Thursday, January 14, 2021

This is a typical evening update (edited) that I send out to my readers and subscribers!

Hello my friends...  this is the nightly update                          01-14-2021     

Trading list has been updated see attached.

U.S. stock indexes (except the Russell-2000) gave up their modest earlier gains to dip into the red in the final hour of trading today, to close slightly down on the day. Investors, economists and political analysts are all looking ahead and trying to assess what will be in an address by President-elect Biden scheduled for this evening, in which he is set to unveil his economic agenda and plans for further U.S. stimulus.

The NYT reports that Biden's spending package to combat the coronavirus pandemic (just another bull-shit smoke screen in my opinion) and its effects on the economy has an initial focus on large-scale expansions of the nation’s vaccination program and virus testing capacity" will come in at ~$1.9 trillion....this comes on the heels of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which came in at a deficit of $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed on March 27, 2020, in response to the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic this will be another massive bailout and give-away program!

The package, which will cover the pandemic, the economy, health care, education, climate change and other domestic priorities and will include money to complete the $2,000 direct payments to individuals, and aid to small businesses and local and state governments. One thing that markets may not like is that contrary to previous expectations that the “stimulus” check will be $2,000, Biden will instead propose additional $1,400 stimulus checks. This means roughly 30% less purchasing power to buy out of the money extremely speculative calls on stocks trading at all-time highs 😊.

Ø  It will also include an extension of supplemental federal unemployment benefits, which are set to expire in March for many workers, and more bailout help for renters.

Stocks dropped to session lows on news that instead of a $2,000 additional bailout stimulus the Biden plan will only include another $1,400, adding to the previously released $600 from the December $900 billion stimulus plan. The fact that Biden is going through with an almost $2 trillion stimulus contrary to that such an amount could be overly aggressive and be met with resistance even among centrist Democrats sent the 10-year yields to session highs.

 



Today the on the King-Trump, Stock market ass-kisser FED-Chief Powell at his online conference. He stated the Covid-19 economic purge feels this was a natural disaster and economy should come back to 2020 levels very quickly. Having said that, he believes the Phillips curve slope is extremely flat (what is he smoking) and he sees no reason to raise rates for the foreseeable future. Same old “BS” line that enriches the elite/most wealthy at the expense of the poor, working class. He does not see any financial stability risks (as he lives with Alice in Wonderland) and he does not believe the US is in a liquidity trap (he acts and speaks like an extreme bipolar drug addict). I laughed hard when he stated that he believes collaboration with Treasury has been incredibly positive, but also believes independence is critical as well (he speaks with fork-tongue). He clearly avoided comments on real interest costs / GDP debate vs DEBT/GDP, said it is interesting...but would not address the massive excesses! He basically avoided discussion on the FED’s likely path and believes asset purchase and rate paths will change when he the demigod of the financial world believes it to be “appropriate and sustainable” and provided no clear dates; however, he stated that he will signal to his TBTF-bankers well in advance of such before it happens.

Powell said it is way too early to talk about making any changes to the central bank’s massively easy monetary policy stance, including its $120 billion per month bond-buying program. He stated it would not be appropriate to even begin to talk about slowing down or “tapering” the bond purchases until there is “clear evidence” the FED is making progress on their “phony- bogus” employment and inflation goals, Several Fed-heads have speculated that if the economy recovers strongly this year, the central banker could reduce the pace of its asset purchases, but Powell pushed back on this speculation as it is not Bank or market-friendly rhetoric. “Now is not the time to be talking about it,” he said, “the economy is far from our goals.” Powell also said that the time will eventually come for the FED to raise their policy fed funds rate off zero but said “that time, by the way, is no time soon.”

Powell who would not see the inflation monster unless he was bitten by it also cast extremely doubt on the idea that inflation is coiling like a spring while the economy is hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic and will blast off higher as I am forecasting much-much higher once the economic activity resumes due to massive new deficit spending “stimulus” and massive free and easy money policies amounting to almost $5.25-$5.75 trillion.

