchases to help lower longer run yields on its government bonds. We are not expecting the RBA to raise its overnight rate to stem the recent house price surge. Up 3% in one quarter is a big house price leap but the latest prices are only slightly above those at the March 2020 peak.

In spite of all of the chatter during February and March this year, we fully expect interest rates to stay relatively low for at least up to 2023 both here and in the US.

Other Assets

Prices of the major commodities (copper, iron ore and oil) had risen strongly in the year-to-date but they have all seen some pull back in March. Gold prices were down over the year and the month.

The Australian dollar against the greenback lost a little ground in March and is at a low point for the year-to-date.

Regional Review

Australia

The GDP growth for 2020 December quarter came in at 3.1% p.a., down from 3.4% in the previous quarter. While the last two quarters of 2020 were indeed strong, GDP is still 1.1% below the 2019 level. In a normal year we might expect growth of, say, 2.5% so we finished 2020 at about -3.6% behind where we would have been in a normal year. Hence the stronger level in the short term is not the basis for inflation fears!

The household savings ratio, which is also published in the GDP report, showed a fall from 18.7% to 12%. That is still quite a bit above what we think is healthy for a strong economy. It’s rapid return following the spike in the shutdown is warmly welcomed. Our economy is starting to get back on track. People are feeling more secure about spending and have more options on which to spend!

Our labour force data too are improving. The latest unemployment rate was down to 5.8% after 89,000 jobs were created in the month. The peak in March 2020 was 7.5%. JobKeeper payments ceased near the end of March so there could be some fall out from that.

We have a lot to thank state and federal government policies for over the pandemic outbreak. There was another 3-day lockdown announced for Brisbane because of four people having tested positive. Rapid response, short-lived shutdowns have kept off public health control at the top end of comparable nations.

With very few residents having been vaccinated we are relying on limited interaction with people from outside of our group. Until we – and those who wish to visit – are close to herd immunity we cannot get back to ‘normal’ life. Masks, hand washing and social distancing will be needed for many months to come.

The OECD published updated forecasts for Australian growth. In December 2020, the agency predicted growth of 3.2% for 2021. That prediction is now 4.5% with 3.1% predicted for 2022.

China

China set its new five-year plan during March. It is targeting a modest 6% plus growth in an attempt to focus on quality (sustainable) growth rather than some of the boom-bust policies of recent years.

The monthly data on retail sales, industrial output and fixed asset investment shot the lights out at over 30% in each case for the latest 12-month period. Of course, the numbers are so high because it is 12 months since the data plummeted on the start of the fierce China shut-down brought on by its COVID-19 response.

President Biden was initially aiming to oversee 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days in office. It looks like that figure will turn out to be more like 200 million. Since each person needs two doses for maximum immunity there is still quite a way to go. Indeed, as nearly half of certain groups such as ‘male republicans’ say they will not or may not take the jab, it is far from clear that herd immunity will be reached any time soon.

From boisterous interchanges in congress, it seems that some senators want those vaccinated to freely meet without masks etc. Indeed, Biden, said as much for gatherings indoors of fully vaccinated people. We fear that US citizens may push back too soon against distancing measures in turn slowing the elimination of COVID-19.

The rate of infections did start to climb again in the last couple of weeks of March even though vaccinations were well ahead of plan. The seven-day average of new infections ended March at over 25% above the March low!

US economic data are quite reasonable given the shutdown. 2020 December quarter growth was revised up to 4.3% from 4.1% and inflation (core personal consumer expenditure) was only 0.1% or 1.4% over the year.

The $1.9 trillion relief package only just started to be distributed in mid-March. Its full effect will not be seen for some time. On top of that, Biden wants a further $2 trillion dollars spent on infrastructure. Somebody is going to have to pay for this and people aren’t queueing up for the opportunity. He is recommending to hike the corporate tax rate to 28% from the 21% that Trump had introduced by cutting the previous rate from 35%. That discussion could mark the end of the presidential honeymoon.

Once the infrastructure bill goes through – as it does seem to be popular – Biden plans to turn to health and other personal issues. They will have to be paid for too!

In an unusual turn of events, Biden stated in a speech in March that he now plans to stand for re-election in 2024. He ruled that out before the last election. He will be 81 next time and 85 at the end of that term if he is successful. Sadly, he tripped three times on global TV trying to do ‘an Obama’ running up the steps to Airforce 1. As anyone in their seventies or older will tell you – it isn’t easy – which is why the rest of us all use the sky-bridge! While athleticism is not a prerequisite for good government it is not a good look for confidence building.

