Fund Flows

With the first quarter of 2012 just about in the books, Nic Colas (of ConvergEx) looks at how the Exchange Traded Fund 'Class of 2012' has done in terms of asset raising to date. There have been 82 new ETFs listed thus far for the year and they have collectively gathered $1.1 billion in new assets through Wednesday’s close of business. While 63% of those funds have been equity-focused, fully 67% of the asset growth for the year has flowed into fixed income products. Just over half the total money invested in these new funds has had two destinations: the iShares Barclays U.S. Treasury Bond Fund (symbol GOVT, with $297 million in flows) and Pimco’s Total Return ETF (symbol TRXT, with $267 million in flows). The standout new equity funds of 2012 in terms of flows are all iShares products – Global Gold Miners (symbol: RING), India Index (symbol: INDA) and World Index (symbol: URTH). Bottom line: even with the continuous innovations of the ETF space, investors are still targeting international and fixed income exposure, a continuation of last year’s risk-averse trends and while 'ETFs destabilize markets' might be the prevailing group-think, this quarter’s money flows into newly launched exchange traded products reveals a strong 'Risk Off' investment bias. Interestingly, the correlation between inception-to-date performance and money flows is essentially zero.

Much has been made of the lack of retail participation in the casino equity market rally of the last few months (and few years for that matter). Whether it is a signal of the individual investor's overly anxious nature and only the pros 'get it' or more likely this is the end of the baby-boomer-driven secular savings and investment bonanza is perhaps more likely as a nation of soon-to-be-retirees rotate from massive-drawdown-inducing stocks (no matter how diversified your group of trees, when the tornado hits the forest, they all fall down) to the relative (low-drawdown) safety (and steady income) of fixed income. Nowhere is this 'its different this time' secular shift more evident than in cumulative fund flows.

Spain, Europe, China - The Generational Opportunity to get hit head on by a Black Swan

Short term, the bulls will probably remain in control. 

BarCap said it expects precious metals to be one of the commodity price leaders in the second quarter, citing the "resumption of the kind of currency debasement/inflation concerns that have been the big driver of gold and silver prices over the past 12 months". It recommended that investors take a long position in December 2012 palladium, saying lower Russian exports should push the market into a supply deficit and bring prices "significantly above current levels" by later this year. BarCap put a second-quarter price of $745 per ounce for palladium futures on the London Metal Exchange, versus the past four weeks' average of $701. Spot palladium on the LME hit a session bottom below $645 on Thursday.

We hear a lot of the impending flood of money on the sidelines that will avalanche into the equity market to take us to Dow 20000 as retail sells low and buys high. Besides the arguments over the generally nonsensical argument of where the money comes from, who sold so you could buy stocks and who bought your 'safe' vehicle so that you could use that cash for 'risky' instruments, we note three interesting charts from Nomura today on recent fund flows and technicals that suggest perhaps we should not all be holding our breath for the proverbial money-flow (especially as we see outflows in the last week or so from some of the real high-beta darlings of the rally such as high-yield bond ETFs).

Without a doubt, retail has fallen in love with corporate bonds.  Fund flows were originally into mutual funds, and have shifted more and more into the ETF’s.  The ETF’s are gaining a greater institutional following as well – their daily trading volumes cannot be ignored, and for the high yield space, many hedgers believe it mimics their portfolio far better than the CDS indices. The investment grade market looks extremely dangerous right now as the rationale for investing in corporate bonds – spreads are cheap – and the investment vehicles – yield based products. With corporate bonds spreads (investment grade and high yield) already reflecting a lot of the move in equities, it will be critical to see how well they can withstand the pressure from the treasury markets.

ETF fund flows have been a uniformly positive source of capital into U.S. risk markets in 2012. Looking a little deeper at the decidedly 'risk-on' flows, Nic Colas (of Convergex Group) notes perhaps their most provocative feature has been their high degree of net concentration.  When you look at the entire “ETF Ecosystem” of listed funds, just 6 funds represent all the net gains in assets over the past month ($5.4 billion in net inflows) – LQD, HYG and JNK in fixed income, VWO in emerging markets, VXX in risk, and GLD in commodities. With 1,433 different ETFs listed on U.S. markets now, Colas likens the comprehension of the $1.2 trillion in AUM across these ETFs to how well you know your spouse as we know ETF flows are important (just like a wedding anniversary date or what day the trash is picked up at home) but with their still-evolving proliferation it seems a daunting task to keep tabs on them. All in all, this brief analysis points to more of a pause in investor sentiment rather than the opening for a more full-blown correction in the coming weeks.