Powell agreed though that prices might rise once the economy recovers [they are already rapidly rising, where is he living]. As always Inflation fighter Demi-god Powell said he doubted that these prices gains would lead to persistently higher inflation. “If inflation were to go up for any reason, inflation never stay up” [he is right as the FED and government lie their asses off and hedonically adjust their “BS” inflation numbers to suit their needs]. If inflation moved up in ways that were “unwelcome,” the FED has the tools to act, Powell stated.

Ø  A few Fed officials, Kansas City Fed President Esther George and St, Louis Fed President James Bullard have cited inflation as a concern.

The Fed will meet on Jan. 26th and 27th to review its monetary policy stance. Interestingly yields on 10-year Treasury notes moved higher to 1.13% on expectations President-elect Biden will look to borrow more debt (placing distortions and the debt on the backs of future generations) to fund another massive economic rescue package in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. 


Chip equipment stocks soared on today, and the (SMH/SOX) Semiconductor index surging to a new all-time high...irrational as it seems (semiconductors are just commodities) we saw a 60% gain in 2019 and a 51% gain in 2020, and these same plays have not missed a beat so far in 2021.  In just the first 9- trading days of 2021, the (SOX) has already risen parabolically “nearly 10%” this came after they more than doubled off of the March Covid-19 sell-off lows, now the Covid-19 the crash from early 2020 looks more like a tiny blip than anything else.


From a long-term perspective over the last 11+ years, it does not get much better than the performance of semis.  From its low in late 2008, the SOX is up an outstanding 1,700%.  For an index of more than 30 stocks, that is impressive.  Semis have become pervasive in all aspects of the economy over the past decades, they have increasingly become a bellwether for the broader economy despite their commoditization. 

When looking at the ratio between the SPX-500 and the SOX the current level of 0.8057 is the highest in more than 20 years, trailing only the short period of time right before the dot-com bubble implosion.   In fact, going back to the 1990’s, there have only been 32 other trading days where the ratio was higher.  The fact that the ratio is approaching the record-high levels from 2000 should be a looming concern for the giddy bulls who have been feasting on locoweed, and to believe that the sector will keep up its recent parabolic run going forward would be silly and foolish.  

Yes I am aware that semiconductors are more prevalent in all aspects of the economy today than they were in 2000 and the tentacles of the semiconductor industry are just about everywhere. 


TODAY...after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, disclosed massive capital spending plans approximating $28 billion into capital spending this year a staggering sum if they follow through on the so-called buildout aimed at expanding their technological lead and constructing a plant in Arizona to serve key American consumers. {I seriously doubt these assertions]

Ø  They announced that its capital spending for 2021 would be between $25 billion to $28 billion, compared with $17.2 billion in 2020. About 80% of the outlay will be devoted to advanced processor technologies, suggesting TSMC anticipates a surge in business for cutting-edge chipmaking. One reason for this is that Intel, which on Wednesday announced a new CEO, who is said to be contemplating a departure from tradition and outsourcing manufacture to the likes of TSMC.

Ø  For the December quarter, the firm reported net income $5.1 billion, up 23%, and well above the street’s expectations. That contributed to a 50% increase in full-year profit, the quickest rate of expansion since 2010. Sales in the December quarter rose 14% to a record, according to previously disclosed monthly numbers, helped in part by robust demand for Apple’s new 5G iPhones.

Ø  TSMC also expects revenue of $12.7 billion to $13 billion this quarter, well ahead of the $12.4 billion average of analyst estimates. According to calculations, that will power mid-teens sales growth this year, though that is roughly half the pace of the increase in 2020.

Ø  The 4th quarter results revealed growing contributions from TSMC’s most-advanced 5-nanometer process technology, which is used to make Apple’s A14 chips. That accounted for about 20% of total revenue during the quarter, more than doubling its share from the previous 3-months, while 7nm represented 29%. TSMC’s smartphone business contributed about 51% to revenue, while HPC was at 31%.

Their cap-X spending means that they have an extremely high level of confidence in potential demand in future years 2021 (and likely 2022 as well), Equipment stocks with some of the highest exposure to the chipmaker include (LRCX, AMAT, KLAC, ENTG, TER, FORM, NVMI)! 

