It’s been a choppy start to the year, but last week’s price action added to the evidence that the bulls have regained control, at least temporarily. The MSCI World and HYG US equity are now about 8% and 5% higher, respectively, from their lows in December, and treasury yields are up across the board. The rebound has been broad-based, but European and EM equity indices have shown particularly promising signs, consistent with the fact that they have, after all, been much cheaper than their U.S. counterparts through the Q4 chaos. These headlines are good news, but at this point, I am not willing to treat them as evidence of anything but a reflexsive rebound in the wake of a horrific Q4. Short-term indicators suggest that a lot of fear already has been priced-out. The put/call ratio on Spoos it peaked at 2.7 SDs above its mean on December 27th, but has since plunged to -1.0 SDs. Normally, this would be a sign of complacency, at least in the very short run, but the put/call ratio looks more balanced on Eurostoxx 50, indicating that the picture for global equities as a whole is more neutral. Other indicators also suggest that the market can run a further. My first chart shows that that the crash in the U.S. stock-to-bond return ratio at the end of 2018 was similar to the plunge during the EZ sovereign debt panic in 2012, and well in excess of the Chinese devaluation scare in 2015/16.
Read MoreMarkets remain undecided on whether to treat the signs of intensifying global economic weakness in Q4 and a looming slowdown in earnings growth as the kitchen sink—a signal that the worst is over—or evidence that conditions are worse than anticipated. As such, I thought that I’d discuss the other macro story du jour: The likelihood of a grand global experiment in coordinated fiscal stimulus to take over from our tapped-out monetary policymakers. Laughable you say; perhaps, in the short run, but the signs are clear enough if you care to look. Fiscal discipline has become unfashionable, even to the point that it is deemed outright irresponsible for individual economies to pursue such a strategy from the point of view of global economic growth. These days, economies who show fiscal restraint with large external surpluses—the savers who finance the borrowing of others—are “leaches” on global aggregate demand. If they do not change their ways on their own, they should be coerced. The flirt with the idea of a big fiscal push diverges in intensity across the major economic regions, but I identify three common denominators.
Read MoreThe new year has started like the old one ended; volatile and with confusion among punters and analysts with respect to the notional Narrative™. The volte-face in expectations for U.S. interest rates is a good example. In October, eurodollars were implying a Fed funds rate of just under 3.3% in December 2019 and 2020. At the beginning of the year, they had collapsed to 2.6% and 2.4%, respectively, effectively pricing in an imminent recession, and Fed rate cuts in 2020 to counteract that. Indeed, at some point, the Fed fund futures were even pricing cuts this year, a position that was stung badly on Friday by the hilariously bullish NFP report. Although neither the Fed nor markets know where the terminal/neutral rate—not to mention that this is a moving target—I reckon that the past six months have given us a decent clue. Anything close to 3.5% probably is too high, while sub-2.5% is too low, at least as long as the economy remains in a more-or-less stable expansion. Looking beyond the navel-gazing that is U.S. monetary policy, I am warming to the idea that (equity) markets will pivot towards cyclicals at some point this year, but we are not there yet. Over Christmas, I toyed with the idea that the next shoe to drop would be a downturn in the (hard) global economic data. The numbers have already deteriorated, but I reckon that they could slip further.
Read MoreIf you just want my views on the increasingly unruly price action in the equity market, scroll down to the bottom of this post, and you will find the link to the PDF. Now that I have your attention, though, allow me to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading, and for the comments you throw my way on email, on Twitter or over at Seeking Alpha. I am very grateful for this interaction. This has been a good year for me in terms of keeping a steady output here, a tempo I hope to keep up next year. That said, I am, as ever, struggling with too many ideas and too little time. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I managed to finish one short story in 2018—it will be published soon—which took much longer than it ought to. The main issue is that I have also been working on a novel, which I am now determined to finish before starting any new fiction-projects. I also hope to do more podcasts next year, about other topics than economics and finance, though I must confess that the state of debate about the issues that I want to discuss is in such a dire state that I don’t know where to begin. People don’t seem to be having proper conversations about important issues anymore, though some are if you care to go beyond the beaten track. Instead, they seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom of mutually assured destruction. In any case, this is a discussion for another day.
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