Price Action

Jeff Gundlach discussed mortgages, models, math, and moronic delusion with Tom Keene on Bloomberg TV this morning. Starting with why Europe matters to US Treasury and mortgage markets, the DoubleLine boss goes on to address whether banks/hedge-funds have become too math-centric. "I don't believe in models" is how Gundlach begins his diatribe on the over-confidence in math and empirical relationships. Jeff believes there is no reason to hold any investment grade bonds that are inside of 3 years (and perhaps even 5 years) because they "just basically have no yield" and further, it is non-sensical to think that short-term interest rates are going up in the US. As Socrates said, Gundlach echoes the fact that 'one should not try to know everything; but respect the things that one cannot know' - don't delude yourself - which seems like good advice for all those with such high convictions of sustained reality. Towards the end he discusses his already-infamous short-AAPL, Long-Nattie trade - adding that the trade has 'monster legs' and the biggest mistake investors make is exiting winners too early.

Overnight: just more of the same, as markets collapsed, first in Asia, then in Europe, on ever more concerns what a Greek exit would do to Europe. The most important story of the night was a report in Dutch Dagblad claiming that ECB has turned off the tap for Greek bank liquidity: "At the end of January, Greek banks had received EUR73 billion in liquidity support from the ECB, but this amount has dropped by more than 50% now, according to the newspaper. The ECB is cutting back support because Greece has been holding off on recapitalizing its banking system, despite receiving EUR25 billion in funds for that purpose, the paper says." Whether this move is to force Greece to blink (even more) by making the previously reported bank run even more acute, or just general European stupidity, is unclear but it is certain to make the funding stresses across all of Europe far more acute. The news sent all peripheral bond yields soaring, and the EURUSD tumbling to under 1.27 briefly. 

Someone has to take the other side of the JPM debate. I'll try.

Curious how the world's most important trading desk saw the action today? Here it is.

For the third year in a row, crude oil prices have stumbled in April (-26% in 2010, -17% in 2011, and -10% in 2012 so far). Much has been made of the help this will offer the economy and consumer spending but this is ceteris-paribus linear thinking. There are a few other critical aspects to consider that make many, including Barclays, believe "there is little to the latest price action than the increasingly self-fulfilling prophecy of ‘sell it in May and go away’, exaggerated by market positioning, with broader macroeconomic concerns used as a lightening rod." With crude inventories on the high side and gasoline (and other oil product) inventories relatively low and falling - we would hold our breaths on the recent crude price drop funneling along to the retail pump price anytime soon as there is one critical aspect of the supply-demand equation that many have missed - a period of heavier-than-usual refinery maintenance which while temporary have reduced demand but tell us nothing about the state of final demand. In other words, even if a balance of sorts was achieved in terms of crude flows in March and April due to maintenance, that balance is likely to be disturbed from June onwards. The mainstream media is full of talking-heads on the chronic weakness in US oil demand, but it does not appear to be a real phenomenon according to the steadily improving flow of data and while Greece, Hollande, and US macro data has dragged out macro shorts, it would appear the fundamentals support oil prices higher from here. With the upward-sloping curve in crude to year-end and the relatively small drop this week (-1.2% only in WTI) despite all the derisking, perhaps the market is already starting to realize.

From the moment we all got to peek behind the over-leveraged financial system reality thank to Lehman's collapse, the-powers-that-be have made every attempt to stop this whole thing unraveling. Eric Sprott humbly suggests, when the CNBC anchor in the following clip questions recent gold price action as evidence of something wrong in his thesis, that just as Jim Grant opines, "All markets are manipulated" and that Central Banks (who are desperately trying to revive the dying system in every extreme monetary scheme possible) simply do not want to see the price of gold rising. He then notes that Silver is likely to be the investment of the next decade (although offers no strong thesis other than levered gold). Shrugging off the obfuscation from Omaha, "People who sell paper gold and paper silver can rule the markets in the short-term but physical participants will win the day in the long-run". Detailing some fundamental drivers for gold's advance, as the investment of the last decade and so for those three gentlemen (Buffett, Gates, & Munger) who missed it, I don't know that I should respect their opinion at this point in time.

If you're not familiar with the concept of "Cost Shifting", the deadly (to your competition) effect of negative margins or believe that Google is search engine or ad co., then this article/video is a must read/see.

