Presenting The Liquidity Bubble
Ask anybody to chart the trajectory of the S&P500 over the past 10 years and you will get this chart.
And while the tech boom of the late 1990's was driven by some very real secular shifts caused by unique technological innovation which, aside from the exuberance associated with some of the dot com names, brought a marked benefit to the global economy, how does one explain the subsequent ramp up as the credit bubble was being inflated and subsequently imploded?
Simple - it was all liquidity driven.
The best way to visualize it is to take the SPX and to divide it by the sum of domestic reserves and foreign custodial holdings (a topic discussed on Zero Hedge previously here). The result is that represented on this relative basis, the underlying market did absolutely nothing for the duration of the entire credit bubble. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the theme of the Fed's balance sheet expansion and why the market has been ramping up markedly even, or specifically because of, the Fed's balance sheet growing over the past decade and recently hitting unprecedented levels in the $2 trillion+ range. One can play with the denominator and add other money aggregates such as MZM, but the result would not change materially.
And the scariest part of the chart is the tail end: even with the unleashed dam of liquidity, the market still has a massive retracement ahead of it before it can recover the adjusted losses it has suffered since the last credit bubble. Ironically a 50% run up in the S&P has not been enough to offset on an apples-to-apples basis the unprecedented liquidity efforts let lose by Chairman Ben.
The bottom line is that when viewed from the perspective of liquidity fueling the market, the S&P 500 has never been in a worse situation. And alas, as the Fed's balance sheet climbs to $4 trillion +, absent a multi-year parabolic rise in stocks, liquidity will increasingly lose its power to sustain markets to historical overbloated levels. But Ben Bernanke will go down in flames, and take down America with him, trying to disprove this hypothesis.
h/t Philidor
(36 votes)
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on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:04
#51851
psycho-bankers rule.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:40
#51920
Sports celebrities are honored by way of "bobble-head" dolls ... For Greenspan and Bernanke maybe we could get "bubble-heads".
Tyler et al, any chance of ordering some bobble-heads painted like Greenie and BennieB (manufactured in China, appropriately) and offering them for sale in the ZH store? would "parody in the form of bobble head" be protected under the 1st amendment, or would offering them for sale negate that protection?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:45
#51931
Fighting on a pile of cash!
Punching with fists of cash!
dress them in cash!
Hell, I'd buy one, GD I'm dumb!
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:06
#51855
Unfortunately, people are easily deceived by nominal values.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:03
#52058
Unfortunatelty, its probably 99.9% of people
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:08
#51858
My Nigga!
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:13
#51870
Thank you TD....very enlightening analysis.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:15
#51871
"...absent a multi-year parabolic rise in stocks, liquidity will increasingly lose its power to sustain markets to historical overbloated levels."
The Zimbabwe stock market skyrocketed in 2007, with acceleration starting in 2005-2006.
Need I say more?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:33
#51907
Oh no need to say more, comparisons to Zimbabwe are so cogent.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:06
#51984
A bad ending ...
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:17
#51872
C crosses 1 billion shares....what took so long?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:17
#51873
A keen observation.
In other words, the markets require greater and greater doses of liquidity just to keep from falling at this point.
Apparently the USDX will have to go to 20 before we see new nominal highs on any of the major equity indices.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:46
#51932
I like that...
In other in other words if the market is the patient and liquidity is the drug then the market has a clear case of drug resistance so let's amp up the liquidity until we kill the freakin' patient.
Death cures all...I'll resist the too easy Michael Jackson analogy except to say he's not addicted to anything anymore.
Pete
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:25
#52014
There is this old doctors saying...the only difference between a treatment and a toxin is the dose
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:32
#52029
Here's the way Stalin put it: “Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.” and it was off to Siberia for all problems.
I guess Ben's quote in history will then be "no market, no problem", and if you insert the word "free" before market, then it's already mission accomplished.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:19
#51878
...If monetary growth does not speed up further, the initial stimulus to employment and output will be replaced by the opposite: both will tend to go down in response to the higher wages and prices. A hangover will succeed the initial euphoria.
It takes time for these reactions to occur. On the average... roughly 6 - 9 months have elapsed before increased monetary growth has worked its way through the economy and produced increased economic growth and employment. Another 12 - 18 months have elapsed before the increased monetary has affected the price level appreciably and inflation has occurred or speeded up.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:31
#51906
Are you on the crack cocaine? Not one thing you said made a grain of sense.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:41
#52341
some of it did...his numbers for time lag of monetary
policy effects are correct...
i am not sure if he is talking real or nominal
growth in the economy but under the circumstances
it should be viewed as nominal...
i am not sure that economic output would go down
because of higher nominal wages...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:25
#51881
Shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
No amount of bucket bailing will refloat this thing.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:31
#51904
and the band played on, as if nothing was the matter...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:26
#52015
all the lifeboats have been put out and I missed it. Damn, that water looks dark and cold...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:22
#51883
ITs just like drug addiction, you have to keep doing more and more because tolerance levels build up.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:29
#51898
Someone attempt to counter the following:
"As long as their are no borrowers, no amount of quantitative easing will harm the economy."
