Bond

• Oil prices drop towards 11-year lows on worsening glut (Reuters)
• Third Avenue Seen by Top Investors as Fueling More Carnage (BBG)
• Lucidus Has Liquidated $900 Million Credit Funds, Plans to Shut (BBG)
• Investor nerves tested with yuan, oil, Fed in play (Reuters)
• Junk Bonds Stagger as Funds Flee (WSJ)
• Seattle lawmakers set to vote on allowing Uber, other drivers to unionize (Reuters)

Despite the decline in stock valuations, US equities have performed far better than credit, causing investors to ask us, “What does the credit market see that the equity market does not?” Credit markets are reacting to a real deterioration in corporate balance sheets that the equity market has yet to digest. High yield (HY) credit spreads have widened dramatically since June and are currently in territory typical of recessionary environments. In contrast, the S&P 500 is just 6% below its all time high of 2131 reached in May of this year. Here are five observations...

With just 72 hours to go until Yellen decides to soak up to $800 billion in liquidity, suddenly we have China and the Emerging Market fracturing, commodities plunging, and junk bonds everywhere desperate to avoid being the next to liquidate.

Here is a visualization of the change in junk bond prices since January 1, 2015. For those confused, the redder the worse.

Following weakness in the middle-east and as WTI prices slide back into the red (on the heels of record speculative shorts in crude oil), Asia-Pac stocks are opening to the downside (but only modestly). On the bright side, the ZARpocalypse has been delayed briefly as the Rand is rallying on the back of Zuma hiring a new finance minister. On the dark side, offshore Yuan continues to plummet, down 6 of the last 7 days (down 14 handles!) and the Yuan fixed weaker for the 6th day in a ro wto July 2011 lows. and signaling more turmoil ahead of The Fed's decision. AsiaPac credit markets are gapping notably wider, EM stocks down 9th day in a row to 2009 lows, and EM FX is plunging.

And just like that last week's junk bond debt fund liquidation and redemption suspension, which first struck at the mutual fund giant Third Avenue and promptly spread to a hedge fund launched by the former heads of distressed and high yield trading from, get this, Bear Stearns, and was supposed to be quietly buried, went front page and nuclear following a WSJ report that the CEO of Third Avenue, David M. Barse, who had been with the company for 23 years, has been fired.

It should be easy to at least get the direction of interest rate changes correct, most of the time.  Instead as we see in the chart here, professional money managers always get this wrong (and truth be told this pattern has been going on for many cycles).  The problem is just as bad when it comes to predicting stock price changes for the following year. While both risks in stock and bond markets are again smouldering in advance we focus our attention here on the knottier and more pertinent idea of the dispersion about interest rates expected for 2016.  In other words, what should this probability distribution of outcomes or errors best look like?

When was the last time the same index was at precisely 17.24% and rising? The answer: the weekend Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy

"1Q16 bears potential downside risks, while 2Q16 Street estimates seem unrealistic: TSMC saw 10% order cuts in November, which we believe is from Apple business with the impact during the end of 1Q16 or early 2Q. We believe 45-50mn is a more reasonable target. We expect to see meaningful stock price corrections for Apple supply chain names in 1Q16 with lowered Street expectations and disappointing Apple sell-through numbers."

The real problem for the Fed will be how foolish it will look if it does raise by 25 basis points and is then forced by a slowing economy to lower rates back to zero soon after liftoff. At that point, the markets should finally understand that the Fed is powerless to get out of the stimulus trap it has created. But it looks like the Fed would rather look foolish later when it's forced to cut rates, than look foolish now by not raising them at all. The Fed’s rocket to nowhere will hover above the launch pad for a considerable period of time before ultimately falling back down to Earth.

In a supreme twist of irony, Bear Stearns is back - maybe not the firm itself - but the people who were in charge of its distressed and junk bond trading group, and just like the summer of 2007, it is an ex "Bear"-run hedge fund that was the first to gate, just as the credit cycle is turning and the default cycle has begun, as we explained last week, just one day before everyone's attention finally focused on junk debt.

Can the third great bubble of this century survive a Fed that finally wants to get off the zero bound after its way too late, but can’t do it anyway without a massive crash inducing cash drain from Wall Street? And in the teeth of the next recession to boot? Yes, the end of the bubble does begin on December 16th.

China’s sweeping crackdown on sellers, “manipulators”, frontrunners, financial journalists and anyone else “suspected” of acting in such a way as to sow fear and uncertainty in the wake of the dramatic meltdown in Chinese equities that unfolded over the summer has ensnared money managers, high profile executives, and government officials alike. Earlier this week, it reached a crescendo with the disappearance of Guo Guangchang, known to some as “China’s Warren Buffett. We now have a bit more in the way of color regarding Guo’s detention and sure enough, he’s being “held in connection with an investigation.”

Seven years of zero rates, massive monetary inflation and incessant market backstopping have desensitized and anesthetized. Rational thought ultimately succumbed to "perpetual money machine" quackery. And now all of this greatly increases vulnerability to destabilizing market dislocations, as senses are restored and nerves awakened. "A lot of this looks like late 2007 or early 2008," warns one manager, but today, market mispricing is systemic and global – virtually all securities classes at home and abroad.

Duh. It was so obvious looking back. This is not a consequence-free environment... it’s time to find safety.