El mercado bursátil estadounidense empezó 2022 con un nuevo máximo histórico intradía del S&P 500, que marcó el 4 de enero en coincidencia con la caída de la incidencia de la variante ómicrom. Al día siguiente, cuando las actas de la reunión del Comité Federal del Mercado Abierto (FOMC por sus siglas en inglés) que mantuvo la Fed el 15 de diciembre se publicaron, revelando un sesgo menos acomodaticio que incluía el inicio de la reducción del balance de la Fed, que asciende a 9 billones de dólares, los mercados se dieron la vuelta abruptamente. Las acciones cayeron con fuerza y se disparó la rentabilidad del bono estadounidense a diez años. El Taper Tantrum de 2022 estaba en camino.
¿Hasta qué punto se puede comparar con el tapering anunciado por sorpresa por Ben Bernanke en mayo de 2013? En lo que va de 2022, el S&P 500 ha caído un 5,6%, frente al 4,9% de 2013, mientras que la rentabilidad del bono a diez años ha subido un 27%, frente al 35% de 2013. En 1955, el presidente de la Fed William McChesney Martin afirmó que el trabajo de la Fed consistía en “retirar la ponchera mientras que la fiesta sigue”. ¿Cómo actuará Jerome Powell en comparación con Paul Volcker? El sábado 6 de octubre de 1979, el presidente de la Fed Volcker celebró una rueda de prensa de urgencia que pasó a ser conocida como “la masacre del sábado noche”. Volcker le declaró la guerra a la inflación y anunció que la política monetaria de la Fed controlaría desde ese momento los tipos de interés a través del control de la oferta monetaria, con lo que serían los mercados los que marcasen el rumbo de los tipos de interés. Esto supuso el final de la era Keinesiana post segunda guerra mundial, marcada por el control de la política económica por parte de los gobiernos.
El informe de nóminas en Estados Unidos correspondiente a enero, publicado el 4 de febrero, reflejó que la previsión creación de empleo se quedó corta respecto a las cifras reales, al fortalecerse la recuperación del mercado y ralentizarse la ola de Ómicrom. En conclusión: el mercado laboral estadounidense ya está muy ajustado y los salarios están subiendo. Las actas de la Fed del 15 de diciembre también afirmaban que el mercado laboral “está muy tenso”. El siguiente dato de inflación por publicar es el del IPC y la estimación apunta a una tasa anualizada del 7,3%, la más alta desde 1982, cuando Volcker estaba “matando al dragón de la inflación”.
La volatilidad se mantuvo en el mercado a lo largo del mes de enero, con el S&P 500 llegando a caer hasta un 11,5% en el mes, mientras que el Nasdaq se desplomó hasta un 16%. La volatilidad se expandió hacia los mercados de arbitraje de fusiones, donde los diferenciales se ensancharon al ponerse a prueba el apetito por el riesgo de los inversores, y se recalibraron los riesgos a la baja. A pesar de la volatilidad, el ensanchamiento de los diferenciales de arbitraje y los reveses regulatorios, hemos salido de un mes difícil optimistas con las oportunidades que están por venir. La actividad de fusiones y adquisiciones (M&A) se mantiene fuerte en 2022, incluyendo la adquisición de Activision por parte de Microsoft por 74.000 millones de dólares y la adquisición de Citrix Systems por Vista Equity, por 17.000 millones.
Enero fue un mes difícil en los mercados, sin que los convertibles fueran una excepción. Con la caída de los múltiplos de crecimiento, la sensibilidad a las acciones de los convertibles bajó a la par que los valores. Además, con los tipos de interés al alza, sus equivalentes en el mercado de la renta fija también cayeron. Aunque esto ha dañado la rentabilidad mensual, creemos que presenta una oportunidad, ya que ahora hay muchos convertibles cotizando a niveles más atractivos de los que hemos visto desde hace algún tiempo, mientras que las valoraciones de las acciones subyacentes también se han vuelto más razonables.
Somos de la opinión de que la selección de activos será fundamental para determinar la rentabilidad este año. Habitualmente, los convertibles lo hacen bien en un entorno de tipos de interés al alza, pero hay dos factores que podrían causar que esta vez sea algo diferente. El primero es la gran cantidad de convertibles con rentabilidad 0 y primas altas. Muchos están cotizando por debajo de sus pares y ahora se consideran más un equivalente de la renta fija. Estos bonos presentarán debilidad en un entorno de tipos al alza, porque los inversores demandarán mayor rentabilidad en relación con la duración. Adicionalmente, dado que la mayoría de los emisores de convertibles están orientados al growth, una revisión continua de los múltiplos de las acciones growth podría pesar sobre la sensibilidad a renta variable del mercado. Dado este contexto, nuestro enfoque se mantiene sobre los convertibles total return, añadiendo algunos nombres de alta convicción con sensibilidad a acciones.