The CEO hyped on the call that construction on a planned $12 billion plant in Arizona will begin this year, without specifying how much of the planned budget for this year will be allocated to the project. The factory will be completed by 2024, with initial target output of 20,000 wafers per month.

Ø  Even as semi-foundries such as TSMC, UMC and Global-foundries are not expanding fast enough to meet the pandemic-induced spike in demand for stay- at-home video-machines/toys and gadgets.

o   TSMC is by far the most advanced of the foundries responsible for making a significant portion of the world’s semiconductors, serving the likes of Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors NV, which also supply the mobile and auto industries. 


 

Plays that I took today...on Thursday!

01-14-2021      I SHORTED  400 shares of  ”ETSY”  @ 220.90   Reviewed    01-14-2021    Developed     12-15-2020   “ETSY”    I will be  SHORT 400 at  $220.90  Looking for a push into OHR to $224.95 and or > than <   $215.75   target $160.00 then $140.75     its optional 

01-14-2021      I SHORTED  200 shares of  ”LRCX”  @ 560.55   WE ARE CLOSE TO the potential SELL-ZONE   Reviewed    01-14-2021      Developed   11-28-2020   I will be  SHORT (200/100) of  “LRCX” at  $589.75 or > than <  $569.00      I like using PUTS and or a vertical PUT spread 

01-14-2021      I SHORTED  200 shares of  ”KLAC”  @ 313.50  WE ARE IN the potential SELL-ZONE   Reviewed    01-14-2021      Developed   11-28-2020   I will be  SHORT (200/100) of  KLAC at  $319.75 or > than <  $313.50      I like using PUTS and or a vertical PUT spread 

01-14-2021      I SHORTED  300 shares of  ”CVNA”  @ 301.00   WE ARE IN THE  SELL-ZONE     Developed    01-07-2021     I will be  SHORT (800/200 for the portfolio) “CVNA”  “limit order loaded” at 316.95 or > than <  $299.25  target 240.00 then  $222.75    I like using PUTS and or a vertical PUT spread

01-14-2021      I SHORTED  1000 shares of  “GME”  @ 42.65  (500 for the portfolio)    WE ARE CLOSE TO the potential SELL-ZONE   Reviewed    01-14-2021      “GME”    I will be  SHORT 1000 at  $47.55  Looking for a push into OHR to $48.95 and or > than <   $42.75   target $34.00 then $28.75    its optional

01-14-2021      I SHORTED  200 shares of  “CMG”  @ 1450.75 (100 for the portfolio)    Reviewed    01-14-2021   WE ARE IN the potential SELL-ZONE          Developed     08-17-2020   “CMG”    I will be  SHORT 200 at  $1499.90  Looking for a drop after we rise above $1450.75 below this level (200/100-shares) target $1200.00 then 1075.00 We could sell some weekly calls that expire on Friday 1380   


TBTF-bankers reap huge gains off of Main Street and the working class; With interest rates at historic lows, 0.5% to 1.75% how could this situation be allowed to continue wherein corporations, banks etc. can borrow so cheap (use it to buy back stock etc.) while Main-Street and the working class get screwed?  Looks like criminal behavior (usuary) as the average credit card interest rate is 17.87% for new offers and 14.58% for existing accounts, according to WalletHub's Credit Card Landscape Report.

U.S. banks will significantly struggle to understand and interpret how their residential mortgage portfolios will perform this year, because borrower-assistance programs “bailouts” during the pandemic have clouded who will be able to pay when the very gracious forbearance periods and enhanced jobless benefits expire. I believe that lenders should be bracing for significant losses across most credit products, but mortgages stand out because the share of those loans in forbearance has continues to rise.

The key difference: the mortgage forbearance program is imposed by U.S. agencies that back the vast majority of housing debt and it does not require borrowers to show proof of hardship. That has made it difficult to tell who enrolled out of real need; including those who will never be able to resume payments and the con-men who took advantage of the Covid-19 forbearance opportunity! [I have 4 tenets who work for the Department of the Navy, who never got laid off, but have not paid their rent in over 8-months, they were never furloughed or laid off? They are leeches!]

