저자: ThePatientInvestor · 외국인
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Tom Lee의 대폭락 경고를 소개하며 Fed 신임 의장(Warsh) 불확실성, 반도체 과열, 높은 밸류에이션(S&P 21배)을 근거로 단기 조정 가능성을 언급. 다만 행정부의 시장 부양 의지와 알고리즘 매수세, 과거 패턴상 신고점 후 최소 8~18개월 상승 가능성을 들어 Lee의 6700 하락 시나리오에는 동의하지 않음. 2027년이 대변동 시점이라 봄. 현재는 현금 일부 보유, 대부분 투자 중, 신중한 낙관.
다듬은 글
영어 자막이므로 영어로 다듬었습니다.
Permabull investor Tom Lee is calling for a massive drawdown followed by the rally of our lifetime. I would really love to see it. And he's mainly highlighting the uncertainty around the new Fed chairman. Whenever we have a new Fed chairman, 10 out of 13 new Fed chairmen have triggered a 10%-plus drawdown in their first year.
If you look at his chart, it's actually very accurate. We had a 20% drawdown with Jerome Powell in his first year. With other Fed chairmen like Alan Greenspan, we had a 35% drawdown. Others, we had up to a 45% drawdown. So it could be much worse than 10%, but on average it's about 10 to 15%. Especially when you have Kevin Warsh, during his latest testimony, saying that QE, which is mainly printing money or monetizing the balance sheet, is like reverse Robin Hood: policies that steal from the poor and give to the rich. When someone says that, I think it's really going to freak out the market. And someone like Tom Lee could potentially end up being right, especially if you look at the implications of the balance sheet relative to the S&P 500.
Whenever the Fed is expanding the balance sheet, it expands the money supply. As money supply expands, more money finds its way into the economy and ultimately helps the S&P 500. You can see the close correlation between the S&P 500 and the M2 money supply, which is the white line. Once it was contracting in 2022, we faced some trouble. Once it's expanding, the S&P does really well. The M2 money supply is pretty much affected by the Fed balance sheet, which Kevin Warsh is not a big fan of.
There's also some euphoria in the market, mainly in semiconductors. I think semiconductors are in bubble territory right now. They're getting too expensive, they ran too soon and too fast, and they're among the most overbought they've ever been. That's a really frothy area of the market that could suffer in a correction. The S&P itself just went back to 21 times earnings. We barely went to 19 times, and now we're back at 21, so there's a lot of room for a potential 10% pullback. If we were trading at 17 or 18 times earnings, I don't know if I'd see a 10, 20, or 30% pullback. But given the setup, the valuations, the euphoria in semiconductors, the SpaceX IPO, and all these things, I think there's potential for that, and it's very reasonable.
Tom Lee's target is the S&P 500 revisiting 7,300. After 7,300, it could drop up to 10%, which would pretty much fill the gap. After filling the gap, we go much, much higher. That's actually very reasonable and could potentially happen.
There are a few things making me doubt Tom Lee's prediction of a big drawdown. The first is the uncertainty around Kevin Warsh himself. He's really against expanding the balance sheet, but he wants to cut interest rates, which is why the president wants him in: he wants lower rates. In his latest interview he said AI is going to make almost everything cost less, that we're at the forefront of a productivity boom, and that economic growth won't be inflationary. So he's pretty much setting the stage to cut rates. If he does cut rates, that's really bullish for the markets. But if he cuts rates while shrinking the balance sheet, I'm not sure what the market reaction will be. Will people take it as lower rates and everything's fine? Or will it be a little bearish, given what happened when Jerome Powell tried to shrink the balance sheet in 2018? I was investing back then. Apple went to 13 times earnings and we had a sharp pullback followed by a sharp recovery, and it could potentially happen again. We don't really know. But Kevin Warsh is just one vote; there are other Fed governors on the board, and the question is whether he could convince them to cut rates when inflation is above 3%. There's a lot of uncertainty there.
The second is President Trump and his administration. They're watching the markets 24/7. I've never seen anything like it. Whenever the market makes a new high, the White House's official account posts the S&P 500 and Nasdaq sitting at all-time highs. I even watched a press briefing by the Secretary of War. He was giving a briefing on the war at 8 or 9 in the morning, and he said, "Yeah, that's why the markets are up." I thought, why is everyone watching the market? There are a lot of other things that matter, not just the market. But this administration is so focused on the market that it's hard to bet against it. There's a saying: "Don't fight the Fed." Well, in this case, should we fight the government? If the government wants the S&P higher into the elections, should we really fight them?
If it weren't for this administration, what Tom Lee is saying makes 100% sense. We could go down 10 or 20%. The valuations are high, we have runways, and we have the fuel to drop 10 or 20% from 7,300 or wherever it was. But with an administration this focused on the market, betting against them is almost foolish. That pattern has shown up in nearly every year of Trump's term: we go down in March and April, which is roughly where we are now, and then we recover toward the end of the year, especially around elections or something else that's really important.
The last bullish point is the chart pattern of the S&P 500. I've been investing for a while, and whenever the market experiences a decent drawdown, 8 or 10%, or more, especially in individual stocks this time around where they were down 50, 40, 30%, people start calling a new high a dead cat bounce or a fake-out. But when the market makes a new high, you get a lot of support from the algorithms, which are programmed to buy stocks in long runs, like 10, 11, 12 months, sometimes a year or two. You can see the pattern. We went down in 2018, as I just described. After we made a new high, we struggled out and kept making new highs for the next year and a half. Same after 2020: once we made a new high, the algorithms kicked in and we had about a year and a half of running. After 2022, we made a new high and ran for almost two years, with some pullbacks but nothing crazy. Then last April we made a new high and ran for almost another year before a drawdown. So I'd guess we run at least 8 to 10 months, a year, or a year and a half from a new high. I don't personally agree with Tom Lee here. I think we could have a drawdown or a pullback, but I'm not saying we go from 7,300 down to 6,700 and back up to 7,700 by November. We have the elections, and I think the administration will do whatever it takes to maintain the S&P 500.
I agree there's a lot of euphoria, and I agree semiconductors and many things are expensive. But if I had to pick a time for a really big move, it would be 2027. By 2027, SpaceX would have already IPO'd, and there are no elections and nothing else major going on. So either we get the rally of our lifetime or the crash of our lifetime, and I think it'll happen in 2027. Between now and then, I think the market will stay in a range and be somewhat more stable. Regardless, I believe the market is a little expensive. I have some cash on the side. I bought the dip over the last few weeks. Maybe I didn't buy enough, but that's okay. I'm being cautiously optimistic. I'm watching the markets, watching valuations, and watching for opportunities. I don't try to time the market, but I like to look at where we are in the cycle and decide whether to be more aggressive or more defensive. For now, I'm cautiously optimistic, mostly invested, and watching to see what happens.
That was my opinion on Tom Lee's market call. Hope you enjoyed it. It is not financial advice. If you did enjoy it, please press the like button and consider subscribing. I'll talk to you in another video.
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