The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the Spring sparked debate about whether SVP was an isolated incident in an otherwise sound banking system or was this failure an indication of swiftly deteriorating balance sheets across the industry. Then Signature Bank was seized.

Then the First Republic was rescued. Suddenly, three of the four biggest bank failures in history happened seemingly overnight, and the safety and soundness of the entire system was under scrutiny.

The Federal Reserve bailed the system out (yet again) by acting as lender of last resort and opening the cash window to banks in trouble. Interestingly, these bank failures weren’t caused by the usual suspect – bad loans – but from bad asset management. Each bank failed because its investment portfolios held low yielding bonds with long maturities, and those bond values plunged as the Fed relentlessly pushed interest rates up. The building losses eroded regulatory capital levels and caused doubt that deposits were safe. While the system withstood the estimated $425 billion of withdrawals in the first quarter, liquidity has tightened as have lending protocols.

The Federal Reserve increased interest rates ten consecutive times since March 2022, hiking the prime rate to 8.25%, its highest level in 16 years. The impact from these rate hikes will certainly cause a drag on activity throughout the economy, but the commercial real estate industry is anticipating a particularly difficult period which may lead to an avalanche of loan defaults.

$1.5 trillion of CRE loans are coming due in the next three years according to data provider Trepp. CRE loans represent about 33% of all loans on the books of banks with assets between $1 billion and $10 billion according to Fitch, and higher interest rates will put many loans at risk of default.

While CRE mortgage delinquencies currently sit at a benign 0.76%, interest rates have more than doubled since January 2022 and refinancings will be tough to navigate for certain sectors of the market. To be clear, this is not a replay of the 2008 financial crisis as banks are much healthier today and CRE borrowers are generally much stronger financially than the sub-prime borrowers that lead real estate into the depths 15 years ago.  Still, we expect foundational cracks to surface in bank CRE loan portfolios, especially with those over exposed to office and retail sectors.

A wildcard for CRE borrowers refinancing properties will likely be sharply lower reappraised values set by banks. Office and retail sectors are in tough shape and borrowers will likely face steep mark-downs in property values. Meanwhile, losses in bank portfolios have tightened both liquidity levels and loan criteria which, among other factors, will require a higher percentage of cash equity to be in place to secure a refinancing. So, the challenges are real, and we expect some borrowers and lenders to struggle as the CRE market recalibrates with imaginative repurposing plans to rehabilitate underperforming properties.

The U.S. stock markets rebounded from a dismal 2022 in the first quarter led by the Nasdaq soaring 16.8%. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones significantly lagged the Nasdaq, but still posted gains of 7.0% and 0.4% respectively for the quarter. 

The stock market’s first quarter performance was a bit unexpected given the Federal Reserve’s continued fight against inflation and increases in the federal funds interest rate. Despite these rate increases, the bond market rallied during the quarter to push government yields lower and help the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index post a 2.5% gain. 

A bounce was to be expected after both the stock and bond markets had a tough 2022, with both falling double digits. Investors were looking forward to a pause in interest rate hikes by the Fed and a slowing in the rate of inflation. Banking troubles, big layoffs in big tech, and a pullback in consumer spending forecasts choppy economic waters in the quarters to come. 

The S&P 500 is a weighted index, which means the biggest companies have an outsized impact on their performance. In fact, the ten biggest companies in the index represent 29.5% of its market capitalization and accounted for 90% of the gains during the first quarter. After the shellacking the index took in 2022, passive stock investors transitioned to equal weighted stock index ETFs in 2023. While this transition may have been ill-timed given the equal weighted index which fell 4.3% during the quarter, an equal weighted index is arguably a better benchmark for how the 500 largest publicly traded companies performed during a given time period. Looking back at 2022, when the weighted S&P 500 fell 18.11%, the equal weighted S&P 500 Index fell only 2.5%, representing a 20.61% difference in performance. Given these massive performance gaps, we believe using both performance benchmarks provide a better gauge for investors to measure the Fund’s performance. 

Despite a doubling in the 30-year mortgage rate over the past year, residential real estate continues to show impressive resiliency due to tight supply and sustained demand. While hot markets like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Austin and Boise, Idaho posted declines in average home prices, most markets in the Northeast, South and Midwest showed solid gains. This price stability is driven by existing homeowners’ unwillingness to exchange low mortgages on current homes for today’s higher rates on new homes. 

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