Volatility

There is a frequent tendency to over state the importance of the Fed and its policies and ignore the primary fundamentals driving the gold market which are what we have long termed the ‘MSGM’ fundamentals. As long as the MSGM fundamentals remain sound than there is little risk of gold and silver’s bull markets ending. What we term MSGM stands for macroeconomic, systemic, geopolitical and monetary risks. The precious metals medium and long term fundamentals remain bullish due to still significant macroeconomic, systemic, monetary and geopolitical risks. We caution that gold could see another sharp selloff and again test the support at €1,200/oz and $1,550/oz. If we get a sharp selloff in stock markets in the traditionally weak ‘Fall’ period, gold could also fall in the short term as speculators, hedge funds etc . liquidate positions en masse. To conclude, always keep an eye on the MSGM and fade the day to day noise in the markets.

Beginning in January of 2010, and continuing into July of this year, we explained how one of the most insidious attempts at capital controls undertaken by the authorities, namely to replace the $1.00 NAV method that money markets have employed since inception, forcing money markets to imposed capital buffers, and most importantly, to enact mandatory gating if and when the time comes for investors to withdraw their money when they so desired, was taking shape. In other words, to institute capital controls when it comes to money market funds. We already explained that the idea to kill money markets is not new, and originated at the Group of 30 many years ago (its members explain its interests vividly enough) , as an attempt to have investors voluntarily shift their capital allocation out of a liquid but very much inert from the fractional reserve banking system $2.7 trillion market into other liquid, but fractional banking levered markets such as stocks and bonds. In essence, this would generate an up to $2.7 trillion incremental demand as those invested in money markets would find it more "appealing" to keep their cash equivalents in the "security" of 150x P/E stocks like Amazon, or in the worst case, Treasury Bills. After all faced with the option of being "gated" or investing their money in other "non capital controlled" markets, one would be an idiot to pick the former. This is precisely what Mary Schapiro hoped would be the case when she put the vote to the SEC, only to find that she couldn't even get a majority to support her own proposal (which as a reminder was supported by two Fed presidents: uber doves Eric Rosengren of Boston and William Dudley of New York, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner) in her own co-opted house. It is also the reason one person decided to vote against Schapiro's proposal - Luis Aguilar. His explanation why he voted against money market fund capital controls is attached.

Reports that the ECB is discussing a new variation for sovereign bond purchases involving secret caps for interest rates failed to support  peripheral EU bonds and instead provided market participants with an opportunity to book profits following recent strong gains. As a result, 10y peripheral bonds with respect to the benchmark German Bund are wider by around 12bps, with the shorter dated 2y bonds wider by around  15bps. This underperformance by peripheral EU assets is also evident in the stock market, where the IBEX and the Italian FTSE-MIB failed to match performance of the core indices today. The latest PMI data from the Eurozone, as well as China overnight underpinned the need for more simulative measures either from respective central banks or the government. While the PBOC continues to refrain from more easing, the release of the FOMC minutes last night revealed the members favoured easing soon if no growth doesn’t pick up.

The market was not exactly ecstatic at the FOMC minutes but certainly squeezed up off its pre-minutes lows to end very fractionally green (S&P small up, Dow down, NASDAQ up - thanks to AAPL's 2% gain - it's 7th in 3 month). Post-FOMC the QE-on trade was very clear - Treasury yields tumbled, stocks popped, USD weakened, and Gold soared. These were quite significant moves relative to recent ranges: Gold broke above its 200DMA - back to early May highs; Treasury yields dropped 10bps - biggest plunge in rates since start of June (as it bounces off its 200DMA). On the week, the NASDAQ is the only major US index in the green (+0.1%) while the Dow is down 0.78%.

Hopes that today may finally see an increase in trading volatility and volume following yesterday's reversal session will likely be dashed as the event wasteland on the horizon continues for the third day in a row. As DB explains, the FOMC meeting minutes and Juncker’s visit to Athens are likely the two main sources for key headlines today. While backward looking and certainly predating Lockhart's hawkish comments from yesterday, the FOMC minutes today are expected to shed further light on the kind of policy currently under consideration and the economic conditions required before easing is warranted. One thing that will not be discussed is the circularity of launching more QE even as gas prices have never been higher on this day in history, soy and corn are back at all time highs, and the market trading at multi-year highs. As repeatedly explained before, the option for the FOMC include pushing out the targeted exit date for fed funds, providing “exit guidance” on balance sheet measures (i.e. asset sales), various mixes of additional balance sheet expansion (including the possibility of an open-ended QE program) and  cutting interest on reserves. It is virtually certain that none of these will be enacted at the Jackson Hole meeting in one week, 2 months ahead of the presidential election, but hope springs eternal.

Every now and again the coincidences (or some might call them conspiracies) become too much to bear. We have noted the incessant deep-pocketed use of volatility as a levered way to manage equities up (or down we suppose should the need arise from a centrally-planned banking institution that does not feel the incumbent is in his court). Today was a great example of the desperate interaction of the world's most over-owned (and biggest) company and selling pressure over-whelming the VWAP algos. As the chart below shows, the early selling pressure in AAPL smashed prices down to yesterday's close and closing VWAP; volumes surged as algos piled institutions out but they soon got overhwhelmed as the price fell through their VWAP level (which means the costs start to pile up to the market-maker's algo which promised VWAP execution). Immediately Plan B comes into play - Sell Vol Hard!