Europe

The UK and the EU are going toe-to-toe over vaccine supply. The EU is restricting export of vaccines while they have unfulfilled orders. Italy and France interfered with exports to Australia. A regulator ‘found’ 49 million doses of AZ suspiciously not on display in an Italian factory! Big political games are being played. And AZ is well behind its production targets.

Nonetheless, the UK is ahead of the curve in its vaccination programme and it is maintaining its ‘roadmap’ for re-opening its economy by June. Germany, on the other hand, is just considering new lockdowns.

Rest of the World

After six days blocking the whole of the Suez Canal, the massive container ship, Ever Given, has been re-floated and an end to the blockage disruption is in sight.

Japan has announced that it will not allow overseas spectators at the Tokyo Olympics. That means there are of the order of 900,000 tickets to be refunded. That has to hurt. It’s not clear what happens with hotel reservations and travel bookings. Somebody has to lose a lot of money. In hindsight it might have been better to have cancelled the games last year.

Economic Update – March 2021

Within this month’s update, we share with you a snapshot of economic occurrences both nationally and from around the globe.

Bond yields spike

– US inflation fears bubble up and the 10-year bond interest rate rises to reflect this

– Globally COVID 19 cases have declined for 6 weeks, millions vaccinated in the US and UK

– Corporate earnings strongly surprise on the upside and governments continue spending

We hope you find this month’s Economic Update as informative as always. If you have any feedback or would like to discuss any aspect of this report, please contact our team.

The Big Picture

As if there wasn’t enough to contend with in coping with the pandemic, US 10-year bond yields spiked at the end of February and that sent Wall Street into a tail spin. The two phenomena are actually connected but not in an obvious way.

President Biden and his team are making great inroads into vaccinating all US adults who want the vaccine sooner than many expected. That was the bad news! Such was the glee at starting to put an end to the pandemic (or so many think – but more of that later) investors and analysts started to think about a rapid recovery for the US economy.

If/when the US economy fully recovers, that will/might bring with it inflation – a problem that the US has not struggled with for more than a decade. Significant inflation means that the US Federal Reserve (“The Fed”) will have to start raising its federal funds rates from almost zero up to something a bit more in line with historical norms.

With participants suddenly confronted with the possibility of tighter monetary policy, the yields on longer-dated US Treasuries started to rise – and quickly. The next piece in the jigsaw is that 10-year yields are just about up to dividend yields on the S&P 500. At long last there seemed to be some alternative to investing in shares!

While this sequence of events seems logical, we think the argument is flawed. And the Fed chairman, Jay Powell, agrees.

Markets react harshly when they are blinded-sided. The S&P 500 fell 2.5% on the last Thursday of February and then fell a further 0.5% the next day. Ouch!

For the US to achieve “herd immunity” where the virus dies out on its own, it is widely accepted that the US needs to vaccinate around 70% or more with an “efficacious” vaccine like the ones from Pfizer and Moderna they are using.

Biden has assured us that he will have 600m doses available by the end of July but that’s a long way away from getting two jabs into well over 200m American arms. There are two major problems that Biden is not yet addressing.

First, there is a lot of push back in the US to being vaccinated. Whatever their reasons, it is not likely that the US can get enough people vaccinated quickly enough especially as two jabs are required. How do you find the person for the second jab and how do you record a successful pair of vaccinations – on a digital passport?

Tracking may well offend some US citizens as they might see it as another case of big brother. Tracking is, however, working well in Australia for finding sources of COVID infection.

The second problem is even bigger! People who have been vaccinated can still get infected and pass it on but they won’t get sick themselves! Masks and social distancing aren’t going away any time soon. Coupled with this problem is the fact that the rest of the world is not moving at the same rate. We only just started our vaccinations in the last week of February while the US had reportedly already vaccinated over 60 million people. And what about poorer nations?

For the US economy to boom again it also needs people and goods crossing its international borders. And what about Mexico? How many new illegal immigrants will have been vaccinated. How many illegal immigrants in the US will come forward for a jab? And then we have the problems about new strains emerging. If there are pockets of people scattered around the world being exposed to COVID, new, more virulent strains such as the UK and SA variants (and worse) may be created.

We applaud the work the US is doing in trying to eradicate the virus. We just think it will take a lot longer before they are back to ‘normal’.

We did not see all of Jay Powell’s testimony to the two chambers of Congress but we did see his conclusion. Paraphrased he said that it will be at least three years before we can reach the inflation target. And he thinks it will be a similar length of time before they achieve full employment.

