Deep Thoughts

-If you're thinking of buying that dream house on the ocean in the Sunbelt, wait a year - there will be some bargains. If you're a seller - call the broker soon....

Surprise! This is looking more like a here-and-now problem

Yesterday's epic failure of central bank intervention when both Turkey and South Africa hiked rates only to see their currency initially bounce then collapse, is long forgotten, and early today, the USDTRY once again traded to the rather unstable level of 2.30 and threatened with yet another rout, before verbal intervention out of Russia managed to soothe nerves on edge around the EM world. What followed out of Turkey, however, was an epic verbal diarrhea from both the government and the central bank, which firmly proves the nation on the Bosphorus truly has no idea what it is doing. Here is the evidence.

While one may criticize now-ex CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton for years and years of sound and fury signifying nothing, countless promises of regulatory enforcement (all of which fell short of the target) and finally putting an end to precious metals manipulation only for the world to discover that while every other asset class is manipulated (involving such individuals as JPM's chief currency dealer), gold and silver are exempt, one must admit the former regulator does have a way wtih words (and of course haircuts). Sure enough, Chilton's most memorable parting gift will not be something he did, but rather what he said. William Cohan memorializes his parting message: "As we long suspected, Wall Street continues to use every trick in its playbook to do whatever it can to eviscerate numerous post-financial-crisis rules. The arsenal includes high-powered lobbyists who outnumber lawmakers 10-to-1; $1,000-an-hour letter-writing lawyers who gain strength from negotiating over arcana; and the occasional hoodwinking of a president whose knowledge of the ways of finance are close to nil." Chilton's take home message: “The lesson for me is: The financial sector is so powerful that they will roll things back over time,” Chilton says. “The Wall Street firms have tremendous influence, and they can impact policy to a greater degree than any one regulator or a small group of regulators can.”

Back on May 14, when the S&P was at 1651 or 50 points lower, and when David Tepper made his first book-talking, semi-annual CNBC appearance in which he "blessed the market and awaited the manufacturing renaissance", he made two points about the taper: it's bullish no matter what, namely its removal would mean the economy is improving (we now know it isn't thanks to the Fed and Q4 GDP estimates which are rapidly sliding to 2% or lower), while a taper staying put would mean the Fed would continue pumping stocks higher artificially indefinitely. Today, he did a repeat appearance, in which in addition to the usual market pumping rhetoric, everyone was most interested in how he would spin the recent stunner by the Fed which effectively made the taper a 2014 event. His take: "The Fed won't taper for a long time... So that's definitely sort of going to be a push-up to markets." Couldn't have said it better: but to paraphrase - Taper is bullish no matter what; No Taper is bullish-er.

One would think Laura Dimon, the daughter of one James Dimon, would be on familiar terms with such concepts as bonds, capital structure and finance (especially the more arcane substrata thereof). After all the father of the graduate from the Columbia School of Journalism (author of such previous pieces as "The Last Office Taboo for Women: Doing Your Business at Work" which examines "the lengths women go to avoid getting caught in the stall") is none other than the CEO of the largest bank in the US, best-known for such "one-time items" as constantly recurring legal charges associated with financial innovation gone horribly wrong (today's rumor of a $750MM settlement over the bank's London-based prop trading group being a case in point). As it turns out, one may be mistaken...

Run! The tank is going to blow!

With newsflow today non-existent, and the market acting somewhat bizarrely (i.e., not soaring on endless revenue misses and GDP forecast cuts, and in fact, selling off) we take this opportunity to share some philosophical "deep thoughts", although not from Jack Handey, but from the latest issue of the Edelweiss Journal.

Every now and then we prefer to sit back and let some of the smartest money speak, especially when said smart money agrees with us. In this case, we hand the podium over to none other than Paul Singer's Elliott Management, which after starting with $1.3 million in 1977 was at $19.8 billion most recently. No expert networks, no high frequency trading, no "information arbitrage", no crony capitalism and pseudo monopolies of scale, and most certainly no bailouts: Singer did it all the old fashioned way: by picking undervalued assets and watching them appreciate. The timing is opportune because while Elliott has much to say about virtually everything in their latest 20 pages Q2 letter, it is the billionaire's sentiment vis-a-vis US Treasury debt that may be most critical, and may be the catalyst that resulted in today's abysmal 10 Year bond auction. To wit: "long-term government debt of the U.S., U.K., Europe and Japan probably will be the worst-performing asset class over the next ten to twenty years. We make this recommendation to our friends: if you own such debt, sell it now. You’ve had a great ride, don’t press your luck. From here it is basically all risk, with very little reward." There is little that can be misinterpreted in the bolded statement. And while many have taken the other side of the Fed over the past 3 years, few have dared to stand against Paul Singer because if there is one person whose opinion matters above most, certainly above that of the Chairsatan, it is his.

