High Yield

The last year or two has seen a deluge of Fed speakers pay lip-service to watching/monitoring/keeping-an-eye-on potential bubbles... but as yet having found none... That is all except one - Jeremy Stein - who explicitly called out high yield bonds as in a 'frothy' bubble last year... it appears he has grown weary of smashing his head against that wall...

• *FED SAYS STEIN SUBMITTED RESIGNATION LETTER TO OBAMA
• *YELLEN SAYS STEIN WAS 'AN INTELLECTUAL LEADER' ON FED BOARD

Stein plans to return to teaching at Harvard but in his resignation letter noted that more work is needed on the job market and that the financial market needs strengthening.

Nikkei 225 (+1.04%) outperformed overnight, buoyed by S&P 500 posting a new all-time high, a dovish BoJ's Tankan inflation survey and reports that the GPIF is to invest in funds specializing in Japanese stocks with high returns. Overall, another quiet session this morning as market participants continued to position for the upcoming ECB meeting, with Bunds under pressure amid further unwind of expectation of more policy easing by the central bank. According to ECB sources, there is no clear consensus at present on policy action, intense debate seen on Thursday after March HICP data, adding that it fears "over-interpretation" by market of QE possibility.

For those used to smooth, undisturbed, Fed-assisted, no-risk-all-return, sailing, both the month of March and the entire first quarter were quite the wake up call.

In the middle of 2012, to much yield chasing fanfare, China launched a private-placement market for high-yield bonds focusing on China's small and medium companies, that in a liquidity glutted world promptly found a bevy of willing buyers, mostly using other people's money. Less than two years later, the first of many pipers has come demanding payment, when overnight Xuzhou Zhongsen Tonghao New Board Co., a privately held Chinese building materials company, failed to pay interest on high-yield bonds, according to the 21st Century Business Herald.

Among the key overnight events was the February Euro area unemployment report, which was unchanged at 11.9%, lower than the 12% median estimate; in Italy it rose to a record 13% while in Germany the locally defined jobless rate for March stayed at the lowest in at least two decades Euro zone PMI held at 53 in February, unchanged from January and matching median estimate in a Bloomberg survey HSBC/Markit’s China PMI fell to 48 in March, the lowest reading since July, from 48.5 in February; a separate PMI from the government, with a larger sample size, was at 50.3 from 50.2 the previous month NATO foreign ministers meet today to discuss their next steps after Putin began withdrawing forces stationed on Ukraine’s border Gazprom raised prices for Ukraine 44% after a discount deal expired, heaping financial pressure on the government in Kiev as it negotiates international bailouts.

U.S. stocks are like a duck, floating on a quiet pond – calm above the surface, but lots of furious churning invisible to the naked eye.  The S&P 500 looks like it will end the first quarter within a hair of the 1848 level where it started the year, but that doesn’t mean everything else is all stasis and light.  Today we offer up a quick ‘Top 10’ list of surprises from the last 90 days.  Gold, for example, is back from the grave, up 7.3%.  So is an imperial Russia, with the biggest land grab since the building of the Berlin Wall.  Mutual fund flows are ahead of exchange traded funds by a factor of 5:1.  And most of those ETF inflows are into bond funds, not the “Great Rotation” we all expected into stocks.  The 10-year U.S. Treasury yields all of 2.67%, and bonds have bested U.S. stocks consistently in 2014.  First quarter 2014 may not have been a long trip, but it certainly has been strange.

Following yesterday's uninspiring 2 Year bond auction, today's 5 Year issuance of $35 billion was a whopper. Because while it was known well in advance that today's closing high yield of 1.715%, which priced through the When Issued of 1.732% by 1.7 bps, would be the highest since May 2011. However, the stunners were all within the internals. First, the Bid To Cover of 2.99 was the highest since September 2012, and an abrupt turn in the recent general downward trend in BTCs - who would have thunk that all it took for greater interest in US paper was higher yields . But it was the takedown where the real shockers lay.

In the WSJ’s February 24th exposé of the turmoil at the helm of Pimco, we saw a curious bit about tension at “the Beach” increasing in the summer of 2013. During this period, according to the Journal, conflict between then co-CIOs Bill Gross and Mohamed E-Erian became apparent to staff, and Gross restricted trading at the firm. We wanted to see what insights a quantitative analysis of Pimco Total Return Fund (PTTRX) could offer about the summer and Total Return’s recent performance, a topic of increasing scrutiny amongst the investment community.

Moments ago the Treasury sold $32 billion in 2 year paper. Those who have been keeping track of the amazing bear flattening in rates in the past week will probably not be surprised by the result. Everyone else will surely like to know that it just cost the US the most to sell 2 year paper since May of 2011, which at a high yield of 0.469% was the highest yield since May of 2012, or before the great rotation out of stocks and into bond began. And thanks to the "dots" expect to see the yield on short-dated paper to continue rising, even as the long-end drops further in an epic flattening which is sure to crush bank Net Interest Margins. It also explains why nobody talks about it on CNBC any more: after all what is there to say?

