It’s been just over a month since poor US jobs data sparked fear in markets, which began to worry that the landing would not be soft but strength for the American economy. Even though the stock markets managed to recover from this scare, the beginning of September has rang like a echo from this hard blow since doubts about the economic deterioration are still present and have pushed investors to sell the stock market again and buy debt at the beginning of the month.
So, since the end of August, all Major global indices accumulate losses on the stock market while waiting for the publication of the same employment data this Friday, in this case for August, which will be the last month before the Fed meeting in two weeks. Before that, next Thursday, will take place the first meeting of the ECB after the summer. On both sides of the Atlantic, a 25-point interest rate cut is taken for granted and the door is not closed to a rate hike.
It is precisely the Ibex 35 that has performed best during these first sessions of the month, with a drop of just over 1% compared to 2.9% for the EuroStoxx 50 or 2.8% for the S&P 500. In recent days, one of the most penalized sectors has been the banking sector, sensitive to interest rate expectations.
On the contrary, companies that benefit from the opposite, from the fall in the price of silver, are precisely those that are resisting the crisis best. Arreon bearish this week. These are Acciona and its subsidiary renewable energies, both socimisTHE utilities Solaria, Iberdrola, Redeia and Enagás, Telefónica and IAG. Everyone, for one reason or another, is waiting can water the rate cuts that will come from the fall.
The most bullish stock in the ibex so far this month (and this week) is Acciona. This company, according to the consensus of analysts collected by FactSet, will close the year with a leverage of 3.7 times due to its investment-intensive nature. It therefore benefits from the fact that financing costs will be reduced in the coming months.
The same thing is happening to companies like Telefónica and IAG. In both cases the high debt has been the source of a penalty for value in recent times and, in fact, this expectation of the start of rate cuts by the ECB has been a catalyst for the increases that have accumulated so far this year, of 20 to 25%, respectively.
Utilities such as Solaria, Acciona Energías Renovables, Iberdrola, Redeia and Enagás also tend to trade with a high correlation with fixed income securities. And this type of companies, in addition to having high leverage (all above 3 times EBITDA), are considered on the stock market as an alternative to investing in bondswhose price has been increasing (and profitability decreasing) in recent weeks.
Finally, the socimis. Merlin and Colonial have gained more than 3 percentage points since last Friday. Although these are also companies where debt far exceeds profit, in this case this is also influenced by the fact that high interest rates make their products (properties) less accessible to their customers, who see both financing in the case of purchase and rents. increasingly expensive every year in the case of rental, since they are linked to inflation.
