Credit Conditions

Dear Janet, it appears the US consumer (or small business) is nothing like as strong as you "believed."

According to a recent contrarian call by  Prerequisite Capital Management, the "US Treasury Bond Market is potentially set up for a substantial move higher over the next year or two." Here are the reasons why.

“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for everything.” ~Edward Abbey

"... a default cycle in commodity-related areas at this point is unavoidable, and the only real question here is whether it stays contained to those areas or extends itself to other sectors."

"It is our humble belief that the consensus at the Fed does not fully understand the magnitude of the problems in corporate credit markets and the unintended consequences of their policy actions."

The resistance to such an awakening is understandable if still lamentable. If recession is truly the looming assurance, as it increasingly appears, that would mean not just the end of the recovery but the end of “accommodation” as a given force. In other words, Janet Yellen and the OECD start backwards from their endpoint because of their unshakable faith in monetarism, a faith that actually defines how they think an economy does work (and how they produce the core assumptions in their models); should that path from here to there completely unravel, so, too, does their assumed power and philosophy.

"Emerging economies’ growth prospects look damaged in several respects. The central fact facing EM is the negative external shock that results from weak global trade growth and the collapse of Chinese import growth. This brings to an irreversible end the period of rapid, investment-led Chinese growth and strong global trade growth which had supplied EM with a once-in-a-generation positive external shock during the years between 2002 and 2013."

"... As the tide of leverage goes out, the full extent of irresponsible lending becomes apparent. The previously virtuous cycle between risk spreads and fundamentals goes into reverse, with lower prices, defaults, and downgrades forcing leveraged investors to sell, leading to even lower prices."

Based on last week’s developments, which included the launch of an investigation into the world’s largest oil company and the rejection of the most politicized energy project to date, the “above ground” problems for the energy industry are growing much worse. That could complicate the future fortunes of oil and gas companies.

Since either NIRP, or QE, or most likely both, are about to cross the Atlantic and make landfall in the US before the Fed is forced to launch the monetary helicopter, those who want to know what is really coming - no, not rate hikes - are urged to read this.

For the past two weeks, the thinking probably went that if only the biggest short squeeze in history and the most "whiplashy" move since 2009 sends stocks high enough, the global economy will forget it is grinding toward recession with each passing day (and that the Fed are just looking for a 2-handle on the S&P and a 1-handle on the VIX before resuming with the rate hike rhetoric). Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out, and overnight we got abysmal economic data first from China, whose imports imploded, then the UK, which posted its first deflation CPI print since April, and finally from Germany, where the ZEW expectation surve tumbled from 12.1 to barely positive, printing at just 1.9 far below the 6.5 expected.

Wwith oil volatility surging in recent months, oil producers needed to take advantage of a rally, technical or otherwise, and an oil vol lull to reestablish hedges, even if it meant at far lower prices than recent benchmarks.  This is precisely what happened in the past week following one of the most torrid surges in the price of oil seen in recent years.

While the US bond market, if not equities, is enjoying the day off on a day in which there is no economic data just more Fed speakers including the Fed's Evans who on Friday uttered what may be the dumbest thing a central planner has ever said, the week's macro docket starts in earnest on Tuesday when China releases much anticipated September trade data. Here are the key events for the rest of the week.

BIS Warns of ‘Major Faultlines' In Global Debt Bubble - "Unrealistic and dangerous to expect that monetary policy can cure all the global economy’s ills"

It's no secret that Brazil was long expected to be the epicenter of any future EM crisis just as it was, in many ways, the picture of EM success during better times. That said, even we’ve been surprised with the pace at which the situation has deteriorated and in the wake of the S&P downgrade the market is now left to ponder just how much worse things can get. According to Goldman the list of obstacles is laughably long.