In other words, if the money being created is not borrowed, money supply does not technically grow. Sure, asset prices, such as stocks and bonds may increase due to a lack of borrowers (i.e. financial assets are substituted), but inflation will remain in check until borrowers demand returns. Quantitative easing does absolutely nothing for the real economy in this scenario - neither positive or negative. Look at the Fed data on banks' total loans and leases...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:11
#51976
If it doesn't cause inflation, then it won't counteract deflation. Therfore, harm.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:20
#52006
If the newly created money finds it's way to the trading desk of an entity, and bids up stock/bond prices by inducing "sideline" money into the markets; then the real economy gets hurt since that money doesn't go to work but is now just bag-holding the bid-upped prices.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:45
#52344
it's horribly bad....do you know how qe works????
the fed is increasing its balance sheet by buying
crap no one else wants...these assets will most
likely never be worth what the fed paid thus
causing a loss on the fed balance sheet....
further more it is severely impairing price
discovery and market clearing thus preventing
the cleansing of garbage investment....
it's the most foolish policy the idiot running
the fed could follow....pure price distortion...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:29
#51899
I think Zero Hedge should take up a collection to put up a billboard somewhere in America with a pricture of Bern Bernanke and the caption "I will buy your garbage at any price". I am sure the community here can come up with something more clever, but the fact is that one billboard in a major media city (New York, L.A.) would get the attention of the news media alot more than all of the marketwatch and bloomberg stories combined.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:36
#51911
Put it on Times Square
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:43
#51928
Bern?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:49
#51940
I vote we put it smack dab in the middle of Time Square. Preferably over looking the NASDAQ exchange.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:21
#52007
and add "Garbage, its got electrolytes!"
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:56
#52048
I am serious about this. One large billboard will get more attention in the mainstream media than all the bloomberg articles combined. If you really want to get the conversation started, this is the way to go. ("Bern" was a typo). I suspect Zero Hedge could raise the money in about 2 days. Tyler, this would also draw a lot more attention to your website. Pelase consider doing something like this.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:24
#52328
Fantastic idea. Plus, it seems to have done wonders for us Atheists, namely the buses and whatnot.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:43
#52335
atheism is as irrational and/or dogmatic as theism is. You have numerous proofs of that; but my favourite one is from Cantor and is goes like this; there has to exist a set which is a set of all sets; and also a set of itself.
and i will add to that; there has to exist a set which is either an operational output of all possible operations on subsets if a) cardinality is finite b) every member of the set is finite or c) cardinality is finite AND every member of the set is finite. Or there must exist a set which has the most highest infinity ordeal if a) cardinality is infinite or ) at least one of the members of the set are infinite or c) cardinality is infinite AND at least one of the members of the set is infinite.
Cantor basically proved there must exist a set which is a set of all possible ( temporaly independent, space independent, function independent ) sets.
little bit off-topic ( im sorry ) but; a good thinking practice.
Think about it for a while.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 19:17
#52448
he proved the exact opposite. 'the set of all sets' can *not* be a set:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument#Consequences
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 23:49
#52686
that's what i was thinking when i read the
phrase "operational output."
on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 08:32
#52788
You're thinking of a power set construction in a finite space (real analysis uses maximal element arguments). Cantor was talking about transfinite induction across the continuum.
Have a look at Cohen's theorem: there are some things that you can neither prove nor disprove.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:37
#51915
It's fun to think people can educate Bernanke and Co, but the reality is: it's alllll partttt of the plaaaaaannnnnn.
