Stock Takes - When will cash be king? (2024)

With the world's share markets breaking record highs by the day, the temptation for investors is to shift funds out of shares and into short term fixed interest investments - cash.

So is cash king?

No, according to fund managers. At least not yet.

Nevertheless, an element of caution is overlaying markets at these levels, Greg Fleming, AMP Capital's head of investment strategy, said.

"We are running a reasonably high cash weighting because we are concerned that there is more risk of capital losses on the bond side of mixed portfolios," he said.

The same however, does not go for AMP Capital's view on equities.

"There is a bit of profit-taking going on but at the same time it's fairly short term, so those flows in and out of cash to equities tend to be quite short-lived," he said.

As far is Fleming is concerned, cash is a way off achieving royal status.

No fear

"There is no real fear in markets at the moment." he said. "We had a tiny dip in the first few days of January but the pattern that has been true over the last two to three years has been that those dips don't last," he said.

"There is a lot of cash on the sidelines that would like to be invested and it rushes in at any moment where there is any value," he said.

"It could well be towards the end of this year that cash is king compared to bonds, but at the moment cash has got such a low return anywhere in the world - 2 per cent in New Zealand - you have really got to be quite concerned to go into cash and away from equities."

Fleming said AMP Capital is has a mostly positive outlook for world equities for the year ahead. "We are quite positive but 2018 is going to be a a more volatile year than 2016 and 2017 because the market is very richly valued and people are primed for shocks," he said.

"There will be moments when people panic in short bursts, but our view is that the cental banks around the world are still providing liquidity and they will not want those short panics to turn into anything deeper," Fleming said.

See Also

Is your cash flow inadequate? | BMIM

Party on

Matt Goodson, managing director at Salt Funds Management, the headlines over the last few weeks have suggested that markets globally are starting to get "rather extended".
"Perhaps that's where that (cash) theme is originating," he said.

"There is a series anecdotal pieces out there suggesting that markets are getting quite extended, but course the hard part is that markets can stay quite extended for quite some time.

"Maybe you get lucky and go into cash at the very peak, or maybe you do that 10, 15 or 20 per cent too early," he said.

But Goodson agrees cash is still some distance off investors' radar screens.

"People may be starting to talk about it, but the way they are acting at the moment though is that this party is still in full swing."

So is cash king? "No. not yet. People are now just starting to talk about it, but they are sure as hell not acting on it."

US10-year spikes

One of the most closely watched graphs in the financial markets these days is the US 10-year bond yield, which this week broke through 2.7 per cent for the first time since April, 2014.

US10-year bonds ares seen as a bellwether for global interest rates, which have been abnormally low since the Global Financial Crisis.

Much of the New Zealand market's strong performance has been put down to its high proportion of dividend paying stocks, which have acted as a handy alternative to ultra-low yielding fixed interest investments.

Stocks in the US and around the world have exhibited nervousness after the 10-year yield spiked up to 2.73 per cent but SU 10 years are not expected to trouble equity markets until they move over 3 per cent.

The US Federal Reserve this week kept its fed funds rate unchanged in a 1.25 to 1.5 per cent range but stressed that further rate rises lie ahead.

Markets are picking a Fed rate hike to occur in March, following on from three hikes in 2017.