Morgan Stanley Wealth Management's Global Investment Committee (GIC), a group of seasoned investment professionals with whom I meet regularly to review the economic and political environment and asset allocation models for Wealth Management clients,
believes deflation fears have gone too far and have become too embedded in both investor psyches and market structures.
Following the Great Depression, when monetary deflation coincided with high unemployment and rising defaults, most economists
believed deflation was per se an adverse phenomenon.
Not exact matches
The team
believe that a «further rotation is likely as
deflation ends and inflation, fiscal stimulus and economic nationalism begin.»
We
believe changes in revenues and net earnings that have resulted from inflation or
deflation have not been material during the past three fiscal years.
No one has ever
believed that a combination of
deflation and an unchanged stock of base money would cause a recovery of demand in a high unemployment
deflation.
The
deflation proponents
believe that creditors will not accept being repaid with worthless money and that they will force interest rates higher, which in turn will force a rise in the currency and thus cause prices to decline.
Some deflationists like A. Gary Shilling also
believe an excess of supplies play into this
deflation dynamic that result in what Dr. Schilling calls «good»
deflation.
Aside from the typical cost
deflation that you get from service contracts and things like that, they
believe that there is still some cost to be wrangled out of it.
We
believe global
deflation fears are misguided.
Doug Casey
believes we could have massive
deflation and says he thinks gold and gold shares should help offset the pain of the impending depression.
Analysts
believe Coles» profit margins could come under pressure or stall this year if it continues to invest in reducing prices ahead of cost reductions and as
deflation makes it harder for retailers to fractionalise costs.
«While Coles continues to lift its investment in price, we
believe Woolworths is becoming increasingly rational, dropping the level of promotional activity by 9 per cent in the third quarter and stabilising
deflation,» Mr Gilbert said.
Does anybody seriously
believe in 25 years of
deflation?
Jeffrey Gundlach, founder of DoubleLine, which has been the best performing bond fund so far this year, tells the FT's Dan McCrum that
deflation is a greater risk than inflation because he
believes it would take another crisis to trigger big monetary policy changes.
There was also a school of thought that
believed a period of
deflation, where nominal prices fall, was a risk.
Not many investors pay much attention to
deflation or hyperinflation — most
believe they are black swan events.
Surprisingly, though, it's less gestural, less expressionist and muscular than all of the history book
deflations would have one
believe.