Rosie On The Fed’s Intent To Get Everyone Onboard Its All-In Bet On Stocks
by ilene - October 18th, 2010 11:30 am
Rosie On The Fed’s Intent To Get Everyone Onboard Its All-In Bet On Stocks
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Just in case there is someone living in a cave who still doesn’t understand that the Fed’s one and only mandate (forget that crap about inflation and jobs) is to give everyone one last shove into the all inponzi before the diarrhea hits the HVAC, here is David Rosenberg explaining, for the cheap seats, what the Fed’s terminal intent is.
The Fed’s intent is not to create consumer inflation, but rather asset inflation — primarily in the equity market. By pulling longer-term bond yields lower, the Fed hopes that this will alter how investors value equities relative to the fixed-income market. Moreover, the Fed will be actively pushing up the value of bonds that exist in investor portfolios, and as such the intent is to induce these investors to rebalance their asset mix towards equities in order to maintain their current allocation. The Fed is also trying to incentivize fund flows into the equity market. This in turn would theoretically boost household wealth and as such make consumers, who now feel richer, to go out and spend more. So the theory goes — we shall see how it works in practice.
The Fed’s intent is also to lower both the debt and equity cost of capital so that companies will, at the margin, compare that to expected returns on newly invested capital and begin to spend more on new plant and equipment. The hope here is that the investment spending multiplier will kick in and that stepped-up job creation would occur in tandem with the renewed capex growth.
In essence, the Fed wants to avoid what happened in Japan over the last two decades — have a look at Japan Goes from Dynamic to Disheartened on the front page of the Sunday NYT. The comment in the article to the effect that back in 1991, the consensus was looking for the Japanese economy to begin surpassing the U.S. economy in size by 2010. Nice call. Instead, Japan’s economy has not expanded at all since that time whereas the U.S. economy, despite all its problems, has grown 65%.
That said, the U.S. has already experienced a lost decade in many respects, especially as it pertains to the labour market, while Japan has lost two decades. Also have a
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DiggAMAZING WAY TO RUN AN ECONOMY….
by ilene - October 12th, 2010 5:20 pm
AMAZING WAY TO RUN AN ECONOMY….
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Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
No wonder America is losing more and more of the wealth pie to Asia. This quote from David Rosenberg pretty much speaks for itself:
“Brian Sack at the New York Fed stressed the need for the Fed’s actions to bolster asset inflation as to boost the wealth effect on spending (QE “adds to household wealth by keeping asset prices higher than they otherwise would be…”). We just can’t seem to wean ourselves off this asset-dependent economy — and how directed by a Fed official that the attempt here is to bring asset values above their intrinsic value. Amazing way to run an economy. Whatever happened to skills, productivity, education, job creation, innovation? Or thrift — when did that virtue become a dirty six-letter word?”
I’m thoroughly disgusted with the response of government over the last 24 months….
Source: Gluskin Sheff
Pic credit: Jesse’s Café Américain
DAVID ROSENBERG ATTACKS THE FED’S INTENTIONAL PONZI APPROACH
by ilene - October 5th, 2010 11:06 pm
DAVID ROSENBERG ATTACKS THE FED’S INTENTIONAL PONZI APPROACH
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
This weekend’s shocking admittal that the Fed is hoping QE will keep
Brian Sack, a senior official at the New York Fed, had this to say about the powers of quantitative easing in a speech he just delivered:
“Some observers have argued that balance sheet changes, even if they influence longer-term interest rates, will not affect the economy because the transmission mechanism is broken. This point is overstated in my view. It is true that certain aspects of the transmission mechanism are clogged because of the credit constraints facing some households and businesses, and it is true that monetary policy cannot directly target those parties that are the most constrained. Nevertheless, balance sheet policy can still lower longer-term borrowing costs for many households and businesses, and it adds to household wealth by keeping asset prices higher than they otherwise would be. It seems highly unlikely that the economy is completely insensitive to borrowing costs and wealth, or to other changes in broad financial conditions. ”
I just love that one comment to the effect that QE “adds to household wealth by keeping asset prices higher than they otherwise would be.” When will these guys ever learn that maybe, just maybe, these Fed policies aimed at targeting asset prices at levels above their intrinsic values is probably not in the best interests of the nation? As our friend Marc Faber likes to say, the “Bernanke put” is cut from the same cloth as the fabled “Greenspan put” — only the strike price is different.
