Bear Market

While deciphering the adjustments, compulsory one-off charges, promises, ranges, and hopes, dreams, and unicorn tears is hard, the market saw headline beats in EPS and Revenues and surged GRPN above $12 enabling CNBC to proclaim it a winner before moving on... then someone (or maybe a machine) read the statement... "Groupon expects Adjusted EBITDA for the full year to be slightly above 2013 levels." That's just not gonna cut it when you can spend $19 billion on the hope of exponential growth... and sure enough, GRPN shares collapsed - down over 23% from the after-hours highs.

"Gold will keep rising as long as US policy is exporting volatility—we see no imminent change in this situation under Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve."

The 'cash on the sidelines' myth has more lives than a cat. No matter how often the logical fallacy underlying it is pointed out, Wall Street continues to propagate it. Nevertheless, money and credit are of course extremely important factors in the analysis of asset markets. The below provides what are hopefully a few useful pointers as to which data one should keep an eye on in this context.

Over the last year, investors have been lulled to sleep wrapped in the warmth of complacency as the Federal Reserve stoked the fires of the market with $85 billion a month in liquidity injections.  I have written many times in the past that investors were likely to be rudely awakened by an unexpected event of which was likely not even on the majority of mainstream analysts radars.  That occurred this past week as a revulsion in emerging markets sent the "carry trade" running in reverse. What we will need to ponder this weekend is whether the current correction is simply just a dip within an ongoing uptrend OR have the "bears" finally awakened from their winter hibernation?

"The slump in the recent ISM data may be the ?straw in the wind? of what is to come. Certainly the three-month change of the leading indicator has now turned down sharply ? even before the recent ISM data has been incorporated. We watch the unfolding EM crisis with increasing trepidation because we know how this story ends. We have been here before. And even if the Fed resumes massive QE at some point as the world melts down, and markets desperately attempt their return to the dream trance, they will instead find themselves locked into a Freddie Kruger-like nightmare in which phase 3 of this secular bear market takes equity valuations down to levels not seen for a generation." - Albert Edwards

To the algo that bought TWTR at $71.92 2 hours ago, and 34% higher - 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100001

Once again the smell of NAPALM is in the air

The biggest fear the market currently has is not the ongoing crisis in the Emerging Markets, not the suddenly slowing economy, not even China's credit bubble popping: it is that Bernanke's successor may have suddenly reverted to the "Old Normal" - a regime in which the Fed is not there to provide the training wheels should the S&P suffer a 5%, 10% or 20% (or more) drop. Whether such fears are warranted will be tested as soon as there is indeed a bear market plunge in stocks - the first in nearly three years (incidentally the topic of the Fed's lack of vacalty was covered in a recent Reuters article). So, assuming that indeed the most dramatic change in market dynamics in the past five years has taken place, how does one trade this new world which is so unfamiliar to so many of today's "younger" (and forgotten by many of the older) traders? And, more importantly, how does one look for the signs of a bottom: an Old Normal bottom that is. Courtesy of Convergex' Nicholas Colas, here is a reminder of what to look forward to, for those who are so inclined, to time the next market inflection point.

We find it truly extraordinary that anyone is surprised the financial system is under duress again.

UPDATE: Nikkei 225 Futures back under 14,000 - down 15% from Dec 31st high; USDJPY back under 101.00

Despite the hope-driven exuberance exhibited immediately post the Abe/Kuroda show, the USDJPY-pumping stock-momentum fest has ended - abruptly. Japan's Nikkei 225 has lost all its gains and is now trading below US day-session lows (3-month lows) but it is the broader TOPIX index (more akin to the S&P 500) that is collapsing. Down almost 5% on the day (its biggest drop since the May collapse), the TOPIX is at 4-month lows. The TOPIX Real Estate index just hit a bear-market - down 20% from Dec 31st highs. Japanese sell-side shops are in full panic desparation mode as "suggestions" that a sub-14,000 Nikkei will prompt an acceleration of Japan's QQE money-printing idiocy. This is getting ugly fast.

My point with this is that when the capital markets “break” due to a loss in credibility, the shift tends to be both swift and violent. 

But at the end of the day, if your creditors lost faith in your ability to repay it… it’s GAME OVER. This is hitting the emerging market space today.

17 years ago, the first major Emerging Market crisis started in Thailand, leading to the Russian default and the collapse of LTCM ushering in the era of Too Big To Fail. This time, all the world needed for the second major EM crisis, was for Ben Bernanke to announce he is giving global central planning a break (because one can be certain the Untaper will be right back on the agenda as soon as the S&P enters a bear market). Ironically, Thailand has largely been insulated from the EM decimation, even through it is now in as bad a political shape as it ever was, and one day ahead of the February 2 general elections things are getting from bad to worse. AFP reports that explosions and heavy gunfire rattled Bangkok Saturday as pro- and anti-government protesters clashed on the eve of controversial Thai elections seen as unlikely to end a cycle of violence in the kingdom after months of opposition rallies.

This past week we read some very diverse articles, which, hopefully, will stimulate your grey matter over the weekend as you indulge in melted artifical cheese, processed fillers, and copious amounts of artificial colorings and flavors during the Super Bowl showdown (assuming you did not order any of the party packs). With everybody hoping that someone else is going to pull them out of the quicksand - who is left to do the pulling?

Another volatile day ended with the Dow is down around 5% in January - the worst start to a year since 2009 (and 2nd worst since 1990) and the worst month since May 2012 (a 3-sigma miss of the average +1.5% per month gain since 2009's lows). Japan, Brazil, and Russia suffered greatly on the month as gold miners, Egypt?, and US Biotech did well. There is a huge 380bps spread between the performance of the Industrials and the Transports YTD. Gold had its best month in the last 5; Treasuries rallied with 10Y yields dropping their most since May 2012; USD rallied the most in 8 months with JPY's biggest rally (and Nikkei's biggest loss) since April 2012.