Herd Mentality

So, apparently, according to Jon Hilsenrath, "QE to Infinity" is actually "finite" after all. There is no doubt that the Federal Reserve will do everything in its power to try and "talk" the markets down and "signal" policy changes well in advance of actual action.  However, that is unlikely to matter.  The problem with the financial markets today is the speed at which things occur.   High frequency trading, algorithmic programs, program trading combined with market participant's "herd mentality" is not influenced by actions but rather by perception. As stated above, with margin debt at historically high levels when the "herd" begins to turn it will not be a slow and methodical process but rather a stampede with little regard to valuation or fundamental measures. The reality is that the stock market is extremely vulnerable to a sharp correction.   Currently, complacency is near record levels and no one sees a severe market retracement as a possibility.  The common belief is that there is "no bubble" in assets and the Federal Reserve has everything under control. Of course, that is what we heard at the peak of the markets in 2000 and 2008 just before the "race for the door." This time will be no different.

By now everyone knows that POMO is the daily physical manifestation of the Fed's love for the "1%", and the trillions in underfunded pension and stock-linked entitlements, taking place (almost) every day in the hours between 10:15am and 11:00 am Eastern, when the NY Fed's trading desk injects between $1 and $6 billion in the stock market. What many may not know is that while POMO was the name of the game since 2009 (just think where the S&P would be if the "market" was only open on Thursday, during the 45 minute duration of POMO, and between 3:30 pm and 4:15 pm), it may have finally met its homophonous match, courtesy of Citigroup. So step aside POMO. Presenting.... FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out.

One cannot see clearly while in the midst of the madness using only the cognitive tools and worldview assumptions supported and promoted by the madness.

The 2008 crash resulted from the bursting of the biggest bubble in financial history, a ‘credit super-cycle’ that spanned more than three decades. How did this happen? Some might draw comfort from the observation that bubbles are a long established aberration, arguing that the boom-and-bust cycle of recent years is nothing abnormal. Any such comfort would be misplaced, for two main reasons. First, the excesses of recent years have reached a scale which exceeds anything that has been experienced before. Second, and more disturbing still, the developments which led to the financial crisis of 2008 amounted to a process of sequential bubbles, a process in which the bursting of each bubble was followed by the immediate creation of another. Though the sequential nature of the pre-2008 process marks this as something that really is different, in order to put the 'credit cuper-cycle' in context, we must understand the vast folly of globalization, the undermining of official economic and fiscal data, and the fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamic which really drives the economy.

We already posted Howard Marks' most recent letter in its entirety previously, but it bears reposting a section from Art Cashin's daily letter which focuses on one segment of Marks' thoughts, which is especially relevant in light of today's most recent comment from one Warren Buffett - a person who very directly benefited from the government/Fed's bailout of the banking sector in 2008 - who said that "Bank Risk No Longer Threatens U.S. Economy." The same banks, incidentally, who are TBerTFer than ever. An objective assessment or merely yet another example of the "handcuff volunteerism" (not to mention crony hubris) Marks touches on? Readers can decide on their own.

Bulk (Wall Street) buyers have been receiving a lot of attention recently. It's time to take a closer look. There is little data available pertaining to bulk investors and even less meaningful analysis. Historically, Wall Street has never been active in direct ownership of single family homes, so there is no past histrory to learn from. We need to start from scratch. Anecdotally, Las Vegas is the most shocking: "... never seen a market where over half of the buyers paid cash and over 1/3 of the sales were financed via the FHA, leaving only 14% of sales in the "other" category." The herd mentality is in full control with buying increasing at all levels. How long will this feeding frenzy last? Will the bulk investors be able to generate enough returns to whet their appetite for more? Stay tuned.

More of my contrarian, yet highly accurate Apple research released free to the public, unfortunately not in time to save Rochdale's ass...

"Yellow journalism" – which seems almost the only kind we have these days dominates our newsflow, but the truth is out there. As with everything else though, it's subject to Pareto's Law. So, 80% of what's out there is crap, and 80% of what's left is merely okay. But that remaining 4% of quality, uncensored, free information flow is extremely valuable. The terminal corruption of the major news corporations and the lack of interest in seeking the truth among the general population augurs very poorly for the prospects of the US and the current world order. This creates speculative opportunities, but prospects for mainstream investments are not good. Western civilization is truly in decline and far down the slippery slope.

"The next stage in the crisis will be blatant blackmail....

With their refusal to accept money from the bailout fund to recapitalize their banks, the Spanish are not far from causing the entire system to explode. They clearly figure that the Germans will lose their nerve and agree to rehabilitate their banks for them without demanding any guarantee in return that things will take a lasting turn for the better."

Get those rotten tomatos ready

Confused by stock bubbles and furious episodes of manic market euphoria? SocGen's Dylan Grice explains it in one brief sentence: "we’re hardwired to overvalue excitement and undervalue boredom."

We have long shown that "investors" whatever that term means in the New Normal - those gullible enough to put their money in Bennie Madoff, pardon Bennie Bernanke Asset Management? - have been not only reluctant to put their money into stocks, but despite week after week of artificial, low volume highs, driven entirely by Primary Dealers (and now European banks post the $1.3 trillion in LTROs, not to mention even foreign Central Banks recently buying high beta stocks) spiking the market ever higher courtesy of record reserves, but in fact continue to pull their cash out of the stock market with every thrust higher. Why, just last week another $1.4 billion in cash was pulled from domestic equity funds, nominal Dow 13,000 be damned. The truth is that the banks are desperate to start offloading their risk exposure to retail investors, and instead of selling, are furiously trying to send the market ever higher just to get that ever elusive "investor" back: just look at how much the market rose by last week, CNBC will say: do you really want to be out of this huge rally? Alas, the damage has been done: between the Great Financial Crisis, the Flash Crash, a massively corrupt regulator, rehypothecating assets that tend to vaporize with no consequences, and a central bank which effectively has admitted to running a Russell 2000 targeting ponzi scheme, the investor is gone. But what if? What if the retail herd does, despite everything, come back into stocks? After all the money is in bonds, or so the conventional wisdom states. What harm could happen if the 10 Year yield goes back from 2% to 3%, if the offset is another 100 S&P points. After all it is good for the velocity of money and all that - so says classical economic theory. Well, this may be one of those "be careful what you wish for." Because while investors have indeed park hundreds of billions out of stocks and into bonds, the real story is elsewhere. And the real story is the real elephant nobody wants to talk about. Presenting: America's combined cash hoard, which between total demand deposits, checkable deposits, savings deposits, and time deposits (source H.6), is at an all time high of $8.1 trillion.

When the VIX is low it’s time to GO.

In his most recent quarterly letter titled appropriately enough "The Longest Quarterly Letter Ever" GMO's Jeremy Grantham literally kills it. Well, maybe not literally but certainly metaphorically.

Michael “Moneyball” Lewis was the first one to, er, expose us to the term Big Swinging Dick. His his first novel, Liar’s Poker, was full of them. The BSDs were the guys on the trading floor who brought more rain than El Niño. But the BSDs have gone a little soft now. Even the famous Wall Street bull has been caged. And some, like number one banking fanboi Dick Bove say that bankers been “castrated” altogether by new regulation. Regulation which many argue does not go far enough. Regardless, the Masters of the Universe suddenly find themselves feeling the pain that many of the rest of us have been feeling for the past four years. Only their ways of coping with it are a little different than what you might expect.