So no one really knows how many of these folks who are in forbearance are actually going to be able to recover, and how many of them are also going to go into a serious delinquency cycle.

Some of the biggest U.S. mortgage lenders like JPMorgan and Wells Fargo may talk about mortgage trends when they start reporting 1st quarter results on Friday.

About 2.7 to 2.9 million U.S. mortgage borrowers, were in forbearance programs as of 01/06/2021 according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The numbers began rising toward year-end but remained far below the 8.6% peak in June, MBA report indicated.

The homeowners who remain in forbearance are more likely to be in significant distress, with fewer continuing to make any payments and fewer exiting forbearance. More than 58% the borrowers in forbearance have been forced to request extensions since October. Those who have remained in forbearance since the start of the bailout programs are the least likely to re-emerge, credit-monitoring service TransUnion recently stated. When all of these bailout plans stop, they will likely NOT have the ability to repay!

Banks and bank-investors should be worried about a repayment Wile Coyote cliff when relief programs expire.

Most of the increase in forbearance requests have come from customers with Ginnie Mae-backed mortgages, the MBA report indicated which caters more to 1st time homeowners, and those with low-to-moderate income, than its peers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Please remember that these (3) government-sponsored firms have offered 12-month payment holidays through March 2021. Banks including Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America Corp offered similar relief and are allowing borrowers to tack missed payments onto the end of their debt, rather than face balloon payments when forbearance ends. 

My turn wave market timing property indicators has forecasted a potential turn-window, and the technicals are getting significantly stronger, and it pointing toward a HUGE inflection period ahead, the window is tightening as we get nearer to the potential turn....and according to my wave analysis we have multiple waves converging and a major Inflection point & Fibonacci collision of price and time waves/patterns and Gann topping [Gann lines, are based on the premise that prices move in predictable patterns. Gann's theory is based on time/price movements] possibility hitting the overall markets on/between 01/08/2021 and 01/15/2021 and since we have been in strong bullish up-trend from the March lows its likely to be a bearish reversal wave...the monthly and weekly index charts are also buried in extreme over bought conditions as well!

This corrective wave could be (key-word is could, we never know what we do not know) be the start of a significant major Bearish corrective period ...my system and analysis is telling me that this could be a significant correction period lasting 21-29 trading days...with the potential for a slight retracement after the initial down-cycle then another downward corrective wave will likely play  

Ø  I am looking for a potential drop of  2000-3,000  Dow points

Ø  I am looking for a potential drop of    350 -  350  Nasdog points

Ø  I am looking for a potential drop of    250 -  285  SPX-500 points

Ø  I am looking for a potential drop of    175 -  200  Russell-2000 points

WE are knocking on the entry door on a number of our SHORT inverse leverage funds, see notations, most are optionable as such we can buy longer-dated calls, a vertical call spread or a covered call situation...


 Please come and join me in the trading room on when I can...I will send out a tweet when I arrive please use this link to join the real-time chat room  www.anymeeting.com/wiseowl 

A reminder my friends:   I reiterate this very incantation every day multiple times to get myself centered to trade this awful market……" Every-Day in every way....I'm feeling better and better about my trading; I am getting better and stronger in my ability to utilize and run good money management and to pull the trigger on positive trading set-ups that provide good risk-to-reward; I will always be aware of the big picture...but intraday I will trade what I see and my technicals indicate....and above all, I will always seek to constantly improve my trading and short-term investing knowledge every day!"

Please my friends keep an eye on the DEBT With debt & leverage at all-time highs, rising interest rates will lead to the mother of all credit crises. And what if the FED and other central bankers manipulate rates low? With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, historic low rates (screwing savers) are leading us into the mother of all pension crises; but these are not the favorite people of those in power!

PLEASE TRADE CAUTIOUSLY on the LONG & SHORT side, be quick to book profits and in times of uncertainty it’s ALWAYS very prudent to wait till the smoke clears if you are uncertain; remember trade when the perceived risk to reward favors your trades; and that NOT to trade is often a prudent decision as well!


