Archive - Sep 2015 - Story

The question on everyone's mind is whether the economy is strong enough to withstand rate hikes by the Federal Reserve? In our opinion, the answer is no. The economy continues to ebb and flow between weak growth and no growth. This puts the Federal Reserve at risk of a policy mistake that could trip the economy into an outright recession. While there have certainly been positive bumps in the data, as pent-up demand is released back into the economy, the inability to sustain growth is most concerning.

Forget Risk-Parity... ignore volatility-targeting... Risk management is for losers, value-investing is for dummies, and chasing momentum is for suckers... The path to successful trading in the new normal is easy... and involves just 4 simple steps...

Stop. Take a deep breath…Okay, are you sitting down? What you are about to read is real — far too real.

The growing roar of 'the establishment' crying for help from The Fed should make investors nervous. While your friendly local asset-getherer and TV-talking-head will proclaim how a rate-hike is so positive for the economy and stocks, we wonder why it is that The IMF, The World Bank, Larry Summers (twice), Goldman Sachs, China (twice), and now no lessor nobel-winner than Paul Krugman has demanded that The Fed not hike rates for fear of  - generally speaking - "panic and turmoil," however, as Krugman notes, “I think it would be a terrible mistake to move. But I’m not confident that they won’t make a mistake."

While it is already common knowledge that China has thrown virtually everything at the market in order to halt the ongoing market crash, including arresting "malicious sellers", journalists, and suspicious hedge fund managers, blaming HFTs for daring to sell in addition to buy, and even making trading index futures practically impossible, perhaps the most interesting revelation showcasing China's desperation came from CNBC today which reported that the government recently invited none other than Mr. ETF himself, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to "discuss the market situation there", or said otherwise: how to manipulate the market better.

If only Apple had released an iCar...

Technological change often comes faster than what the people in it’s thrall can predict. It wasn’t that long ago when you and everyone else you knew were probably using AOL Instant Messenger, around the same time that dude, you were getting a Dell. Then one day you weren’t. Blackberrys used to be so popular that “to bbm” someone made it into the dictionary, but then the devices all but disappeared. These inflection points are seldom based on the companies failing their customers, but rather because consumers simply moved on.

It would be a welcome gesture for an incoming government to declare the actions of previous governments to be against the interests of the taxpayers and repudiate the national debt. This would not only relieve the taxpayers of a present burden but would also mean that any future government would find it hard to borrow from international creditors forcing them to bear the negative effects of their fiscal and monetary policies much earlier and with greater severity. Unfortunately Greece’s “anti-bailout” government’s decision to ignore a plebiscite opposing a new bailout deal and the German parliament’s recent approval of said deal (going against the will of the majority of Germans) proves that any concept of democratic legitimacy is not only logically flawed but will always be discredited in practice.

The Minneapolis Fed's Narayana Kocherlakota is at it again, suggesting that if Congress really cares about dragging the US economy out of the post-crisis doldrums, it will give the Fed more rope by issuing more debt.

The short squeeze into 10Y auctions never fails.

It's Over... so let's see what we have left... (Spoilier Alert: Mr. Cook is preparing a new email for Mr. Cramer)

For the last 35 years, The Dow Industrials has found one technical level to be crucially important in knowing "when to bail on stocks." Currently that level is 15,334 - a closing break below spells significant downside... Of course, none of this matter, until it matters!

Bank profitability will remain under pressure for some time to come in light of the new capital regulations currently in the works. This will make it more difficult for banks to generate new capital internally, so they will have to tap the capital markets and dilute their shareholders further. It is no wonder that bank stocks remain way below the valuations they once commanded (we actually wouldn’t touch these stocks with a ten-foot pole). From a wider economic perspective, the new capital regulations are rendering banks moderately safer for depositors (as long as the markets don’t lose faith in government debt that is), but they also contribute to their ongoing “zombification”. Bank lending is going to remain subdued. This wouldn’t represent a big problem, if not for the fact that it is likely to provoke even more government activism.

Over the last five years, we have developed an unhealthy obsession with the Federal Reserve, in particular, and central banks, in general, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Investors have abdicated their responsibilities for assessing growth, cash flows and value, and taken to watching the Fed and wondering what it is going to do next, as if that were the primary driver of stock prices. The Fed has happily accepted the role of market puppet master, with Federal Bank governors seeking celebrity status, and piping up about inflation, the level of stock prices and interest rate policy. We don't know what will happen at the FOMC meeting, but we hope that it announces an end to it's "interest rate magic show."