New Normal

As we noted on several occasions in the past ten days, as a result of QE3 and its imminent transformation to QE4, which will merely be the current monetization configuration but without the sterilization of new long-term bond purchases, the Fed's balance sheet is expected to grow by over $2 trillion in the next two years. This also means that the matched liability on the Fed's balance sheet, reserves and deposits, will grow by a like amount. So far so good. However, as Bank of America points out today, there may be a small glitch: as a reminder on December 31, 2012 expires the FDIC's unlimited insurance on noninterest-bearing transaction accounts at which point it will revert back to $250,000. Currently there is about $1.6 trillion in deposits that fall under this umbrella, or essentially the entire amount in new deposit liabilities that will have to be created as a result of QEternity. The question is what those account holders will do, and how will the exit of deposits, once those holding them realize they no longer are government credit risk and instead are unsecured bank credit risk, impact the need to ramp up deposit building. One very possible consequence: negative bill rates as far as the eye can see.

It seems you can't turn your back on the Middle East for more than a few minutes without something going bump in the desert. Sure enough, a few shorts hours after we reported that the leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards is certain war with Israel is coming, here comes Iran again with the stunning admission that none other than German industrial conglomerate, and occasional maker of nuclear power plants, Siemens was reponsible for "implanting tiny explosives inside equipment the Islamic Republic purchased for its disputed nuclear program. Prominent lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation, adding that authorities believe the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts. "The equipment was supposed to explode after being put to work, in order to dismantle all our systems," he said. "But the wisdom of our experts thwarted the enemy conspiracy." Expert wisdom aside, what is stunning is not the ongoing attempts by everyone and the kitchen sink to terminally corrupt the Iranian nuclear power plant: after Stuxnet one would expect nothing less than every form of conventional and "new normal" espionage thrown into the pot to cripple the only peaceful argument Iran would have for demanding nuclear power, which by implication would mean that all ongoing nuclear pursuits are geared solely toward aggressive, military goals, of the type that demand immediate military retaliation by the democratic superpowers. No, what is stunning is the implicit admission that Germany's, and Europe's, largest electrical engineering company, has been not only quietly transacting with none other than world peace (as portrayed by the MSM) enemy #1, Iran, but instrumental in its nuclear program.

There was a time when the market led, and the economy followed. That's when the market was still a discounting mechanism, a long, long time ago. Then came a time when the clueless market, after every illusion it held about a Dow 36,000 future was shattered, would respond with a slight, millisecond delay to every flashing red economic "surprise" headline and thanks to HFTs exaggerate the momentum of the move spectacularly, leading to delirium-inducing volatility, and even further confusion. But what we have now, under the final advent of the central planner New Normal, when the economy is clearly going one way (the wrong one), while the S&P is dogedly chasing the opposite direction and completely ignoring any and all downside macro surprises, is something never seen before. One thing is certain: the gaping maw of the alligator: the red and the blue arrows will converge, and sooner or later the convergence will not be in the direction that the central printer, and his Liberty 33 henchmen, request.

While AAPL keeps levitating (no matter how high complacency in its options stands), it seems the rest of the equity markets are less enamored (for now) with this strange new normal of the Fed/ECB's own making. Below we present four charts indicating regime shifts in average trade size, index dispersion, high-beta sector convergence, and high-beta financials convergence. Whether these are bullish consolidations, short-coverings, or total capitulations - who knows? But with the S&P 500 reverting lower to catch-down to VIX's less sanguine view and the total lack of a move on the BoJ news today - we suspect (at least for now) that all the good news is out.

There was a time when sentiment and newsflow mattered, and then Bernanke took over. If there is anything today's soaked vacuum tubes will focus on is that it is the 81st anniversary of the invasion of Manchuria by Japan, as developments in the East China Sea are starting to get decidedly deja vuish, if somewhat inverted. Also notable is the ever louder chatter that Spain will have to be destroyed (bonds plunge), for it to be saved (Rajoy submits bailout request), as we observed over a month ago. For that to happen, the central planners will need to allow the markets to take a deep breath and actually slide, which in turn may crush confidence in central planners' ability to keep markets rising in perpetuity. What's a central planner to do these days to be appreciated anyway. It also means that the days of innocence, when nothing at all matters on the fundamental side, will, just like in Q1 after the LTRO $1.3 trillion injection, be followed by days when fundamentals matter with a vengeance. Alas, we are not there yet. Instead, the best we can do is wonder just what asset will experience today's flash crash du jour following yesterday's still unexplained 5% plunge in crude in minutes. New Normal indeed.