Wednesday, January 13, 2021

We are headed into the abyss the DEBT cesspool

 



Just Chump change right?  These massive government expenditures will stunt real growth

The December Treasury Budget showed a $143.6 billion deficit, versus a $13.3 billion deficit in the same period a year ago. The December deficit when compared to the November deficit of $145.3 billion is not a meaningful statistic as it is not seasonally adjusted.

·         Total receipts of $346.1 Billion were $10.3 Billion more than the same period last year.

·         Individual income taxes were the largest source of receipts at $144 billion.

·         Total outlays (mostly BS bailout programs) of $489.7 Billion were $140.6 Billion more than the same period last year.

·         Social Security was the largest outlay by function at $117 Billion followed by Income Security at $77 billion.

The fiscal year-to-date budget deficit is $572.9 Billion versus $356.6 Billion for the same period a year ago.

The budget deficit over the last 12 months is a staggering $3,348 billion.

 

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

The Land of the Zombies, is growing significantly sucking in credit taking on massive debt

 


There is a significant contagion currently which I discussed last weekend “Zombies-firms” they are firms whose massive debt servicing costs are higher than their proforma profits but are kept alive by relentless borrowing at near 0% a massive macroeconomic contagion. Zombie firms are far less productive, and their existence lowers investment in better well-positioned firms, and employment at more productive firms. A huge negative side effect of central bankers keeping rates low for a long time is it keeps quite unproductive firms alive which in turn lowers the long-run growth rate of the actual real economy.

The number of “Zombie” firms in the market has hit another new high in 2020. The massive FED interventions, bailouts, and zero rates provided much-needed life support that failing firms needed. From a market perspective, the FED’s massive liquidity flows increased voracious speculative appetites, and greed-based investors piled into “zombies” with reckless abandon. These firm’s survivability is based upon a low-interest-rate environment, a robust debt market, and a real economic recovery to ensure their ability to repay their ballooning debts! Now for the bad news, I believe the so-called incessantly CNBC hyped “recovery” may not be nearly as brisk and robust as the Wall Street pundits and so-called gurus expect.  Even with a weaker “2nd Stimulus package” the underlying erosion of real economic growth from rapidly rising massive debt-loads and deficits leaves little room for error.

Unfortunately, our economy requires increasing levels of massive debt to generate lower rates of economic growth. Such is why the FED has found itself in a massive lame-ass “liquidity trap.” Now interest rates MUST remain low, and debt MUST increase faster than “bogus manipulated” GDP, to keep the economy from stalling out in real-time!    I sincerely believe that the vast herd of market participants have been lulled into a false sense of security. Currently, investors are due to (FOMO) are paying astronomical prices for “risky” assets. At the same time, they are forced to accept historic low rates on “high yield” debt (aka junk bonds) relative to the risk of default.

The vast number in the herd “investors believe” they have an insurance policy against and “risk.” And it is showing up in a significant manner as nothing is more reassuring to investors than the knowledge and belief that central bankers, with deeper pockets, will buy the securities they own particularly when these buyers are willing to do so at any price and have unlimited capital. The rational investor response has been to front-load their buying but also to look for related opportunities. The result is not just seemingly endless liquidity-driven rallies regardless of the real fundamentals and deteriorating economy. This seems to have been the case this year (2020) and last (2019) until an unexpected exogenous event occurs, or if the FED tries at all to normalize monetary policy.

The resulting destruction of REAL household net worth requires a usual immediate response by the FED of zero interest rates and liquidity. Subsequently, they are forced to create yet another “bubble” to offset the deflation of the last bubble. What the FED did accomplish these past few years was creating a massive demand for “risky” assets by distorting market functions and real price discovery (if it even exists anymore). While investors may continue to surf a highly profitable FED massive Tsunami liquidity wave for now, things are likely to get far riskier as we move further into 2021. Central banker’s deepening distortion of markets will be harder to defend in a likely recovering economy (if the vaccines actually work and combat Covid-19) amid increasing inflationary expectations. Recent surveys that show an extremely high level of investor exuberance despite the underlying detachment from reality and fundamentals is enormous. The chart below shows the combined average of institutional and individual investor valuation confidence subtracted from future returns confidence. 