Anybody who thinks Bernanke doesn't understand Austrian Economics as good as anybody else is rather silly. Everything rolls the way the Fed wants it to. 'The tables are tilted, the game is rigged.' - George Carlin
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:40
#51919
FYI What's even scarier is take a look at that chart and then take a look at the CPI during the 1920's
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:41
#51921
Here's somewhat of a consolation - somebody stole Bernanke's purse: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/26/bernanke-identity-fraud/
We'll have to settle for the small victories when we can get them.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:41
#51922
PETER PETER, I replied this in previous post to your question
------------
HFT1 sells (short) 1000 shares of AIG to HFT2 at $50
HFT2 sells those 1000 shares again to HFT1 at $49
HFT1 sells those 1000 shares to HFT2 at $48
HFT2 sells those 1000 shares to HFT1 at $47
HFT1 sells those 1000 shares to HFT2 at $46
HFT2 sells those 1000 shares to HFT1 at $45
HFT1 sells those 1000 shares to HFT2 at $44
HFT2 sells those 1000 shares to HFT1 at $43
HFT1 sells those 1000 shares to HFT2 at $42
HFT2 sells those 1000 shares to HFT1 at $41
A long term holder gets nervous seeing all that down volume and dumps his 1000 shares at $41. So now there is REAL DOWNSIDE to AIG as real investors are being forced to sell their stock
HFT1 buys 500 shares back at $40
HFT2 buys 500 shares back at $40
So at the end of the day HFT1 and HFT2 have traded 1000 shares again and again between each other and so have zero profit/loss ... but they have overwhelmed the market with enormous volume forcing real investors to sell their stock which HFT1 and HFT2 buy back at lower prices to profit on their own shorts
Obviously 1000 shares is too small a number.
But if they control 70% of all trades, they can do some serious damage this way
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:40
#52111
Are you serious? Try thinking through your own example a little more carefully.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:42
#51924
the scary part is that we WILL again top 1570s and go above 1600 on SPX and then crash all over again...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:44
#51925
I believe, that there is a lot of power
in the Nasdaq, inventors, smart people
who will always be able to produce stuff
that other countries can't or lag behind.
But as it seems today, that the FED policy
jeopardizes a solid economic recovery
so the market will probably have to discount
this next year and has to get much worse
before it can start a sustainable recovery.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:43
#51926
i live in california and for the next 2 days, california is having a 'garage sale' to get rid of anything it doesn't need. i think the rest of America needs to have this garage sale too before the next collapse.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:51
#51935
I would call that "Project Canadian Bacon"
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RPYB3PERL._SL500_AA240_.jpg
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:05
#51962
We have been in a "garage sale economy" all year. I can't wait till consumers get serious about de-leveraging, and start emptying out their storage units. Long live Craigslist!
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:07
#51967
We have been in a "garage sale economy" all year. I can't wait till consumers get serious about de-leveraging, and start emptying out their storage units. Long live Craigslist!
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:50
#51941
as a friend aptly said about the biz I work for and the problems we face, "your boss must be clueless...the place hit an iceberg, and they're still strolling the deck enjoying the pretty sky."
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:50
#52348
you work for cnbs?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:50
#51943
boobs?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:54
#51946
This whole arguement about real returns and nominal is one better left for the economists. In reality if I bought a bunch of stocks in March 09, which are now on average 50% higher, in real terms I am better off, in fact a lot richer. This long term vs. the market view only applies to people who trade the index's, and Tyler to be fair that should have been stated in your article. That is a very narrow view of things not the other side to the story.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:07
#51965
True, we could close down all factories
in the US and go to work for GS. In fact
we do not have to produce, we just have
to print money and speculate on the financial
markets. The FED gives everybody money
to speculate, not only to GS and friends,
no everybody stop working now and ask
for some money from the FED to speculate.
We could pump up the S&P500 to 3000, and
than the FED prints more money and makes
a buyback of all speculative papers and stocks.
For the little people the FED could launch
a quadruple ultra S&P500 ETF, so they
would be leveraged and get higher returns.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:26
#52017
They tried your approach in Zimbabwae, where everyone is now a billionaire, and a pauper. Turns out you buy things with buying power, not nominal money. Who knew?
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:57
#52353
spoken like a true dimwit...
shrewd investors know the time value of money
including the effects of price inflation...
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:56
#51948
Even CNN Money has a "stop the insanity" headline re: the run up in junk financials. Can't whistle past the graveyard forever.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 12:58
#51949
Well, the dollar recently became cheaper to borrow than the yen. That certainly had implications for asset prices:
http://www.debtsofanation.blogspot.com/
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:03
#51957
Makes you teary eyed for Bob Brennan
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:06
#51977
In 2008 if they kept shorting fiercely, then obviously all the long term holders would get stopped out of their positions leading to even more selling
good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:17
#51997
TD, call GS. on this. We need an ETF that tracks this!!
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:23
#52012
(see Bernake in a diapers screaming like a baby)
"Wahhhhhhh! But I don't like deflation! Wahhhhh! I want to be a hero mommy! People will look at me like it was my fault!"
