David Rosenberg has not had much occasion to put on his "optimistic hat" of late, but now that he is back home in his native land, he sees a bright road ahead for Canada's equity markets.
Mr. Rosenberg, who for nearly a decade sang the siren song of doom on Wall Street as chief North American economist of Merrill Lynch, says Canada is well positioned to benefit from both Washington's extravagant intervention into its wounded financial and economic system and the resumption in the secular commodity bull market.
"There is an old saying that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and Canada is going to be looking like the one-eyed man," he said. "When you look at the future and global investors looking to allocate capital toward the U.S. and Canada, Canada is going to come out ahead."
Two weeks after starting his new role as chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates, the Toronto-based wealth management firm, Mr. Rosenberg remains particularly skeptical about the near term prospects for both North American equity markets and the economy.
While he thinks a very large chunk of the credit shock is behind us, he said we have yet to work through widespread housing deflation and falling employment. Realistically, Mr. Rosenberg believes it could take years to make the transition to the next economic cycle and notes markets, which have risen almost 40% over the past two months largely on the proposition the economy is in recovery, could easily fall back to new lows in the coming weeks.
What has become more evident to Mr. Rosenberg as the current downturn progresses is the growing advantage that Canada appears to have gained over its neighbour to the south. At the heart of this advantage is the change in the economic world order.
"I think the U.S. is now in the sunset of its economic hegemony and the economic power is shifting towards Asia and China," he said.
In addition to a diminishing share of the global pie, Mr. Rosenberg is troubled by the massive incursion by the U.S. government into its economy via TARP, near-zero interest rates and other stimulus efforts. He also sees a much more regulated capital market in the United States going forward and predicts a loonie above par with the greenback and higher top marginal U.S. tax rate.
"We just do not have the structural fiscal deficit that the U.S. has right now," he said.
"They have a fiscal mess to clean up. If you look at their tax rates globally, there are still relatively low. The tax gap between Canada and the U.S. is going to grow inexorably over the course of the next decade in our favour."
Mr. Rosenberg added that the power shift away from the United States and towards Asia is likely secular and not cyclical in nature, noting Asia went through its recession and restructuring a decade ago. Given China's dependence on raw materials, he believes the commodity space is ripe for a sustained rebound, to which Canada will be a primary beneficiary.
"We are a huge net raw material exporter and the China is a huge net importer of raw materials. If the Asia story proves to be a secular story that plays well into our balance of payments and importantly for our equity markets," he said.
"Remember just because the economy is hitched to the U.S. it doesn't mean our markets are. In fact they are much more sensitive to what is happening in Asia because about 50% of our stock market is based on materials. And that's where we come out ahead."