Former Fed-Chief Greenspam in a December 1996 speech on “Irrational Exuberance” was ignored for almost 3+ years...as whenever such detachments between the real economy and markets have occurred, investor outcomes have been very unkind to the herd and in my opinion, it is unlikely this time will be different; it will likely be far nastier in my opinion!


A crying shame...When the FED inserted itself into the economic equation to help their masters (the elite, most wealthy and corporations and TBTF bankers) their intervention and manipulation has led to the massive rise in imbalances between the economic classes (poor, working-class and vanishing middle class). Over the past 12+/- years, as the stock indexes and stocks soared due to free-flowing liquidity, household net worth reached historic levels. If you only looked at that one line in the data, you could infer that the economy was booming. However, for the vast majority of Americans, it is not.

It is stunning to see that the median net worth of households in the middle 20% of income rose 4% in inflation-adjusted terms to $81,900 between 1989 and 2016. For households in the top 20%, median net worth more than doubled to $811,860; now wait for it...the top 1%, the increase came in at over 180% exceeding $11,500,000.

The study I read in the WSJ showed that the value of assets for all U.S. households increased from 1989 through 2016 by an inflation-adjusted $58 trillion. A full 34% of that gain or over $20 trillion went to the wealthiest 1%, according to a Journal analysis of the FEDs data.

This 12+/- year massive great disconnect has continued much longer than even I expected. This illustrates, yet again, the unintended consequences of a central-banker ill-thought policy approach.

 



Bank earnings could be very complicated, as many could face more delinquencies than forecasted

 





U.S. banks will significantly struggle to understand and interpret how their residential mortgage portfolios will perform this year, because borrower-assistance programs “bailouts” during the pandemic have clouded who will be able to pay when the very gracious forbearance periods and enhanced jobless benefits expire. I believe that lenders should be bracing for significant losses across most credit products, but mortgages stand out because the share of those loans in forbearance has continues to rise.

The key difference: the mortgage forbearance program is imposed by U.S. agencies that back the vast majority of housing debt and it does not require borrowers to show proof of hardship. That has made it difficult to tell who enrolled out of real need; including those who will never be able to resume payments and the con-men who took advantage of the Covid-19 forbearance opportunity! [I have 4 tenets who work for the Department of the Navy, who never got laid off, but have not paid their rent in over 8-months, they were never furloughed or laid off? They are leeches!]

So no one really knows how many of these folks who are in forbearance are actually going to be able to recover, and how many of them are also going to go into a serious delinquency cycle.

Some of the biggest U.S. mortgage lenders like JPMorgan and Wells Fargo may talk about mortgage trends when they start reporting 1st quarter results on Friday.

 

About 2.7 to 2.9 million U.S. mortgage borrowers, were in forbearance programs as of 01/06/2021 according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The numbers began rising toward year-end but remained far below the 8.6% peak in June, MBA report indicated.

The homeowners who remain in forbearance are more likely to be in significant distress, with fewer continuing to make any payments and fewer exiting forbearance. More than 58% the borrowers in forbearance have been forced to request extensions since October. Those who have remained in forbearance since the start of the bailout programs are the least likely to re-emerge, credit-monitoring service TransUnion recently stated. When all of these bailout plans stop, they will likely NOT have the ability to repay!

Banks and bank-investors should be worried about a repayment Wile Coyote cliff when relief programs expire.

Most of the increase in forbearance requests have come from customers with Ginnie Mae-backed mortgages, the MBA report indicated which caters more to 1st time homeowners, and those with low-to-moderate income, than its peers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Please remember that these (3) government-sponsored firms have offered 12-month payment holidays through March 2021. Banks including Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America Corp offered similar relief and are allowing borrowers to tack missed payments onto the end of their debt, rather than face balloon payments when forbearance ends.