(key in "Let it Be" by Beatles")
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:13
#52068
Big Ben will be a martyr for the Keynesian cause.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 15:54
#52230
Ben is actually a Republican and Friedmanite. The problem is that nobody can or will stand up to High Finance, and until that happens, the Fed is stuck laundering mortgage backed securities and other toxic paper to try and make the big banks and financials whole again.
Bobby Kennedy tried to fight the Mob and look what happened to him. These banksters are every bit as dangerous.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 18:00
#52356
the mob did not kill kenedy....he was assiassinated
by the cia taking orders from the very oligarchs
who murdered his brother, mlk,attempted murder
of rwr and who are murdering the economy....
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 22:14
#52629
"Bobby Kennedy tried to fight the Mob and look what happened to him. These banksters are every bit as dangerous."
Please don't use the man's name like that. It's pretty shameless to use him as a martyr for your cause.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 13:38
#52033
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_XpcU5pY0f4
"Leverage Rising on Wall Street at Fastest Pace Since ‘07 Freeze"
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:13
#52069
Typically September is a down month with average 2.5% drop in all major indexes. October is typically a "crash month". July being a stronger month.
Markets are technically overbought and manipulation is apparent.
Nobody can tell me that investors are not increasingly nervous about the prospect of a typical September stock rut in conjunction with the "irrational exuberance" we are witnessing.
If markets keep going up in September and October you should withdraw your money from all money market and bank accounts, buy as much gold as you possibly can and start to hunker down.
What if... there is not enough liquidity to payout all investors who try to cash in their shares when a sell off happens?
Run for the hills, guys.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:13
#52073
S&P/gold looks the same.
on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 14:51
#52127
Gold not following the EUR/USD correlation (or inverse DXY) anymore. It's only a short-term divergence, but there are run-ups in select hedgie holdings that are M&A targets...
Still can't crack the 960 upper trading range.
on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 09:24
#52797
Check out the dow charts on a site called pricedingold.com (the site is a bit crummy, but the charts are interesting):
http://pricedingold.com/dow-jones-industrials/
on Sun, 08/30/2009 - 00:31
#53209
In these tough times currency trading might be a solution - neuraltraders.info is offering some of its expert advisers for free - make 200 - 300 $ / day off an investment of 4000$ - not bad.
on Sun, 08/30/2009 - 03:18
#53241
Sadly this is true. The Senate says it is looking for a pivot point to turn it around. Not ever going to happen to corupt. Think back about balance sheet depression and how long that lasted in public thinking. We where warned that price mechanism's where wrong and debt mining has the Fed spreading the disease even more in many segments to malinvestment. There just rebuilding the debt bomb to get the rest of you, but deflation just may beat them to it. We are dismissing more employees in October. I have worked Corporate for over 3 decades. Seek value? Given the current sitution of Social Darwinism and LEAN manufacturing principles you guys are on your own. I have been looking for orientation in the market with tech and fundamental tools. In support with the copious data provided here the point never left my mind that it is never about you. Given the strip mining debt industry and reflation tools from the children in charge I may look in the spring now for value. Wave this wave that, thousands are still looking for and thousands continue to be dismissed. Point blank the lepers and children upstairs have no value inclinations with you in mind and have done what the left needed done namely crisis. You are in a fight for your lives now, and until the debt retires and the workers are returned to value orientated affairs the disconnects will continue. Indeed a debased people are fruit of a debased currency and this last march to the Keynesian's paradise will utterly destroy you and he listedthe gradualism process it entails in his treatise. Socialism works until there is no more able to produce, and the left will not ever learn to think or provide value. When deflation crushes all it should then you can rebuild since you have no choice. They will tax you from a barrel of the gun more very soon since ALL Government's in crisis do to there survival and there direct interests only. To date look around in your community unless your eyes deceive. Many will point to direction on how they can save us. They lie until you see production to build and trade in abundance with the free market. Countless times i read where the trade representatives conveyed many where seeking to maintain loopholes to current arrangements. It have never been about the road to serfdom since it it here in my opinion just as the Keynesian's promised. Enjoy your Democracy as they increase and you decrease. Yes we know as Churchill noted and I paraphrase "when all other means are fail the Americans will do the right thing. We shall see since it is all about tiny bubbles now as I was talking to older money than me. Good luck all and never give up.
AMOS 8:11
on Sun, 08/30/2009 - 12:13
#53349
Its time to start a war wonder how that will balance the books has to be a bigger one than iraq and afganistan though a bit more global at the rate things are going it will have to be two years rather than ten......
on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 13:40
#54127
Aren't we lucky that the president nominated Uncle Ben for another term at the helm of the Fed? Amirite?
on Thu, 09/10/2009 - 22:06
#65818
i've never been so glad that i'm poor and have no money.