High Yield

If yesterday's 10 Year auction was very weak, despite the market reaction post the Fed minutes ramping the paper to highs not seen since last May, moments ago the Treasury concluded this week's auctions by selling another $13 billion in the August 30-Year reopening, in another relatively weak issue, which priced at 3.74%, a small 0.2 bps tail to the 3.72% When Issued. In any event, the high yield of just over 3% was the lowest since the May 2013 Taper Tantrum freak out. As a reference, the lowest the 30 Year has sold at auction was 2.58% in July 2012 at the peak of the European debt crisis and just before Draghi uttered the magic words "whatever it takes." The internals were also somewhat weak, with the Bid To Cover dropping from 2.67 to 2.404, just below the 2.44 TTM. And yet, unlike yesterday's 10 Year when the Direct takedown crashed to multi-year lows, today's Direct allotment was a decent 21.5%, well above the recent average, and in line with some of the higher Direct bids in recent years.

The most surprising data point in today's 10 Year auction was the plunge in Directs, which tumbled from 13.5% to only 6.6%, which was the lowest since August of 2012 when they ended up with 5.2%. Just how much of this lack of Direct interest is due to Bill Gross no longer being on the bid? And what happens to future auctions in a world without the Old "New Normal" Pimco?

The one market seemingly everyone "knows" is a bubble is the treasury market. That is the market that just made new low yields on the 30 year bond for the year. GTAT, which is the first true "jump to default" I have ever seen looks exactly like a "bubble" popping,  is spurring the rethinking of where the risk is in high yield.

Just a month ago, Goldman Sachs' head progonsticator David Kostin went full bulltard, telling clients to buy high-beta, high-momentum stocks because (paraphrasing) "hedge funds suck" and will need to play catch-up. Today, his tune has changed. The "dash-for-trash" meme has outperformed dramatically in the last few years as Fed experimentation breathed life into the zombie-est weak-balance-sheet companies and traders rode that artificial wave. However,as Kostin notes, tightening financial conditions have the greatest impact on firms with high leverage and weak balance sheets; and thus, with the Fed more biased towards tightening than loosening (and the market discounting that), the "dash-for-trash" is over (as we noted in July).

The central bankers have truly been the markets best friends and Draghi and Kuroda-san have been taking over where Ms Yellen has all but left off, but even they can do little in the face of protest and dissent by various members of the global populace and the continuing stupidity and arrogance of our “democratically” elected representatives.

"amid the inevitable impending global economic and financial carnage, when people, like Queen Elizabeth ask, as she did in November 2008, why no-one saw this coming, tell them that many did. But just like in 2006, before the Great Recession, investors once again chose to tilt their ears towards the reassuring siren songs of the Central Bankers and away from the increasingly hysterical ramblings of the perma-bears and doomsayers."

He's back. A month after Appaloosa's David Tepper explained the end of the bond bull market was here (and 10Y rates are now 5bps lower), the trend-following master-of-the-universe explained to Bloomberg TV's Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker how the departure of Bill Gross from PIMCO was "nothing... who cares?"; why "the US economy is pretty good", how junk bonds are at "fair value" and stocks are cheap as "multiples are not high." Finally he explains how he "wished he didn't have any investment" in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and clarifies in his billionaire-all-knowing-ness how he is sure the United States can contain Ebola.

Despite the ubiquitous v-shaped recovery in stocks from the US open to EU close (decoupling entirely from bonds), stocks slumped into the end of the quarter leaving the S&P and Dow barely positive for Q3 and Russell 2000 down 7.9% - its worst quarter since Q2 2011 (and -5.2% year-to-date). Treasury yields flip-flopped around in a 4-5bps range with a late-day ramp (suggesting liquidations cough PIMCO cough) leaving 30Y -1bps on the week. The USDollar suged higher in the European session and traded lower in the US session. The bigger news on the day was the carnage in commodities that appeared to occur around the European close (desk chatter of commodity fund liquidations). Silver and WTI Crude were monkey-hammered, gold and copper dropped to down 1% on the week. VIX pumped and dumped again but closed above 16. Stocks closed very weak with Russell tumbling 1.5% on the day to not "off the lows."

There is nothing like the release of secret tape recordings to clarify an inconclusive debate. Actually, what the tapes really show is that the Fed’s latest policy contraption - macro-prudential regulation through a financial stability committee - is just a useless exercise in CYA. Macro-pru is an impossible delusion that should not be taken seriously be sensible adults. It is not, as Janet Yellen insists, a supplementary tool to contain and remediate the unintended consequence - that is, excessive financial speculation - of the Fed’s primary drive to achieve full employment and fill the GDP bathtub to the very brim of its potential. Instead,  rampant speculation, excessive leverage, phony liquidity and massive financial instability are the only real result of current Fed policy.

It was all up to the Japanese banana market to fix things overnight: after the biggest tumble in US equities in months, and Asian markets poised for their third consecutive weekly drop, the longest streak since February, Japan reported CPI numbers that despite still surging (for example, in August TV prices soared 9.5%, but "down" from 11.8% the month before), when "adjusting" for the effects of the April tax hike, missed across the board. As a result the USDJPY was at the lows and threatening to break the recent parabolic surge higher which has helped move global equities higher in the past few weeks when the usual spate of GPIF-related headlines, because apparently the fact that Japan will and already has begun sacrificing the retirement funds of its citizens just to keep Abe's deranged monetary dream alive for a few more months has not been fully priced in yet, sent the USDJPY soaring yet again.

Aside from Russian threats, weaker-than-expected Durable Goods, and #Bendgate, here are nine other reasons for today's sell-off...

Three are four developments in the fixed income markets that represent a clear and present danger for stocks.

If yesterday's 2 Year auction was surprising strong, then the week's second, today 5 Year auction which conluded moments ago, was the very opposite, and can only be described as weak.