Bear Market

While not exactly a "bear", Deutsche Bank's David Bianco - until this weekend - had the lowest S&P 500 target for 2014 year-end at 1,850. That's all changed now...

Encouraging and supporting asset bubbles is essentially the only force remaining to keep the system intact as we know it.

In recent months talking heads, disappointed with the lack of economic recovery, have turned their attention to wages. If only wages could grow, they say, there would be more demand for goods and services: without wage growth, economies will continue to stagnate. Unfortunately for these wishful-thinkers the disciplines of the markets cannot be bypassed.

There rarely seems to be a “reason” for why market crashes happen. Market observers are e.g. debating to this day what actually “caused” the crash of 1987. It is in the nature of the beast that once liquidity evaporates sufficiently that not all bubble activities can be sustained at once any longer, bids begin to become scarce in one market segment after another. Eventually, they can disappear altogether – and sellers suddenly find they are selling into a vacuum. Once this happens, the usual sequence of margin calls and forced selling does the rest. Risk premiums normalize abruptly, and there doesn't need to be an obvious reason for this to happen. Compressed risk premiums can never be sustained “forever”.

The advent of computer generated trading algorithms heralded a quantum leap forward in the quest for 24/7 control of markets. No longer were humans beings required to do such unseemly things as man trading desks or worry a whit if free markets were, if even infrequently, attempting to function. Algo precision has made even the blackest of black swan events seem to turn lily white in their utter non-eventfulness. No more significant Dow or bond crashes, and best of all, no gold rallies exceeding (exactly) 1.00%, or the occasional 2.00%.

As a reminder, this kind of market action is neither normal or healthy longer term and has only seen near historical major market peaks. Of course, timing is everything. With the current influx of liquidity coming to an end in October, combined with a plan to start to increasing interest rates in 2015, the Fed has clearly begun to signal the end of 5 years of ultra-accommodative policies. The question that remains to be answered is whether or not the economy is actually strong enough to be removed from "life support?" This weekend's "Things To Ponder" is just a smattering of interesting articles cover a wide range of topics that I hope you will find interesting, informative and contemplative.

The fundamental mistake is to think in terms of a low yield telling you anything about the economy, as it is price that you should be focusing on.

When considering the catalysts for silver, let’s first ignore short-term factors such as net short/long positions, fluctuations in weekly ETF holdings, or the latest open interest. Data like these fluctuate regularly and rarely have long-term bearing on the price of silver. We're more interested in the big-picture forces that could impact silver over the next several years. The most significant force, of course, is governments’ abuse of “financial heroin” that will inevitably lead to a currency crisis in many countries around the world, pushing silver and gold to record levels; but here are seven more...

For 40 years, the financial world has experienced a bull market in bonds. What this means is that for 40 years, bond prices have risen while yields fell.  As yields fell, it became easier and easier for investors to borrow money.

“Train wreck is a pretty good term to describe what is coming.  But this train wreck isn’t simply going to hit a wall out of the blue. Actually, it has been forming and accumulating and expanding for many years now, and yet it has simply been ignored, particularly by the financial markets which have ridden this bubble to these extreme and historic heights. The only issue is, when does it hit the wall?  The answer to that question is it’s not very far down the road, and I can promise you that is when all hell is going to break loose.”

With credit markets beginning to creak, market internals flailing, and numerous sectors and individual stocks in a state of correction or bear market, it appears Marc Faber's calls for a big correction in stocks is more right than wrong but the algo-driven exuberance in indices maintains the illusion a little longer (even as the number of leading stocks drops). However, with redemptions increasing in credit, and costs of funding rising, perhaps Faber's insights in the following interview with a radiant Trish Regan are about to be realized. "By printing money, [The Fed] has delayed the cleaning process," as mal-invested capital (and self-referential buybacks) have sustained (and even encouraged) the worst quality companies. As corporate defaults pick up (and The Fed's free money dries up), perhaps that cleaning process will be allowed into the free-market producing "the big sell-off" Faber sees in the Fall.

Obviously, this weekend's reading list is focused on what to do now.  Is this just another "dip" that investors should buy into? OR, is this the beginning of the long overdue intermediate term correction or a "mean reverting" process?

"If this is the beginning of a more important, intermediate term, correction; how large could it be?" There is one important truth that is indisputable, irrefutable, and absolutely undeniable: "mean reversions" are the only constant in the financial markets over time. The problem is that the next "mean reverting" event will remove most, if not all, of the gains investors have made over the last five years. Hopefully, this won't be you.

Today, everyone believes that market price levels are largely driven by monetary policy and that we are all being played by politicians and central bankers using their words for effect rather than direct communication. No one requires convincing that market price levels are unsupported by real world economic activity. Everyone believes that this will all end badly, and the only real question is when.... There’s absolutely nothing sincere about the public sphere today, in its politics or its economics, and as a result we have lost faith in our public institutions, including public markets. It’s not the first time in the history of the Western world this has happened … the last time was in the 1930’s … and over time, perhaps a very long period of time, a modicum of faith will return. This, too, shall pass... It’s the public markets where faith has been lost, and that’s why the Golden Age of the Central Banker poses existential risks for firms and business strategies based on trading activity within those public markets.

Which appears more likely - a straight-line extension of the past two years' rise in stocks, or another "impossible" decline to complete the megaphone pattern?