Archive - Aug 2013 - Story

A bearish take on U.S. stocks is about as fashionable as a beehive hairdo at the moment, which makes it a decent time to think like a contrarian.  Sell-side strategists with a sense of reality are few and far-between but as ConvergEx's Nick Colas warns, the most important reason for caution currently is, obviously, valuation and complacency.  U.S. stocks currently reflect, both in price level (16x current year earnings) and implied volatility (an 11 handle VIX), an economic acceleration which has yet to fully flower.  In addition, Colas adds, domestic equities look good in part simply because everything else – Europe, Japan, emerging markets, etc... - look so bad.  Wouldn't an accelerating U.S. economy spill over to other regions?  So what is lurking around the corner for the next lucky Fed head? And what about the three main memes for why the 'bull' can keep running?

Nearly a year after the Benghazi embassy attack that left four Americans dead including ambassador Chris Stevens, it seems that the deaths of US citizens have "made a difference" after all in the eyes of the amusingly named US Department of Justice, which moments ago filed criminal charges related to the Libyan attack. Alas, that's all we know because as the WSJ reports, the charges were filed under seal. It probably means that is all that shall be known until one day, several years from now long after Eric Holder has left the building, the DOJ will unseal the charges and disclose it never had a case to begin with.

We're going to need a bigger camera...

Another day, another Hindenburg Omen sighting as Fed speeches did little to provide moar exuberance as better-than-expected data keeps hinting at an early Taper and removal of the punchbowl. Stocks have seen two days in a row of 'redness' with a mind-numbing loss of around 0.7% for the S&P 500 (and more for the Trannies) that sparked a litany of 'off-the-lows' and 'moral victory for the bulls' comments as volume remained lack-luster at best (all compressed into the sell-off phase into the European close). The Taper picture remains a little unclear across asset-classes though; as gold, silver, and oil dropped (Taper on), Bonds unch (Taper hhmm), stocks down led by builders (Taper on), USD weakness (Taper not on) but JPY strength was the driver (carry unwind on Taper on). VIX pressed up towards 13% (its biggest rise in 7 weeks) and credit is underperforming.

Ready to unveil his cunning plan for getting the GSE monkey off his back, President Obama is in Phoenix, Arizona today to discuss "restoring security to homeownership." Ironic really that he is giving this speech in the epicenter of the new bubble in housing (Phoenix home prices +23% YoY) as he offers up a "better bargain for the middle class" which seems to mean a 'promise' that home prices will never fall again. Moar intervention, moar unintended consequences of capital mis-allocation, and moar un-affordability for the average middle-class person in Arizona now the bubble is reblown. Grab the popcorn, this will be good - as Obama explains the upside for private investors to take on that first loss piece of the mortgage market (in a rising rate environment with home prices bubbling).

From "buy low, sell high; 'fear', that's the other guy's problem" to "don't worry if the price goes up, just keep buying," Trading Places is, as Dan Aykroyd describes "the greatest business movie of all time." It's hard to disagree but in the brief 2 minute Bloomberg collage of clips and interview, Aykroyd explains the movie's epic 'orange juice pit' finale (which in some strange way reminds us of the unapologetically crowded one-sided nature of the current US equity market)...

Warren Buffett's recent investments in something as mundane as rail appear to have found big fans in an unexpected place: the Kremlin.

Information overload and cognitive dissonance often hide the facts from right under one's nose. Sometimes, as in the case of the following image, a picture paints a thousand words; and in this case, any doubt about where the world's 'most-bust-prone' nations are in the post-crisis new normal should be instantly (and visually) dismissed (as we noted here, here, and here).

With the Federal Reserve's bond-buying, liquidity-injecting, market-inflating, volatility-suppressing, confidence-inspiring, economic-supporting, media-headline-generating, program currently in full swing; one would assume that the daily pushes to new market highs are driven by massive inflows of cash into the equity markets.   Well, that assumption is only partially correct.

As the following two charts show, despite the rest of the world being mired in an entirely lackadaisical muddle-through (in terms of both manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs), the US is representing itself as the new growth engine with an expanding and rising economy (if the 'recovery-is-right-around-the-corner' data is to be believed). Of course, we are hearing the term 'decoupling' and 'cleanest dirty shirt' once again (begging the question Rick Santelli has asked numerous times "so why not remove the Fed's training wheels") but we remind, there is never a decoupling in the highly interconnected global economy (and its stagnant trade volumes). Our simple question is, with all this dramatic divergence from the rest of the world, stagnant income growth, and anemic manufacturing job growth at best, how will the consumer-driven US sustain its exuberance?

Confidence leads to spending; spending strengthens the economy; and economic strength buttresses confidence. It’s a circular, self-fulfilling prophesy. Confidence can also fuel market movements. Belief that the price of an asset will rise causes people to buy the asset... making its price rise. This is another way in which confidence is self-fulfilling. But, of course, as Oak Tree Capital's Howard Marks points out, the confidence that underlies economic gains and price increases only has an impact as long as it exists. Once it dies, its effect turns out to be far from permanent. As the economist Herb Stein said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." This is certainly true for confidence and its influence. As far as confidence today, Marks notes significant uncertainty is one of the outstanding characteristics of today’s investing environment. It discourages optimism regarding the future and limits investors’ certainty that the future is knowable and controllable. In other words, it saps confidence. This is a major difference from conditions in the pre-crisis years. In fact, Marks warns he doesn't remember when his list of 'uncertainties' was this long...

Another month, another launch of monthly bond issuance by the US Treasury which today sold its first salvo of $32 billion in 3 Year debt at a yield of 0.631%. This yield was better than the When Issued 0.638% indicating demand for the short-end of the curve is crept back after two consecutive auctions in which yields were consistently higher. However, the previously noted decline in Bid to Covers is persisting and as can be seen on the chart below appears to have peaked in the summer of 2012 and is all downhill from there. This auction's BTC of 3.214 was lower than July's 3.350 and well below the TTM average of 3.484. The internals were more impressive, however, with Directs allotted 14% of the auction and Dealers taking down 44.7% (with 3 Years no longer special in repo there was no Primary Dealer scramble to procure collateral). This meant Indirects ended up with 41.4% of the auction: this was the highest allocation to "foreigners" since the debt ceiling crisis or August 2011.

There has been much discussion about fund flows into domestic mutual funds in the past few weeks for one simple reason: there have been inflows into domestic mutual funds (as tracked by ICI). For some reason, pundits correlate this inflow with the move higher in stocks. What remains unsaid is why there was little to no discussion of fund flows into domestic stock funds for about 90% of the time in the past three years. The reason is just as simple: there were no inflows, as can be seen on the chart below. There were, however, other "exogenous" events during this time: such as QE2, LTRO 1 + 2, Draghi's whatever it takes language and Operation Twist of course, and then QE3 which will likely continue indefinitely and be replace by QE4 the second it is fully "tapered." So what is relevant: inflows (or, gasp, outflows) or whatever central banks do? You decide.

What the US wants in Egypt is what it failed to attain in Iraq - stability of the kind that assumes US control over the situation. In Iraq’s case, this meant control over one of the world’s biggest oil resources. In Egypt’s case it means a smooth ride for American foreign investment, a wide reach over one of the busiest shipping zones in the world and an assurance of peace with Israel. But now Washington finds itself in a tricky position. It needs to make sure that any new Egypt is friendly with Israel, but it also needs to make sure that it caters to Saudi Arabia’s vision of a new Egypt. So far, so good--minus the stability factor.