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Forget Money On The Sidelines, Institutional Investors Are All-In
We have discussed the money-on-the-sidelines fallacy a few times recently in the context of the circular money-flows (clear misunderstanding of the idea of a buyer and a seller) as well as mutual fund cash levels, retail sentiment, demographic shifts, and insider transactions. There is mounting evidence, as Morgan Stanley's Michael Wilson notes, that 'make no mistake...institutional investors are all-in' as the rolling beta of mutual funds relative to the S&P 500 tops 1.10x at multi-year highs, institutional investors are most exposed to high beta sectors since MS data began, and long/shorts funds are near their most levered long since MS records began. Combine this with the massive surge in Insider Selling transactions in the last few weeks (apropos Charles Biderman's comments on the rally's support by Insider buying til now) and perhaps bearish retail sentiment will lead this market down as we hope that finally 'money-on-the-sidelines' fades from the parlance of all but the most aged and incompetent of market prognosticators.
Mutual Fund 1 Month Rolling Beta vs S&P 500 at record highs and well over 1x...
The percent of institutional investors who are most overweight the high beta sectors is at record highs...
And long/short funds are increasingly highly levered long with Gross (Delta-adjusted) near record highs...
Insider-selling transactions have surged after Insider-Buys dominated for much of the last few months...
And so perhaps it is the retail investor with their rising bearish sentiment (lower pane) that leads the market down this time once again - as it did in 2011...
Charts: Morgan Stanley and Bloomberg
And perhaps the clearest (and most to the point on commentators perspectives) explanation of the 'money flow' myth from a 2007 John Hussman article:
The 'money flow' myth
I am increasingly losing confidence that Wall Street operates on a well-defined base of knowledge. Instead, I am struck by the number of platitudes and false constructs that seem to dominate the investment management industry.
First, we should be very clear that there is no such thing as money going into or out of a secondary market. When stocks are issued in an IPO, or bonds are floated to investors, companies receive funds from investors and, in return, give investors pieces of paper called stocks and bonds, as evidence of the investors' claim on some future stream of cash. This is a 'primary market' transaction.
Once those pieces of paper are issued, they are traded between investors in the 'secondary market'. When we talk about the stock market, we're talking almost exclusively about the secondary market, because new issues make up a very small part of total activity.
Dear Wall Street analysts and financial reporters - when investors purchase a stock in the secondary market, the dollars that buyers bring 'into' the market are immediately taken 'out of' the market in the hands of the sellers. It is an exchange. This is why the place it happens is called a 'stock exchange'. The stock market is not an air balloon into which money goes in or out and expands or contracts that balloon. Nor is it a water balloon that is expanded by pouring in 'liquidity'. Prices are not driven by the amount of money that buyers 'put in' or sellers 'take out' (as those dollar amounts are identical). Prices are determined by the relative eagerness of the buyer versus the seller.
If a dentist in Poughkeepsie is willing to pay up 10 cents to buy a single share of General Electric, the total market value of General Electric increases by over $1 billion (GE has 10.28 billion shares outstanding - do the math). In this way, market capitalization can be created and destroyed out of thin air and on the smallest of trading volumes. So you'd better be sure that the there is a sound and fairly reliable stream of expected cash flows backing up the value of the securities you're buying.
Cash does not ever find a 'home' in a secondary market. Every time you hear the phrase 'investors are putting money into' or 'investors are taking money out of', or 'money is flowing out of - and into', it is a signal that the speaker is unable to distinguish a secondary market from a primary one.
As I used to teach my students, if Mickey sells his money market fund to buy stocks from Ricky, the money market fund has to sell some of its T-bills or commercial paper to Nicky, whose cash goes to Mickey, who uses the cash to buy stocks from Ricky. In the end, the cash that was held by Nicky is now held by Ricky, the money market securities that were held by Mickey are now held by Nicky, and the stock that was held by Ricky is now held by Mickey. There may have been some change in the relative prices between cash, money market securities and stocks, depending on which of the three was most eager, but there is precisely the same amount of 'cash on the sidelines' after that set of transactions as there was before it.
