Wall of Worry

^{Importantly, Cypriots and other Eurozone citizens who own gold saw the value of their holdings rise 2% in euro terms.}

The demise of gold and the "death of the gold bull market" is "greatly exaggerated" says Mr. O’Byrne.

^{He said that while the risk from Cyprus has abated, in the light of capital controls in EU country and the treatment of Cyprus, there are now huge question marks over the future of the European Union itself.}

A dispassionate discussion of the impact of the sequester and implications for investors. I look also look at how the dollar has performed since QE3+ was announced and it is not what many might have expected.

In the 40 years or so since the end of the Bretton Woods system, we have seen competitive devaluations occur again and again. However as SocGen notes, it appears Japan just keeps coming out on the losing side. Based on Real Effective Exchange Rates (REER), Japan's currency is 80% stronger now than in 1971 while the US (and South Korea interestingly) are about 40% weaker. The Euro has remained in a relatively stable band as the rest of the world has de- or re-valued itself. The 20% or so drop in the JPY so far under Abe's guidance appears a blip on the REER radar screen compared to its peers but, at the other end of the spectrum, SocGen suggests the USD is notably under-valued on a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) basis - even as 'the strong dollar policy' remains verbally in tact.

With central banks sponsoring their own (and each other's) bond markets, and every financial entity owning its own and each other's bonds, Santelli pops his lid over the Pollyanna business leaders (like Bob Lutz - proclaiming GM's European business is troughing because Goldman Sachs is buying European bonds) are pointing to market-based bond prices as indicative of optimism and that economically the worst (must) be over. "Forget the wall of worry, this is the wall of weakness", Rick rants, and the interconnectedness of global markets now means if Goldman is right (as we noted yesterday) that Treasuries are 200bps rich then how does that reconcile with growth that is just bumbling along as evidenced with today's GDP prints from around the world (and surging unemployment). Just what is the Fed going to do to save the world this time? - buy $160bn more per month if we see global weakness restart? How do traders react to slowing global growth? Buy Treasuries? Indeed, the good is bad but bad is better meme seems back and being a trader is, as Rick notes, nigh on impossible.

Divergence in thinking. 

Still long-term bullish as nobody notified us that the Fed has withdrawn QE3.

Citigroup's macro risk aversion index just tested record lows (i.e. record high complacenecy levels with regard investors' view of macro uncertainty going forward). Coinciding as it did with Bernanke's all-in moment we wonder if we just saw the 'peak complacency' moment as the wall of worry was officially scaled only to find that the grass is indeed NOT greener on the other side. For sure, it would appear that all the talk of bearish sentiment as the driver of the nextt 'secular' leg in stocks seems just that - 'talk'.

The best gains are behind us especially in the wake of the Fed's vacuum and the lack of any meaningful and sustainable upside catalysts.

While we are bombarded with talking heads telling us that there is money-on-the-sidelines and everyone is so bearish with the market climbing a wall of worry, the reality - as we see across multiple asset classes - is that investors are overweight risk assets (e.g. credit investors overweight IG and HY and mutual fund cash at record lows), near-extreme levels of bullishness (AAII and Put-Call Ratios), near extreme levels of non-bearishness (AAII), and yet credit investors believe markets are overvalued (though still buying) even as IG and HY bonds are seeing near-record highs in advance-decline.

A week ago, after peripheral European bonds soared and yields plunged on more hype and more promises that the ECB may monetize debt on the one condition that insolvent countries hand over sovereignty to the Troika ala Greece, we were not all surprised to learn that "suddenly, nobody in Europe wants the ECB bailout." And why should they? After all, The whole point of the gambit was to lower bond rates, which happened, which would allow insolvent government to stack even more debt courtesy of lower rates on top of record debt, taking the insanity of the old saying "fixing an insolvency problem with liquidity" one step further, and revising it to "fixing an insolvency problem with more insolvency." Furthermore, if the mere threat of the ECB stepping in and crushing any shorts or supporting longs was enough, why even bother with actual intervention. Simple: even infinite monetary dilution has its limits. That limit is and always has been cash flow, because a central bank can only dilute wealth, never create it. And for Spain said limit is approaching fast.

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."

AAPL is making headlines once again with its market-moving impact, its law-of-large-numbers-crushing daily moves, and its seeming cult of indifference among retail and hedge funds alike. As the stock price hits new all-time highs, we note that options prices are also breaking records with the complacency regarding any downside risk near post-2009 highs. The last three times we have been up at these levels has seen significant reversions in price: Nov 2010 -7.3% in 6 days, -12.68% in late July 2011, and a late Feb 2012 drop of 5.83% in 4 days.

Just remember what the market was telling investors at the October, 2007 market top when it hit an all time high (SP500 1576.09) and just prior to cratering over 50% in 2008.

"The global growth picture is, as per our long-term contention, weak and deteriorating, pretty much everywhere – in the US, in the eurozone and in the emerging markets/BRICs.... We in the Global Macro Strategy team still think the market consensus is far too optimistic on policy expectations both in terms of the likelihood of seeing more (timely) fiscal and/or monetary policy assistance (globally), and in terms of any meaningful and/or lasting success of any such policy moves. In particular, we think that the period August through to November (inclusive) represents a major global policy and political vacuum. Based on the reasons set out earlier and also covered in my two prior notes, over the August to November period I am looking for the S&P500 to trade off down from around 1400 to 1100/1000 – in other words, I expect over the next four months to see global equity markets fall by 20% to 25% from current levels and to trade at or below the lows of 2011! US equity markets, along with parts of the EM spectrum, will I think underperform eurozone equity markets, where already very little hope resides. For iTraxx crossover, this equates to a spread wide for 2012 of – in my view – 800/1000bp.... And of course I still see a very clear path to 800 on the S&P500 at some point in 2013/2014, driven by market revulsion against pump-priming money printing central bankers, but this discussion is also for nearer the time."

It has been a tempestuous week where good is bad, worse is better, but European news is to be sold. Here is your one stop summary of all the notable bullish and bearish events in the past seven days.