The PBOC is reported to be scrambling to bail out China's second corporate default in one month, real estate company Zhejiang Xingrun, even as the Chinese property developer market is crashing and rapidly shutting down. So why did the PBOC personally just go to Weibo to deny such speculation. And what happens next?

If yesterday's 10 Year auction was stellar, today's 30 Year was anything but. With the When Issued market getting slammed by the flight from equities, and down to 3.61%, the high yield was an unpleasant 2 bps tail at 3.630%, putting to question the recent strength in demand for duration. The internals were also on the flimsy side, with the Bid to Cover of 2.35 higher than last month's 2.27, but below the TTM average of 2.42. Directs took down 12.6% below the 15.5% average, Indirects had 38.8% of the allotment, while Dealers were left with 48.6%, the highest since June 2013, and well above the 44.5%. That said, despite today's weakness, should the market finally crash as it is long overdue to do following months if not years of blindly ignoring the newsflow, the current level on the 30 Year will seem like a bargin in the coming weeks when everyone and the kitchen sink rushes, as they tend to do, into the safety of Treasurys once more.

Moments ago the Treasury sold $21 billion in benchmark OTRs in the form of a 9-year-11-month reopening of Cusip B66, in a whopper of an auction that saw the high yield of 2.729% price 1.4 bps through the 2.743% When Issued. But more than just blistering demand at the pricing, all the internals were solid across the board: the Bid to Cover of 2.92x was well above the 2.54x from February, and the 2.68x TTM average. In fact, this was the highest BTC since March of last year. And in keeping with one year anniversary records, the Dealer Award was a paltry 29.1% which also was the lowest in a year. Indirects were 43.4%, down from 49.7% in February, which means that Direct soared, and sure enough they did, from 16.2% to 27.5%. Overall a stellar auction, and one confirming that the smart money continues to prefer allocation to fixed income, instead of believing the latest "growth stories" explaining away the second coming of the dot com bubble in Bernanke's centrally-planned farce of a market.

Stocks saw their lowest range day of the year so far today - and one of the lowest volume days - with today's laggard yesterday's big winner Russell 2000. Financiasls surged today and Energy dropped to worst performer on the year. Treasuries drifted sideways to very modestly lower in yield even as the USD weakened (led by AUD, CAD, and GDP strength). USDJPY and stocks were generally well coupled once again. Gold and silver leaked higher but today's biggest mover was WTI crude which tumbled back to around $101 (-1.4% on the week). High yield credit spreads flatlined with late weakness but HYG (the HY bond ETF) was notably weak all day. A late-day VIX smackdown tried to take the S&P cash into the green (mission accomplished) and new record highs - but it failed. Not exactly the high conviction, break to new highs push so many had hoped for as everyone eyes Friday's NFP (and ignores today's weak ADP and ISM Services - and weak China's Composite PMI).

With the world still on edge over developments in the Ukraine, overnight newsflow was far less dramatic than yesterday, with no "bombshell" uttered at today's Putin press conferences in which he said nothing new and simply reiterated the party line and yet the market saw it as a full abdication, he did have some soundbites saying Russia should keep economic issues separate from politics, and that Russia should cooperate with all partners on Ukraine. Elsewhere Gazprom kept the heat on, or rather off, saying Ukraine recently paid $10 million of its nat gas debt, but that for February alone Ukraine owes $440 million for gas, which Ukraine has informed Gazprom it can't pay in full. Adding the overdue amounts for prior months, means Ukraine's current payable on gas is nearly $2 billion. Which is why almost concurrently Barosso announced that Europe would offer €1.6 billion in loans as part of EU package, which however is condition on striking a deal with the IMF (thank you US taxpayers), and that total aid could be as large as $15 billion, once again offloading the bulk of the obligations to the IMF. And so one more country joins the Troika bailout routine, and this one isn't even in the Eurozone, or the EU.

In the aftermath of the recent Wall Street Journal profile piece that, rather meaninglessly, shifted attention to Bill Gross as quirky manager (who isn't) to justify El-Erian's departure and ignoring Bill Gross as the man who built up the largest bond fund in the world, the sole head of Pimco was eager to return to what he does best - thinking about the future and sharing his thoughts with one of his trademark monthly letters without an estranged El-Erian by his side. He did that moments ago with "The Second Coming" in which the 69-year-old Ohian appears to have pulled a Hugh Hendry, and in a letter shrouded in caveats and skepticism, goes on to essentially plug "risk" assets. To wit: "As long as artificially low policy rates persist, then artificially high-priced risk assets are not necessarily mispriced. Low returning, yes, but mispriced? Not necessarily.... In plain English – stocks, bonds and other “carry”-sensitive assets would outperform cash."