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The Bernank is like the Dunkin' Donuts guy.
He'll just make some more. It's time to make the donuts...errr...print some more fiat; you only have to be a good friend of the FRBNY, bitchez.
It's never been a better time to load up on PCLN!
Mmmm-mmmm! Another trillion sugar-glazed donuts, please Ben. The Primary Dealers, stock market, White House, and Congress love the sugar-high. Just keep pumping out the dough, Ben, because if they come off the sugar-high, it could get ugly.
A bunch of actively trading ZH members have been posting trades on a discussion group on google finance for the ticker SPY. Come and join us if you want. For today:
http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.700145/browse_thread/thread/7346c3bee736b674?hl=en#
We also post here alot.
Time to make the donuts
Reminds me of when I tell my wife, "Im all in", and then she sez I thought you already were.
I'm all in TOO; WITH GOLD and SILVER
http://www.economicaldepression.blogspot.com
Put me in coach... I'm ready to play...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70I4xRbsT4Q
fixed income returns less than inflation, so might as well expand PE's and buy up dividends as there is a mad scramble for any type of return..............now its spreading to rental income market ...........risk everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ZIRP and pockets of deflationary pressures are powerful , be careful
[quote]...as we hope that finally 'money-on-the-sidelines' fades...
Why would you HOPE that other than for ideologist reasons?
The banks only way of making any money right now because of the flat bond yield curve and low loan demand is to play the stock market. This historically always end well Bernanke.
even better when downside markets have been legislated away.......so it all makes sense
All the pension plans are all in. That soulds like a really good situation forming right there.
I would love a montage of the faces of all these people when they realize everything they thought they had, does not exist. To have that red pill moment after it's too late to save yourself must truly be one of life's most unpleasant moments.
My money is in the ground.
You forgot to take the gold fillings from your grandparents teeth before they got burried?
Ya, there's an untapped gold mine in cemetaries.
That isn't funny SD.
My grandfather died in a boating accident just a few weeks ago, with a mouthful of gold fillings. Tragic.
My condolences. Where was his accident?
yeah, I've expanded my garden too
"I have a bad feeling about this..."
Do not be concerned, it'll be rapetastic.
Money on the sidelines?
Well, there is all the money the Chairsatan can print - but the ability to control where that money goes is an open question. The Treasury yields are back up today.
Oil seems to be proving resilient for WTI above $ 105/barrel and Brent at $ 124+
Inflation is still getting built into goods across the board and more money won't solve that problem.
As ZH has pointed out before - the retail money on the sidelines is being used to keep peoples' individual situations right side up.
How long before that factoid can no longer be surpressed?
That's the real question.
barliman
P.S. Is anyone missing the point institutional investors are the "dumb money" & "bigger fools" in the markets today?
How dare you imply that mutual fund managers, fine, competent folks like the ones managing calPERS, and other institutional money managers are dumb money (just because there's an unshakeable historicaly corollary relationship that lends credence to that claim)!
How dare you, sir!
I am a dummie and I am in cash and gold and will remain there for now. Picked up 36 ounces last week. I may be seeing this wrong but I think the markets are topping out and now is not a good time for someone like me to try and hop in.
Ay ay ay ay ay ya ya ya i'm afraid im n n n n not l l l l ong enough...t t t tapioca pudding then n n n nap time?
I think the FED still has some money on the sidelines... 125 million a hour to be exact.
Its 3:05 PM EST and the SPY shows 70M shares "traded"!!! Biggest JOKE Ever!
Just wait till the first big fund decides to bail.... then all hell will break loose with everyone heading for the fire exits at the same time..........Not a pretty picture.....
wouldn't this be contrarian information? since now all of the wire houses are sounding less bullish. why should we believe MS over GS?
