Alternative Markets Outlook 2022
2021 was firmly in the grasp of Covid-19 through the Delta and Omicron strain. Although Covid-19 was managed solidly, the imposed restrictions and the economic interventions have severely impacted the economy and society. Not only has inflation skyrocketed but it is also likely to persist for quite some time. In January 2021, the US CPI was at 1.4% and rose to 6.8% in November 2021. In Europe, the situation looks similar, although the initial surge started earlier in the US and currently Europe’s inflation is lower with 4.9% in November 2021. In 2022, inflation will prevail with even higher levels in early 2022 with a realistic chance to subside towards the latter part of 2022. This rather grim outlook is largely in line with the observation during 2021, when inflation targets were mostly too low and the estimated time period were too short. The US will probably experience slightly higher levels, due to the larger extent of money printing to fight Covid-19 originally. Central bank intervention will be reduced to normal levels in the latter part of 2022. It has been already announced that they will scale back their asset buying programs but not entirely. Depending on how Covid-19 is evolving, it seems reasonable that towards the end of 2022, these programs will be discontinued. Aside from these monetary interventions, there were also substantial fiscal interventions, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 depicts the US national debt and the increase of additional trillion of debt. Since Covid-19 emerged, six additional trillions were spent to fight the immediate impact. In particular, the speed at which the money was spent is remarkable. While it took between 30 and 300 days for an additional trillion during Covid-19, it took between 170 and 320 days during the global financial crisis in 2008. The measure undertaken to fight Covid-19 are massive but they have helped the economy to bounce back. Among others, the development of the employment is largely desirable. For example, in the US, the unemployment rate was reduced to 4.2% from its peak of more than 14% in 2020. Equity markets, which have contributed in a major fashion to the overall success of 2021, will be largely impacted by Covid-19 in 2022. This was once again observable in November 2021 when Omicron emerged. Assuming a positive development, it is likely that equity markets will keep rising, although at a normal pace below unlike 2020 and 2021. Figure 2 and 3 show the S&P 500 and the Euronext 100 indices over the past two years. Since January 2020, the S&P 500 gained 47.5%, while the Euronext 100 gained 18.9%. The gains since their bottom in March 2020 are 118.4% for the S&P 500 and 86.0% for the Euronext 100. One potential reason for the strong growth in 2020 and 2021 may be due to expected inflation ahead, which is compensated by higher nominal gains. This effect is likely to fade given the enormous growth numbers in 2021 which have given rise to doubts about the sustainability of these profits alongside fears of another financial bubble. This is in particular true for industries that have benefited from Covid-19, such as technology. One example of seemingly unhealthy gain is Tesla, which is up more than 1,000% since Covid-19 emerged. The companies benefiting from Covid-19 should be viewed with caution, while companies that were negatively affected by Covid-19 certainly involve less risk. A negative development with the handling of Covid-19 could turn the situation upside down again and trigger similar effects as in March 2020. This may occur, for example, if a new strain emerges with a substantially increased fatality rate, is spread relatively easily and vaccinations are of only mediocre effectiveness against the new strain. Yet, this scenario is rather unlikely given that with each wave, the number of infections remains at a relatively similar level, while hospitalizations and fatalities decline. Furthermore, virus strains that spread more easily, such as Omicron, frequently are less deadly. These two observations favour the good scenario going forward. In an environment of high volatility and many opportunities, alternative assets are well positioned. Figure 4 highlights the volatility in the market measured by the VIX. Since the occurrence of Covid-19, the volatility in markets has never reached levels prior to Covid-19, although there has been a massive improvement. From the peak in March 2020 and a level of more than 80, markets have stabilized between 15 and 25 in quiet times with occasional spikes. With regards to alternative assets, 2020 and 2021 were highly beneficial for several reasons. Firstly, in crises, actively managed vehicles are of increased interest as they try to mitigate the negative impact of the crisis. Secondly, due to the nature of being a healthcare crisis, this brings many opportunities with it. Thirdly, the substantial uncertainty in markets also favour alternative assets, as for example, private equity funds are less sensitive to significant short-term volatility. 2021 was especially profitable for the private equity and hedge fund industry, which make up the largest part of alternative assets. In the following sections, hedge funds, private equity, private debt and crypto assets are discussed in a more detailed fashion.

Hedge funds have experienced a great third quarter and continue to do well in October 2021. Partially due to the surge in volatility, the hedge fund industry is close to reach a milestone of $4tn in AuM. Nevertheless, the strategy of hedge funds is of utmost importance when determining how well a hedge fund is doing. This is in particular true for 2021. Crypto and equity hedge funds tend to profit the most from the current market ecosystem, as their asset class is surging at a rapid pace. Global macro and fixed income-based strategies have a more challenging ecosystem. Figures 1 to 6 show the returns as of Q3 2021 of the different SMC Strategy Indices in comparison to other relevant benchmarks for the specific strategy. Cryptocurrency strategies unsurprisingly did the best this year with the average strategy being up 177%. All strategies in that area cover the best performing strategies of the year with Token Liquid and Token being the best among them with a performance of 316% and 260%. The SMC Equity Strategy Index achieved a lower return than some of its benchmarks in 2021 with 7% as of Q3 2021. The best performing equity strategy is Equities US Activist Event Driven which is 27% up in 2021. With regards to the less beneficial ecosystems for fixed income and global macro related strategies, the SMC Strategy Indices did well. The SMC Credit Strategy Index is up 4.49% an outperforms almost all benchmarks shown in Figure 2. The situation is even better for the SMC Global Macro Strategy Index that achieved a YTD of 37.40%, thereby outperforming any benchmark by a lot as shown in Figure 4.

The most noteworthy event in September 2021 was probably the apparent collapse of Evergrande, one of the largest real estate companies in China, whose status is currently unknown. On Thursday, 16th September 2021, Evergrande issued a statement that it will not be able to repay the outstanding interest payments that day. Following this announcement, the financial market was in substantial stress. Equity markets all around the world lost a few percentage points and volatility spiked. Bond trading was under pressure as well, as Evergrande’s bonds were downgraded and frozen from trading. It sometimes was already referred to the next “Lehman Brothers” case.  The volatility the stock has seen since is tremendous, as it lost nearly 80% in the first few days after the announcement. It seemed as though the situation had stabilized, but since not all due payments were paid on Friday, 24th September 2021, the status is unknown. If nothing else happens, which is highly unlikely, the company would enter a grace period following bankruptcy. There are three critical features involved in Evergrande. Firstly, China and Chinese people are heavily engaged with the company, as the company has sold many buildings already without having built them yet. A default would cause huge issues for the affected people. Secondly, many companies are frequently doing business with Evergrande, in particular construction, design and other suppliers, could also face bankruptcy alongside Evergrande. Lastly, the collapse of Evergrande would pose a substantial risk to the financial system of China. The latter one is in particular difficult, as the company has outstanding debt at more than 250 banks, which could put additional pressure on China’s ability to offer cheap debt, which is necessary to maintain growth level. Moreover, it does not make a China a more appealing place to invest for foreign investors, which were already on the decline since the recent developments