Investment Grade

• Obama takes offensive against Romney in debate rematch (Reuters)
• Obama Says Romney Words Aren’t ‘True’ in Second Debate (Bloomberg)
• Obama takes Romney head-on in debate (FT)
• And another joins the club: Thailand Unexpectedly Cuts Rate as Global Outlook Worsens (Bloomberg)
• PBOC Injects Less Cash (WSJ)
• Japan to Hold Special Cabinet Meeting After Economy Downgraded (Bloomberg)
• Greek Coalition Duo Reject Labour Moves Proposed by Troika (WSJ)
• Opposition wanes to Spanish aid request (FT)
• RBS to Exit U.K. Asset Protection Plan After $4 Billion Fees (Bloomberg)
• Spain Retains Investment Grade Credit Rating From Moody’s (Bloomberg)
• US diplomat asks Japan, ROK to resolve islands spat (China Daily)
• Stagnation not due to austerity, says OBR (FT)

"Liquidity trap" was a term coined by John Maynard Keynes in the aftermath of the Great Depression. He argued that when yields are low enough, expanding money supply won't stimulate growth because bonds and cash are already near-equivalents when bonds pay (almost) no interest. Some, like Citi's credit strategy team, would say that it is a pretty apt description of the state of play these days. To their minds (and ours), there is very little doubt that central banks have played an absolutely crucial role in propping up asset prices in recent years, Why have markets responded so resolutely when growth hasn't? The answer, we think, is that in their attempts to free markets from the liquidity trap, central banks are ensnaring markets in what we'll call a "liquidity lure". That lure is three pronged... but tail risks are bound to re-appear and from this position, there is no painless escape.

Dimon: "So, we were asked to buy Bear Stearns.  Some said the Fed did us a favor...No, no, we did them a favor.  Let's get this one exactly right.  We were asked to do it."

Slap one out of 1000 bankers on the wrist and make millions of muppets happy???

The following is a comprehensive list of key events to watch over the next several weeks – events that could have very significant bearing on how the euro sovereign debt crisis evolves.

While it is just as perplexing that Goldman still has clients, what is most surprising in this week's David Kostin "weekly kickstart" is that Goldman's clients have shown a surprising lack of stupidity (this time around) when it comes to the impact of QEtc. Shockingly, and quite accurately, said clients appear to be far more worried about the inflationary shock that endless easing may bring (picture that), than what level the S&P closes for the year. Incidentally with Q3 now over, and just 3 months left until the end of the year, Goldman's chief equity strategist refuses to budge on his year end S&P forecast, which has been at 1250 since the beginning of the year, and remains firmly there. From Goldman: "QE has succeeded in increasing asset prices and inflation expectations but has not convinced investors to raise their US growth expectations. Instead, equity investors have expressed concern about inflation risks while both gold prices and implied inflation rates show similar shifts."

Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, L.P. and one of the most successful hedge fund managers of all time told Maria Bartiromo last week that he owns gold and that he sees no “sensible reason not to own gold”. The interview was part of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Corporate Program's CEO Speaker Series, which provides a forum for leading global CEOs to share their priorities and insights before a high-level audience of wealthy and influential CFR members.  The respected hedge fund manager suggested that a depression and not a recession was likely and warned of social unrest and the risk of radical politics as was seen with Hitler and the Nazis in the Depression of the 1930’s. Dalio spoke about how “gold is a currency” and when asked by Bartiromo “do you own gold?”, he smiled and said “Oh yeah, I do.” The admission elicited a laugh from the CFR audience. Dalio’s interview is important as it again indicates how slowly but surely gold is moving from a fringe asset of a few hard money advocates and risk averse individuals to a mainstream asset. Wealthier people and some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the world are slowly realising the importance of gold as financial insurance in an investment portfolio and as money. This will result in sizeable flows into the gold market in the coming months which should push prices above the inflation adjusted high of 1980 - $2,500/oz. The interview section where Dalio is asked about gold by an audience member begins in the 43rd minute and can be seen here.

The seemingly inexorable rise of corporate bond ETFs (most specifically HYG and JNK is the high-yield market, and LQD in investment grade) have been discussed at length here as both a 'new' factor in the underlying bond market's technicals (flow) as well as their correlated impact on equity and volatility markets. Goldman Sachs' credit team delve deep into the impact of these relatively new (and rapidly growing) structures with their greater transparency but considerably higher sensitivities and conclude that not only are they here to stay but the consequences of ETF-inclusion (dramatic outperformance bias relative to non-ETF bonds) are deepening the liquidity divide (and relative-value) of what is already a somewhat sparsely-traded market. Our concern is that, as the divide grows (and liquidity is concentrated in ETF bonds), given the crowding tendency we have witnessed, (even with call constraints at extremes thanks to low interest rates), this is yet another crowded 'hot potato' trade hanging like a sword of Damocles over our markets (courtesy of Bernanke's repression).