So, if the inflation scare was a false dawn, what might we expect about bonds and share dividends? The US 10-year yield was around 1.8% to 1.9% in the weeks around the start of 2020 – before most of us knew anything about COVID. This yield fell to around 0.6% to 0.7% in the middle of 2020 and started to rise gently from when the vaccines were announced in November 2020 to about 1.0% to 1.1% in mid-February.

That was a massive fall in yields to 0.5% and a massive rise to 1.1% on the way back. But the even more massive rise to a short-lived 1.614% near the end of February is what spooked the markets.

We think some people extrapolated the recent short, sharp rise in yield without context. If the yield gets back 1.9% that is still only where it was positioned before the pandemic. Why should it continue to rise above that without a new big impetus? And if, as we suggested, the economy will only glide back to pre-COVID strength, why should it have even got to 1.6%? We think it was an over-reaction. It fell to 1.41% in just over 24 hours!

With bond yields getting back to near dividend yields on shares, we should also ask the question of why dividend yields fell so low. Historically, yield on the S&P 500 was around 2.5%, a full 1% point above where they are now.

Earnings fell in 2020 (from where dividends are paid) and companies became more risk-averse as they found it hard to predict where the economy was going. So, they retained a bigger share of earnings than normal.

Reporting season for quarter 4 (Q4) in the US was very strong and, on average, beat earnings estimates. Earnings are predicted to rise from here so we expect dividend yields to start to rise. That means bonds are not a great alternative to shares going forward – at least for a year or two.

As we have highlighted previously, we expected any number of shocks to equity markets as news about the pandemic emerged. This recent sell off in the bond market was just one of them. There will be more. These events are disconcerting for investors and while we don’t know the exact outcome in the short term, we do know having a well-founded long term investment strategy is the prudent approach to look through bouts of volatility.

Turning to Australia, our situation is quite different from that in the US. They vaccinated over 60 million people in the US before Scott Morrison got his jab at the head of the queue.

We only have enough efficacious Pfizer vaccine for less than 10 million people in Australia and no Moderna, a similar and equally efficacious vaccine. We were not able to secure more of these two vaccines used in the US so we are left with 53.8 million doses of AstraZeneca’s (AZ) vaccine.

Importantly, the US has not yet approved AZ for the US and South Africa has suspended the use of AZ. A dozen or more European countries are not recommending and/or allowing over 65s to be given AZ. The reason is that there is great debate about its efficacy (or usefulness). Nobody is suggesting it will harm anyone; it’s just much less useful than the Pfizer/Moderna formulations. Indeed, many say that AZ is not strong enough to produce herd immunity – the end game.

We clearly need a plan B but approval has not yet even been given for the 50 of the 53.8 million doses of AZ being manufactured in Melbourne by CSL. We have 51 million doses of Novavax on order but that is not only yet to be approved but there is very little known about the trial results.

Australians and the authorities have done a spectacular job in containing COVID. But, without an efficacious vaccine, it may well be 2022 before we start to tackle the underlying problem. Not only will Americans have to continue with masks and social distancing, etc we will have to be even more vigilant and for longer.

Our labour market is, however, continuing to improve. The latest unemployment rate fell from 6.6% to 6.4% and over 29,000 now jobs were created. Our Westpac and NAB confidence and conditions surveys are still pointing to a mildly optimistic sentiment across consumers and businesses. However, our retail sales only grew by 0.6% for the month when 2.0% had been expected.

Our government and central bank (RBA) continue to work hard at keeping the economy together. The RBA just extended its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme by $100bn from mid-April at $5bn per week buying long-dated bonds that they estimate keeps the bond yield down by about 30 basis points (bps) or 0.3 percentage points.

In conclusion, we believe that the US and Australia are doing enough to promote economic growth or at least keep it above what it would have otherwise been. The US Congress is close to putting another $1.9 trn into the system in the form of cash payments, top-up benefits and COVID needs. Much of that expenditure just perpetuates what was already passed but would have run out by March 14th without it.

We do not feel the need to alter our investment strategy for the year ahead at this point however, we must expect more speed bumps along the way.

Asset Classes
Australian Equities

The month of February was good for the ASX 200 in that the harsh sell off on the last day still left the index up by 1.0% for the month. The Energy sector (+2.1%) had a good month but Financials (+4.5%) and Materials (+7.2%) were spectacular; Utilities ( 8.8%) was the main laggard.

The last few months have been difficult for investors as the ‘style’ of stocks (growth, value, cyclicals, defensives, etc) in favour have switched back and forth, largely on news about the pandemic.

