Fed and/or ECB intervention is coming: whether it is called LSAP, QE x, Nominal GDP targetting, selling Treasury puts, or what have you. A regime that now exists only by central planning intervention, by definition requires ever more central planning intervention to sustain itself, let alone grow further. Furthermore, the banks not only want QE, they need QE. And since central banks serve other banks, not the people it is only a matter of time. Don't believe us? Read anything written by Bill Gross in the past year. So what to do ahead of QE3? Luckily, SocGen has released a complete cheat sheet of not only the dates of the next steps, but what to buy and what to sell ahead of the announcement. In short - one should buy Mortgage Backed Securities, in order to "simply buy MBS before the Fed" - something Bill Gross knows too well and has been hoarding MBS relentlessly as a result, as reported here [12]. More importantly - one should buy gold. Lots of it as "USD debasement restarts." You didn't think the Fed will allow US corporate earnings - the only thing keeping the market alive - to be crushed with a EURUSD that will soon go under 1.20, now did you? And as for crude going to $250 - yes, it may cause huge headaches for regular folks but for banks it means record bonuses, and as a reminder, the Fed works for the banks, not the people, pardon neo-feudal debt slaves...
SocGen on the sequences of events:
Weak Q1 12 GDP and softening inflation pushes the Fed to another round of monetary easing, in 2 steps:
- In January, the Fed pledges to keep real rates at 0% until unemployment falls below 7.5% or inflation moves above 3%,
- In March, the announcement of another round of QE, concentrated on MBS purchases (c. $600bn over 6 to 8 months)
In table format:
[13]
And here are your pair trades: long gold/MBS - short EUR (or USD - we disagree with SocGen that the dollar would benefit from QE3).
[14]
Finally, on gold: "Buy Gold, as its price is highly sensitive to US QE as every dollar of QE goes into M0, triggering debasement of the USD. $1900/Oz est. to close the gap with the monetary base increase since July 2007(QE1+QE2)"
[15]