What is interesting about the "beta" chart is the comparison of 2008 & 2009 (the "big" crash) beta compared to the 2012 beta today.
Do we also have a beta bubble?
What's that you say MY MAIN MAN...Time to go back to "shorting"?
At least shoping!...Hope I can beat the crowd!!
Volume is non existent and this is with HFT running the show. Crazy markets.
"retail sentiment will lead this market down"
How about I don't hold my breath.
any bets consumer confidence is "unexpectedly" up tomorrow? Ala stock market valuations....timing is everything
we are in total bubble parabolic mode in the cmgs , pcln, apple's of the world no DOUBT
There's your money transfer mechanism revealing itself in 3 huge waves of the fed reserve club printing and pumping stocks so that the 1% club can liquidate into it. As for you tax paying muppets suck it up bitchezz!!
Treasuries don't seem to have noticed today's rally, hmm...
Well that's because the Chinese realize a good investment when they see one and they want to buy into the US long term, we'll have low interest rates forever. They can never go back up...
This beta measurement is still missing allocations to "safer" alternative strategies through direct hedge/PE fund allocation. When the equity averages align back to historic means, (and growth in a post-Boomer world is finally realized) the pain in these "hedged" strategies will be brutal. Managers will ask why they EVER strayed from Indexed strategies and swallowed the Managed Alpha load for all it was worth. Total BS...
Wave 5 is here.
"aged and incompetent"? I think you meant to say "immature, naive, and incompetent".
Who here at ZH truly understands these markets?
om
we all do. if you're here you understand that we're all fucked. make the most of it.
Not for long. Those institutions desperately need something to boost their bottom lines.
Expect a sell-off soon (at the same time at the investment advisors are tellong regular people to add more risk (stocks) to their portfolio now.... sigh).
Everybody in? Then I am out.
At the pinnacle of Eupohoria is a very short window for you to return to reality just before reality returns to you.
I would openly short anything right now except PM'S, but, but, There is NO SHORTING ALLOWED in todays "new normal". GRRRRR...
that's why, when the Bernanke put finally fails to materialize, the plunge will be catastrophic. its borderline illegal to actually short anything, and you'd be crazy to do so anyways - your face could easily get ripped off for another SPX 100 points before any sanity returns. but you'd also be crazy to get long at these levels. when Bernanke's hands get tied for whatever reason (oil at $140, congress breathing down his neck, etc) there will literally be no one to meet the asks on the way down.
Just about to give up on shorting indices that trend higher than previous highs, EVERYTIME they give up some of their previous gains... up to the SKY, this Is SUPER BERNANKE !!!
And the equity market can do no wrong(untill the .00001% (who control the markets direction)will make more from being short, then pull the rug out from everyone who has given up trying to short and goes long)! Then, the market can do nothing right-even on the best of news!
soooo.. help me to understand this... How do these fund get into the market without being noticed when the market volume has been very low ?
Where's "Balls to the wall" Tepper when you need him? Let's be honest nothing can stop this thing now. Look at what was thrown at it last year in terms of bad new, Egypt, Libya, Japanese Earthquake, Fukashima nuclear disaster, debt celling debacle, Euro debt crisis, and it still didn't go down! Even the WW3 sirens wailing would see this thing trade higher these days.
Buy, bye, by, bi, bai.
Joe Weisenthal just confiscated this headline for his post in BI.
Suicidal Tendencies ''Institutionalized'' ...and now for an apt song for the Vampire Squids of the Great Wal Mart of China defined by the evidence and the, ...uh hum, title of this article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKyLL1ZC8Wk
...yeeverbody headbang ...bitchez.
I don't have a big window to look in but it seems to me that insiders have been selling into the corp buybacks and the FED queazing strongly the past month or so...
and as I've been saying for months... no crash until Facebook gets its bagholders
Hahaha! these interventions posing as markets are certainly doing well!
i'm gonna try a slewie prediction, here, ok? you should fade this and get rich, if you're smart
when will all this "money" come outa the "markets" and where will it go?
slewiePrediction: when it is needed to flow into Ts! which isn't today, is it? when this day "arrives" we'll have some more "risk0ff" and the goobermint will keep the checks coming for another day or month or year
flows will continue to be managed as easily as perceptions...