The dividend theme has hardly run its course. As David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff illustrates in his latest note, the income-starved retiring boomers are being forced to garner income more and more via the equity market where dividends are up more than 8% over the past year. Because of ultra-low interest rates, interest income growth has vanished completely. And here is the great anomaly. Back in the early 1980s, investors bought equities for capital appreciation and they purchased Treasury securities for yield. Today it is the complete opposite.

Exceptionally low interest rates are bad for banks, insurers, and, more generically, anyone wishing to save money. Of the three, it’s the situation of the savers that is most untenable. In particular, Citi notes in a recent report, those wishing to retire at 65 or thereabouts are in for a nasty surprise when they start to run the numbers. Given that real yields are negative for Treasury bonds inside of 20-years, the steady stream of inflows into investment grade bond fund that hold a mixture of government, agency, and high grade corporate securities, will simply fail to return an adequate rate of return commensurate with the current savings rates of most retirement savers. What savers need to do is find higher asset returns or increase their personal savings rate. As the chart below shows, there are few options but to go all-in to the most excessive ends of the risk spectrum, or raise the proportion of savings and higher savings rates lead to lower consumption, a decline in corporate profits, and recession.

Having operatied for years under ZIRP, and with the NIRP neutron bomb just around the corner, and already implemented in various European countries, one question remains: can banks be banks, i.e., can they make money, in a world in which borrowing short and lending long, no longer works, courtesy of ubiquitous and pervasive central planning which is now engaged solely and almost exclusively (the other central bank ventures being of course to keep FX rates and equities within an acceptable range) on the shape of the yield curve. Since 2009 our answer has been a resounding no. Today, Bill Gross speaks up as well, and his answer is even more distrubing: "If the dancing has slowed down, then the reason is not just an overweight partner. It’s that the price of money (be it in the form of a real interest rate, a quality risk spread, or both) is too low. Our entire finance-based monetary system – led by banks but typified by insurance companies, investment management firms and hedge funds as well – is based on an acceptable level of carry and the expectation of earning it. When credit is priced such that carry is no longer as profitable at a customary amount of leverage/risk, then the system will stall, list, or perhaps even tip over." Indeed, according to Gross central banks have now clearly sown the seeds of the entire financial system's own destruction. That he is right we have no doubt. The only question: how soon until he is proven right.

Since the peak in the S&P 500 around two weeks ago, equities and their sectors have traded in a considerably more disperse manner than one would expect given all the talk of central-bank intervention, liquidity-gasms, and monetization. This is borne out empirically as the average pairwise realized correlation within the 100 stocks of the S&P 100 and the 125 credits of the CDX investment grade credit index has dropped dramatically. Extreme peaks or troughs in realized correlation have tended to coincide with notable (and tradable) trend changes in the market - though we note, as shown below, that the moves are not always so clearly bullish or bearish for stocks (though VIX shows a more consistent reaction). Critically, the outperformance of Healthcare and underperformance of Industrials and Materials in the last two weeks suggests more than a little apprehension at the Central Banks being able to 'bridge' yet another global slow-down with money-printing.

Here come the facts!!! Warning, if you get your feelings hurt over hearing the truth, simply move on. You may have a couple of quarters lefft.

A month ago, RBS' Nomura's permarealist Bob Janjuah wrnd tht mrtks r set 4 a squeeze breakout. He was right. Today, he has sent out an update, saying the party is over, the ramp is finished, and the time to sohrt ahead of a "major risk off phase" is here: "my stop loss on the risk off call effective immediately is a consecutive weekly close on the S&P500 at or above 1450. As the Global Macro Strategy team is looking for Mr Bernanke to disappoint markets at Jackson Hole next week, and also because we are confident that markets will soon discover that neither the ECB nor Eurozone politicians will actually be able to deliver on their ‘promises’, we are hopeful that our stop losses will not be triggered. For now we are happy to risk 30 S&P points against us, in order to potentially pick up 300 S&P points in our favour."

Structural problems in state and local budgets were exacerbated by the recession and are likely to further restrain the sector’s growth for years to come. As the NY Fed notes, the last couple of years have witnessed threatened or actual defaults in a diversity of places, ranging from Jefferson County, Alabama, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Stockton, California. But do these events point to a wave of future defaults by municipal borrowers? History - at least the history that most of us know - would seem to say no. But the municipal bond market is complex and defaults happen much more frequently than most casual observers are aware. As the NY Fed points out "the untold story of municipal bonds is that default frequencies are far greater than reported by the major rating agencies" but, until recently, investors could take some comfort from the fact that many municipal bonds - both rated and unrated - carried insurance that paid investors in the event of a default. But now that bond insurers have lost their AAA ratings, they no longer play a significant role in the municipal bond market, increasing the risks associated with certain classes and certain issuers of municipal debt.