The second half of 2020 reporting season is all but over. The results were not only largely very strong relative to forecasts but historical estimates of earnings were revised upwards as actuals were published.

International Equities

The S&P 500 (+2.5%) gained strongly in February despite losing 3.0% in the last two days of the month. Most other major indexes also did well.

US fourth quarter reported earnings were also strong but there have been some major moves in certain sectors. Technology had been the poster child of the index for some time. It is always hard to value high growth stocks and some tech stocks were sold off quite heavily during the month. That means the tech-based Nasdaq underperformed the Dow and the S&P 500 for the first time in a while.

Bonds and Interest Rates

We discussed the bond yield spike in some detail in the overview – such is the importance of the topic. Suffice it to say here that the short duration end of the US yield curve has been well anchored out to about two years duration. The yield curve has been steepening quite sharply (yields on long durations securities e.g. 10-year bonds rising faster than short duration instruments such as cash) since around the time of the presidential election in November 2020 and the announcements of vaccines being approved.

The Australian 10-yr bond stands at 1.9% or a full 50 bps above the US yield. The RBA has about six months of Quantitative Easing (QE) ready to help keep yields on longer dated government bonds in check, but there is the possibility that more may be needed.

We do not expect the Fed or the RBA will try to lift Official interest rates anytime this year and probably next – if not even longer. We think much of the recent rally in bond yields is already incorporated into central bank’s view of interest rate policy.

Other Assets

February has been a big month for some commodity prices. Oil prices were up about 18% and the iron ore price was up 10%. The copper price was up 16%. The price of gold was down 7%. Partly as a result, the Australian dollar rose 2.4% against the US$ (from 76.45c to 78.29c) passing through 80c on the way through the month.

The VIX (equity market volatility Index) ‘fear index was down from 33 to 28 over February but hit a low of 20 along the way!

Regional Review

Australia

The unemployment rate just prior to the pandemic bottomed at 5.1% and then peaked at 7.5% in later 2020. This rate has now fallen back to 6.4% last reported in February. Of course, we could debate measurement issues concerning hidden unemployment and the like however, such problems always exist so we should just compare apples with apples. That aside the government seems to have made a reasonable fist of tackling the problems.

Because of COVID 19 vaccination problems we do not expect to have seen the last of partial shutdowns but the future looks brighter than it did prior to Christmas.

There is now talk of an early federal election for the coalition to capitalise on its perceived handling of the pandemic. That is not for us to speculate on but the main worry for many investors in the last election was the opposition’s intent to remove franking credits and increase capital gains tax. They have now renounced those plans so the main differences are now the usual social positions rather than financial – especially for self-funded retirees.

China

If China was expecting Biden to rescind Trump’s tariffs and other restrictions, they were sadly mistaken – and they have hinted at that. Biden doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to placate them even though the Democrats were vocal opponents of the introductions of the tariffs at the time.

The ongoing trade war with China seems to have softened but not reversed. China needs our high-grade coal but seems to be prepared to suffer a little more rather than let our ships unload.

The Chinese Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) – a measure of activity and by implication confidence for manufacturing – came in at 51.3 which was just a little off the expected 51.6.

The House of Representatives has passed the US$1.9 trn relief package to aid the economy to deal with the pandemic, but it seems that the doubling of the minimum wage missed out on being part of the bill.

The Biden administration is proposing a bill that will avoid needing any Republican support – it is a quirk of the US system that allows a limited number of bills to pass the Senate without the 60% majority normally required for a vote to pass.

Although US$1.9 trn sounds a lot – and it is a lot following hot on the heels of the US$0.9 trn package passed in December – it is largely keeping current financial assistance levels going for a lot longer. It is far too soon to remove the economy from life support.

The latest monthly retail sales growth was a bumper, up 5.3% as that month included the $600 cheques that went to millions of people. With another $1,400 cheque almost in the mail, we can expect even bigger numbers sometime soon.

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation measure was only +0.3% but that reduces to 0.0% core inflation when energy and food are removed from the basket of goods and services comprising the index. And some folks thought inflation was getting out of control?

The nonfarm payrolls (jobs) data were on expectations at 49,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 6.3% (when 6.7% had been expected). The market is expecting over 200,000 new jobs in the next release due on the first Friday in March. The outcome could be a lot bigger than that without causing a problem. 200,000 was a ball-park average before the pandemic set in. There are still millions of jobs lost in the shutdown that haven’t yet been recovered.

