Los expertos desconfían del mercado

Fuente: Zerohedge.com      Submitted by Frank Suess via Acting Man blog

Interview between Mr. Frank Suess, CEO and Chairman of BFI Capital Group, with the globally renowned Swiss fund manager, Mr. Felix Zulauf. Mr. Zulauf currently heads Zulauf Asset Management, a Switzerland-based hedge fund and has forty years of experience with global financial markets and asset management. He has been a member of the Barron’s Roundtable for over twenty years.

Frank Suess: You are a renowned investor and fund manager with a solid track record over the past 40 years. In those 40 years, you’ve encountered many highs and lows in financial markets and business cycles. What do you think about the current cycle we are in?

Felix Zulauf: The current cycle is very unusual, because never before have we seen authorities, central banks in particular, intervening on such a large scale and pumping so much money into global financial markets. Hence, global financial markets are more distorted than ever before and accordingly, the risks are very high. Investing becomes very difficult in such an unprecedented environment, as it can’t be compared to previous situations.

Frank Suess: When you look at our financial markets today, what would you consider are the most alarming themes? And how can they affect the current situation?

Felix Zulauf: Global demand has weakened due to structural reasons. This is a situation that cannot be improved by pumping liquidity into the system. Zero or even negative interest rates have distorted the valuation and pricing of virtually all assets. We know that the longer a distortion prevails, the more investors get used to it and it becomes the “new normal” to them. That’s where the problem lies!

I see three potential threats:

1) Inflation and bond yields rise and begin to prick asset bubbles;

2) The world economy gets hit again by more deflation due to a weaker Chinese currency that would reinforce deflationary pressure, dampen pricing and corporate profits and finally the real global economy; and

3) Asset prices continue to rise and finally exhaust on the upside at very high and unsustainable valuation levels.

Frank Suess: Central banks, with the US Federal Reserve in the lead, have embarked on a series of quantitative easing and credit stimulus packages. Particularly since the crisis in 2008, central bank influence on financial markets and the global economy has reached an unprecedented level. What is your view on this? Has this huge market intervention been justified? Will central bankers really be able to steer the global economy toward sustainable growth?

Felix Zulauf: Markets are the best capital allocators and capitalism works if the authorities let it take its course. Had they let markets correct all the excesses in previous business cycles instead of printing more and more money, the world would be in a much better shape today. But our authorities had the dream to smooth the business cycle by not allowing the markets and the system to correct itself. It is difficult to correct this in a painless way, which is what the authorities are trying to do. That won’t work.

Frank Suess: Following the Americans, and then the Japanese, Europe has now joined the “QE bandwagon”. And, European stock markets, in general, currently look more reasonably priced than those in America. Should we now reallocate a bigger part of our portfolio into European stock markets?

Felix Zulauf: On a relative basis, European markets are now higher priced than in 2007 versus the US. But cyclical forces remain in favor of European stocks due to the highly expansive ECB policies. Europe has zero interest rates or even negative rates in some cases. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see German 10-year Bonds going to negative yields (they are 0.25% at present). There is plenty of liquidity around and the banks cannot lend it out. But still, Draghi wants to flood the market with more than one trillion of newly printed Euros. That is insane! The rationale: Weaken the Euro even further to help the structurally uncompetitive economies like Greece, Italy or France. That is all a very far cry from sound central banking, of course. For a while longer it will be bullish for European stocks, particularly for German equities, as they had already performed well when the EUR/USD was trading at 1.40.

ARTICULO COMPLETO:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-29/risks-are-very-high-swiss-billionaire-warns-global-financial-markets-have-never-been