Dollar vs. Stocks 

Equity indices managed to close green on a generally lower-than-average volume day but while the morning was dominated by a 20pt rip post-ISM's 4.5-sigma surprise, the post-Europe-close afternoon session saw us give back over 60% of those gains on rising volume and average trade-size. As the day-session closed, ES (the S&P 500 e-mini futures) was right around yesterday's highs and today's VWAP in a relatively balanced manner but after-hours was leaking lower still. AAPL also had a big rotation day as it opened red, surged into the middle of the day then gave it all back to close within a few pennies of its 50DMA (and in fact is trading below it in after-hours trading). Stocks pushed well ahead of credit markets as they rallied and HYG was far less impressed. Sure enough by the close, equities had limped back in line with credit's reality but in the meantime, HYG was back down at last Wednesday's levels. The ISM caused the USD to pop, stocks to pop more, oil to pop about the same and gold/silver/Treasuries to drop. The post Europe-close action saw stocks give back most of those gains, the USD leak back lower (as CAD strengthened), Oil maintained it bid over $106 (month highs) and Gold/Silver pulled back up nicely. Treasuries remained under pressure though with only a very late-day dip lower in yields to show for the dips in stocks. As expected, Energy and Financials outperformed close-to-close on a rally-day but also retraced the most in the afternoon as Discretionary and Materials also joined the high-beta fray. The strength in oil and weakness in TSYs was enough to juice risk-assets in general and provided some support for the rally but stocks remain rich relative to risk in general and we wonder how the bulls have it both ways - rally on unsustainable good news (but no QE3) and on bad news (Ben's got yr back) as the first day of May (absent any European hedging) seemed a chaotic rush to buy this morning that may have been a short-term climax.

Google vs .GOV vs Apple vs Telcos: .GOV keeps old way of doing business alive for current broadband cos. Roads are expensive too, but we have found ways to build them without requiring tolls at the end of our driveways.

With a Labour Day market holiday across the continent, focus turns to the FTSE-100. The UK market is trading modestly higher with some strong earnings reports overnight lifting the index. Lloyds Group posted stronger than expected profits and reported confidence in the delivery of their financial guidance. The report has boosted Lloyds shares to become one of the top gainers of the day. Despite this, the financials sector is being held back from outperforming as Man Group fail to deliver on their sales figures, pushing their shares lower throughout the session.  The only notable data release of the European session was UK Manufacturing PMI, coming in below expectations with a reading of 50.5 as manufacturing output was dampened across April by Eurozone weakness and contracting new orders. Following the release, GBP weakness was observed, with GBP/USD touching upon session lows.  Pre-market, the RBA cut their cash target rate by 50BPS, a larger cut than expected. The board cited skittish market conditions and below trend output growth as the triggers for the rate cut. As such, AUD weakness is observed across the board and AUD/USD stops just short of breaking through 1.0300 to the downside.  Looking ahead in the session, participants look toward US ISM Manufacturing for March due at 1500BST/0900CDT as the next key data release.

It's all good, and no doubt this can only mean one thing. It's clear sailing ahead. But not so fast.

The good news: Spanish Q1 GDP printed -0.3% on expectations of a -0.4% Q/Q decline. Unfortunately this is hardly encouraging for the nearly 25% of the labor force which is unemployed, and for consumers whose purchasing habits imploded following record plunges in retail sales as observed last week. The bad news: Spain now joins at least 10 other Western countries which have (re) entered a recession. Per DB: "Spain will today likely join a growing list of Western Developed world countries in recession. Last week the UK was added to a recession roll call that includes Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. Debt ladened countries with interest rates close to zero have limited flexibility to fight the business cycle and this impotency will continue for many years." Alas, the abovementioned good news won't last: from Evelyn Hermman, economist at BNP - "The Pace of Spain’s economic contraction may increase in coming quarters as austerity measures bite more sharply." Of course, it is the "good news" that sets the pace each and every day, as the bad news is merely a further catalyst to buy, buy, buy as the ECB will allegedly have no choice but to do just that when the time comes. And something quite surprising from DB's morning comment: "If it were us in charge we would allow more defaults which would speed up the cleansing out of the system thus encouraging a more efficient resource allocation in the economy at an earlier stage." Wait, this is Deustche Bank, with assets which are nearly on par with German GDP, saying this? Wow...

A fundamental overview of the stocks available for drafting during the CNBC Street Signs Stock Draft airing, with my comments & opinions. Yesterday I released the analysis of Apples Q2 earnings & I'm sure it contained content that you didn't read anywhere else.

For those who don't subscribe ask a subscriber the difference between valuation note price (pg 10) & AAPL today. I'll offer a lot of opinion on AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, Facebook & GRPN 2:30 at CNBC Streetsigns