China’s economy is shaping up to be weaker than expected, but a top strategist says that won’t be enough to keep US stocks down.
The latest development is that China’s government is now forecasting growth of 6% to 6.5%, down from its earlier — and firmer — 6.5% target. It said the trade dispute with the US was harming its economy and announced new tax cuts to counteract that.
But amid the renewed turmoil, one expert says the pathway to big gains is still open. That expert is Julian Emanuel — the chief equity and derivatives strategist of the financial-services firm BTIG — who said that in spite of China’s latest warning, the emerging nation’s economy wasn’t headed for any sort of hard landing.
“China isn’t going to implode the way people thought they would for the last 10 years,” Emanuel told Business Insider in an exclusive interview.
In his view, investors have long been preparing for a disastrous meltdown in China brought on by slowing growth or rising debt.
Last year was the slowest for China’s economy since 1990. Investors fear a weakening in China’s economy partly because its rapid expansion over the past few decades has been a key contributor to global growth.
That means stocks often drop when China shows signs of weakness, as they did in mid-2015 when the government devalued the yuan in surprising fashion. Traders interpreted that as a signal the economy was slowing dramatically.
But Emanuel thinks investors will get more optimistic about company earnings and profit margins. He says both are likely to improve and beat expectations, with continued economic growth in the US and the new stimulus measures in China contributing to better earnings.
He’s certainly not alone in his bullish profit-growth forecast. Earnings are expected to expand by more than 9% by the fourth quarter of 2019 before climbing into double digits by the first quarter of 2020, according to economist data compiled by Bloomberg.
Emanuel added that the trade dispute hadn’t driven inflation higher the way many investors expected.
He warns, however, that the path for stocks won’t be smooth, and not just because the US-China trade war — another big geopolitical catalyst that affects both economies — hasn’t been resolved. He says that if investors don’t see signs that China’s economy is improving, such as improved manufacturing data from China and Europe, the S&P 500 could drop to 2,600.
“We really do need to see the data start to stabilize to catch up to where asset prices have moved,” he said.
But Emanuel says China doesn’t import enough from the US for slower economic growth to turn into a big economic problem. That may anger the Trump administration, but it also means the slowing Chinese economy isn’t as big a problem for the US as it is for Europe.
Emanuel also has thoughts specifically on tech stocks, which have been responsible for large portions of the move higher in equities over the past decade. He says worries over China’s economy have bruised tech stocks mostly for “psychological” reasons and argues they possess strong upside if trade tensions fade.
Ultimately, Emanuel’s bullish views on both US stocks and China are shared by others on Wall Street. Jon Gordon, a cross-asset strategist at UBS, published research Tuesday imploring market participants to look beyond a slowdown.
“Investors should focus more on China’s efforts to shore up its economy,” he wrote, citing tax cuts for Chinese manufacturers and construction companies that should help credit conditions and aid growth.
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