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David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Fixed Income

    Comparing Risk and Opportunity

    Thanks to a subscriber for this summary by Byron Wein for Blackstone, from his series of discussions with investors. Here is a section:

    There was general agreement that both inflation and productivity were understated. Housing is a big part of the inflation calculation and, for most of the country, housing costs have been rising modestly. The prices of services like healthcare and lifestyle-supporting needs used by everyone, such as haircare and cleaning services, have risen sharply but don’t show up in the numbers. As for productivity, the measurement techniques were developed in the 1950s when the U.S. was more of a manufacturing economy. Now with services and knowledge-based industries so important, the historical measurement approaches, which underestimate the impact of computer software developments, understate productivity improvements. Time spent posting and reading posts on Facebook during working hours, however, detracts from productivity. One technology person pointed out, though, that the video games of today are intensely interactive and represent a learning experience for the kids playing them. This is in sharp contrast to the passive watching of television by previous generations.

    We talked a bit about inequality and agreed the problem was likely to become worse because of globalization and technology. One investor was optimistic, however, because of the positive impact machine learning was making in improving the outlook of disadvantaged Americans and educational opportunities in the emerging markets. Another pointed out that 60% of the jobs held in 1980 don’t exist today and still unemployment is down to 4.3%. On-demand services, such as Uber, are creating jobs, but technology displacing workers is a problem throughout the world.

    Even though there was an apprehensive mood at the lunches few were buying gold as a safeguard. In spite of the strong performance of the Japanese economy this year and the rise in its stock market, the group remained wary of Japan. There was no clear consensus on why the dollar was weak, but a lack of confidence in the new administration in Washington was clearly a factor in spite of strong U.S. growth and a rising stock market. One of the lunches was decidedly bearish. Overall, a vote on market performance between now and year-end showed that 60% believed it would be higher in spite of the caution expressed in the discussion.

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    This could be 'the scariest chart in the financial markets right now'

    This is an example of one of the articles I have received from subscribers quoting the same data point. Here is a section: 

    “As investors go ‘kookoo’ for risk assets, they have pushed (with the help of ECB) the yield of European junk bonds towards that of the U.S. Treasury yield. Honestly… I’m speechless,” Brkan adds.

    Another one worried about low yields for European junk bonds is Wolf Street blogger Wolf Richter, who notes they offer around 2.42%, while the U.S. 10-year pays out about 2.24%. And Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s credit strategists are concerned, highlighting the “eye-watering levels that European high-yield has now reached.”

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    Greenspan Sees No Stock Excess, Warns of Bond Market Bubble

    This article by Oliver Renick  and Liz McCormick for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    “By any measure, real long-term interest rates are much too low and therefore unsustainable,” the former Federal Reserve chairman, 91, said in an interview. “When they move higher they are likely to move reasonably fast. We are experiencing a bubble, not in stock prices but in bond prices. This is not discounted in the marketplace.”

    While the consensus of Wall Street forecasters is still for low rates to persist, Greenspan isn’t alone in warning they will break higher quickly as the era of global central-bank monetary accommodation ends. Deutsche Bank AG’s Binky Chadha says real Treasury yields sit far below where actual growth levels suggest they should be. Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, says it’s only a matter of time before inflationary pressures hit the bond market.

    “The real problem is that when the bond-market bubble collapses, long-term interest rates will rise,” Greenspan said. “We are moving into a different phase of the economy -- to a stagflation not seen since the 1970s. That is not good for asset prices.”

     

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    The Great Rotation May Finally Be at Hand

    This article by Sid Varma for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    George Pearce’s, a macro strategist with Bespoke Investment Group LLC, said: “Higher risk-adjusted returns for stocks should draw inflows, and we know from our work that Americans are relatively unexposed to the market.”

    Companies have been the main buyer of U.S. equities since the post-crisis low, while households and institutions have divested, according to Credit Suisse. The outperformance of bonds since the financial crisis, risk aversion and regulations unfriendly to equities have helped create a preference for fixed income.

    Global bond funds -- which include government and high-yield obligations -- have seen $1.3 trillion of net inflows since 2009, while stocks have taken in less than half of that at $600 billion, according to Jefferies Group LLC, citing EPFR Global data, which reflect holdings among mutual and exchange-traded funds. 

    In the first half of the year, bond funds took in $204 billion while stocks saw $167 billion of inflows. A $107 billion injection into fixed-income in the second quarter was the highest on record going back to 2002, Jefferies said. This happened despite fears of higher global yields.
     