Europe

We still have not seen any significant fallout from Brexit at the start of the year. Britain is having lots of trouble with controlling COVID 19 but they are planning to get spectators back at football matches from May onwards.

Different countries have reacted quite differently to the use of the AZ vaccine. Clearly, what is needed is more data so that a prudent and informed decision can be made. There are real issues with the clinical trials that are in turn causing confusion.

Economic Update February 2021

Within this month’s update, we share with you a snapshot of economic occurrences both nationally and from around the globe.

A new dawn for the American economy

– January 6 riots in Washington DC highlight the magnitude of the political divide in the US
– Problems with vaccine roll-outs, shortages of supply and slower than forecast inoculation rates
– China’s economy undoubtedly strong, rest of the world coming good but slower than expected

We hope you find this month’s Economic Update as informative as always. If you have any feedback or would like to discuss any aspect of this report, please contact your our team.

The Big Picture

Whenever a new President of the United States is sworn in, there is a natural period of reflection on the policies that were promised and a contrast with those that went before.

One expects even more introspection when there is a change in the governing party – as there was from Republican to Democratic on 20th January 2021. In addition, this inauguration focused attention on the end of possibly the most divisive presidency in recent history.

It would be easy to be dismissive of Trump’s term – as many Democrats have been – but, even in losing the election, Trump garnered around 48% of the popular vote. A lot of people liked him and his policies! The Sydney Morning Herald reported a statistic at the end of January that one third of Americans still thought Trump had won!

If we turn the clock back by about four and a half years – to the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU – the two sides to that argument were also vociferous in putting their cases. The disbelief of the losing side rallied people to predict disarray and worse. Some even demanded a fresh referendum (and so on until they won, we suspect).

As it turns out, Brexit at the end of 2020 went quite smoothly with Britain getting most of what it wanted. The finance industry has not migrated to Europe as many predicted. It seems to be a fact of our times – either through education and/or the internet – people on both sides of most arguments are having their voices aired and magnified like never before.

President Biden had denounced Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. Trump wanted to take on each nation separately in an attempt to get good deals for the US. Biden wants to go back to multilateral agreements. On day one, Biden signed executive orders to go back into the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Paris Climate Accord.

As with many policies, there is no universally best outcome but one which suits the current mood and opinions of the people it represents. The riots in Washington, DC on January 6th 2021 made it clear that not everyone is happy with the new future under Biden. Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives for his role in those riots and Biden must handle the ‘trial’ in the Senate along with all of his other pressing issues.

Thankfully, there has not been any recurrence of the violence from when the Capitol building was over-run. Biden has a big job on his hands to make both sides see reason. The solution seems a bit like holding a big dumbbell above one’s head but grasping the bar only in the middle. Every slight movement can generate a big, potentially dangerous sway from one side to the other.

It is also important at this time to reflect on the new sizes of the majorities in both houses of Congress. Democrats have only a slim majority in the House of Representatives – but all Democrats are not ‘equal’ and neither are all Republicans. Deal-making will still have to be done within and across parties at a frenetic pace for Biden to get close to what he wants, particularly in his first 100 days.

The balance of power in the Senate is even more precarious. The Vice President, Kamala Harris, has the casting vote but the Senate works largely on a committee structure. Will each committee have to have a 50:50 balance? And then there is the filibuster rule that doesn’t seem to be going away. That rule requires a 60:40 majority vote to avoid them. In other words, bipartisan bills will still need to be crafted.

Nevertheless, Biden has moved swiftly to sign many executive orders. These orders require no vote but the bigger bills need to go to Congress. Biden has already ended building of ‘the wall’ and mandated the wearing of masks on Federal premises and certain air travel. He has provided some relief to those whose jobs were affected by the pandemic.

On another contentious issue, Biden has shut-down work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to a US pipeline 1,200 miles south. There are obviously economic consequences for the shut-down. The upside is the reduction in the environmental and indigenous population concerns. Most things come at a price.

When we turn to the bills which must be voted on in Congress, perhaps the most important, immediate issue is the $1.9 trn proposed coronavirus relief package. Much has been made of the wish to add $1,400 to the $600 cash payments to individuals that has already just been passed in the $900 billion relief package passed in December.

Some ‘progressives’ want this $2,000 payment to lower income earning individuals to become a recurrent benefit. Others will no doubt want to scale it back, even within the Democratic party. A CNBC TV guest estimated that the package might be scaled back to about $1 trn before it can be passed.

Naturally the new administration has already claimed that the coronavirus situation is a lot worse than they had expected. It is not clear to what problems they are referring that were not in the news in recent weeks. But doesn’t every new government everywhere try to heap as much responsibility as possible on the previous government?

