Quantitative Easing

The REAL RISK currently is not missing some of the upside if the bull market does begin to resume, but rather catching the downside if this correction turns into a full-fledged bear.

The risk-off tide is rising, and sand castles of QE will only hold the tide back for a brief period of apparent calm.

"Not 'IF' but 'WHEN central banks lose control?' The global financial repression pushed investors to invest cash in risky assets, such as property and equity. The scale of global policy interventions is trumping all fundamental factors for now. Investors should keep in mind that the road is never straight and next month should be full of potentially disruptive events impacting sharply overcrowded assets and trades. History shows that such misallocation of resources creates bubbles that can last before fully blowing; the question is not if, but when."

It is time for a comprehensive audit of Janet Yellen ’s Federal Reserve - and not just for the reasons presidential candidate Rand Paul and others have given. The Fed needs to be audited to see if its ruling body has broken the law by manipulating financial markets that are outside its jurisdiction.

Think about it. We are currently watching global stock markets gyrate toward breakdown trying to anticipate the whims of a cloistered professor who never launched a business, never met a payroll, never shipped a product, and never won an election, yet has been empowered to determine the price of money. What’s even stranger is that people consider this normal. Ask yourself: Why do we wait on pins and needles for Janet Yellen to set interest rates yet laugh at the idea that kings once set the “just price” for a loaf of bread?

With the biggest miss sicne April 2013, Dallas Fed's 2-month dead-cat-bounce has collapsed to -15.8 (against expectations of -4.0). This is practically the weakest level for the manufacturing index since 2009. The entire report is a disaster - Fisher's exit seems well timed? - as New Orders crash from +0.7 to -12.5 and Pries Paid craters from +0.1 to -8.0.Even worse, 14 of the 15 'hope' indicators declined and as one respondent warned "the quantitative easing hangover is starting." We have 3 simple words - "not unequivocally good."

In markets distorted by permanent manipulation the most powerful incentive is to borrow as much money as you can and leverage it as much as you can to maximize your gains in risk-on asset bubbles. However, a core dynamic is laying waste to global financial markets: the greater the level of central bank/government manipulation, the greater the systemic fragility.

...one theory is that some within the Fed realized that QE wasn’t working, and never worked, thus another path was needed. But what alternative did they have, since rates were already ZERO? So maybe they changed course and took a strong dollar policy vs. a weak one to intentionally weaken the commodity sector and thus boost consumer spending. Throughout this down turn, that message has been repeated by Yellen herself many times, as a source of economic stimulus and for sure has been repeated over and over in the media and the talking heads of Wall Street.

The week that passed has left many of the so-called “smart crowd” flummoxed, disheveled, dismayed, and disrobed from their expensive facades of “expert insightful analysis.” It seems all that “expert” as well as “insight” wasn’t all it was made out to be. In less than a week: historic records weren’t only broken – they were smashed to smithereens. And the one’s that were the most historic? They weren’t set for positive things.

Simply put, a perfect storm of failing trends...

As Bloomberg reports, "China has cut its holdings of U.S. Treasuries this month to raise dollars needed to support the yuan in the wake of a shock devaluation two weeks ago, according to people familiar with the matter. Channels for such transactions include China selling directly, as well as through agents in Belgium and Switzerland, said one of the people, who declined to be identified as the information isn’t public. China has communicated with U.S. authorities about the sales."

Both the stock market and oil prices have been plunging. Is this “just another cycle,” or is it something much worse? We think it is something much worse...

In the past week, ever since the Fed's FOMC minutes which sent the S&P tumbling from 2100 to their lows in the overnight session, some 13% lower, the US economy underwent the functional equivalent of a 15 bps rate hike, or more than half the rate hike that the Fed has been so terrified to engage in for years.

From both and fundamental and technical viewpoint, there is mounting evidence that the current decline might just be sending a signal that there is more going on here than just an "overdue correction in a bull market." While it is too soon to know for sure, there seems to be little risk in being more conservative within portfolio allocations currently until the market environment clears. However, the proverbial "elephant" is margin debt.