"What To Own In An Equity Death Spiral"

Just one month ago, BofA's excited head equity strategist Savita Subramanian told Barron's that storm clouds would disperse and that the S&P would close out 2016 at 2,200, incidentally the same level as her year ago forecast for where 2015 would close. Fast forward to today and things are far less euphoric.

This is what Savita writes in a note released overnight:

Correction or bear market? The S&P 500 is in correction territory, the Russell 2000 and almost 80% of regional stock indices are in bear markets. The average S&P 500 stock is in a bear market - down more than 25% from its 52-week high. Stocks are down a lot. Let’s move on.

Ok moving on.

Let's focus just on energy, where things are a disaster: "Energy is in a profits recession but Energy stock prices have fallen by more than the market falls during a recession (-44% vs. -40%), the Energy recession has lasted twice as long as a typical recession, and Energy earnings have seen 2x the cut that the S&P 500 typically sees (-65% vs. -29%)."

What about the economy?

Same story for the economy: should we care whether or not the NBER will one day deem this slowdown an official recession, if PMIs suggest that manufacturing sectors have been in a recession in the three biggest economies (China, US, India) and Energy has been in a profit recession that has lasted twice as long as a typical economic recession.

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