The risk vortex of crypto and bubble baskets

Equities 2021-12-06 13:30 5 minutes to read

Summary:  Our Bubble Stocks and Crypto & Blockchain baskets are the two worst performing baskets this month as these pockets of the market are currently going through a big realignment in terms of expectations. The Fed's new objective of getting inflation under control will accelerate tapering and led to several rate hikes next year. Combined with a significant fiscal drag next year, US growth stocks will be hit by both lower growth and higher discount rate on cash flows, the worst of all combinations. This means that growth stocks that can show a credible upward sloping path on operating margin will fare much better whereas growth stocks that will fail in delivering higher operating margin will experience more trouble.

Friday’s price action was not pretty. Despite strong economic figures from the US the 10-year yield declined and normally that would have been a positive for technology stocks, but instead Nasdaq 100 continued lower with our Bubble Stocks and Crypto & Blockchain baskets leading the declines. On Saturday, Bitcoin was down as much as 21.2% at the lows adding to the woes of these pockets of the market. We know from surveys that there is a large overlap in exposure between investors in growth/bubble stocks and cryptocurrencies and that it is people under the age of 35 that dominates the exposure.

✕Source: Saxo Group ✕The Crypto & Blockchain basket (see composition below) is down 12.7% in December making it the worst performer and if we see the Fed getting ahead of the curve hiking rates three times next year then it could take more steam out of the crypto industry. The recent high profiled listing of Bakkt through a SPAC is a crypto related company that we will soon release a more thorough analysis of. As the table below also show analysts remain bullish on the industry with a median price target 77% above current prices. The key risk for bubble stocks and crypto related assets this week is the US inflation report on Friday which could accelerate the market’s expectations of tapering and rate hikes if inflationary pressures remain stubbornly high.

Source: Bloomberg and Saxo Group
* Added to theme basket on 29 October 2021
** Infrastructure segment means physical computing applications for crypto mining

Growth stocks have a profitability problem more than a growth problem

The selloff in growth stocks have many liquidity and technical characteristics, and the recent shift by the Fed to focus on getting inflation down is beacon of what to come. The Fed will accelerate its tapering of bond purchases and move more quickly on interest rates which means that the discount rate will go up while growth might face headwinds from higher interest rates and a fiscal drag (the fiscal deficit will shrink in 2022). This is a double whammy for growth stocks.

DocuSign’s Q3 earnings release was portrayed as a problem of revenue growth but if you model the company’s shareholder value then you will see that the more sensitive parameter to its implied expectations is its future operating margin. While DocuSign lifted its operating margin to 3.1% for the quarter up from 0.5% in Q2 and -5.2% a year ago, it was still below expectations and that extends the trajectory for improving the operating margin and thus lowers the value of the company. Many growth companies will not have growth trajectories that will differ much from what is implied in current market values, and a downside miss is definitely not the biggest downside trigger on market value. The reality is that growth stocks are priced for high growth and then a hockey stick on operating margin, but if that hockey stick is pushed further out then it has a big impact on market value. The next year will separate growth stocks into two camp. Those that can deliver on expanding their operating margin and those that will fail to do that.