Buybacks, dividends, and M&A all depend on firms' abilities to borrow cheap. With leverage ratios rising (and micro fundamentals weakening) as we noted here [4], macro fundamentals deteriorating, and the visible hand of the Fed now lifting off the repressed neck of risk managers, we have a simple question - What Happens Next? Simply put, your glowing stocks cannot rally in a world of surging debt finance costs [5].
Remember - and it's important - there is no rotation that drives high-yield credit spreads wider without punishing equities. They are liabilities on the same capital structure and rise and fall in a highly correlated (well non-linear co-dependence) manner as the underlying business risk rises and falls. Do not, repeat do not, see high yield credit weakness as a sign of rotation to stocks - if the credit cycle has turned then stocks are set to fall. And bear in mind that while HY yields are at all-time lows, spreads are not and in fact being short stocks relative to credit makes more sense if you are you are a bear on the credit cycle here. The only problem being that the epic flows that sustained a credit market at non-economic levels for so long will exit in a hurry.