After touching four-year highs this morning, the S&P abruptly turned tail and sold back down. AAPL slumped hard off its all-time record high open just shy of $675 - reverting NASDAQ to its peer indices and broadly equities had the worst day in 3 weeks (and only its 4th down day of the month of August). S&P 500 e-mini futures (ES) volume surged to its highest in three weeks - and average trade size was its highest since the lows in early June - along with its largest daily range in three weeks. Volatility jumped (amid some extreme gappiness as AAPL started to lose it) back above 15% (up over 1 vol) - leaking modestly lower into the close as ES saw some intraday covering to lift it 'off-the-lows'.

Whether it is because the CME just did it; or it's all their clients have left; or Gold volatility is lower than EURUSD volatility (9.0% vs 9.6% in last 3 weeks); or they see the painting on the wall of Draghi's grand-plans, the LCH-Clearnet just announced that as of August 28th, unallocated gold will be accepted as collateral for margin cover purposes. This now means all the major exchanges accept worthless barbarous relics as collateral - as well as worthless fiat paper 'money'.

As everyone awaits (or doubts) the next coordinated central planning bank action - whether Fed QE (Lockhart stymied?), ECB 'bottomless pockets' (Merkel's back), or China RRR (reverse repos?) - the prices of things we need (as opposed to want) continue to rise. Nowhere is this more important than in China with its extremely high levels (and volatility) of deposit flows increasingly levered to re-inflationary actions by the PBoC. The critical aspect of the following analysis is that in the US, the stock market acts as an 'inflation buffer' for the rich's excess disposable income; in China, this is not the case and given the greater than 3.4x leverage compared to the US, PBoC actions flow much more rapidly through the populace to the things they need - and right now more inflation is not what they need or want - which perhaps explains the reverse-repo 'gradual' tightening.

A month ago, RBS' Nomura's permarealist Bob Janjuah wrnd tht mrtks r set 4 a squeeze breakout. He was right. Today, he has sent out an update, saying the party is over, the ramp is finished, and the time to sohrt ahead of a "major risk off phase" is here: "my stop loss on the risk off call effective immediately is a consecutive weekly close on the S&P500 at or above 1450. As the Global Macro Strategy team is looking for Mr Bernanke to disappoint markets at Jackson Hole next week, and also because we are confident that markets will soon discover that neither the ECB nor Eurozone politicians will actually be able to deliver on their ‘promises’, we are hopeful that our stop losses will not be triggered. For now we are happy to risk 30 S&P points against us, in order to potentially pick up 300 S&P points in our favour."

Standing at the crossroads, believe I'm sinking down. (Some charts are saying not so fast.)

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the landmark philosophical texts of the last century.  The central thesis of the book is that science advances in fits and starts, clustered around the advent of new 'Paradigms' - a term that Kuhn introduced in the book and much of academia subsequently coopted as their own.  This was a novel thought for the times, since the conventional philosophy held that science advanced through the ages in plodding but rigorous steps.  Kuhn’s observation about science is equally applicable to capital markets, for the range of 'Paradigm shifts' underway goes a long way to explaining everything from why companies refuse to invest to why earnings multiples on U.S. stocks remain so low.  Today, in celebration of Kuhn's opus, ConvergEx's Nick Colas offers up a list of the 'Top 10 Paradigm Shifts' currently underway; and notes that new paradigms don't often have as much to them as the old ideas they replace.  They are often actually inferior.  Over time they get their bearings, yes.  But the transition is rough.

UPDATE: AAPL cracked the demonic $666 level after-hours

For a moment this morning some were even thinking this would be the day, this could be the one where volumes come back, ranges expand, and some level of risk sensitivity returns; but alas, despite all the AAPL pumping and Silver surging, Equities ended the day unch on weak volumes (actually cash equities ended very small down for the 16th of the last 17 Monday red closes). The S&P 500 e-mini future (ES) intraday range was a remarkably low 8.5pts, volume at its new post-Knight normal (half-normal), average trade-size lower than average, and risk-assets in general were highly correlated during the day-session as Treasuries also closed unchanged, USD down very modestly and Oil unch. Financials and Tech & Healthcare and Utilities were the only sectors in the green on the day (in an awkward risk on and off way). Copper dumped as Silver surged 2.6% on the day to two-month highs. AAPL also surged 2.6% (up 7% in the last 6 days - a level that has repeatedly been followed by pullbacks this year) as everyone's new favorite IPO (MANU) lost 2.6% (even as FB gained almost 5% closing just below $20). VIX gained 0.6 vols ending above 14% (but drifted lower from the open). While the markets main seem zombie-like, there were some intraday moves in FX and Treasury markets - but these were dominant during Europe's open and faded into the US day-session.

In a normal market, whatever that is, we would not feel the need to note every tick in the Spanish equity market; but today's 2% decline - its worst in 3 weeks - is the first down-day in 10 days. IBEX, the Spanish equity market index, rallied over 29% from it's lows on 7/23 (following a decent leg down after the EU-Summit disappointment) only to perfectly reach its Maginot Line at the 200DMA on Friday and this morning. The volatility regime is very reminiscent of last year with the binary (chaos or serenity) scenarios the only ones left for most market participants and with a short-selling ban doing nothing but exaggerating the whipsaws, we wonder if the IBEX is due to revert back further - more in line with its sovereign credit moves on Draghi's 'believe-me!' speech. Perhaps the realization that another rumor (rate-caps) has come and gone has broken the cycle of faith...

For whatever reason, yesterday's unsourced Spiegel report that the ECB is actually contemplating open-ended monetization with arbitrary yield targets on various European nations is the talk of the town, if only for a few more hours until, just like last year, the proposal is summarily dismissed, only to be reincarnated once Spanish yields pass north of 8% again. In the meantime, it has allowed those very well paid sell-side strategists to present their erudite opinions, which naturally do not matter in the grand (and not so grand) scheme of things as long as Germany sticks to the 9-9-9 plan.