 

Massive DEBT deferments (forbearance) could cripple bank earnings / reserves and weigh on economic growth

 


Quite interesting (I see this as a good thing, but economically a negative), as it appears that US consumers unexpectedly paid down their credit cards debt in November...according to the latest Consumer Credit (G.19) report, in November revolving debt, i.e., credit card debt, shrank for a 2nd consecutive month declining by $787 million following the $5.5 billion drop seen in October. This means that in the first 11 months of 2020, US consumers have paid down a record $115 billion in credit card debt (thanks to over-generous stimulus and over-generous unemployment compensation). 

The flip side, however, is that as revolving credit dropped, non-revolving credit increased, as in November US consumers increased their student and auto loans the two largest components of this category by over $16 billion...bringing the total November change to $15.3 billion, well above the $9 billion increase expected by economists. Meaning that even as Americans turned frugal on their credit cards, they went to town on loans made where either the Federal Government has some implicit backstop, such as student loans which will likely be discharged in part by the Biden administration, or where they used the cash to buy new cars, iPhones, and other crap, which is also understandable when one can take out a loan with a maturity is well beyond the viable life of the actual goods being purchased (meaning the borrowed would be upside down in said loans)

So is the real implication from both is that no-one either the lender or the borrower expects that the loan will ever be repaid (could be another government-forgiveness where all are made whole), something which cannot be said about credit card debt (at least for now).

Monday, January 11, 2021

We continue to see a massive disconnect between the markets and the economy, between the elite and the working-class



We continue to see a massive disconnect between the markets and the economy. After years of Central Banker interventions, stock markets have soared to record highs, while economic growth has remained in the cesspool. And sentiment remains extremely high!



Currently, once again Wall Street analysts (especially CNBC cheerleaders) are projecting record stock markets in 2021, with stock prices rising another 14% to 24% and earnings surging into new record levels. Such is the question I have discussed previously, given the incessant hype that the so-called “the stock market is ultimately a reflection of the economy.” The detachment of the stock market from underlying profitability guarantees poor future outcomes for investors. But, as has always been the case, the markets can certainly seem to remain euphoric and irrational longer than logic would expect; said massive detachments never last.

The stock market is NOT the economy. But the economy reflects the very thing that supports higher asset prices “real corporate profits” this detachment is now a key factor for real policymakers and investors as we head into this new year. Throughout last year, we have experienced a sharp widening of an already massive gap between financial markets and the economy. A rapid rise in asset prices from the March 23rd lows took major US indices to record levels into the end of 2020, even before the news on Covid-19 vaccines. Combined with even more and more accommodative central banker policies, these policies enabled record debt issuance at historically low levels of compensation for creditors.

There is no doubt that corporations [many – many zombie firms] took the FED up on both near-zero interest rates and a guaranteed buyer of bond issuance. In 2020, investment-grade bond issuance hit a record with total non-financial debt soaring to all-time highs. Such was occurring at a time when revenues and profits were plunging off a cliff.

That data includes the record levels of “junk bond” issuance. Issuance in 2020 was up 87% year over year. Of course, the issue is that over the next few years, there is a mountain amount of debt coming due. If rates rise markedly, as if the market demands payment for the massive increased relative risk, refinancing could become problematic. Also, if the economy fails to have a real robust economic recovery as the cheerleaders on Wall Street expect.

There is a significant contagion currently which I discussed last weekend “Zombies-firms” they are firms whose massive debt servicing costs are higher than their proforma profits but are kept alive by relentless borrowing at near 0% a massive macroeconomic contagion. Zombie firms are far less productive, and their existence lowers investment in better well-positioned firms, and employment at more productive firms. In short, a huge negative side effect of central bankers keeping rates low for a long time is it keeps quite unproductive firms alive which in turn lowers the long-run growth rate of the actual real economy.


