Risk Asset Update: Vast Majority Agonize Since The S&P 500’s August Lows

Weren’t lower oil prices supposed to act like a “tax cut” for U.S. households? If families spend less at the gas pump, then they will spend more of their dollars at the mall. At least that’s what mainstream media cheerleaders like CNBC’s Jim Cramer have insisted throughout the year.

In contrast, the S&P SPDR Retail Index (XRT) demonstrates that investors are not particularly impressed by the prospects of American retailers. The current price for the exchange-traded fund tracker is lower than the price during the summertime stock market correction. What’s more, XRT is trading 14% below its 2015 high.

Well, okay. Maybe consumers are pocketing some of their gasoline savings. Maybe they’re choosing to pay down some of their debts. No matter. Lower energy costs surely must boost bottom line profits of transportation companies – truckers, airlines, shippers, railways.

Maybe not. The iShares DJ Transportation Average (IYT) shows that investors see big troubles for American transportation corporations. The current price on IYT is near a 52-week low and sits approximately 10% below a long-term 200-day trendline. Equally troubling, IYT is trading near the lows of the August-September sell-off and it remains down 16.5% year-to-date.

The fact that lower energy prices are not providing the anticipated windfall to economic sectors that should benefit from lower oil prices continues to confound analysts and economists alike. For one thing, most of them have completely missed the cons of of commodity price depreciation; that is, gains for commodity users would be offset by losses for the producers (e.g., energy, materials, natural resources, etc.). Second, if the losses by the producers become bad enough, the number of resources-dependent exporters crimping global world product (GWP) can play into the notion of worldwide recessionary pressures. In other words, the U.S. is not an island; the well-being of the global economy matters more for risk taking in market-based securities than a simplistic assessment of oil savings benefiting retailers and/or transporters.