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Lecture en cours: La crise ukrainienne : quels sont les enjeux pour les investisseurs ?

IMPACT ECONOMIQUE DU CONFLIT UKRAINIEN

Mars 2022
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La crise ukrainienne : quels sont les enjeux pour les investisseurs ?

Trois scénarios pour l'économie mondiale et les marchés financiers

01

Position d'investissement actualisée

Bien que l'issue de la guerre en Ukraine reste imprévisible, il devient évident qu’elle pourrait entrainer un choc  de stagflation important pour l'économie mondiale. Par conséquent, nous rétrogradons tactiquement les actions et les valeurs financières de surpondération à neutre. En ce qui concerne les devises, nous rétrogradons également l'euro à une sous-pondération. Et pour nous couvrir contre le risque d'une escalade de la crise, nous reclassons les obligations d'État de sous-pondérées à neutre et l'or de neutre à surpondérées.

La flambée des prix du pétrole et du gaz en Europe  aura un impact immédiat sur des taux d'inflation déjà très élevés. Dans le même temps, les effets des sanctions, à la fois directement et par le biais de la confiance des consommateurs et des entreprises, rendront difficile la ré-accélération de la croissance économique et l'augmentation des bénéfices des entreprises aussi rapidement que pendant la pandémie de Covid.

À l'origine, nous pensions que la baisse des multiples de prix sur bénéfices, due au resserrement monétaire, serait plus que compensée par une hausse de la croissance des bénéfices des entreprises, ce qui se traduirait par des gains modestes pour les actions cette année. Toutefois, ces prévisions reposaient sur l'hypothèse d'un fort rebond économique. Les événements en Ukraine rendent ce scénario optimiste de plus en plus improbable. Au contraire, le risque de récession, notamment en Europe, est désormais important. Notre analyse montre que lorsque le prix du pétrole grimpe de 50 % au-dessus de la tendance, les récessions ont tendance à suivre avec un court décalage. Ainsi, étant donné les risques évidents de baisse de la croissance et les taux d'inflation élevés qui laissent une marge de manœuvre limitée, voire nulle, pour la stimulation de la politique monétaire, nous pensons qu'une position plus prudente sur les actifs à risque est désormais justifiée.

Fig. 1 - Grille d’allocation d’actifs mensuelle
Source: Pictet Asset Management
02

The Ukraine crisis: a Q&A with our investment managers

Can the Russian economy survive the sanctions imposed on it? And how investible are Russian assets?                            Hugo Bain, senior investment manager, Russian equities:

It is too soon to tell what the long-term repercussions will be for Russia. But it is clear that, in the near and medium term, all this looks devastating for the Russian economy.

The Russian government thought it would survive sanctions because the world was heavily reliant on its commodities. Yet the scope of the sanctions – and the speed of their imposition – has wrong-footed the Putin regime. We are now seeing the complete closure of Russia’s capital account. The freezing of the Russian central bank’s assets is especially significant as it deprives Russia of the shield it expected to use to protect its economy.

As for Russian assets, there has been no trading in Russian stocks for days now. We’re hearing of a plan to re-open the domestic market, but there is no certainty of that. Even if the domestic market does open, it’s unlikely Russian stocks can be investible when the country’s capital account is effectively closed.


Where does this leave the rest of emerging markets?          Kiran Nandra, head of emerging equities management:

Commodity exporters within emerging markets are clearly the most likely to benefit. That includes Latin America and the Middle East. This also chimes in with our top-level preference for value versus growth.

Asia, on the face of it, stands to lose somewhat given that it is one of the largest commodity importers. However, our macroeconomic research shows that the impact is still relatively limited. Within Asia, we’ve got the two giants: China and India. Both are still very much self-driven economies. They may be able to offer a degree of stability during this crisis, in particular Chinese  A-shares, which have shown lower correlations in times of greater geopolitical risk.

Will Russia default on its debt? And do its bonds face exclusion from major emerging market indices?                Mary-Therese Barton, head of emerging market debt:

A default is perfectly conceivable. Russia clearly has the financial means to pay, but its willingness and ability to pay are by no means certain. Even if we assume it is willing to make coupon payments, the sanctions imposed on it make that very difficult. Russia’s inclusion in major indices is also at risk. It is on 'index watch' right now and so far, we’ve seen no changes to its index weightings. But that probably won’t remain the case for much longer.

03

Updated investment stance

While the outcome of the war in Ukraine is unpredictable, it is becoming clear that this could be a significant stagflationary shock for the global economy. As a result, we are tactically downgrading equities and financials to neutral from overweight. In currencies, we are also downgrading the euro to underweight. And to hedge against the risk of an escalation of the crisis, we are upgrading government bonds to neutral from underweight and gold to overweight from neutral.

The surge in energy prices – in Europe, oil is up 20 per cent and gas prices are up 160 per cent since the invasion – will have an immediate impact on already surging inflation rates. At the same time, the effects of sanctions, both directly and through consumer and business confidence, will make it difficult for economic growth to re-accelerate and for corporate earnings to rise as rapidly as they did through the Covid pandemic.

Our original view was that a decline in stocks’ price-earnings multiples - driven by monetary tightening - would be more than offset by a rise in corporate earnings growth, resulting in modest gains for equities this year. However, this was based on the assumption of a strong economic rebound. The events in the Ukraine make this optimistic scenario increasingly unlikely. If anything, the risk of a recession, especially in Europe, is now material. Our analysis shows that when the oil price climbs 50 per cent above trend, recessions tend to follow with a short lag. So, given the clear downside risks to growth and high inflation rates that leave limited, if any, headroom for monetary policy stimulus, we believe that a more cautious stance on risk assets is now warranted.



 
Fig. 2 - Asset allocation grid
Updated March 2022
Source: Pictet Asset Management

At the same time, we stand ready to re-allocate into equities once we see signs of a possible de-escalation of the conflict. Geopolitical shocks are typically short-lived and tend to be followed by big rallies once there are signs of a resolution. With the equities market already oversold before the invasion and with investor sentiment indicators very depressed and our measure of equity valuation back in a neutral range, there should be limited downside from here.

Europe is the epicentre of this geopolitical shock and euro zone assets are under severe pressure. There is already talk of European Central Bank intervention to support the economy.  However, valuations are still not cheap enough to offset the geopolitical tail risks of either a worsening of the conflict or of a severe recession in the event of a ban on Russian gas and oil.