Volatility

Alan Wheatley, Global Economics Correspondent for Reuters has written a very interesting article, 'Analysis: China's currency foray augurs geopolitical strains’ where he emphasizes China’s desire to wean out the US dollar’s currency reserve status. China is actively taking steps to phase out the US dollar which will decrease volatility in oil and commodity prices and deride the ‘exorbitant privilege' the USA commands as the issuer of the reserve currency at the centre of a post-war international financial architecture which is now failing.   In 1971, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally said, "It's our currency and your problem". China is frustrated with what it sees as the US government’s mismanagement of the dollar, and is now actively promoting the cross-border use of its own currency, the yuan, or also called the renminbi, in trade and investment. China’s goal is to decrease transactions costs for Chinese importers and exporters. Zha Xiaogang, a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said Beijing wants to see a better-balanced international monetary system consisting of at least the dollar, euro and yuan and perhaps other currencies such as the yen and the Indian rupee. "The shortcomings of the current international monetary system pose a big threat to China's economy," he said. "With more alternatives, the margin for the U.S. would be greatly narrowed, which will certainly weaken the power basis of the U.S."

For the third day in a row, there is little to write home about from the overnight action. The EURUSD has been choppy following an MNI report about comments from EU officials that suggested Germany wants to delay the Troika decision on a €31.5 billion payment to Greece until after the November 12 Eurozone finmin meeting, no doubt predicated by the already discussed willingness by Europe to not rock the boat before Obama is reelected, still leaving the question hanging: just why is an entire insolvent continent so hung up on a US presidential decision. The main FX market focus is on the European Central Bank rate decision, due at 1145GMT. The ECB is widely expected to leave rates on hold just as the BOE did moments ago (it needs to hurry up if it wants to win the race to debase) although in the New Normal one can't be sure of anything. In other news Spain auctioned off a much needed €3.99 billion in various short-term bonds, the bulk of which fell under the LTRO maturity umbrella, but which was successful nonetheless if with modestly weaker short-end results, and an overall bitter aftertaste as seen by the resumption in Spanish 10 year widening, as the entire market, not to mention Draghi, is starting to get very impatient with Rajoy, who is now even getting urged by Catalonia's Arturo Mas to finally bite the bullet and demand a bailout (and resign shortly thereafter): "A bailout is inevitable; therefore the best thing to do is to make the decision without delay,” Mas said. “Spain has the potential to overcome the situation, but it will need assistance for some time." Recall that Spain's cash needs in October surge so every single successful euro raised is more than critical.

Since the U.S. and E.U. first enacted sanctions against Iran, in 2010, the value of the Iranian rial (IRR) has plummeted, imposing untold misery on the Iranian people. When a currency collapses, you can be certain that other economic metrics are moving in a negative direction, too. Indeed, using new data from Iran’s foreign-exchange black market, we estimate that Iran’s monthly inflation rate has reached 69.6%. With a monthly inflation rate this high (over 50%), Iran is undoubtedly experiencing hyperinflation. The rial’s death spiral is wiping out the currency’s purchasing power

With precious metals once again on the rise, the questions begin as to whether or not gold is in a bubble. While these questions never seem to occur among the cogniscenti when equity prices race ahead non-stop for months on end with no volatility, Brent Johnson (of Santiago Capital) offers up five 'facts' that help to explain why gold at $1800 is far from a bubble - especially as central banks shift from 'measured' responses to open-ended debauchment.

Yesterday we brought you the news that US debt quietly soared by $90 billion overnight to celebrate the new fiscal year end, reaching $16.2 trillion and sending total US debt to GDP to 103%. Needless to say, this comes at an exciting time, with the first Wall Street muppet presidential debate in about 12 hours, where the US debt crisis will be a front and center topic because in about 2 months, the US debt ceiling will again be breached adding to the Fiscal Cliff fiasco, resulting in a flashback to August 2011 when the market had to tumble by nearly 20% for Congress to get the hint that first and foremost its job is to make sure the money on Wall Street keeps flowing, all else secondary. And while it has become fashionable to say that US debt rose by this much under that president, the truth is that the Presidency is merely one of three institutions that are responsible for the shape of the US debt-to-GDP line (which is now going from the lower left to the upper right by default). The other two are, of course, Congress and the Senate. Luckily, to simply things substantially, we have a handy graphic from today's Bloomberg Brief which conveniently plots not only the political affiliation of the presidency, but of the House and Senate, in the chronology of the US debt crisis.

Wow! Good equity swings in Europe: Down about 1% to the morning lows, up nearly 2% to noon highs and tanking back over 1.25% into the close.

 Core & Soft EGBs rather muted in volatility, closing by and large unchanged, with Periphery bonds running a separate path.

Again that decorrelation.

Jump, Jive & Wail…

Venture capital (VC) has delivered poor returns for more than a decade. VC returns haven’t significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since 1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC. Speculation among industry insiders is that the VC model is broken, despite occasional high-profile successes like Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn, and Facebook in recent years. As The Kauffman Foundations finds, from its 20-year history, investment committees and trustees should shoulder blame for the broken LP investment model, as they have created the conditions for the chronic misallocation of capital (no doubt driven by the failure of 'hope' over experience). All is not lost to the money-pumping narrative-followers though as five myths are destroyed and five recommendations made that may help LPs allocate and follow-through more effectively.