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To access our proprietary value investment methodology, and dedicated merger arbitrage portfolio we offer the following UCITS Funds in each discipline:
GAMCO MERGER ARBITRAGE
GAMCO Merger Arbitrage UCITS Fund, launched in October 2011, is an open-end fund incorporated in Luxembourg and compliant with UCITS regulation. The team, dedicated strategy, and record dates back to 1985. The objective of the GAMCO Merger Arbitrage Fund is to achieve long-term capital growth by investing primarily in announced equity merger and acquisition transactions while maintaining a diversified portfolio. The Fund utilizes a highly specialized investment approach designed principally to profit from the successful completion of proposed mergers, takeovers, tender offers, leveraged buyouts and other types of corporate reorganizations. Analyzes and continuously monitors each pending transaction for potential risk, including: regulatory, terms, financing, and shareholder approval.
Merger investments are a highly liquid, non-market correlated, proven and consistent alternative to traditional fixed income and equity securities. Merger returns are dependent on deal spreads. Deal spreads are a function of time, deal risk premium, and interest rates. Returns are thus correlated to interest rate changes over the medium term and not the broader equity market. The prospect of rising rates would imply higher returns on mergers as spreads widen to compensate arbitrageurs. As bond markets decline (interest rates rise), merger returns should improve as capital allocation decisions adjust to the changes in the costs of capital.
Broad Market volatility can lead to widening of spreads in merger positions, coupled with our well-researched merger portfolios, offer the potential for enhanced IRRs through dynamic position sizing. Daily price volatility fluctuations coupled with less proprietary capital (the Volcker rule) in the U.S. have contributed to improving merger spreads and thus, overall returns. Thus our fund is well positioned as a cash substitute or fixed income alternative.
Our objectives are to compound and preserve wealth over time, while remaining non-correlated to the broad global markets. We created our first dedicated merger fund 32 years ago. Since then, our merger performance has grown client assets at an annualized rate of approximately 10.7% gross and 7.6% net since 1985. Today, we manage assets on behalf of institutional and high net worth clients globally in a variety of fund structures and mandates.
Class I USD – LU0687944552
Class I EUR – LU0687944396
Class A USD – LU0687943745
Class A EUR – LU0687943661
Class R USD – LU1453360825
Class R EUR – LU1453361476
GAMCO ALL CAP VALUE
The GAMCO All Cap Value UCITS Fund launched in May, 2015 utilizes Gabelli’s its proprietary PMV with a Catalyst™ investment methodology, which has been in place since 1977. The Fund seeks absolute returns through event driven value investing. Our methodology centers around fundamental, research-driven, value based investing with a focus on asset values, cash flows and identifiable catalysts to maximize returns independent of market direction. The fund draws on the experience of its global portfolio team and 35+ value research analysts.
GAMCO is an active, bottom-up, value investor, and seeks to achieve real capital appreciation (relative to inflation) over the long term regardless of market cycles. Our value-oriented stock selection process is based on the fundamental investment principles first articulated in 1934 by Graham and Dodd, the founders of modern security analysis, and further augmented by Mario Gabelli in 1977 with his introduction of the concepts of Private Market Value (PMV) with a Catalyst™ into equity analysis. PMV with a Catalyst™ is our unique research methodology that focuses on individual stock selection by identifying firms selling below intrinsic value with a reasonable probability of realizing their PMV’s which we define as the price a strategic or financial acquirer would be willing to pay for the entire enterprise. The fundamental valuation factors utilized to evaluate securities prior to inclusion/exclusion into the portfolio, our research driven approach views fundamental analysis as a three pronged approach: free cash flow (earnings before, interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, minus the capital expenditures necessary to grow/maintain the business); earnings per share trends; and private market value (PMV), which encompasses on and off balance sheet assets and liabilities. Our team arrives at a PMV valuation by a rigorous assessment of fundamentals from publicly available information and judgement gained from meeting management, covering all size companies globally and our comprehensive, accumulated knowledge of a variety of sectors. We then identify businesses for the portfolio possessing the proper margin of safety and research variables from our deep research universe.
Class I USD – LU1216601648
Class I EUR – LU1216601564
Class A USD – LU1216600913
Class A EUR – LU1216600673
Class R USD – LU1453359900
Class R EUR – LU1453360155
GAMCO CONVERTIBLE SECURITIES
GAMCO Convertible Securities’ objective is to seek to provide current income as well as long term capital appreciation through a total return strategy by investing in a diversified portfolio of global convertible securities.
The Fund leverages the firm’s history of investing in dedicated convertible security portfolios since 1979.
The fund invests in convertible securities, as well as other instruments that have economic characteristics similar to such securities, across global markets (but the fund will not invest in contingent convertible notes). The fund may invest in securities of any market capitalization or credit quality, including up to 100% in below investment grade or unrated securities, and may from time to time invest a significant amount of its assets in securities of smaller companies. Convertible securities may include any suitable convertible instruments such as convertible bonds, convertible notes or convertible preference shares.
By actively managing the fund and investing in convertible securities, the investment manager seeks the opportunity to participate in the capital appreciation of underlying stocks, while at the same time relying on the fixed income aspect of the convertible securities to provide current income and reduced price volatility, which can limit the risk of loss in a down equity market.
Class I USD LU2264533006
Class I EUR LU2264532966
Class A USD LU2264532701
Class A EUR LU2264532610
Class R USD LU2264533345
Class R EUR LU2264533261
Class F USD LU2264533691
Class F EUR LU2264533428
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