Biden stated, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better”. US COVID deaths are expected to reach 500,000 in February and he said, “deaths are expected to exceed 600,000 before we start to turn the corner”.

There have been important disruptions to the supply and distribution of vaccines in the US. Biden has stated they plan to oversee 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days. Since two doses are required for each person (although the Financial Times reports some early results from Israel suggesting that the Pfizer vaccine is 90% effective with only one dose), that means only 50 million of the 323 million Americans can be expected to be vaccinated by the end of April – at best. Apparently, herd immunity can be achieved with around 70% to 80% of the community so vaccinated. That still leaves a long way to go but it’s a great start.

There are many unknowns in these vaccine roll-outs. Does the vaccine work as well with the new strains of the virus? Moderna has stated their vaccine is much less effective with some new strains but that they are developing a new ‘booster’ vaccine. Germany is reported to not giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s because it does not work well enough – but the EU approved it anyway!
Provisional results for Novavax suggest it is 89% effective against the original strain and 85% effective against the UK variant. It is reported to be much less effective against the South Africa variant.

Can immunised people still pass on the virus? For how long does immunisation last? None of these issues, and more, should stop us supporting the initiatives. What we wonder is when will the US and global economy be relatively safe from the effects of the virus?

Much of US economic activity depends on international travel and trade. Unless all other relevant nations’ populations are largely vaccinated, normality cannot return in full. The latest growth figures for the US shows that the stellar result for quarter 3 (Q3) has pulled back to 1% for the Q4 quarter – not bad in itself but GDP for 2020 is still 3.5% below 2019’s figure.

Both the US and Europe are very much engaged in tackling the virus. Poorer countries are at the back of the queue in being allocated sufficient vaccines to produce herd immunity. Even Australia – certainly not a poor country – is facing supply constraints. And now, the EU is placing export restrictions on exports if home demand is not supplied.

Our government pre-ordered some Pfizer and a lot of AstraZeneca, but no Moderna vaccine. It turns out the AstraZeneca vaccine is insufficiently effective to produce herd immunity and we cannot access any more of the Pfizer or Moderna drugs this year – at least.

Our government’s plan is to use the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by CSL in Melbourne, as a stop-gap until better vaccines become available next year. New vaccines are expected from the US, India, China and Russia. We are not yet aware of their final trial results or their availability.

We surmise that the end is potentially in sight as, according to Johns Hopkins university COVID-19 tracking, the reported daily infection rate has been falling for the last month. But we still have a long way to go and there may be fresh outbreaks and shutdowns along the way. We feel that stock markets have priced in a best-case scenario so we would not be surprised to see more market volatility until it is clear that we are indeed defeating the virus and the world can focus beyond it.

Meanwhile the Chinese economy is going from strength to strength. China surprised on the upside with its economic growth figure of 6.5% in quarter 4, 2020 compared to its 6.3% expectation. Its industrial output and fixed asset investment both beat expectations but retail sales missed at 4.6% compared to an expected 5.5%. Exports grew a stellar 18.1% against an expected 15.1%.

China slapped sanctions on 28 people from the Trump administration. Its air force has also recently conducted 20 flights in Taiwan airspace over one weekend in what has been described in some media outlets as a direct challenge to Biden. It is yet to be seen if Biden can smooth things out but there has been no sign yet of him intending to repeal the massive Trump initiated tariffs placed on Chinese imports to the US. If they were as bad as many suggested, why not repeal Trump’s executive orders?

At home, there are still many unresolved issues in the China-Australia trade war. China has held up, or imposed significant tariffs on, a variety of imports from Australia such as coal, wine, barley, copper and timber. It is not clear what China’s end-game is but iron ore prices increased rapidly through 2020 and there seems no end in sight for China’s demand of that ore. Is China trying to craft a strategy to impact iron ore prices?

Our labour market data continued to improve but the consequences of changes in COVID-affected immigration pressures may not have yet fully worked themselves into our economy.

We feel that it is time to set an investment strategy that is looking through to 2022 and beyond – and be prepared to ride out any short-term volatility in the early part of this year.

We see Biden as being too tied up with impeachment proceedings, senate committee structures, coronavirus issues and healing the rift between the two extremes of the political divide in his first 100 days to even think about tax and other policies. He campaigned on raising taxes (income, corporate and capital gains) and no doubt he will eventually make some moves in that direction. In spite of all of the fiscal stimulus packages, he will have to move slowly so as not to rock the boat too much.

