Unlike Goldman’s cross asset strategists, whose six Top Trade recommendations for 2016 have gotten destroyed three weeks into the year, with half of them already stopped out as we whose six Top Trade recommendations , the bank’s chief equity strategist David Kostin has been notably more accurate in his predictions, with his conservative 2015 year end target of 2000 on the S&P almost exactly where the stock market ended.
Since then stocks have taken a sharp leg lower, with the S&P dropping as much as 15% from its all time high, half the average post-war recession drawdown.
Which has forced Goldman’s clients to ask some very simple questions, starting with: “just what is going on”, and more importantly “what does the market know that they don’t:
Despite the generally positive US economic data, the sudden fall in asset prices has investors focused on the potential for a US recession. Clients understandably point to the stock market as a cause for concern, and wonder what the market has come to know in early 2016 that they do not.
Kostin responds:
A long few weeks ago, at the end of 2015, client conversations centered on the limited set of opportunities in an expensive stock market. With the median S&P 500 stock trading at a forward P/E of 17x – ranking in the 94th historical percentile – clients were reluctant to add exposure to equities, but almost universally expressed a desire to buy the market 10% lower.
So where are the buyers? According to Goldman’s clients these are the 5 biggest risks facing anyone will to BTFD:
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