"It Is completely ironic that we would be experiencing one of the most powerful cyclical upswings in the stock market since the recession ended at a time when we are clearly coming off the poorest quarter for earnings... There is this pervasive view that the U.S. economy is in better shape because a 2.2% sliver of GDP called the housing market is showing nascent signs of recovery. What about the 70% called the consumer?...Let's keep in mind that the jump in crude prices has occurred even with the Saudis producing at its fastest clip in 30 years - underscoring how tight the backdrop is... Throw in rising gasoline prices and real incomes are in a squeeze, and there is precious little room for the personal savings rate to decline from current low levels." - David Rosenberg

Where did all the bears go?  We cannot find more than one person willing to be outright bearish.  What is particularly strange is that the reasons most people are bullish seem to have little, if anything to do with fundamentals – either macro or micro.  The reason for being long that is closest to being “fundamental” is that Europe is muddling through.  We're not sure Europe is muddling through, but in any case, wasn’t the bullish case for US stocks that we were decoupling?  Conspicuously absent as a reason to be long is earnings. It seems as though everyone is reasonably long (though not fully committed), but thinks everyone else is underweight.  It really feels like the “consensus” is that everyone else is underweight so you better be long for when that money comes into the market. The conversations are far more bearish than the positioning.

As Goldman's David Kostin points out, this week's key capital flow observation had little to do with QE2 (which at $600 billion over 8 months, was actually less than the anticipated $500 billion over 6 months), which had a far greater impact on commodity prices as Zero Hedge had expected (and ES was down in gold for the week, and continues to be very much down for the year), and all to do with the Fed's "non-announcement" that it would allow financial firms to recommence dividends. This resulted in a spike in financial shares, which jumped the most in the prior week. In light of Friday afternoon's repeat announcement that a Federal agency (this time the Chicago FHLB) was following in the footsteps of the FRBNY, and claiming Rep and Warranty fraud over $375 billion in RMBS, banks won't be depleting their reserve funds any time soon. But all is fair in war and industry rotation, even if it makes no sense. More to the point, even Goldman advises clients this as nothing but a headfake: "We currently recommend a neutral weighting in Financials although we recognize the positive impact a round of dividend hikes will have on share prices. Our concern relates to the lack of loan demand, slim net interest margins as the yield curve flattens, restrictions on business activity from “Volcker Rule,” Basel 3 capital requirements, and the impact of Fin Reg." But since when did fundamentals matter? These days it is all a question of fund flows, typically those originating from the Federal Reserve.

As we predicted previously, in the past week domestic equity mutual funds experienced another whopper of a redemption. ICI reports that for the week ended June 9, domestic equity mutual funds saw $3.7 billion in outflows, 3 times the prior week's outflow, the sixth sequential outflow in a row, and $27 billion in outflows year to date. Yet stocks, which persist in ignoring all fundamental flow data, are not only above their 200 DMA, but also positive for the year, as the pathetic algo games on no volume continue to diverge the market from any semblance of reality. Good luck Fed, SEC, and Primary Dealers in restoring credibility to this joke of a market.

Retail investors have pretty much given up on the market according to the latest ICI fund flow data. In the week Ended May 19, domestic equity mutual funds saw a third consecutive outflow, this time for $4.8 billion, as mutual fund cash levels, already depleted, are starting to hit critical level and forcing liquidations (ignore today's EOM rebalancing - just a close out of short positions ahead of a traderless Friday). At this point there have been almost $15 billion in mutual fund outflows from domestic stocks year to date, a staggering number considering the market is unchanged for the year, and once again begging the question how long investors will allow primary dealer Fed proxies to continue to speculate with each other and permit HFT programs to derive liquidity rebates as they push the market higher on no volume and no good news. Also notable is that in the past week taxable bond funds also saw an outflow, with the only inflows seen in hybrid and municipal funds. We will provide the Lipper fund flow data later today.

ICI reports that the depletion of money market flows, which as we have pointed out have seen outflows of over $300 billion year to date, is finally starting to force retail capitulation into domestic equities: the week of April 7 saw domestic equity mutual fund inflows of $1.9 billion, reversing the outflows of the past two weeks. At this point total domestic fund outflows for 2010 have dropped to only ($1.8) billion, which surely "justifies" the spike in the S&P from January 1. The implication is that, as we have pointed out repeatedly, the only marginal buying of US-based stocks continues to be executed primarily by Primary Dealers. We will update on Lipper/AMG data as soon as it is available.

The broader public, where the first baby boomers begin retiring this year, continues rotating out of equities and into the safety of bonds. The ICI just disclosed that fund flows for domestic equity mutual funds turned negative for the week of March 24 to the tune of almost $1 billion, after a substantial spike the week before. Thisoccurred even as the market has barely had a single down day in the past two months. Year To Date the outflows have now hit a massive $3.5 billion, surprising when considering the performance of the actual stock market, which continues being bid up into the stratosphere by Primary Dealers, or as Rosenberg affectionately calls them, Pig Farmers, using free Fed money, as they merely trade with nobody but each other in a disappearing volume game of musical chairs in which each and everyone is just focused on the exit strategy and getting the market to a sufficiently high level where a 30% "bidless" drop doesn't destroy too many.