Imagine running a policy aimed at getting people to spend money based on an artificial level of asset values — what an admission. Then again, this is what the Fed has been all about since the LTCM bailout of 1998. We’re still not convinced after reading this sermon that this next “pull-another-rabbit-out-of-the-hat” experiment is going to end with very much success. There is something to be said about paying for our mistakes and to have the Fed try to rekindle an asset-based economy that has only ended up in generating a series of burst bubbles over the last 12 years, not to mention encourage a lifestyle of living beyond our means,
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WHAT IF THE MARKET ISN’T A “WIN WIN”?
by ilene - September 28th, 2010 12:43 pm
WHAT IF THE MARKET ISN’T A “WIN WIN”?
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Apparently I am not the only one who took issue with David Tepper’s comments that the
“Too bad we weren’t invited as a guest on CNBC last Friday to engage in a friendly debate with this portfolio manager because he didn’t outline the third scenario, either because he doesn’t believe it or he just plain didn’t contemplate it or he’s simply not positioned for it. That third scenario is that the economy weakens to such an extent that the Fed does indeed re-engage in QE, but that it does not work. So the “E” goes down and the P/E multiple does not expand. Maybe it even contracts since it already has spent the past number of years reverting to the mean as are so many other market and macro variables (for example, the dividend yield, savings rate, homeownership rate and debt ratios). In this scenario, the stock market does not go up; it goes down.
Is it possible that QE2 won’t work? The answer is yes. How do we know? Well, because the first round of QE didn’t work. After all, if it had worked, the Fed obviously would not be openly contemplating the second round of balance sheet expansion. If the objective was narrow in terms of bringing mortgage spreads in from sky-high levels, well, on that basis, it did help.”
I don’t entirely agree here. QE1 worked because we were in a different environment. The problem Bernanke was targeting in 2009 was one of bank balance sheets. Bank balance sheets were loaded with toxic assets so replacing these assets with cash was most certainly beneficial. It eliminated much of the risk associated with the banking system. As Bernanke said at the time, the point of QE was to alleviate pressures in the credit markets. As we can see from credit spreads he certainly succeeded in this regard. But this is no longer the environment we are in. As I said last week there are no bank balance sheets to fix. There is no…
Are Stocks Overvalued By $4+ Trillion? Quantifying The Fed’s Impact On The Stock Market
by ilene - September 24th, 2010 1:08 pm
Are Stocks Overvalued By $4+ Trillion? Quantifying The Fed’s Impact On The Stock Market
Courtesy of Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
A few months ago we penned an article titled: "Bond Yields Imply The Fair Value Of The S&P Is 750" and this was when the 10 Year was still above 3.00%. It is now around 40 bps tighter, meaning the fair value of stocks is even lower based on the historical 75% regression pattern we indicated back in June. Today, David Rosenberg also chimes in on this ridiculous divergence between the S&P and bonds, and in graphic form shows that should the gap ever close, it would lead the stock market to its fair value, which ironically, is just around the March 2009 lows of 666.
Folks — something has to give … yields on the 2-year T-note (thin line, right hand side on chart below) has a 75% POSITIVE correlation with the S&P 500 and just hit a cycle low. Either it’s a short or the equity market is … take your pick.
As a reminder, historically bonds are right… about 100% of the time.
And with the S&P’s market cap at $10.5 trillion, meaning each S&P point is equivalent to about $9 billion dollars, the impact of the Fed’s intervention on stocks is roughly $4.4 trillion. Alterantively, one can argue that stocks are right, and bonds are wrong. Since the bond market is double the size of its smaller stock cousin, it would means that the Fed’s endless interventions have mispriced just under $9 trillion worth of fixed income assets.
And people want to play in a market that is as ridiculously out of sync with reality as either of these?
Good luck.
Market Commentary From David Rosenberg: Just Call It “Deflationary Growth”
by ilene - September 21st, 2010 11:12 am
Market Commentary From David Rosenberg: Just Call It "Deflationary Growth"
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
If the way to classify the September stock move as "a confounding ramp on disappointing economic news" gets you stumped, here is Rosenberg to provide some insight. Just call is "deflationary growth or something like that." And as for the NBER’s pronouncement of the recession being over, Rosie has a few words for that as well: "this recovery, with its sub 1% pace of real final sales, goes down as the weakest on record."
