To regular readers this week’s commentary is starting to look like a broken record, as equity markets continue to look past the poor company earnings reports and economic data (as these just simply underscore what we already know – i.e. the global economy has hit a brick wall), and instead is focusing on the prospect of the major economies starting to reopen. As such, the FTSE-100, having closed up just over 111 points, or 1.91%, is up a further 50 points this morning, taking the FTSE-100 back above 6,000 for the first time since early March.
Interestingly, although companies continue to withdraw their profit guidance for this year, in general they appear to be expecting profits to quickly snap back in 2021.
A great example is Starbucks, the coffee chain. The US based company said that 98% of its 4,351 stores in China have reopened and despite limiting cafe seating, customer visits continue to grow. As a consequence, Starbucks expect its Chinese sales to recover sufficiently to make 2020 same store sales roughly the same as 2019. Furthermore, Starbucks stated that from their experience, the impact of the coronavirus outbreak is temporary and they expect the whole business to recover.
This gels with our V-shaped economy recovery and confirms our view that it is best to focus on the likely duration of the economic decline rather than the depth.
Looking ahead, at 1:30pm UK time, we get US Q1 GDP (which is expected to decline sharply) and at 7pm we will hear from the Fed after their monetary policy meeting – both of which we will update you on tomorrow.
Investment Management Team