Inflation taking headlines

Michael Rudd, CFA | President, CEO and Portfolio Manager

We will dive right into a four-part series on inflation that should take us to the end of earnings season. There were two interesting discussions that we had this week during our Investment Committee meeting and morning desk chats. One was related to the fact that there seems to be a very wide differential between the earnings results reported by companies and expectations published from brokerage research analysts. We will write more about that after the earnings season is complete in March, but we believe this creates a great opportunity for investors. The other item is related to inflation. This week, we started to notice a significant amount of chatter and financial headlines concerning inflation. This is a significant question that has implications for all asset classes so we thought that we would spend the next few issues discussing our thoughts. We present data which we believe confirms that investors are starting to price inflation expectations into their investment portfolios. Bond rates, expectations and commodities prices are up!

  • Figure 1 presents yields for 30-year US Treasuries and 30-year US Breakevens. The long bond rates have increased past 2% and breakevens (the difference between regular and inflation protected bond rates) have reached new highs as well. We follow breakevens because they show investor expectations for inflation and plotted against the 30yr bond rate, you can see that investors are reacting. This is also true of European rates, so it is a global issue.
  • Figure 2 presents returns over the last few months for a number of different commodity prices. Real assets, like commodities, will react to inflation expectations as a group so seeing both rates and commodities move in correlation indicates that investors are starting to price in inflation.

“This means that” while we have yet to see actual inflation results present in broad data metrics globally (CPI, PPI across many countries is still low), we are starting to hear anecdotally from company conference calls that input resources are becoming scarce and more expensive. It does appear that investors are starting to price this new information in, and we will discuss some of those reasons for this in our next issue.


Pathfinder Asset Management Ltd. | Equally Invested™
1320-885 W. Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 3E8
E info@paml.ca | T 604 682 7312 | www.paml.ca
Sources: Pathfinder Asset Management Limited

National Instrument 31-103 requires registered firms to disclose information that a reasonable investor would expect to know, including any material conflicts with the firm or its representatives. Doug Johnson and/or Pathfinder Asset Management Limited are an insider of companies periodically mentioned in this report. Please visit www.paml.ca for full disclosures.

*All returns are time weighted and net of investment management fees. Returns from the Pathfinder Partners’ Fund and Pathfinder Real Fund are presented based on the masters series of each fund. The Pathfinder North American Equity Portfolio and The Pathfinder North American Income Portfolio are live accounts. These are actual accounts owned by the Pathfinder Chairman (Equity) and client (High Income) which contain no legacy positions, cash flows or other Pathfinder investment mandates or products. Monthly inception dates for each fund and portfolio are as follows: Pathfinder North American Equity Portfolio (January 2011), Pathfinder North American High-Income Portfolio (October 2012) Pathfinder Partners’ Fund (April 2011), Pathfinder Real Fund (April, 2013), and Pathfinder International Fund (November 2014).

Pathfinder Asset Management Limited (PAML) and its affiliates may collectively beneficially own in excess of 10% of one or more classes of the issued and outstanding equity securities mentioned in this newsletter. This publication is intended only to convey information. It is not to be construed as an investment guide or as an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any of the securities mentioned in it. The author has taken all usual and reasonable precautions to determine that the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable and that the procedures used to summarize and analyze such information are based on approved practices and principles in the investment industry. However, the market forces underlying investment value are subject to sudden and dramatic changes and data availability varies from one moment to the next. Consequently, neither the author nor PAML can make any warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of information, analysis or views contained in this publication or their usefulness or suitability in any particular circumstance. You should not undertake any investment or portfolio assessment or other transaction on the basis of this publication, but should first consult your portfolio manager, who can assess all relevant particulars of any proposed investment or transaction. PAML and the author accept no liability of any kind whatsoever or any damages or losses incurred by you as a result of reliance upon or use of this publication.