As we have explained recently, the US fiscal cliff is a far more important issue 'fundamentally' than the Fed's economic impotence. While most market participants believe some kind of compromise will be reached - in the lame-duck session but not before the election - the possibility of a 3.5% drag on GDP growth is dramatic to say the least in our new normal stagnation. As Goldman notes, the window to address the fiscal cliff ahead of the election has all but closed, the 40% chance of a short-term extension of most current policies is only marginally better than the probability they assign to 'falling off the cliff' at 35%. The base case assumptions and good, bad, and ugly charts of what is possible are concerning especially when a recent survey of asset managers assigned only a 17% chance of congress failing to compromise before year-end. Critically, and not helped by Bernanke's helping hand (in direct opposition to his hopes), resolution of the fiscal cliff will look harder, not easier, to address as we approach the end of the year - and its likely only the market can dictate that direction - as the "consequence is terrible, but bad enough to force a deal."

If there's printing going on in your neghborhood
Who you gonna call?
CENTRAL BANKERS!
If a loaf of bread costs a trillion bux
Who you gonna call?
CENTRAL BANKERS!

There are two key sentences which explain why there is now only sane voice left among the FOMC's voting members (recall that back in December 2011 we explained that more QE was only a matter of time now that the Doves have full control). From Jeffrey Lacker: "I dissented because I opposed additional asset purchases at this time. Further monetary stimulus now is unlikely to result in a discernible improvement in growth, but if it does, it’s also likely to cause an unwanted increase in inflation.... Channeling the flow of credit to particular economic sectors is an inappropriate role for the Federal Reserve. As stated in the Joint Statement of the Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve on March 23, 2009, 'Government decisions to influence the allocation of credit are the province of the fiscal authorities.'" That, however, is no longer the case, as the only real branch of 'government', accountable and electable by nobody, going forward is that located in the Marriner Eccles building, named ironically enough, for the last Fed president who demanded Fed independence, and who was fired by the president precisely for that reason. It is in this building where the central planners of the New Normal huddle every month, and time after failed time, hope that "this time it will be different" and that wealth can finally be achieved through dilution of money.

What the Fed did was actually much more than QE3. Call it QE3-plus... a gift that will now keep on giving. The new normal of bad news being good news is now going to be more fully entrenched for the market and 'housing data' (the most trustworthy of data) - clearly the Fed's preferred transmission mechanism - is now front-and-center in driving volatility. I don't think this latest Fed action does anything more for the economy than the previous rounds did. It's just an added reminder of how screwed up the economy really is and that the U.S. is much closer to resembling Japan of the past two decades than is generally recognized. It would seem as though the Fed's macro models have a massive coefficient for the 'wealth effect' factor. The wealth effect may well stimulate economic activity at the bottom of an inventory or a normal business cycle. But this factor is really irrelevant at the trough of a balance sheet/delivering recession. The economy is suffering from a shortage of aggregate demand. Full stop. It just perpetuates the inequality that is building up in the country, and while this is not a headline maker, it is a real long term risk for the health of the country, from a social stability perspective as well.

Valuations; stocks are cheap; money-on-the-sidelines; everyone's bearish; trend is your friend. We've all heard them and we've all played them but the following charts from Morgan Stanley will at least provide some nuance of sense for those stunned into silence by a market seeing its nominal price surging amid Bernanke blowing bubbles. The headline is - with real rates this low (and staying low for a few more years yet) current P/E multiples are extremely high and even on a long-run empirical basis, hope remains excessive at 22xShiller P/E versus an average 16x. Remember, a long-term investment is a short-term trade gone bad. But it seems for now that you buy because you'll always be able to sell it back higher to the next smarter dumber greater fool.

There is one big problem with the Fed's announcement of Open-Ended QE moments ago: it effectively removes all future suspense from FOMC announcements. Why? Because the Fed has as of this moment exposed its cards for all to see from here until the moment it has to start tightening the money supply (which may or may not happen; frankly we don't think the Fed tightens until hyperinflation sets in at which point what the Fed does is meaningless). It means easing is now effectively priced into infinity. Now rewind back to that one certain paper by the New York Fed, which laid it out clear for all to see, that if it wasn't for the expectation of easing in the 24 hour period ahead of the FOMC meeting, the market would be 50% or lower than where it is now, and would have been effectively in negative territory in the aftermath of the Lehman collapse. What Bernanke did is take away this key drive to stock upside over the past 18 years, because going forward there is no surprise factor to any and all future FOMC decisions, as easing the default assumption. It also means that Bernanke may have well fired his last bullet, and it, sadly, is all downhill from here, as soaring input costs crush margins, regardless of what revenues do, and send corporate cash flow to zero. Unfortunately, not even in the New Normal can companies operate without cash flow.

