High Yield

It appears, as UBS' Stephane Deo notes, that in a rising rate environment, so-called risk-parity portfolios were susceptible to draw-down as yields 'gap' higher. As it turned out the 'equalization of risk across assets within the portfolio' failed dramatically after the Fed's June 19th FOMC statement which sent rates and stocks higher (and moreover rate volatility considerably higher) - the consequence for some risk parity funds was a significant loss. The question is whether this will happen again, or was this event a one-off? We believe this is a relatively mild foretaste of what is to come... as the 'speed limit' for rising bond yields is smashed.

While many draw comparisons to 1994's Fed actions, rate rises, and the subsequent economic and equity market performance, UBS' commodity team examines the five main drivers of that mid-90s disinflationary boom and how (or if) they are applicable in the US' current new normal. Their findings "this may be a 1994 redux, but it ain't no 1995 replay," as they note, in fact, it's a bear market waiting to happen. Every one of these processes is deflationary, not disinflationary. And they are self reinforcing. And deflation, in direct contrast to disinflation, is very bad for asset prices (with a serious equity and credit bear-market). So just as we have noted previously any taper will likely eventually lead to an 'un-taper' reflation effort (which will see gold once again strengthen) along with the exposure of the fallacy that the Fed really has become.

US Equities continue to diverge from the underlying fundamentals and most asset classes.

We had absolutely no concern about the outcome of today's 5 Year auction: after all, when push comes to shove, Bill Gross who yesterday was pitching 5 Year bonds to twitter would have certainly bought up the entire issue. Yet we were surprised to find that Direct Bidders, among which such bond kings as PIMCO, tendered only $6 billion (a 47% hit rate) in bids into today's $35 billion auction. Odd - could Bill Gross have been untruthful in expressing his interest in the bond and was merely looking for greater fools? Unpossible.

The on-again-off-again 'great rotation' from bonds to money-markets to stocks has (so far) seen retail flood into stocks as the BTFATH mentality is rife. As BofAML notes, through soothing "word of mouth" intervention, Bernanke's most important accomplishment over the past few weeks has been to significantly reduce the market's perception of upside tail risk for longer term interest rates. But, they remain very concerned in the short term about the scenario of a more disorderly rotation out of high grade funds, where credit spreads widen in response to further increases in interest rates. In this case, institutional investors will 'leave' risk markets en masse (with no rotation to stocks) as unwinds occur en masse. For now, it appears a 3.5% 10Y rate is the line-in-the-sand for a 'disordely' rotation.

If last month's 2 Year auction was all sparks and fireworks, when the yield priced at a two year high coupled with a plunging Bid To Cover, then today's issuance of $35 billion in 2 Year paper was all yawns and snoozes. Moments ago the Treasury issued another $35 billion in 2 Year near-cash equivalent bonds, at a 0.336% high yield, stopping through the When Issued 0.338% and slumping from the 0.43% in June, when the market was terrified that tapering means tightening (it does for the long-end, and for stocks but we will get there eventually), even if the Bid To Cover was barely unchanged, and at 3.08, it was only higher compared to the past two months' disastrous demand. Going further back would mean looking all the way back at 2 Year auctions from the summer of 2011, after which the BTC soared. In fact, the LTM average bid to cover is a far higher 3.61 although don't expect this to return at least no until the US has another "debt ceiling fiasco" type of event.

Even with duelling Fed members today (Bullard vs Plosser) the message from 'the man' led markets on a one-way street all week. Even though Boeing impacted the Dow (and Trannies):

• S&P managed its best week in 6 months (+2.6%);
• Gold's best week in almost 8 months (+5.1% or $62);
• Treasuries' best week in 13 months (10Y -14.5bps);
  
• High Yield bonds best week in 20 months (+3%); and the
• USD's equal worst week in 21 months (-1.8%).

VIX remains modestly bid and IG credit spreads are underperforming. Market breadth today was weak as S&P volume was very low and the intraday range the lowest in 5 months. The 330ET Ramp was 10 minutes late but just as effective in its goal of running stops to a green Dow as Bullard's words seemed magical.

