Archive - Apr 23, 2012

As usual the market remains on tenterhooks for its next fix of Central Bank largesse and the following 11 days provide some rather large potholes for those addicted to the sweet nectar of freshly printed extreme monetary policy. Citi's Steven Englander provides some much-needed reality checking on what the market is expecting and what the FOMC/ECB might deliver, and all importantly, what the implications for risk-assets in general will be. The possibility of misunderstood language at the FOMC meetings seems very high even as the announcement of additional measures remains unlikely and perhaps more notably the Euro has sold off sharply when the ECB does not present a policy response to rapidly deteriorating market conditions - especially in light of the implicit tightening we have seen in Euro-zone aggregate rates. Rock meet hard-place.

The implications of the rudderless ship that is the Netherlands are becoming clear as mud. Lex Hoogduin says we shouldn't be overly preoccuppied with our credibility. I am interested in this question and therefore throw the question back to the best performing investors we have on the site, if they have the time, how would you be investing at the moment? Have bonds lost all their appeal? Stocks?

With the plethora of mounting event risks, from the end of Operation Twist to numerous elections, the possibility of QE3, the US fiscal situation, the ECB/Bundesbank battle, and China's on-again-off-again economy, it seems finding a low cost long volatility 'bet' is the best way to gather some macro protection (aside from total liquidation that is). Earlier, we noted how expensive S&P 500 implied volatility had become relative to its realized vol - suggesting that being long S&P vol is not a low-cost option. However, as Barclays points out, GLD (and slightly less so SLV) is among the cheapest (defined based on percentiles of implied vol over realized vol) volatilities available. SPY vol is trading at a 60% premium to its realized vol while GLD is trading at a 20% discount. While the main risk to being long GLD volatility is a continued drift lower in realized vol, the current realized volatility is near the lower-end of its empirical range and there appear to be a number of catalysts, as we noted above, for gold (or hard assets in general) to break from its range-bound YTD performance in price and volatility (either up - more likely in our view - or down).

California dreaming.

“We must hold the bailed out banks accountable for their harmful, unlawful fraud which has so deeply infected our county’s economy, security, and hope for the future”

"Even on the eve of war, however, there was still considerable optimism that the peace would hold. Europe had experienced several decades without a major war, and in the meantime, industrialization and relatively free international trade had produced rapidly rising standards of living. A war that would destroy the fruits of this progress seemed irrational.

 

The thing about GDP, is that it doesn’t really measure wealth creation, or the size of the economy. It measures a derivative of that: money circulation. If Congress passed a law saying that everyone in America had to smoke meth (hey, if you can mandate the purchase of health insurance, why not mandate drug consumption in the name of increasing GDP?) and gamble all their disposable income on horse racing, GDP would almost certainly improve. And that’s growth, right? Except it isn’t. Real growth comes from innovation, productivity, imagination, and hard work. You can attempt to quantify it, but there is no easy catch-all number that will give you a quick and simple insight.

An ugly European market initially dragged stocks notably weaker overnight, with plenty of headline-makers from Apple's moves to WMT's 'Sinko-de-Abril' accounting for 20% of the Dow's loss, and Europe's macro data but after the first 30 minutes or so, S&P futures bounced off 4/10 day-session lows and leaked higher all day from there to end around last Monday's closing print. Volumes lagged as we rallied - as did average trade size - but in the last few minutes heavy volume and large average trade size stepped back in more biased to the downside. Stocks and volatility continue to follow very similar paths during this reflation phase as they did in 2010 and 2011 and while much was made of VIX's more-positive-than-expected performance today, we remind readers that we are at 8-month wides relative to realized vol - suggesting markets are anticipating a lot more anxiety ahead. FX markets leaked higher in the USD until shortly after the US day-session open and then drifted USD weaker from there as Treasury weakness coincided with EUR buying - smelling a lot like more repatriation flows. The drift higher in equities is therefore supported from a correlation-perspective as carry and rates (and oil) pushed up from soon after the US open. The USD ended up around 0.25% from Friday's close (with JPY the best performer and stable from the Tokyo close) which matches gold's 0.25% loss (though still best of the group) as Commodities all lost ground today with Silver underperforming. WTI managed to get back over $103 by the close. Credit markets underperformed close-to-close but from the lows intraday, they managed to out-gain stocks with a late-day pop in HYG bringing it in line with its intrinsic value and SPY for the first time since 3/29.