As if Bernanke promising to print, print, print until such time as the Fed's flawed policy brings unemployment lower, which by definition will not happen when the US is now suffering not from a structural unemployment "part-time new normal" problem, was not sufficient to send gold and other hard assets higher, today we get the double whammy announcement that the situation in South Africa, already very bad, is about to get much worse. Earlier today, South Africa's striking miners, already set on belligerent courtesy with their employers and authorities, prepare to go on general strike on Sunday, in effect shutting down all precious metal production in a world that is about to demand hard asset more than ever. "On Sunday, we are starting with a general strike here in Rustenburg," demonstration leader Mametlwe Sebei told several thousand workers at a soccer stadium in the heart of the platinum belt near Rustenburg, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. The action was designed to "bring the mining companies to their knees", he said, to mild applause from the crowd, which was armed with sticks and machetes."

While hardly a factor in the Fed's thinking which is due to present its announcement in 4 hours, today's Initial claims report came at 382K, the biggest miss to expectations (370K) in 2 months, and up from last week's naturally upward revised claims of 367K. The 15K jump is the biggest weekly spike in 2 months and 4th largest this year. Just as relevantly, as we warned months ago, those on extended claims continue to run out at a fast pace, with 41K people losing their extended benefits, down by nearly 1.8 million from a year ago, and are forced to seek disability benefits to keep the government dole running. More importantly, and just as Bernanke is doing his best to stoke inflation, producer prices soared by 1.7% in August, up from July's 0.3%, and well above expectations of 1.2%. This was the biggest M/M spike since the 1.9% surge in June of 2009, and was driven primarily by soaring food prices, which however as everyone knows, is not really a factor in the Fed's thinking. "On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods climbed 2.0 percent for the 12 months ended August 2012, the largest advance since a 2.8-percent increase for the 12 months ended March 2012." Then again, who out there needs food or energy - inflation is precisely what Bernanke wants, the FOMC will welcome this news with open arms. But at least the Fed will create jobs and get people to give up on renting which is the New Normal buying, and scramble right back into the housing re-bubble.

The answer, of course, is yes: they are after all, economists (who somehow, with no real world experience, determine the daily fate of billions of productive and capital-allocation decisions every day). But it is one thing for everyone to discuss the obvious anecdotally by the water cooler. It is something else for this verbal heresy to be printed in a "serious" publication. Such as Reuters, which today asks if "the Federal Reserve has watched the U.S. recession and painfully slow recovery through rose-colored glasses?" And answers: "A look at the U.S. central bank's economic forecasts over the past five years suggest it has." It then explains: "Since October 2007, when the Fed's policy committee began giving quarterly predictions for GDP growth and the jobless rate, the central bank has downgraded its nearer-term forecasts almost two-and-a-half times as often as it upgraded them. The gap between Wall Street's expectations for 2012 growth and the Fed's own current view points to yet another downgrade on Thursday, when policymakers wrap up a two-day meeting that has world financial markets rapt." It concludes: "The trend of back-pedaling shows how poorly the central bank has fared at reading the economic tea leaves, with the Fed's optimism a likely factor in policy decisions through the Great Recession and its fallout, economists say." In summary: the world's most ebullient and permabullish forecasters, who incidentally happen to constantly be wrong in their desperate attempts to affect the only thing that matters: consumer and investor sentiment and confidence via the increasingly irrelevant myth that are asset prices, happen to run the monetary world and "determine" just what the future looks like. Needless to say, if the Fed's presidents were actually employed in the private sector, they would have been fired ages ago. Only in a fiat world do they not only keep their jobs, but keep on running the world.

Bill Gross may be credited with inventing the term 'the New Normal', although his recommendation to purchase gold above all other asset classes, something which only fringe blogs such as this one have been saying is the best trade (in terms of return, Sharpe Ratio, and the ability to sleep soundly) for the past three and a half years, he is sure to be increasingly ostracized by the establishment, and told to take all his newfangled idioms with him in his exile to less than serious people land. Which takes us to David Rosenberg, who today revisits his own definition of the New Normal. And it, too, is just as applicable as that of the Pimco boss: "The new normal is that the economy doesn't drive markets any more." Short and sweet, although it also is up for debate whether the economy ever drove the markets in the first place. But that would open up a whole new conspiratorial can of worms, and is a discussion best saved for after Ben Bernanke decides to save the "housing market" by buying more hundreds of billions in MBS and lowering mortgage yields further, even though mortgage rates already are at record lows (something that mortgage applications apparently couldn't care less about as we showed last week), while "avoiding" to do everything in his power to boost the S&P, which recently was at 5 year highs, and certainly "avoiding" to listen to Chuck Schumer telling him to do his CTRL+P job, and "get to work" guaranteeing Schumer's donors have another whopper of a bonus season.