Price Action

Following the market's shocking realization that the taper is coming prompting a kneejerk to the kneejerk reaction after the FOMC minutes, and yet another painful session in Asia, stocks were desperate for some good news from somewhere, which they got thanks to a Goldilocks PMI from China printing by the smallest possible expansionary quantum, or 50.1, and well above expectations, as well as a continuation of better than expected European PMI data with the August composite rising from 50.5 to 51.7 vs. Exp. 50.9, based pm a Services PMI rising into expansion to 51.0 from 49.8, (Exp. 50.2), and Manufacturing at 51.3 vs. Exp. 50.8 up from 50.3, the highest since June 2011. It is perhaps stunning just how conflicting this "improving" data is with private sector industrial and manufacturing company metrics, but with the credit creation situation in Europe (read: all that matters) at record lows, and with banks retrenching and needing to delever by trillions, it is only a matter of time before this latest propaganda wave is exposed for what it is. The net effect of the overnight data is to push the USDJPY to nearly 99.00 which thanks to the ubiquitous correlation algos has dragged US equity futures higher, if only briefly (the 10 Year is at 2.91% - under 10bps from redline territory), while slamming the offsetting EURUSD despite the "better" than expected European data.

Since February, there has been at least one silver contract in backwardation and since May 31, the September contract has been backwardated. But that has now come to an end.

It's all about rates this largely newsless morning, which have continued their march wider all night, and moments ago rose to 2.873% - a fresh 2 year wide and meaning that neither Gross, nor the bond market, is nowhere near tweeted out. As DB confirms, US treasuries are front and center of mind at the moment.... the 10yr UST yield is up another 4bp at a fresh two year high of 2.87% in Tokyo trading, adding to last week’s 20bp selloff. As it currently stands, 10yr yields are up by more than 120bp from the YTD lows in early May and more than 80bp higher since Bernanke’s now infamous JEC testimony. We should also note that the recent US rates selloff has been accompanied by a rapid steepening in the rate curve. Indeed, the 2s/10s curve is at a 2 year high of 250bp and the 2s/30s and 2s/5s are also at close to their highest level in two years.

Anticipation of Fed tapering is being cited for both dollar gains and dollar losses.  What gives?

With the ongoing musical chairs at the COMEX (focused on JPMorgan's volatile holdings), the bank's precious metals team now sees a number of reasons to be long gold. Noting the market's shrugging off of Paulson's unwind ("delivering an exclamation mark to define the end of the fall in gold stocks"), JPMorgan (ironically) suggests the questionable price action in the paper markets in light of unprecedented physical demand combined with the seasonal positives (and physical supply restrictions) all points to "getting long the gold space," with gold and silver miners offering value. The question remains, given that none of these are 'new' facts, why the change of heart now (especially as JPM is also buying)?

Starting with the Asian markets this morning, it appear the roller coaster ride for markets continued overnight. Asian equities started the day trading weaker but shortly after the open though, all of Asia bounced off the lows following the previously noted surge in Chinese A-shares soaring more than 5% in a matter of minutes in what was initially described as a potential “fat finger” incident. As DB notes, alternative explanations ranged from a potential restructuring of the government’s holdings in some listed companies, to market buying ahead of a rate cut this coming weekend. All indications point toward a fat finger. The A-share spike has managed to drag other indices along with it though some gains have been pared. Yet for all the drama the Shanghai Composite soared... and then closed red. The region’s underperformer is the Nikkei (-0.75%). Elsewhere, the NZDUSD dropped 0.5% after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the city of Wellington this morning. Looking at the US S&P500 futures are trading modestly higher at 1660. Looking ahead to today there is very little in the way of Tier 1 data to be expected. Housing starts/permits from the US and the preliminary UofM Consumer Sentiment reading for August are the main reports. The moves in rates and perhaps oil will probably offer some markets some directional cues.

In a session that has been painfully boring so far (yet which should pick up with CPI, jobless claims, industrial production and the NY Empire Fed on deck, as well as Wal-Mart earnings which will no doubt reflect the continuing disappointing retail plight) perhaps the only notable news was that Japan - the nation that brought you "Fukushima is contained" - was caught in yet another lie. Recall that the upside catalyst (and source of Yen weakness) two days ago was what we classified then as "paradoxical news" that Japan would cut corporate taxes in a move that somehow would offset the upcoming consumption tax hike. Turns out that, as our gut sense indicated, this was merely yet another BS trial balloon out of Japan, which admitted overnight that the entire report was a lie.