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."

It has been a volatile week but equities have drifted lower overall with today's early going retracing all of yesterday's gains only to bounce post Europe's close (once again) on the farce of the Spanish bank audit. Reality sunk in into the close though a glance at S&P 500 futures in the last 30 minutes suggest more V-Fib than trend (as VWAP came into play amid heavy volume at the close). EUR weakness (and USD strength) lifted DXY to a 0.75% gain on the week (almost mirroring Copper and Oil's 0.9% loss on the week) but Gold and Silver popped into the close to end the week unchanged (notably outperforming other asset classes). Treasuries held on to 5bps (5Y) to 12bps (10y & 30Y) yield compression on the week - with some volatility this afternoon bringing them back off their low yields of the week. Utilities ended the week up 1% as the only green sector with Tech, Materials, and Energy all -1.5 to 2% on the week. VIX ended the week up around 1.6 vols (in line with stocks at around 15.6%) and credit continued to lag equities modestly. Cross-asset-class correlations fell away a little this afternoon as stocks meandered but broadly risk-assets suggest some more downside to equities.

John Taylor, founder and CEO of the world's largest FX hedge fund, spoke with Bloomberg TV this morning and was his typically clarifying - if not sanguine - self when it comes to prospects in Europe and the US. Stating that he'll "probably always be a bear on the Euro", Taylor added that it is "hard to look at the European situation and see a cloudy sky become clear," and while there has been noisy swings in the movements of currencies of late, "the reason the euro is up is because the dollar is down - two guys have done this: Draghi and Bernanke." Ranging from FX to volatility, Taylor opines on the time-varying correlation of the weak euro with a strong US equity market and notes, however, that "the equity market is not showing any legs."

If there is one dominant consensus in the financial sphere, it is that the Federal Reserve's $85 billion/month bond-and-mortgage-buying "quantitative easing" will inevitably send stocks higher. The general idea is that the Fed buys the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and Treasury bonds from the banks, which turn around and dump the cash into "risk on" assets like equities (stocks). This consensus can be summarized in the time-worn phrase, "Don't fight the Fed." This near-universal confidence in a QE-goosed stock market is reflected in the low level of volatility (the VIX) and other signs of complacency such as relatively few buyers of put options, which are viewed as "insurance" against a decline in stocks. The usual sentiment readings are bullish as well.

But what if QE fails to send stocks higher? Is such a thing even possible? Yes, it does seem "impossible" in a market as rigged and centrally managed as this one, but there are a handful of reasons why QE might not unleash a flood of cash into "risk on" assets every month from now until Doomsday

The markets mood is shifting from certainty to uncertainty. The unpalatable truth about a stable Europe is it takes all its many and diverse participants to be singing off the same hymn sheet. Unfortunately they aren't. The different objectives and aims of each group are becoming increasingly apparent. The Bottom line remains if the Euro can be held together, then Italy and Spain bond yields will tighten. Simple. Unfortunately, the tensions inherent in the system threaten to pull it apart. A brief study of history will show conflict and naked self-interest are the only permanent features inherent to any human system. Name me an alliance, an empire, a union, a nation or any large political unit that has, at some point, not tried to pull itself apart? Meanwhile... the global recession gets deeper. Yesterday the slowing European economy caused Volvo to acknowledge slowing truck demand... Who could have predicted that? And its going to get worse.

It is always amazing to observe how people become less risk averse after risk has markedly increased and more risk averse after it has markedly decreased. The stock market is held to be 'safe' after it has risen for many weeks or months, while it is considered 'risky' after it has declined. The bigger the rally, the safer the waters are deemed to be, and the opposite holds for declines. One term that is associated in peoples' minds with rising prices is 'certainty'. For some reason, rising prices are held to indicate a more 'certain' future, which one can look forward to with more 'confidence'. 'Uncertainty' by contrast is associated with downside volatility in stocks. In reality, the future is always uncertain. Most people seem to regard accidental participation in a bull market cycle with as a kind of guarantee of a bright future, when all that really happened is that they got temporarily lucky. Perma-bullish analysts like Laszlo Birinyi or Abby Joseph Cohen can be sure that they will be right 66% of the time by simply staying bullish no matter what happens. This utter disregard of the risk-reward equation can occasionally lead to costly experiences for their followers when the markets decline.

We have discussed the CRIC cycle a number of times - especially with regards Europe - but it seems the never-ending story of Crisis-Response-Improvement-Complacency has struck once again as Morgan Stanley notes when complacency becomes pervasive, it usually gives way to a renewed crisis. Complacent financial markets appear to be looking through the fact that the global economy remains stuck in a 'twilight zone' between expansion and recession. Dismissing weak PMIs in China and EU, markets have feasted in QEternity and OMT and this has, as expected, affected European policy-makers (e.g. ongoing disagreements over the details of the much-anticipated negative-feedback-loop-breaking banking union; and Spain/Italy's 'belief' they can avoid an ESM 'austerity' program). This feels eerily like the March/April period when post-LTRO improvements induced euphoria in traders and governments/ECB to relax prematurely and as Brevan Howard explains below - every major developed economy is facing significant downside risks - no matter how enthusiastic markets appear to be.

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).