It’s a real commentary that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) decision on the historical record mattered more than the actual economic data. The National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) housing market index is the latest data point in an array of September releases coming in below expected:
- Philly Fed index: actual -0.7 versus 0.5 expected
- Empire manufacturing index: actual 4.14 versus 8 expected
- NAHB: actual 13 versus 14 expected
- University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment: actual 66.6 versus 70 expected
It’s early days yet, and these are only surveys, but it would seem as though the economy remains very sluggish as we head towards the third-quarter finish line.
It is truly difficult to come up with an explanation for the breakout, which in turn makes it difficult to ascertain its veracity. If we are seeing a re-assessment or risk or a major asset allocation move, then why did Treasury yields rally 4bps (and led lower by the “real rate”, which is a bond market proxy for “real growth expectations”)?
If it was a pro-growth move, why did copper sell off and the CRB flatten? And where is the volume? Still lacking? So we have a breakout with little or no confirmation. All we can see is that many sentiment measures have swung violently to the upside in recent weeks and the VIX index is all the way back to 21x —- somewhat contrary negative signposts for the bulls.
But the price action is undeniable and the bulls are in fact winning the battle in September, a typically negative seasonal month, after a bloody August. The fact that bonds rallied yesterday is a tad bizarre and perhaps the explanation, if there is one, is that the equity market is enamoured with the cash leaving the corporate balance sheet in favour of dividend payouts and share buybacks and
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7 WAYS TO PLAY DEFLATION
by ilene - September 20th, 2010 4:24 pm
7 WAYS TO PLAY DEFLATION
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
In this morning’s report David Rosenberg cited the non-existent inflation trend in recent years. Rosenberg is of course very negative about the economy, but does provide some excellent thoughts on how to play the current environment. Attached are his 7 tips for a deflationary environment:
1. Focus on safe yield: High-quality corporates (non-cyclical, high cash reserves, minimal refinancing needs). Corporate balance sheets are in very good shape.
2. Equities: focus on reliable dividend growth/yield; preferred shares (“income” orientation). Starbucks just caught on to the importance of paying out a dividend.
3. Whether it be credit or equities, focus on companies with low debt/equity ratios and high liquid asset ratios – balance sheet quality is even more important than usual. Avoid highly leveraged companies.
4. Even hard assets that provide an income stream work well in a deflationary environment (ie, oil and gas royalties, REITs, etc…).
5. Focus on sectors or companies with these micro characteristics: low fixed costs, high variable cost, high barriers to entry/some sort of oligopolistic features, a relatively high level of demand inelasticity (utilities, staples, health care — these sectors are also unloved and under owned by institutional portfolio managers).
6. Alternative assets: allocate significant portion of asset mix to strategies that are not reliant on rising equity markets and where volatility can be used to advantage.
7. Precious metals: A hedge against the reflationary policies aimed at defusing deflationary risks — money printing, rolling currency depreciations, heightened trade frictions, and government procurement policies.
Source: Gluskin Sheff
Rosenberg Joins Anti-HFT Crew: Notes Massive Equity Outflows, Blames Churning, No-Volume Melt Up On HFT
by ilene - September 16th, 2010 12:26 pm
Rosenberg Joins Anti-HFT Crew: Notes Massive Equity Outflows, Blames Churning, No-Volume Melt Up On HFT
Courtesy of Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge
One more man awake to the farce that are stocks. Although this being a man as realistic as David, it is not much of a conversion. We can only hope that by 2099 Mary Schapiro’s just as blatantly incompetent successor will finally dare to take on the Wall Street lobby and bring some normalcy to capital market topology, instead of nickel and diming micro prop shops which do nothing worse than what the biggest Supplementary Liquidity Providers do on a daily basis. Speaking of, it has been a while since Irene Aldridge was on CNBC defending the practice of small- and medium-investors scalping.