We also see Australia continuing to pursue stimulus top-ups as needed. So, as far as we are concerned, there is likely to be a big push of stimulus-induced growth here and in the US. As a result of fiscal stimulus and the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programme, we see continued weakness in the US dollar. Providing commodity prices hold, it is possible that the Australian dollar against the US dollar will strengthen. But, again, we emphasise possible stumbles in markets if the re-opening of economies is adversely affected by new COVID outbreaks.

The consensus 2021 forecast for the S&P 500 is for a capital gain of about 10.5% and for the ASX 200 the forecast is 9% but, of course, our dividend yield is usually about 2% points higher than in the US – and many of us also benefit from franking credits. Our in-house forecasts are slightly more optimistic than the consensus but we are not expecting markets to move in a straight line.

There is little hope for interest rate increases in 2021. And in an uncharacteristically forthright announcement the RBA, following its meeting on February 2, committed to holding cash rates and terms out to 3 years at record lows of circa 0.10% out to 2024 and increased their bond buying program by $100 billion. These are appropriate but extremely accommodative policy settings designed to support the Australian economy through COVID-19.

Asset Classes

Australian Equities

The ASX 200 had a flat month in January but the Consumer Discretionary, Financials and Telcos sectors had strong gains. We have noted that the consensus forecast for capital gains is 9% (plus dividends and franking credits). While we have no material issue with the consensus forecast, we are concerned that the market is vulnerable, given its lofty valuations, to unexpected bad news most likely resulting from COVID-19 related events.

International Equities

The S&P 500 gained strongly in January until the last three trading days when it gave away those gains – and then some. It would seem that some disappointing news on vaccines, retail traders taking on short-sellers and the Federal Reserve’s comments about headwinds were the main contributors to the retracement.

We expect the S&P 500 also to have a relatively good year – as does the consensus forecast of 10.5%, though the current high valuations present a risk. While accurate valuation of stocks is difficult at the best of times and markets are expensive now when assessed against historical multiples, in an environment of historically low interest rates higher multiples can be accommodated. Our assessment is that providing interest rates stay low and Governments maintain stimulatory policy settings the current regime could persist for some time. In this environment we remain vigilant but we are fully invested.

Bonds and Interest Rates

It is generally accepted that central banks have done just about all they can to stimulate the global economy. They still need to continue quantitative easing – or the process of buying and selling bonds and other assets to manipulate interest rates. Official rates, being zero or close to it, are unlikely to be cut further. It is all down to elected governments using fiscal policies, as appropriate, to stimulate their respective national economies.

Bond rates are very low by historical standards and they are likely to stay there. Denmark recently announced a 0% interest rate 20-year home loan! Given the fees and break costs in term deposits, together with inflation, this creates a challenging environment for term deposit and bond investors as returns are the lowest in living memory.

Unsurprisingly, in Australia under the current regime there has been an increasing demand for equities exposure to support income return via dividend payments. With the inclusion of franking credits, gross yield is at circa 4.0% – a very big difference to that available in traditional fixed interest investments. However over longer periods, such as 5 or 10 years, Australian equities have always done well – or not too badly. It’s a question of having sufficient cash or bonds to ride out the dips in order to avail oneself of the higher yields in equities – but, of course, with an appropriately diversified portfolio.

Other Assets

Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies have been in the news again. New highs were reached recently and some hopes were dashed. The story of one particular ‘investor’ accidentally throwing out his hard drive to the tip – only to then offer the council $50 million to dig it up (because it contained his Bitcoin ‘wallet’) tells it all. There was another story of an ‘investor’ having failed on his first eight of ten password attempts facing the prospect of losing the lot if his next two guesses also fail! And there was the Mt Gox exchange hack that cost investors dearly.

Obviously, profits can be made in any asset class such as art, vintage cars and the like. But, for normal risk-averse investors, stocks, property, bonds and cash define the bulk of the universe for prudent capital allocation.

More traditional ‘other assets’ like iron ore, copper and gold had a flat to weak month but the price of oil rose by around 8%. Volatility on Wall Street was well down until it spiked during the end-of-month sell-off. Our dollar against the US dollar was stable over January.

Regional Review

Australia

Australia’s economy always has a ‘sleepy month’ in January. 2021 was no exception. The only important data to be released maintained the view that our labour market is doing quite well given the existence of the pandemic. The unemployment rate is down to 6.6% after peaking at 7.5% in July 2020. This rate was 5.1% in December 2019. The government is predicting that it will take four years for unemployment to get back to pre-COVID rates.