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    Dimon Says QE Unwind May Be More Disruptive Than You Think

    This article by Cindy Roberts may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    “We’ve never have had QE like this before, we’ve never had unwinding like this before,” Dimon said at a conference in Paris Tuesday. “Obviously that should say something to you about the risk that might mean, because we’ve never lived with it before.”

    Central banks led by the U.S. Federal Reserve are preparing to reverse massive asset purchases made after the financial crisis as their economies recover and interest rates rise. The Fed alone has seen its bond portfolio swell to $4.5 trillion, an amount it wants to reduce without roiling longer-term interest rates. Minutes of the Fed’s June 13-14 meeting indicate policy makers want to begin the balance-sheet process this year.

    “When that happens of size or substance, it could be a little more disruptive than people think,” Dimon said. “We act like we know exactly how it’s going to happen and we don’t.”

    Cumulatively, the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan bulked up their balance sheets to almost $14 trillion. The unwind of such a large amount of assets has the potential to influence a slew of markets, from stocks and bonds to currencies and even real estate.

    “That is a very different world you have to operate in, that’s a big change in the tide,” Dimon said. All the main buyers of sovereign debt over the last 10 years -- financial institutions, central banks, foreign exchange managers -- will become net sellers now, he said.

     

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    Breakfast with Dave

    Thanks to a subscriber for David Rosenberg’s report for Gluskin Sheff dated yesterday. Here is a section:

    The Fed seems to have rose-colored glasses on regarding this experiment ahead in terms of even gradually unwinding the balance sheet and the impact on the same financial markets that are deemed at least those around the table (presumably the one with Bloomberg terminal) to be excessively exuberant. And at the same time, the view on the economic outlook seems quite rosy, then again, the central bank has overestimated economic growth consistently for the past seven years. Old habits die hard.

    But there are some at the Fed that share our views on many items. Here were a few new wrinkles:
    “Contacts at some large firms indicated that they had curtailed their capital spending, in part because of uncertainty about changes in fiscal and other government policies…”

    Reports regarding housing construction from District contacts were mixed.”

    District contacts reported that automobile sales had slowed recently; some contacts expected sales to slow further, while others believed that sales were leveling out”

    So here we have soft capex, soft housing and soft autos. But yet the consensus view is that the economy is doing just fine. A case of cognitive dissonance?

     

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    Email of the day on Japanese Bank funds

    Hello Eoin! Thank you for all your hard work for us! You highlighted the Japanese Banks a few Days ago! Is there a Japanese Banks ETF or a closed end Bank fund, that you know of. Best regards. (an FM since 1988).

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    Fed Officials Divided on When to Begin Balance-Sheet Unwind

    This article by Craig Torres for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    “Several preferred to announce a start to the process within a couple of months,” the minutes of the June 13-14 meeting released on Wednesday in Washington showed. “Some others emphasized that deferring the decision until later in the year would permit additional time to assess the outlook for economic activity and inflation.”

    U.S. central bankers in June raised the benchmark lending rate for a second time this year to a range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent, while describing monetary policy as “accommodative” in their statement. They reiterated their support for continued gradual rate increases, according to the minutes.

    Fed officials updated their balance-sheet policy in the gathering, laying out a path of gradual reductions with caps. The central bank wants to start winding down the $4.5 trillion bond portfolio without roiling longer-term interest rates, while gradually raising the policy rate. The minutes indicated that the committee wants to begin the balance-sheet process this year.

     

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    We are Witnessing the Development of a 'Perfect Storm'

    Thanks to a subscriber for this interview of Bob Rodriguez which may be of interest. Here is a section:

    Thus, since 2007, indexing or passive activities have risen from approximately 7% to 9% of total managed assets to almost 40%. As you shift assets from active managers to passive managers, they buy an index. The index is capital weighed, which means more and more money is going into fewer and fewer stocks.

    We’ve seen this act before. If you didn’t own the nifty 50 stocks in the early 1970s, you underperformed and, thus, money continued to go into them. If you were a growth stock manager in 1998-1999 and you were not buying “net” stocks, you underperformed and were fired. More and more money went into fewer and fewer stocks. Today you have a similar case with the FANG stocks. More and more money is being deployed into a narrower and narrower area. In each case, this trend did not end well.

    When the markets finally do break, as they always have historically, ETFs and index funds will be destabilizing influences, because fear will enter the marketplace. A higher percentage of assets will be in indexed funds and ETFs. Investors will hit the “sell” button. All you have to ask is two words, “To whom?” To whom do I sell? Index funds and ETFs don’t carry any cash reserves. The active managers have been diminished in size, and most of them aren’t carrying high levels of liquidity for fear of business risk.

    We are witnessing the development of a “perfect storm.”

     

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