Today has got to be one of the most ridiculous sessions I've seen yet. Volume dismal even by dismal standards.
QE against SPX at 1416? Fuck, I guess Bernanke really does want to destroy the world.
same argument about sidelined cash (ricktickytavi) can be made about trade deficits relative to the state...the nation may be bleeding cash but the companies in general are not, and fully expect to generate more income than the cost of the overseas purchases.....
Superintendents
From the perspective of natural law, 70% of kids come directly from dysfunctional homes, and 15% come from dysfunctional civil marriages. 90% come from dysfunctional families. The social security net is already cash negative. The debt must be repudiated. That is an indictment of Family Law in America, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Intelligent investors discounted the reserve status of the US dollar, which props up the Treasury market, long ago, accordingly; best as the enemy of better naturally results in a race to the bottom, in a world awash in “free” fiat. The installed leaders of Iran had the temerity to explicitly challenge the fiat reserve inflator, therefore there must be war to feed the Laffer wizards. Nuclear is a failed technology from the 40s.
WWII fashioned America into a beacon of responsibility again, calling all to the promissory note of liberty, and its derivative, prosperity. Vietnam, with its retread policy of containment, rested that light back into the lighthouse of tyranny, pulling the world’s powers once again into the black hole of profligacy. For most, it is far too late to change course of their own volition. Normandy and its kin are like washing machines, churn pools for DNA.
Like princesses and sons of princesses, present American politicians, like their predecessors in Germany, operate under the presumption that they are the world, its peoples should therefore love them, and it is their duty to recast the world in their image, as mother of empire and emperor. What Barack Obama and Ron Paul have in common, from opposing sides of the looking glass, is the cause, swaddling America in the clothing of the police state, to coronate it as the ideal policeman to the world, in a positive feedback loop of preemption, for Homeland Security, saying one thing and doing another.
To that Imperial Imperative, technology development was preempted, to increase efficiency, levered by the previously earned safe haven status of America’s reserve currency, and rolled out into a global IC net, to perpetuate the past in a police state of, by, and for those who feared a future of Independence, turning the US Constitution on its head to do so, the only route to which was eliminating the example of individual sovereignty through Family Law, a Trojan Horse with no constitutional safeguards, wrought in the common law of feudalism inherent to the 10th Amendment Court.
Tyranny is like a snake in the grass, twisting and turning, hoping to evade detection of its true aim in the misdirection, promising prosperity in word and insuring tyranny in false witness to Deed. A constitution in no way limits unique individual sovereignty; that is a function of natural law, adaptive skill.
A constitution expressly limits the power of government to deed itself rule of property right over liberty, for government’s own sake. Government is a gravity switch, for those with the intelligence to employ it correctly. For all others it’s a toy, a prize for lying, laziness, and lusciousness, who enter its attraction of their own free will.
Only to its own end does empire seek to sop up real income, leakage, from natural discretionary incentive, and swap it with credit expansion, usurious slavery to the nonperforming properties of the past, ahead of the resulting unearned asset price inflation, stolen by the police state through eminent domain, the ponzi population control mechanism referred to as divine providence. Through the direction of expansion, it controls consumption addiction with temporary anxiety relief, make-work jobs, increasing the valuation of its property holdings in terms of its ability to tax into the future, exchanging nonrecurring toys for recurring tots to perpetuate itself like a virus in a closed system. Empire participants are black holes, aggregated within like event horizons accordingly.