The final item of note from today's JPM release is perhaps also the most important one, and once again serves as evidence of all that is broken with the US financial system. To wit: deposits held by JPM rose modestly to a new all time high of $1,202,950 million, or $1.2 trillion. This compares to $970 billion in Q3 2008 at the time Lehman failed. What about the flip side of this key bank liability: loans. As of June 30, 2013, total JPM loans declined from $729 billion to $726 billion, the lowest since September 2012. But more disturbing, this number is $35 billion less than the $761 billion at September 2008. It means that JPM's excess deposits have now risen to a new all time high of $477 billion, up from $474 billion last quarter.

As reported yesterday when we showed the very special rate that the 3 Year was trading in repo (-1.45%, same as today), many were looking to today's 3 Year auction to relieve some of the collateral shortage issues that have developed across various asset classes. And sure enough, following last month's abysmal 3 Year auction, today's pricing of $32 billion in 3 Year paper was like night and day compared to a month ago.

The central bank "reason" goal-seeked for today's US overnight ramp - because it sure wasn't fundamentals with both German exports (-2.4%, Exp. +0.1%) and Industrial Production (-1.0%, Exp. -0.5%) missing - was the weekend Spiegel story that despite the unanimous decision by the ECB last week to keep rates unchanged, ECB chief economist Peter Praet and Mario Draghi himself had insisted on a 25 bps rate cut. They were, however, stopped by seven council members from the northern euro states, including Weidmann, Knot and Asmussen. As a result, Draghi was steamrolled in the final vote. Yet somehow this is bullish for risk, pushing equity futures higher and peripheral debt spreads lower, even as the EURUSD has drifted higher. Of course, one can't have an even more dovish ECB as a risk on catalyst alongside a rising Euro, but who cares about news, fundamentals, or logic at this point. All that matters is that US futures are higher, which was especially needed following yet another rout in the Shanghai Composite which dropped 2.44% back under 2,000 following news that China's Finance Ministry has told central government agencies to cut expenditures by 5% this year, and a 1.4% drop in the PenNikkeiStock225 on a weaker USDJPY. Remember: all is well in the global economy (whose forecast is about to be cut by the IMF) if the US is generating a record number of part-time jobs.

Barry Ritholtz is convinced that once the current short-term bounce is over with, the recent cyclical bear market in gold will resume. The reality is of course that neither Mr. Ritholtz, nor anyone else actually knows the future. Therefore, he cannot know whether the bear market is or isn't over. However, judging from the remainder of his post, he actually seems to think that the secular bull market in gold is over. In our opinion there is no evidence for that, and we will explain below why we think that he and others in the  long term bear camp are wrong. Further below is the evidence marshaled by Mr. Ritholtz (actually, apart from the technical analysis he provides, it isn't really evidence at all – it reads like an unsupported opinion). Sure enough, gold has no yield, no conference calls, and no income statements (paraphrasing Jim Grant). That is actually the beauty of it. But that does not mean it 'has no fundamentals', nor does it means that it 'cannot be an investment'. We comment on his article (and its errors) further below.

From Bill Gross: "In trying to be specific about which conditions would prompt a tapering of QE, the Fed tilted overrisked investors to one side of an overloaded and overlevered boat. Everyone was looking for lifeboats on the starboard side of the ship, and selling begat more selling, even in Treasuries. While the Fed’s move may ultimately be better understood or even praised, it no doubt induced market panic. Without the presence of a “Bernanke Put” or the promise of a continuing program of QE check writing, investors found the lifeboats dysfunctional. They could only sell to themselves and almost all of them had too much risk. A band somewhere on the upper deck began to play “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”"

Both the absolute levels and the implied volatility of credit markets are significantly divergent from the recovering exuberance in stocks. As we discussed here and here, this cannot last. If you 'believe' that Bernanke was bluffing and the taper is off then credit is grossly cheaper than stocks; if not, equity shorts seem an appropriate position into Q3.

There is plenty of discussion of outflows but we though the following chart was perhaps the most insightful at why this drop is different from the last few year's BTFD corrections. As we noted here, corporate bond managers have desperately avoided selling down their cash holdings (since they know dealer liquidity cannot support broad-based selling and its an over-crowded trade) and bid for hedges in CDS markets. But it seems, given the utter collapse in the advance-decline lines for high-yield and investment-grade bonds that the liquidations have begun. While the selling in high-yield bonds is on par with the Lehman liquidationlevels, it is the collapse in investment grade bond demand that is dramatic (and worse than Lehman). It's not like we couldn't see it coming at some point (here) and as we warned here, What Happens Next? Simply put, stocks cannot rally in a world of surging debt finance costs.

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, 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.