The amusing news overnight was that following slightly better than expected Q2 GDP data out of Germany (0.7% vs 0.6% expected and up from 0.0%) and France (0.5% vs 0.2% expected and up from -0.2%), driven by consumer spending and industrial output, although investment dropped again, which meant that the Eurozone which posted a 0.3% growth in the quarter has "emerged" from its double dip recession. The most amusing thing is that on an annualized basis both Germany and France grew faster than the US in Q2. And they didn't even need to add iTunes song sales and underfunded liabilities to their GDP calculation - truly a miracle! Or perhaps to grow faster the US just needs higher taxes after all? Of course, with the all important loan creation to the private sector still at a record low, and with the ECB not injecting unsterilized credit, the European depression continues and this is merely an exercise in optics and an attempt to boost consumer confidence.

It is perhaps too soon to tell if the market is beginning a topping process or just pausing during the current advance.  The bulls will argue valuations, Fed interventions and low interest rates.  They could be right for a while longer but not for the reasons expressed as much as the continued push of panic buying driven by current price momentum.  However, given the current set of circumstances, most investors fail to realize about the current market environment is that with stocks already stretched to extremes, trading driven by computerized programs and near record levels of leverage - a break in the market could lead to a very fast, unprecedented and unanticipated plunge in asset prices... "Still, we know that the same strenuously overvalued, overbought, over bullish syndrome observed in 1972, 1987, 2000, 2007 and even 1929 (on imputed sentiment data) is already in place here, and that the losses from such extremes have been spectacular."

It's only fitting that in a bizarro new normal, the news that passes for positive is either conflicting, reflexive or, well, simply bizarre. Last night was no exception as the "good" news came in the form of speculation that in order to promote its consumption tax hike, the Abe government would consider a corporate tax cut. How that helps the country with the 1 quadrillion yen in debt is not exactly clear, or how it makes consumer tax hikes any more palatable in a nation in which more people than anywhere in the world are retired and elderly, and thus removed from the corporate lifecycle, is just as nebulous. But the market liked it. Just as it liked the good ole' European cop out, of posting a surge in consumer confidence, or relying on reflexive indicators to represent an improvement in the economy, when in reality the only thing "improving" is the stock market. This happened when the German ZEW Economic Sentiment survey soared from 36.3 to 42.0 on expectations of a 39.9 print. So one must buy futures, or that's what the GETCO algo programming says.

Following this period of extraordinary monetary policy accommodation, Barclays Barry Knapp notes it stands to reason that, although there is some room for additional risk premium contraction (the aggregate measure for the S&P 500 remains above the long-term mean), the equity market on a stand-alone basis can hardly be considered cheap. In fact, looking across a broad range of balance sheet and income statement metrics over a period we would characterize as representative (albeit with a somewhat large dispersion of 1973-present), the equity market is above the long-term mean on every measure. But it gets better. There is little doubt that liquidity will prove challenged in coming weeks but market participants appear to be far too relaxed about events as equity market risk measures are close to the low risk point of their post-crisis range. So expensive valuations and risk complacency - BTFATH?

Short-term, dollar risks still appear on the downside, but this appears largely corrective in nature.  Medium-term, a higher dollar still appears to be the most likely scenario.  

Discussion of recent and prospective price action in the foreign exchange market.

A week that has been all about acronyms - GDP, PMIs, FOMC, ECB, BOE, ADP, ISM, DOL, the now daily record highs in the S&P and DJIA - is about to get its final and most important one: the NFP from the BLS, and specifically an expectation of a July 185K print, down from the 195K in the June, as well as an unemployment rate of 7.5% down from 7.6%. The number itself is irrelevant: anything 230 and above will be definitive proof Bernanke's policies are working, that the virtuous circle has begun and that one can rotate out of everything and into stocks; anything 150 or below will be definitive proof the Fed will be here to stay for a long time, that Bernanke and his successor will monetize everything in sight, and that one can rotate out of everything and into stocks, which by now are so disconnected from any underlying reality, one really only mentions the newsflow in passing as the upward record momentum in risk no longer reflects pretty much anything.

While the market's eyes were fixed on the near record slide in Japanese Industrial Production (even as its ears glazed over the latest commentary rerun from Aso) which did however lead to a 1.53% jump in the PenNikkeiStock market on hope of more stimulus to get floundering Abenomics back on track, the most important news from the overnight session is that the PBOC's love affair with its own tapering may have come and gone after the central bank came, looked at the surge in 7 day market repo rates, and unwilling to risk another mid-June episode where SHIBOR exploded to the mid-25% range, for the first first time since February injected RMB17 billion through a 7-day reverse repo. The PBOC also announced it would cut the RRR in the earthquake-hit Lushan area. And with that the illusion of a firm and resolute PBOC is shattered, however it did result in a tiny 0.7% bounce in the SHCOMP.