Netflix headlines may appear rosy as top and bottom lines were a beat but guidance on revenues and subrscriber adds perhaps rings the death knell on this mythical beast...

*NETFLIX SEES 2Q NET ADDS BELOW THOSE OF 2010 :NFLX US
*NETFLIX SEES 2Q REV. ABOUT $873M-$895M; EST. $893.4M :NFLX US

We can only hope that AAPL does not miss in any way on any metric ever as NFLX is now down 18% from Friday's close...

Europe, the final fun-tear...

In a little over a month, the risk of the 30 most systemically important global banks has jumped an impressive 45%. At 235bps, the FSB30 stands just shy of the peak levels that were seen in the initial March 2009 crisis moment - though remains below Q4 2011 peak crisis levels. Perhaps, despite all the protestations of 'zee stabilitee', self-sustaining record-profit-margin-driven recovery, and Chinese soft-landing, the vicious circles of austerity in Europe (and perhaps the US) and financials squandering their newly-found liquidity (and certainly not capital) is becoming too large to ignore?

It appears that when it comes to mocking consensus groupthink emanating from lazy career 'financiers' who seek protection from their lack of imagination and original thought, 'creation' of negative alpha and general underperformance (not to mention reliance on rating agencies, only to jump at the first opportunity to demonize the clueless raters), in the sheer herds of other D-grade asset "managers" (for much more read Jeremy Grantham explaining this and much more here), David Rosenberg enjoys even more linguistic flexibility than even us. Case in point, his just released trashing of the latest Barron's permabull groupthink effort titled "Outlook: Mostly Sunny." And just as it so often happens, no sooner did those words hit the cover of that particular rag, that it started raining, generously providing material for the latest "Roasting with Rosie."

The White House announced it was getting into the commodities game in an effort to protect consumers from some of the geopolitical factors spilling over into the retail gasoline market. OPEC and the IEA both said in their monthly reports that market perceptions were behind higher energy prices, not physical shortages. High gasoline prices make for angry constituents. That means politicians, especially politicians fighting to keep their paychecks, start pointing their legislative guns at Wall Street almost as soon as the gavel strikes. Apart from the murky waters of economic nuance, however, President Obama said that, no matter what, American commuters need gasoline. Speculation aside, maybe that's the problem. Gasoline is a necessity and that's in part why the debate ensues. Without massive subsidies, gasoline is going to get more expensive no matter what the politicians say. And until commuters move beyond the carbon mindset, that ride to work will continue to be a rough one.

UPDATE: Added Tim Geithner's ever-positive spin-fest...

Medicare trustees just released their annual report on the program's finances and it does not make for healthy reading. In fact the main headline takeaway is that the social security fund itself will now run dry three years sooner than was projected in 2011. While 2035, the new deadline, seems a long way off, the 5% rise in medicare costs in 2011 should be enough to worry most and perhaps more disturbing is the separate disability program is set to run dry in 2016 (two years earlier than expected) and Medicare is to be depleted by 2014. Headlines via Bloomberg:

• *MEDICARE COSTS RISE 5 PERCENT TO $549 BILLION IN 2011 :UNH US
• *LONG-TERM PROJECTIONS FOR MEDICARE WORSEN, TRUSTEES SAY :UNH US
• *HOSPITALS TO FACE MEDICARE PAYMENT CUTS IN 2024, U.S. SAYS
• *TRUSTEES SAY FUND TO RUN OUT THREE YEARS EARLIER THAN PREDICTED