From Breakfast with Rosie (Gluskin Sheff)
Those who have continued to believe that the boomer demand for yield was a fad may have to go back to the drawing board because week after week, and month after month, all the data show that households are embarking on a deliberate move to redress their underweight in bonds and overweight in equities as it pertains to their desired asset allocation. So yet again, the ICI numbers showed that last week, bond funds took in a net $5.73 billion inflow while equity funds posed a net redemption of $1.1 billion (on top of a $9.7bln outflow the week before). Equities have not recorded a positive inflow for one week since early May! So it goes without saying that whoever is driving this market higher is not where the wealth and savings are in this society as much as the high-frequency traders, and rest assured, these guys move in both directions.
Employment Data Were Still Weak
by ilene - September 7th, 2010 3:35 pm
Employment Data Were Still Weak
Courtesy of Bondsquawk
David Rosenberg, economist for Gluskin Sheff provided more insight on last Friday’s employment report in his daily report, “Breakfast with Dave.”
It’s quite amazing to see what the “take” was on last Friday’s U.S. jobs report. The WSJ was fairly typical of the general response — Jobs Data Provide Hope was the front page headline. That is only true in the sense that the nonfarm payroll number came in above expectations, but the report, while hardly horrible, was still quite weak and highly unusual for an economy operating on so many government-applied steroids.
Returning strikers added 10,000 workers and the Birth-Death model, when accurately measured, contributed a net 17,000 jobs, so strip out these two effects and we actually end up with +40,000, which was bang on the consensus estimate. So, this was not a figure deserving of a triple-digit gain in the Dow (the market rally was again on lower volume) and the spike in bond yields we saw. A huge overreaction to what was still a soft report, in our view, and not one that settles the debate over the prospect of a double-dip recession.
Recall that the month before the Great Recession began in late 2007, the economy managed to generate 97,000 private sector jobs that month. It was the data three-, six- and 12-months later that mattered most and nothing in November 2007 prepared anyone for what was to come down the pike. To be thinking that we are out of the woods because of Friday’s data is just about the biggest mistake anyone can be thinking right now.
The markets are also feeling good because of all the trial balloons being floated over more government stimulus (see more on this below). It’s with that in mind that we decided to reprint this headline from the New York Times, dated November 29, 2007 — Dow Surges on Hints of a Cut in Interest Rates by Michael M. Grynbaum. The article asserted that “Capping a series of wild swings, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared to its biggest one-day percentage gain in more than four years yesterday after a top Federal Reserve official hinted at another interest rate cut.” Guess what? The Fed sure did end up cutting rates — all the way to zero — and the stock market still went down 60%. Don’t fight
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Rosenberg On The Visible Hand Of Central Planning
by ilene - September 1st, 2010 12:04 pm
Rosenberg On The Visible Hand Of Central Planning
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
So you thought communist states go down without a fight? Wrong: here is Rosenberg who explains why both China and the US are now actively involved in the business of propping up anything and everything. And totally off topic, Rosie confirms that the liquidity trends in the mutual fund industry continue to deteriorate: "As for liquidity ratios, equity funds portfolio manages have theirs at an all-time low of 3.4%, down from 3.8% in June. Tack on the fact that there are really not very many shorts to be covered – since the market peaked in April, short interest is 4.3% of the S&P 500 market cap (in August 2008 it was 6%) and there’s not a whole lot of underlying fund-flow support for the stock market here." In other words, throw in a few more market down days, a few more weeks of redemptions (and at 16 weeks in a row, there is no reason why this should change), and the liquidation theme will promptly be added to the new normal.
THE VISIBLE HAND
The two largest economies in the world are being sustained by the long arm of the law. At least in China it’s to be expected that a communist country would be fuelled by command central, but in this miracle story, below the surface it is becoming abundantly clear that Beijing is becoming increasingly involved. The front page article of the Monday NYT uncovered how the economy is delivering its red-hot growth rates: “New data from the World Bank show that the proportion of industrial production by companies controlled by the Chinese state edged up last year … investment by state-controlled companies skyrocketed, driven by hundreds of billions of government spending and state bank lending.” No wonder the Chinese economy and stock market have diverged.
Is it really much different in the U.S.A. today with every 1 in 6 Americans now receiving some form of government assistance? More than 50 million Americans, from food stamps, to Medicaid, to extended jobless benefits, are on one or more taxpayer-supported programs. This likely explains why this depression does not have that 1930s feel of despair to it. But a depression it is.
In a depression, radical
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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