Amid the best start of the year for the S&P 500 since 1987, Nic Colas of ConvergEx offers some deep thoughts on how behavioral finance concepts can help us understand the dichotomy between last year's derisking and this year's rerisking in terms of market participant psychology. Between delving into whether a short-sharp or long-slow colonoscopy is 'preferable' Nic reflects (antithetically) on 10 bullish perspectives for the current rally and how the human mind (which still makes up maybe 50% of cross-asset class trading if less in stocks) processes discomfort in very different ways. Critically, while it sounds counter-intuitive to him (and us), focusing on the pain of recent volatility is actually more conducive to investors' ability to get back on the horse especially when the acute pain is ended so abruptly (intervention). As studeis have found, "subjects who actually focus on a painful experience while it is happening are more willing to immediately undergo further pain than those who performed some distracting task"

Not much new in Howard Marks' latest missive which falls back on the Oaktree's boss' economy (and risk perception) as a "swinging pendulum" theory and focuses on what should be the "right approach to today" for the average investor. His advice: "money and nerve." Easier said than done of course when one doesn't have the benefit of tens of billions of "economies of scale" backing up one's conviction. Especially since as he points out, 'what if you had money and nerve in 2006 or early 2007? The results would have been disastrous. In those times you needed caution, conservatism, risk control, discipline and selectivity to stay out of trouble. In short, when the market is defaulting on its job of being a disciplinarian, discernment becomes our individual responsibility." Either way, Marks' always philosophical bottom line: "We can never be sure what will happen – and certainly not when – but it’s important to be prepared for what’s likely to lie ahead. And understanding the inevitable pendulum swing in the way investments are viewed – from weeds to flowers and back – is an essential ingredient in being able to do so."

And following up on the previous post demonstrating the escalating war of words vis-a-vis the increasingly hostile stance on Sino-US monetary relations, is the following recently released letter by Paul Tudor Jones in which the legendary traders discusses the critical relationship (among many other things) of the USD-CNY: "As someone who has traded foreign exchange since 1980, I believe the
RMB/USD rate is currently the single most important of all exchange
rates. It not only drives the largest foreign trade relationship in the
world, it also drives virtually every other exchange rate globally.
Dozens of other emerging market countries suppress their exchange rate
against the US dollar because the RMB is effectively pegged to the
dollar. And what is remarkable is the lack of any concrete policy initiative in the US to change this." In other words, we are stuck in an impasse that will not change for a long, long time, as both countries are terrified to really "defect", and neither country has a material advantage in any one regard, plus are entwined, despite all the jawboning, in a symbiotic relationship whose status quo is more valuable than standalone existence. Sorry Schumer.

Tony Boeckh has issued his most recent investment letter, which, at 15 pages, discusses an outlook that can be summarized best as "we really have no clue what will happen" and may have been about 14.5 pages too long. On the other hand, with everyone having surefire money making schemes up their sleeve, and peddling a guaranteed economic outcome, perhaps some outlook humility is precisely what is needed. "Some believe the bull market in gold has just begun. Others believe we are headed for a deflationary depression in which high quality bonds would continue to thrive. Another view is that we are heading into high inflation and a dollar collapse. Yet others believe there will be a return to the good old days of stability and growth. In the time frame of most investors, we are in none of those camps. With bonds significantly overvalued, investors hardly have an edge in that area, except perhaps to go short. High yield bonds are fair value but the weak economic picture suggests growing risk for those companies with poor balance sheets and poor cash flow prospects. Gold as insurance at 5-10% of the portfolio makes sense but only for the long run and only if volatility can be ignored." All in all, some good observations.

In his latest must read letter, Oaktree's Howard Marks focuses on the age old self delusion pattern formation and mean reversion which so often is the cause of ruin of so many investors: "Investors consistently fail to recognize that past above average returns don’t imply future above average returns; rather they’ve probably borrowed from the future and thus imply below average returns ahead, or even losses. The tendency on the part of investors toward gullibility rather than skepticism is an important reason why styles go to extremes." Yet the High Yield bond manager, is oddly enough, bullish on stocks and bearish on bonds. However, even Marks can't fully bash fixed income - he has now joined those drinking the "HY will outperform IG" kool aid, in no small part dictated by the portfolio allocation of his funds... Just as Pimco will tout Treasurys... Paulson will pimp MGM and "recovery" names...Hugh Hendry will bash China, etc. Buyer beware... Especially when the one true end-buyer is that 1913 Frankenstein creation - the US central bank.