When it comes to the stock market and the corporate cash flow condition, our attention is usually drawn to stock repurchases. With good reason. These controversial uses of scarce internal funds are traditionally argued along the lines of management teams identifying and correcting undervalued shares. History shows, conclusively, that hasn’t really been true. Last year’s tax reform law was meant ideally to spur...
Read More »Growth, Value, and Dividend Aristocrats
There are numerous reasons to be optimistic about global equities in the coming year. Capital is plentiful; central banks in Europe, the United Kingdom, and some Asian economies have an easing bias; and the equity strategists on Credit Suisse’s Global Markets team believe the equity risk premium is higher than warranted. But there are risks, too, including heightened political risk, slowing Chinese growth, and threats to existing business models from technological disruption and Chinese...
Read More »US Equities: Staying Afloat in Choppy Markets
At first glance, U.S. equities seem to be turning a corner: They’ve rebounded from their February lows, bolstered by signs that China’s economy is stabilizing, dovish signals from the Federal Reserve, and a recovery in oil prices. And the majority of U.S. companies have beat first-quarter earnings and sales expectations. But that’s all in the past. Looking forward, Credit Suisse believes that several challenges will lead to choppy market conditions for the remainder of the year. ...
Read More »Gold, Bonds and Negative Interest Rates Give SNB a Q1 profit
The Swiss National Bank has achieved a profit of 5.7 billion CHF in Q1/2016. The total yield on assets per annum was 3.4%.The main contribution comes from gold with price change of 10% in this quarter, hence a total yield of 48%.The total yield on debt was positive with +0.2% thanks to negative interest rates.The deflationary environment let to rising bond prices. Bonds, make up 74% of the SNB portfolio. Here the details of our calculation: Position Total Positionin bn CHF % of Total...
Read More »The Excess Cash Dilemma: To Return or Reinvest?
With profitability at U.S. corporations touching historic highs, and corporate cash piles as large as they’ve ever been, one of the top tasks of executives these days is simply deciding how best to spend the money. Companies in the S&P 500 had an aggregate cash balance of $1.43 trillion in the second quarter of 2015, which tied a record set in the fourth quarter of 2014. So what should companies be doing with all that money? In a recent white paper, Credit Suisse Corporate...
Read More »