There were big concerns about fresh breakouts in COVID-19 following Christmas and New Year celebrations. There are restrictions of various types across the country but it seems there is a will to get back to normal quickly.

Australia is much better off than the US or UK in handling the virus. We ranked eighth in a study of 100 countries in how well we have dealt with, and are dealing with, the virus. New Zealand came first.

Arguably, our biggest problem is that we backed the wrong horse in the vaccination stakes. The Oxford University – AstraZeneca vaccine turned out to be an underperformer as we reported in these updates last year. Its ‘efficacy’, or the ability to immunise people from the virus is too low to prevent herd immunity. Herd immunity is the concept that the proportion of people in the community that are immune is so high as to make transmission rates to others to be very low and eventually fizzle out.

Our government tried to get more of the superior Pfizer and Moderna vaccines but that event is ‘sold out’. We will have to use a less-than-premium vaccine until we can secure supplies of something as good as the US is rolling out.

There is no question of safety. It is just that efficacy rates are about 60% compared to the 95% of the “mRNA” vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna. Unfortunately, it is a ‘watch this space’ for news on how we will cope with the medical side of the pandemic.

Naturally, our economy cannot get back to anything like normal while we are not safe from the virus. Between now and then we expect short periods of lockdowns and disruptions that will slow down economic growth. The same is true for other countries but we have a less than optimal vaccine solution which is likely to see greater focus on social measures such has lockdowns, social distancing etc.

China

China is angling for a new relationship with the US after the end of the ‘hard-ball’ Trump administration. They certainly have focused their ire on Australia for the last few months so it is a question of whether Biden marches arm-in-arm with Australia down Pennsylvania Avenue or whether he throws us under the bus.

We are yet to see where Australia-US relations will head. On our own, we may have problems dealing with China’s wrath on Australia because of our prior allegiances to the US and our comments on China’s role in starting the pandemic.

On the bright side, China’s economic data has looked pretty good. First in – first out of the pandemic has put China in good stead. Their economic growth just came in at 6.5% p.a. which would have been seen as a positive pre-COVID.

Exports recorded a growth of 18.1% against an expected 15% while imports came in at 6.5% against a 5% expectation.

The US economy is going through a massive transition as its economy deals with the consequences of COVID-19. Jobs and other economic data are worse than pre-COVID days but much better than at the height of the February 2020 to July 2020 part of the crisis.

The latest nonfarm payrolls data recorded a loss of 140,000 jobs when +50,000 new jobs were expected. The unemployment rate was 6.7% against an expected 6.8%.

Q4 GDP growth came in at 4% (annualised) or 1% quarter-on-quarter. Since the economy is still rebounding from the Q2 low, 1% is not great however, in an ordinary year it would have been. That growth in GDP in 2020 over 2019 was 3.5%, a lot more growth is needed to get back to previous highs.

The Case-Shiller house price index across 20 cities was up 9.5% over the 12 months to November – which is near record highs.

The big thing that we don’t know is how Americans will react to new rules and regulations over COVID. First amendment rights seemingly reign supreme in the US. Will they wear masks – especially after some have the comfort of having been vaccinated? Americans are very different people from Australians, British and Europeans.

We see that there is a clear light at the end of the tunnel. But it will not be an easy road to get there. Biden has promised much and hopefully he will achieve. But, what if he doesn’t? It is a country politically divided by so much.

Europe

A month after Brexit, there still seem to be no major fall outs after the exit. Of course, Britain is in a bit of a mess over their handling of COVID-19 but that has nothing to do with Europe and the Brexit negotiations.

The EU and UK economies are not doing well. But, in the short-term, it is more of what governments are prepared to borrow to stimulate economies rather than what economies can do for themselves.

Given that the EU is now restricting exports of vaccines if they need it first, there seems little chance that Australia will get its fair share – or even what it ordered – this year.

Rest of the World

While all of the vaccine roll-outs get underway, little seems to be written about when the rest-of-the-world can access the vaccine. One SBS News report did mention a full global roll-out might take until well into 2024. Israel and certain Arab Gulf states are well ahead in vaccinations. Israel has already vaccinated over 25% of its population.

Until all nations that interact with the developed world are largely vaccinated, there can be no complete herd immunity. And that brings us to who will pay for those vaccinations?

admin

The macro

The goodies (without the detail)

Personal taxation

Marginal Tax Rates

Superannuation

Allowing commutation of certain income streams

One-off $250 cost of living payment

Business taxation

Conclusion and where to from here?

Footer

Find an Adviser

Postcode

Search