High Yield

Back in September 2013 we wrote "Coming Soon To A Theater Near You: MBIA's $1 Billion World War Z" in which we explained why MBIA will soon have a substantial problem (amounting to just about around $600 million) with several CLOs which we dubbed "Zombie CLOs" or as they were actually known, Zohar, on which it had written insurance, and which would become evident sooner or later once someone took a long, hard look at the collateral manager of the CLOs, namely Lynn Tilton's Patriarch Partners. Well, finally someone did take a long, hard look and today, our warning comes full circle following a shocker out of the SEC accusing Lynn Tilton of fraud and of "hiding the poor performance of loan assets in three collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds they manage."

What would happen, for example, if a large number of holders decided to sell a high yield bond ETF all at once? In theory, the ETF can always be sold. Buyers may be scarce, but there should be some price at which one will materialize.  But we can’t get away from depending on the liquidity of the underlying high yield bonds. The ETF can’t be more liquid than the underlying, and we know the underlying can become highly illiquid.... no investment vehicle should promise more liquidity than is afforded by its underlying assets. Do these recent promises represent real improvements, or merely the seeds for subsequent disappointment?

If yesterday's 5 Year auction was ugly across the board, today's 7 Year was even uglier.

For all the talk about rate hikes, the bond market seems to be completely oblivious to any threats of an imminent start of tightening by the Fed, and in the just concluded 2 Year auction, the Treasury moments ago sold $26 billion in 2 Year paper at a high yield of 0.598%, pricing through the When Issued of 0.601% and tight of last month's 0.603%. While the yield dipped following the recent relapse of the US economy into a growth rate just above contraction, the Bid to Cover rose from 3.45% to 3.46%, perhaps driven by a jump in Direct take down, which allotted Direct dealers 18.3% of the final paper, Indirects holding 45.7% and Dealers left with just 36% of the auction, the lowest Direct takedown since October 2012.

"Equity crowdfunding, or raising capital directly from a large group of investors, is widely used for projects from technology to fashion. Now, at least two small Texas firms are testing the concept in the oil and gas industry."

We often hear various Fed officials described as hawks or doves but Janet Yellen’s Fed brings to mind another avian metaphor. They are afraid to raise rates for fear that doing so would upset the asset market inflation process and derail what is left of their theory. In her press conference last week Yellen said that stock market valuations were on the high side of historical norms, an appellation that only works if one includes the stock bubble of the late 90s. It seems that she and the other members of the FOMC have decided that another epic stock market bubble is better than admitting they were wrong. This FOMC doesn’t have any hawks or doves, only chickens.

If the Fed indeed raises rates in June, we're likely to begin to see periphery sovereign debt defaults

Fraud grows in good times because rescission is rarely sought (or granted) when asset values rise. Fraud is not a problem, till it is.

U.S. oil producers are issuing new shares of stock at the fastest pace in more than a decade, looking to investors for a cash lifeline to pay down debt and keep drilling as crude prices continue to sink, Bloomberg notes, a move which paradoxically will only serve to depress prices further. 

Investors are wary of debt from fourth largest iron ore miner as slumping demand and a supply glut crush prices.

"The debt borne by the oil and gas sector has increased two and a half times over, from roughly $1 trillion in 2006 to around $2.5 trillion in 2014. As the price of oil is a proxy for the value of the underlying assets that underpin that debt, its recent decline may have caused significant financial strains and induced retrenchment by the sector as a whole. If the adjustment takes the form of increased current or future sales of oil, it may amplify the fall in the oil price.

The overall economic data has been significantly weaker than expected as of late, and it now looks like Q1-GDP will print somewhere below 2%.  The strong dollar is negatively impacting corporate earnings as exports are hit, and there is early evidence that the ECB's QE program will not likely be the success that many had hoped for. As stated previously, with market momentum now waning a bit of caution in relation to portfolio exposure seems prudent.  But then again, being prudent seems a bit ridiculous in a market that has been quoted as one that "can't go down." Of course, that has always been the case, just before it has.

Yesterday's 10 Year auction played a trick on the repo market, which was so short the underlying the repo was trading very special at -1.8%. Today, as we noted earlier, the shortness persisted, and not only in the 10Y but the 30Y as well, whose repo was negative for the second day in a row. Well, while the bet yesterday was wrong, today it was spot on, with the 30 Year reopening of 29-Year-11-month CUSIP RK6 pricing surprisingly weak, stunning the bond market when a whopping 2.1 bps tail was announced moments ago, following a High Yield announcement of 2.681%, well above the 2.66% When Issue.

"Central banks are not all singing and all dancing," and cannot avoid the consequences of what they are doing, concluding, "you and I have got grandstand seats here [to an imminent market shock]," and investors are about to "find out just how illiquid it really is out there."

Perhaps inspired by our article that the 10 Year was trading very special in repo this morning, touching -1.79% as shorts had piled into the auction on hopes of covering ahead of what many had expected would be a weak auction, some "experts" predicted an imminent tail in today's auction. Well, moments ago the 10 year closed about as solid as they come, with the High Yield of 2.139% pricing 0.4 bps through the When Issued of 2.143%, dampening any hopes to cover profitable shorts into the auction, and ending any speculation about a tail.