Investors are fretting over Treasury yields and wondering when a rate rise could start to crimp a stock-market rally, though they weren’t yet worried enough Tuesday to prevent major benchmarks from notching another round of all-time peaks.
That event “will probably coincide with the first test for the valuations of the higher PE stocks and the relative performance of the S&P 500 versus more loftier valued indices such as the Nasdaq-100,” he wrote, referring to the P/E, or price-to-earnings ratio, a common measure of stock market valuations.
But Darby delves deeper, arguing that financial markets have likely undergone a “regime change” as investors adapt to the Federal Reserve’s average-inflation targeting setup, which would see the central bank allow inflation to overshoot its target and the economy to run hot before moving to tighten policy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar, while seeing a modest bounce to begin 2021, hasn’t yet staged a convincing turnaround after its steep 2020 slide, analysts said. A weaker dollar is generally seen as favorable for stocks by helping to keep global financial conditions loose.