The key to fusion is fission and vice versa, across an implicit looking glass relay. Earned income by definition of natural law may only come from effective biological adaptation to increase diversity. Earned income by definition of constitutional law may only come from increasing efficiency, productivity as measured by human consumption, redefining consumption as investment, loss as profit, and debt as asset, as necessary to perpetuate the fusion, until the misdirection becomes transparent, at the will of individual sovereignty, creating the backlash reactor. The Fed, not its oil speculation derivative market, is pumping hot air to replace the evacuation.
During the investment half cycle, new economic delay devices, including unique human critters, are installed. During the consumption half cycle, that feed is largely replaced by replicating delay devices, best business practice, as new ones are being developed in the implicit black/white market on the tails. When polarity is switched back, the redundant devices are removed and replaced, resulting in quantum change to the end of diversity, a bomb to fit a key. The system places a premium upon intelligence, which only exhibits itself in quantum intervals, as required.
Corporate superintendents are only empowered to increase the efficiency of consumption, which is naturally an arbitrary, capricious, and malicious process, and their behavior may only be rewarded in a fixed lottery ponzi economy of increasing income disparity, pulling up the rear by rewarding compliance with peer pressure relief, bullies bullying bullies with political correctness, to climb the escalator to the cliff.
During the misdirection of WWII, American industry was “tooled up” in a quantum leap, as others engaged themselves with German legacy yet again. The dramatic improvement in the quality of US products resulted from a dramatic improvement in the quality of US jobs, the deployment of unique individual talent and its derivatives, not the other way around as empire History suggests. Only a replicating robot competes for employment when nature has ensured the outcome.
So, it turns out that there is much, much more to being a labor superintendent than meets the “all-seeing” eye, most have been systematically eliminated by the global HR compliance system, they are fashioned from intelligent kids over time, and it takes time to install the derivative delay devices. Meanwhile, consumers acting as investors continue to pursue the silver bullet, patented swap mythology. Good luck to them. You are the technology; everything else is derivative.
The more resources the empire employs to contain you, the greater the penalties and interest when the tide turns, in the form of nonperforming habits and related assets it hangs around its own neck. From the perspective of the empire, the elevator moves. From your perspective, the building moves. Certain values always withstand this test of time, including honesty, hard work, intelligence, and, above all, patience, which requires love to nurture, values decidedly absent in the empire and its anxious denizens. Rocket science is derivative, not integral.
More low quality jobs, all corporate can do, in an environment of credit expansion, all government can do, is not the solution. Keep the empire in the dark where it belongs, by keeping your private life private, and respecting the private lives of others, and Guard your Spouse’s back door as an example to your children, like their lives depend upon it, because they do.
It doesn't matter, the Fed wants 8% annualized returns to protect the defined benefit retirement plans.....everything else is just noise.
a few issues with the article. the first is that mutual funds being all in does not predicate downturns. for a number of reasons. 1) they can receive new money 2) they are not the only marginal buyer of equities. have you seen pension fund and insurance company allocation to equities in europe? let me give you a hint Allianz is at 7%. pension funds have been de-equitising for a number of years now and are left with treasuries, gilts, bunds that do not earn inflation. that is a problem. how will that be addressed. there will be a volatility shock in april/may (this would be one of the only years in history that i can find if we did not have one before january -> april. but once insurance/pension funds make marginal shifts in their equity allocation, it will steam roll the mutual fund cash holding argument.
and lack of volume shows there is no supply/positioning. silly argument. you think hedge funds create volume in a market place. no way. equity volumes on exchange have been falling for 3 years. go look at value trades on whole number of bloomberg indices and run a 50 day moving average through it. all part of de-leveraging and allocation to bonds.
...the low volume suggests that there will be no drop. The fed or its agents are doing the bidding to tempt suckers...I mean investors in so they can unload> This is not happening so the fed is the bag holder...things cant go down. They can drive this thing literally to DOW 36,000 in an attempt to entice investors...I mean suckers. If they cannot, too bad, they will just own every stock paid for in newly printed bennies. There is no way TPTB lose. They were caught on the hop in 2009/2009...never, NEVER again