Equity Downside Risk Dashboard
Atlas Capital Advisors
The Atlas Capital Equity Downside Risk Dashboard provides an indication of the risk of a large general decline in stock prices. The dashboard shows for five indicators the historical percentile of the indicator relative to the period since 1967, as well as the average for the five. A high historical percentile indicates favorable conditions for equity investors, while low percentiles indicate unfavorable conditions. Each indicator on its own has some bearing on the outlook for the stock market, but the combination has more predictive power than any independently. Equity downside risk is elevated when the combined dashboard is below the 35th percentile. When that has been the case, investors experienced a higher investment return in cash than in stocks.
Economic Trend
Atlas Capital maintains a database of the important economic information for the world’s largest economies. The indicator is the GDP-weighted trend of this data over the prior year. A positive trend in the global economic data (high percentile in our chart) tends to lead to future gains for equity investors. The large and sustained equity bear markets of the past were typically accompanied by a deterioration in global economic data.
Inflation Trend
This indicator is a composite of the prior year trend in inflation metrics of the fourteen countries for which we track economic data. Sustained increases in inflation (a low percentile on our chart) have typically led to losses for equity investors.
Credit Spread Trend
Credit spreads are the difference between the interest rate paid by non-government borrows and the interest rate paid by the government. Increases in credit spreads (a low percentile on our chart) indicate that investors are becoming more concerned about risk of default by borrowers.
Value
This is a composite of the “price-to-something” metrics for global equities, including the ratio of price to trailing earnings, projected earnings, sales, cash flow and other metrics. Bad Value (a low percentile on this dashboard) is not a reliable signal to exit the stock market, on its own. But the great bear markets in the past usually began when Value was stretched and then economic growth faltered.
Price Trend
This is a measure of how much equity prices have changed over the prior year. A higher increase in stock prices leads to a higher percentile on our chart. Rising prices are an indication of positive sentiment among investors.
Dashboard Average
The average percentile of the five dashboard items is a more reliable downside risk metric than any single dashboard item. A reading below 35% indicates heightened downside risk.
October 2023 Assessment
We consider average dashboard readings below 35% as indicating heightened downside risk for equity investors. In this cycle, our equity dashboard fell below 35% near the end of 2021. The dashboard recovered out of the danger zone about a year later, in January 2023. The most important dashboard signal is the trend in the global economic data, which is currently neutral, improving from a historically negative trend in 2022. The only negative dashboard item at present is equity price trend, which has faded as interest rates rise. Value deteriorated earlier in 2023 as equity prices rallied without higher earnings but recovered to neutral when stock prices faltered in September and October. With credit spreads rising, the credit spread trend moved from positive to neutral in October. The inflation trend remains quite positive. The overall dashboard average is near the middle of neutral, trending downwards.
Although the dashboard is not signaling high equity downside risk, we believe some caution about the equity market is warranted. Interest rate hikes by central bankers have probably not yet had their full impact on economic growth, and moreover much higher interest rates have led fixed income investments to become a more attractive alternative to equity investing.
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