Institutional Investors

Frontier markets offer some of the best investment opportunities over the next decade. We like Vietnam which is recovering after a massive credit bust.

The housing recovery is ultimately a story of the "real" employment situation. With roughly a quarter of the home buying cohort unemployed and living at home with their parents the option to buy simply is not available. The rest of that group are employed but at the lower end of the pay scale which pushes them to rent due to budgetary considerations and an inability to qualify for a mortgage. The optimism over the housing recovery has gotten well ahead of the underlying fundamentals. While the belief was that the Government, and Fed's, interventions would ignite the housing market creating a self-perpetuating recovery in the economy - it did not turn out that way. Instead, it led to a speculative rush into buying rental properties creating a temporary, and artificial, inventory suppression. While there are many hopes pinned on the housing recovery as a "driver" of economic growth in 2014 - the lack of recovery in the home ownership data suggests otherwise.

Most economic observers are predicting that 2014 will be the year in which the United States finally shrugs off the persistent malaise of the Great Recession. In contrast, we believe that the episode has, for the moment, established supreme confidence in the powers of monetary policy to keep the economy afloat and to keep a floor under asset prices, even in the worst of circumstances. The shift in sentiment can only be explained by the growing acceptance of monetary policy as the magic elixir that Keynesians have always claimed it to be. This blind faith has prevented investors from seeing the obvious economic crises that may lay ahead. Based on nothing but pure optimism, the market believes that the Fed can somehow contract its $4 trillion balance sheet without pushing up rates to the point where asset prices are threatened, or where debt service costs become too big a burden for debtors to bear. The more likely truth is that this widespread mistake will allow us to drift into the next crisis.

To put this into perspective, this means investors put more money into stocks this year than they did in 2000: at the very peak of the TECH BUBBLE!

Momentum stocks are the absolute best stocks to invest in from a risk and return standpoint, and there are 5 drivers for GM being a momentum stock 2014.

A look ahead into 2014.  

• Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished (WaPo)
• Japan’s Nikkei 225 Extends Six-Year High on U.S. Data  (BBG)
• Retailers blend stores, e-commerce to snag holiday stragglers (Reuters)
• Storm wreaks havoc in Britain, France ahead of Christmas (Reuters)
• Big Rally to Pump Up Wall Street Bonuses (WSJ)
• Obamacare Sign-Up Extended as Record 1 Million Use Site (BBG)
• Merkel Hits Wall With Europe Fix (WSJ)
• Boaz Weinstein Loses for Second Year as European Bet Sours (BBG)
• UniCredit has reached an agreement to sell almost €1 billion in nonperforming loans to Cerberus (WSJ)
• U.S. mortgage applications fall as refinance hits five-year low (Reuters)
• Cohen Said to Have Warned Friend About Possible Federal Investigation (NYT)
• ‘Duck Dynasty’ Dad Risks $500 Million With Gay-Sin Remark (BBG)

In a world in which the Chief Risk Officer of the formerly free capital markets, Ben Bernanke, has made any downside hedges obsolete (and as a result hedge funds have posted 5 years of returns without outperforming the S&P500), the first casualty has emerged: fund of funds. These parasitic, fee-soaking institutions, which merely collect a fee on top of the fees already charged by hedge funds, are rapidly on their way to extinction as the following charts from Eurekahedge prove conclusively. Naturally, the FOF industry which generates massive fees for its "value adding" managers, will not go down without a fight. And as Pensions and Investment reports, the FOFs have found a way to strike back: convert hedge funds into long only, idiot money, and we do enjoy the irony that in this centrally-planned market the idiot money is outperforming the smart, nimble asset managers by orders of magnitude.

• Apple, China Mobile sign long-awaited deal to sell iPhones (Reuters)
• U.S. growth hopes help shares shrug off China money market jitters (Reuters)
• Rule Change on Health Insurance Rattles Industry (WSJ), Obamacare's signup deadline on Monday has its exceptions (Reuters)
• Tale of Two Polish Mines Shows Biggest EU Producer’s Woes (BBG)
• Probes See U.K. Market Manipulation Reports Rise 43% (BBG)
• Shoppers Grab Sweeter Deals in Last-Minute Holiday Dash (BBG)
• Banks Mostly Avoid Providing Bitcoin Services (WSJ)
• Secret Handshakes Greet Frat Brothers on Wall Street (BBG)

Global monetary conditions remain easy and despite the Fed's decision to taper, peak monetary accommodation is not here yet.  

In order to achieve the greatest risk/reward asymmetry from the 2014 single-family housing stimulus “hangover”, or “reset”, happening right now you must change the way you think about this asset class.  When doing so, clarity emerges (at least to us)... This housing market is “resetting” right now;  for the third time in six years. It might look and feel a little different, but as we detail below, it’s not really different this time around.

All that glitter is not gold.

Due to western central bank price manipulation, the mining sector is in critical condition, the supply line is all but halted, and the physical supply is being swallowed up by Asia. The last shoe to drop is for major mining companies to start closing down production at major mines. Though this would be perceived as the end for gold, speculators will be happy to know that this would be the beginning of the biggest Fed induced bubble in history! But unlike previous Fed bubbles where they support the price increase, the gold bubble will be a result of western central planners mis-managing the gold price for the past 3 decades and finally losing control. As Peak Resources explains in the brief clip, the perfect storm is coming for gold...

Having discussed market microstructure and the parasitic impacts of high-frequency-trading for the last 5 years, it comes as no surprise that the block-trade-sniffing algos have had very significant impacts on the way institutional investors trade now. As WSJ reports, in fact the big boys are conducting more "upstairs trades," in which deals are executed among big institutions, bypassing the broader market, because the proliferation of algorithmic trading and other structural issues, including the fragmentation of the market, are hurting their ability to get the best prices and execute large trades quickly. While the concerns aren't all new, big investors say the cat-and-mouse games are growing more elaborate - and counterproductive - by the day.

• Glass-Steagall Fans Plan New Assault If Volcker Rule Deemed Weak (BBG) ... "if"? The banks control the legislators and regulators...
• Cellphone data spying: It's not just the NSA (USA Today)
• Major tech companies push for limits on government surveillance (Reuters)
• Shanghai Warns Kids to Stay Indoors for Seventh Day on Smog (BBG)
• Protesters fell Lenin statue, tell Ukraine's president 'you're next' (Reuters)
• Everyone must be flying private these days: EADS to cut 5000-6000 jobs, close Paris HQ in restructuring (FT)
• Big Players Trade 'Upstairs' (WSJ)
• There’s no way to tell how many people who think they’ve signed up for health insurance through the U.S. exchange actually have (BBG)
• Slower China inflation reduces worries of tighter policy (Reuters)