The number of “Zombie” firms in the market has hit another new high in 2020. The massive FED interventions, bailouts, and zero rates provided much-needed life support that failing firms needed. From a market perspective, the FED’s massive liquidity flows increased voracious speculative appetites, and greed-based investors piled into “zombies” with reckless abandon. These firm’s survivability is based upon a low-interest rate environment, a robust debt market, and a real economic recovery to ensure their ability to repay their ballooning debts! Now for the bad news, I believe the so-called incessantly CNBC hyped “recovery” may not be nearly as brisk and robust as the Wall Street pundits and so-called gurus expect.  Even with a weaker “2nd Stimulus package” the underlying erosion of real economic growth from rapidly rising massive debt-loads and deficits leaves little room for error.

Unfortunately, our economy requires increasing levels of massive debt to generate lower rates of economic growth. Such is why the FED has found itself in a massive lame-ass “liquidity trap.” Now interest rates MUST remain low, and debt MUST increase faster than “bogus manipulated” GDP, to keep the economy from stalling out in real time!    I sincerely believe that the vast herd of market participants have been lulled into a false sense of security. Currently, investors are due to (FOMO) are paying astronomical prices for “risky” assets. At the same time, they are forced to accept historic low rates on “high yield” debt (aka junk bonds) relative to the risk of default.

The vast number in the herd “investors believe” they have an insurance policy against and “risk.” And it is showing up in a significant manner as nothing is more reassuring to investors than the knowledge and belief that central bankers, with deeper pockets, will buy the securities they own particularly when these buyers are willing to do so at any price and have unlimited capital. The rational investor response has been to front-load their buying but also to look for related opportunities. The result is not just seemingly endless liquidity-driven rallies regardless of the real fundamentals and deteriorating economy. This seems to have been the case this year (2020) and last (2019) until an unexpected exogenous event occurs, or if the FED tries at all to normalize monetary policy.

The resulting destruction of REAL household net worth requires a usual immediate response by the FED of zero interest rates and liquidity. Subsequently, they are forced to create yet another “bubble” to offset the deflation of the last bubble. What the FED did accomplish these past few years was creating a massive demand for “risky” assets by distorting market functions and real price discovery (if it even exists anymore). While investors may continue to surf a highly profitable FED massive Tsunami liquidity wave, for now, things are likely to get far riskier as we move further into 2021. Central banker’s deepening distortion of markets will be harder to defend in a likely recovering economy (if the vaccines actually work and combat Covid-19) amid increasing inflationary expectations. Recent surveys that show an extremely high level of investor exuberance despite the underlying detachment from reality and fundamentals is enormous. 

Former Fed-Chief Greenspam in a December 1996 speech on “Irrational Exuberance” was ignored for almost 3+ years...as whenever such detachments between the real economy and markets have occurred, investor outcomes have been very unkind to the herd and in my opinion, it is unlikely this time will be different; it will likely be far nastier in my opinion!

A crying shame...When the FED inserted itself into the economic equation to help their masters (the elite, most wealthy and corporations, and TBTF bankers) their intervention and manipulation has led to a massive rise in imbalances between the economic classes (poor, working-class and vanishing middle class). Over the past 12+/- years, as the stock indexes and stocks soared due to free-flowing liquidity, household net worth reached historic levels. If you only looked at that one line in the data, you could infer that the economy was booming. However, for the vast majority of Americans, it is not.

It is stunning to see that the median net worth of households in the middle 20% of income rose 4% in inflation-adjusted terms to $81,900 between 1989 and 2016. For households in the top 20%, median net worth more than doubled to $811,860; now wait for it...the top 1%, the increase came in at over 180% exceeding $11,500,000.

The study I read in the WSJ showed that the value of assets for all U.S. households increased from 1989 through 2016 by an inflation-adjusted $58 trillion. A full 34% of that gain or over $20 trillion went to the wealthiest 1%, according to a Journal analysis of the FEDs data.

This 12+/- year massive great disconnect has continued much longer than even I expected. This illustrates, yet again, the unintended consequences of a central-banker ill thought policy approach.

How long before they buy the dips today

 

How long will it take for robotic Pavlov’s trading dogs...trading-bots to buy any dip today in anticipation of massive FED intervention or soothing words about the  Covid-19 vaccines...or NEW stimulus bailouts this has been the conventional trend play since 03/2019; the bots buying all dips, as the FED throws in massive liquidity to support the markets