While most hedge fund managers and investors were skeptical about the direction of the stock market after Trump’s shocking election victory, a few bet it all on green. One was Carl Icahn, another was Dan Loeb, and with the S&P surging by over 30% since the Trump victory, investors in Dan Loeb’s Third Point reaped the profits of his conviction. However, after a quarter in which his fund posted an uncharacteristic drop and after an April which merely brought Third Point back to unchanged for the year…

… Dan Loeb writes in his latest investors letter that “a shift in markets occurred in Q1” which he describes as follows:

After a two-year period where growth surprised positively and inflation was benign, we began to see volatility in each of these areas.

Loeb’s take on this “market shift” also explains why despite the best earnings season in decades, the S&P has been unable to turn green for the year: in a nutshell the recent surge in volatility has “increased uncertainty around  appropriate multiples” mostly as a result of confusion over what the new benchmark interest rate is and because “there is finally an alternative to equities in the form of relatively riskless two-year money.” According to Loeb, this “riskless” 2-Year money which manifests itself in the form of a 2.5% Yield on the 2Y Treasury, has been observed in “money market flows where $400 billion has flooded in so far this year versus a total $80 billion of inflows in 2017.”

There is another concern: according to Loeb, a major risk factor is how late in the credit/business cycle the US currently finds itself:

“as manufacturing indices (PMI’s) cool from elevated levels, there is a real question about just which inning of the late cycle we are in. While we don’t believe a recession is close, there is definitely a concern that it is getting closer.

The bottom line: while earnings are stellar, there are growing questions about the other part of valuation, namely multiples: