Category Archives: Uncategorized

I never thought I’d agree with Joe Stiglitz.

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This essay is a must-read that will change your view of how a market economy works:

WALLINGFORD, CT—Upending more than two centuries of free-market theory, leading economists across the globe announced Thursday that the fundamental principles of capitalism had been “irrefutably disproved” by the continued existence of the designer fruit-basket company Edible Arrangements.

According to experts, the Connecticut-based franchise, which arranges skewered pieces of fruit into displays vaguely resembling floral bouquets, has defied all modern economic models, expanding continuously for the past decade despite its complete lack of any discernible consumer appeal.

“In theory, the market should have done away with Edible Arrangements long ago,” said American Economic Association president Orley Ashenfelter, who added that one of the crucial assumptions of capitalism is the idea that businesses producing undesired goods or services will fail. “That’s how it’s supposed to work. Yet somehow, despite offering no product of any worth whatsoever, this company not only makes payroll every week, but also generates strong profits.”

“To understand this enigma, we must discard the naïve notion that free-market prices reflect what consumers are willing to pay,” Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said. “Otherwise, how else are we to rationalize the phenomenon of a human being willingly spending 84 bucks on 18 green apple wedges and a Mylar balloon?” …

Even many of the nation’s staunchest neoliberal economists, who have long advocated laissez-faire policies, acknowledged that the ideas of F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman cannot account for how Edible Arrangements operates from more than 1,000 locations in 13 countries, including Hong Kong, Italy, India, and Kuwait…

Harboring doubts that such a business could generate $200 million in annual revenue, the Department of Commerce last year launched an investigation into whether Edible Arrangements served as a front for some sort of illicit trade. Internal reports reveal agents uncovered nothing illegal, and were instead “absolutely stunned” to find real, functioning storefronts with paid employees, computers for tracking actual orders, and stockrooms packed with honeydew melon balls and pineapple slices cut into the shape of butterflies.

“It defies all logic,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said of the company’s gift bouquets. “These things are like six pounds of cantaloupe—who could possibly eat that much? And they’re already cut up, so you have to eat them quick or throw the whole thing out. For Christ’s sake, Americans don’t even eat fruit.”…

“Right now, we just have to accept the fact that Edible Arrangements exists and is, somehow, a part of our current economic reality,” said Ashenfelter, while perusing the company’s online store. “Besides, my mom’s birthday is coming up and, now that I’m seeing these, I think she might really like this one with the teddy bear on it.”

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There was one of these next to my building in New York, and it always did make me wonder.

Inflation, deflation & the dollar – where do we stand?

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We have had inflation since late 2009, using my favored definition of inflation as an increase in money supply and credit from Mish. By the way, commodity prices change with the speculative whims of of the financial markets, and are not a good definition of inflation (commodities fell from 1980 to 2000, as we experienced credit & monetary inflation and the price level doubled).

Since 2007, the monetary base has of course soared (see below), but in 2008 and 2009 its increase was overwhelmed by the decrease in private debt (marked-to-market), and the mood of risk-aversion. Since then defaults have eased and new debt issuance has grown, so we have had significant inflation.

Monetary base:

shadowstats.com

Monetary Aggregates:

shadowstats.com

The world is still laden with too much debt to sustain, so we will likely be back into deflation and de-risking before long. The following debtors in particular have yet to have their come-to-Jesus moments:

  • US cities & states (muni-bonds)
  • Canadian and Australian homeowners (record high prices, prices too high relative to incomes and rents, absurd loan-to-value ratios).
  • Several European nations (Portugal, Spain, Italy, much of Eastern Europe). Actually even Greece and Ireland will have to default before long, since their bailouts were just extensions and added to their debt.

The Kondratieff cycle is not perfect, but its main point is that debt cycles are generational, since they have as much to do with attitudes as with numbers. The deflation/de-leveraging phase (winter) can last over a decade, and this one certainly looks like it will.

Previous recent generations were as follows, off the top of my head:

  • Winter: 1929-1940 (decrease in debt, falling assets, low interest rates, falling to stable prices)
  • Spring: 1940-1966 (early debt growth, rising assets, rising interest rates, moderately rising prices)
  • Summer: 1966-1982 (continued debt growth, falling assets, high interest rates, rapidly rising prices)
  • Autumn: 1982-2007 (rapid debt growth, rapidly rising assets, falling interest rates, slowly rising prices)
  • Winter: 2007- (decrease in debt, falling assets, low interest rates, falling to stable prices)

The dates are approximate – some say that winter began in 2000 when we first faced deflation. Also, all nations are not in sync. Japan went into winter in 1990, and is still in it despite massive and repeated central bank printing.  What clears the way for spring is the reduction in debt, and the west is making the same mistake that we criticised the Japanese for making, propping up failed institutions and not allowing the market to clear.

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Bonus chart: US dollar index since 1985 – in classic form, by the time everyone started worrying about a dollar crash (2007), it had already happened.

shadowstats.com


Despite its central bank’s profligate ways, the Japan’s currency has risen dramatically since the 1990s. Don’t count the dollar out just yet. This chart shows yen per dollar (downward slope = rising yen):

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Major dollar rally coming soon, to a trading screen near you.

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6

Sorry for my long hiatus from blogging. I’ve been trading very little over the last six months, demoralized and righly so due to chronically awful trade execution and overreaching. I have a highly valid reversal strategy, but it is not a trend strategy, and I need to keep my bearish macro views out of the equation (though I suspect that they would be better suited to the next 2 years that the last 2 – but I need to forget about that and keep such discussions academic, for risk of corrupting a perfectly good trading model).

I’ve done some soul-searching and review of my trading history and this blog, and come to the conclusion that I should not abandon this pursuit but instead work to remedy my fatal flaws. A review of my history shows that I am able to identify turns in markets with a very high degree of probability. The fatal flaws are not analytical, but as is usually the case, emotional and procedural. This blog actually has a very good record of both initiating positions and closing or reversing them. As a trader, I would have done well to follow its advice, but I would often revert back to my bear bias, and way too soon, as when I shorted risk last March-April, booked huge profits and went long (including buying bottom tick in EUR and CHF) in June, only to reverse and go short again in July on bias alone without my proven criteria for a valid set-up.

My basic methodology as it has evolved here since August 2008 when this blog began, is to use sentiment and technical data to identify oversold and overbought conditions that are long in the tooth and due for clearing reversals.

The classic set-up is like this:

  • DSI sentiment has plateaued or bottomed at an extreme (<20% or >80% for at least 5 weeks, the longer the better – this can go on for 6 months at the outside, more commonly 4-12 weeks if we are talking <20% or >80% readings).
  • A major move comensurate with that sentiment has occurred (the market is trading at highs or lows), which to the mass of traders seems totatally justified by fundamentals.
  • Price action shows weakening momentum. This is indicated by a diverging trend in oomph indicators MACD and RSI. This usually means that the rate of change is slowing and that each new little push is slower and on lower volume, even as new extremes in price are reached.
  • A loose stop-loss level can be identified (a level that should it be broken decisively, would indicate that the prevailing trend still has legs). This is a mult-week strategy, so stops should use daily or even weekly levels — no use for 5 minute charts here.
  • Markets are highly coordinated in recent years. E.g., if the dollar is looking like it is going to rally, don’t be long stocks or commodities or short bonds.
  • Adjust stops downward to breakeven after the reversal, and tighten stops to a gain as DSI data reaches 40-60% middle ground.
  • Tighten stops much more or close positions after DSI data approaches the opposite extreme (e.g., if you shorted SPX when DSI bulls were 90%, prepare to close and consider the trade finished once DSI reaches 25%).
  • This is not a trend system! Repeat, this is not a trend system! Trade reversals only, as those have the highest probability. Once the oversold/overbought condition is cleared, the probability of the market continuing in your direction is vastly lower, and does not justify the risk (no matter your opinion of the longer-term situation or fundamentals). This last point was my fatal flaw.
So, we have a classic long-dollar set-up developing right now. I give it strong odds that we experience a major dollar rally within 2 months, with all of the de-leveraging that entails in other markets. This is not the place to put on a heavy position if you are not willing to accept big drawdowns, since this market could easily trend for a while yet, with the stock markets holding up as well.
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source: futures.tradingcharts.com
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Note that this trade is confirmed by the opposite in the stock market. Plateau in DSI and other sentiment indicators at a high level of bullishness for several weeks. This condition will be cleared to the downside as the dollar breaks upward. Copper, oil, etc will also correct hard down, and the anti-dollar currency pack (CAD, GBP, EUR, AUD and probably CHF) will fall as well. Not sure about JPY – it often trades up with the dollar during these little episodes of risk unwinding.
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As always, the timing is the most uncertain factor here, but the longer the dollar sentiment stays low, the less risk there is in this trade and the stronger the resulting rally will be. I can’t say whether this will come next week or in early June, but we are at the point where traders should be nervous about short-dollar, long-risk positions, because that trade is running on momentum alone and meets the requisites for sudden reversal.
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The archetypal set-up was long-dollar in fall 2009, after dismal trader sentiment since early June 09. The set-up was in place by late August, but the dollar continued to drift down through November, helped along by small clearing rallies and brief upticks in sentiment. Because average sentiment was low for an extraordinarily long time (6 months), we had a very powerful rally, from 74 to 88, over the following 6 months. This time, sentiment has been low for two months so far, certainly enough for a good rally, but not necessarily for the same killer trade. On the other hand it is somewhat better because the readings are more extreme.
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The clearing episodes are the wall of worry or the slope of hope that keep the trend going.  A smoothy trending market with a flattening slope is more dangerous for followers and better for reversal traders. So far we have such a market, but if it gets choppy, with little sell-offs in stocks and small dollar rallies, it can last longer, and if the clearing events are big enough, it would cancel this trade. There will be others.

Don’t count on a big rally in commodities.

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Yes, the “inflation/risk trade” is moderately oversold, but when oil, copper and the like start to fall, they can just slide straight down for months. I believe that the commodity rally of the past 15 months was just a dead cat bounce correcting the crash after the massive 2007-2008 bubble.

Now that we’ve had that correction (and then some when it comes to the metals), there is little reason for prices to remain elevated. The supply/demand situation today certainly doesn’t justify $3.00 copper or $1.00 nickel or zinc, and demand will be even weaker in a year when the construction bubbles in China, Australia and Canada are over.

Here’s a pattern I see in crude. Now that the uptrend (higher highs, higher lows) is busted (we made a lower low), all rallies may be short and weak:

TD Ameritrade

Copper’s uptrend is still technically intact but very weak(see RSI), and it could play out the same way:

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Of course, if a large rally does develop, it will just be more fodder for the bears. I’ve entered a short on copper at $3.13 today, and am prepared to add to the position. I’ve also just picked up some July puts on crude futures (expiry June 17). I don’t like near-term options, but these got cheap today and will pay off 25:1 if oil is $55 three weeks from now.

If another broad-based rally in risk assets develops, I’m covered with longs on stock futures. However, I would not be surprised to see stocks (and the Euro) rally for a while here while commodities decline. When trends start to exhaust correlations can break apart.

James Grant: Put bankers’ own assets on the line again.

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The market is the best regulator. After almost 100 years, it’s time we brought it back.

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Jim Grant has been the living best banking historian since 1995 when Murray Rothbard kicked the bucket. Last week in WaPo, he put forth is old-time solution to banking reform: make bank executives and even shareholders personally liabile for depositors’ losses.

The trouble with Wall Street isn’t that too many bankers get rich in the booms. The trouble, rather, is that too few get poor — really, suitably poor — in the busts. To the titans of finance go the upside. To we, the people, nowadays, goes the downside. How much better it would be if the bankers took the losses just as they do the profits.

Of course, there are only so many mansions, Bugattis and Matisses to go around. And many, many such treasures would be needed to make the taxpayers whole for the serial failures of 2007-09. Then again, under my proposed reform not more than a few high-end sheriff’s auctions would probably ever take place. The plausible threat of personal bankruptcy would suffice to focus the minds of American financiers on safety and soundness as they have not been focused for years.

“The fear of God,” replied George Gilbert Williams, president of the Chemical Bank of New York around the turn of the 20th century, when asked the secret of his success. “Old Bullion,” they called Chemical for its ability to pay out gold to its depositors even at the height of a financial panic. Safety was Chemical’s stock in trade. Nowadays, safety is nobody’s franchise except Washington’s. Gradually and by degree, starting in the 1930s — and then, in a great rush, in 2008 — the government has nationalized it.
No surprise, then, the perversity of Wall Street’s incentives. For rolling the dice, the payoff is potentially immense. For failure, the personal cost — while regrettable — is manageable. Senior executives at Lehman Brothers, Citi, AIG and Merrill Lynch, among other stricken institutions, did indeed lose their savings. What they did not necessarily lose is the rest of their net worth. In Brazil — which learned a thing or two about frenzied finance during its many bouts with hyperinflation — bank directors, senior bank officers and controlling bank stockholders know that they are personally responsible for the solvency of the institution with which they are associated. Let it fail, and their net worths are frozen for the duration of often-lengthy court proceedings. If worse comes to worse, the responsible and accountable parties can lose their all.
The substitution of collective responsibility for individual responsibility is the fatal story line of modern American finance. Bank shareholders used to bear the cost of failure, even as they enjoyed the fruits of success. If the bank in which shareholders invested went broke, a court-appointed receiver dunned them for money with which to compensate the depositors, among other creditors. This system was in place for 75 years, until the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. pushed it aside in the early 1930s. One can imagine just how welcome was a receiver’s demand for a check from a shareholder who by then ardently wished that he or she had never heard of the bank in which it was his or her misfortune to invest.

Nevertheless, conclude a pair of academics who gave the “double liability system” serious study (Jonathan R. Macey, now of Yale Law School and its School of Management, and Geoffrey P. Miller, now of the New York University School of Law), the system worked reasonably well. “The sums recovered from shareholders under the double-liability system,” they wrote in a 1992 Wake Forest Law Review essay, “significantly benefited depositors and other bank creditors, and undoubtedly did much to enhance public confidence in the banking system despite the fact that almost all bank deposits were uninsured.”

Like one of those notorious exploding collateralized debt obligations, the American financial system is built as if to break down. The combination of socialized risk and privatized profit all but guarantees it. And when the inevitable happens? Congress and the regulators dream up yet more ways to try to outsmart the people who have made it their business in life not to be outsmarted…

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For the record, I agree 100% with Grant’s solution. Moral hazard is THE cause of the de-facto bankruptcy of nearly every major bank in the US.
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The US banking system pre-1913 was not perfect (unscrupulous bankers were always trying to use the power of the government’s guns to game the system), but it was much safer and more honest than today’s.
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Bankers did not yet have a license to blow bubbles, since there were no black checks from their creation, the Federal Reserve, which can simply print paper money to bail them out in the inevitable busts. Before the Fed, their own assets were on the line, and before FDIC, the depositors’ assets were at risk. These two parties had a very strong incentive to keep lending standards prudent.
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There were booms and busts, but they were localized, and at no time did the entire banking system become insolvent like it has been since 2008. Weak banks lost their depositors to those who had been prudent, and depositors knew that they were taking a risk when they chose a bank paying higher interest.
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In sum, the market is the best regulator. It’s time we brought it back.
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Gold set up for another rally?

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I can hardly believe it, but gold has failed to follow through on the decline from December’s $1228 high, despite the extreme and persistent bullishness leading up to that parabolic top. It’s held tight to $1100 and formed a contracting triangle, while DSI bullishness has dropped to the mid-teens. This is very similar to the set-up in sugar last fall before it blasted off from 0.22 to 0.30 and put in its final high (it trades now around 0.17):

Futures.tradingcharts.com

Here’s gold, also in a weekly chart:

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What’s interesting about this juncture is that stocks are extremely overbought on the kinds of readings that typically mark at least an intermediate-term top (put:call, sentiment surveys, waning momentum, etc). Since the dollar broke higher last December while stocks were unphased, we’ve seen somewhat of a breakdown of the old correlations (dollar and yen vs. everything else).

If the PM complex does levitate as stocks decline, it would resemble the action in early 2008. After panic and the deflation trade gathered some steam, the metals eventually succumbed. Here is the GDX mining stock ETF in blue vs. the S&P 500 in red:

Yahoo! Finance

2012-2014, the Maturity Wall

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According to the NYTimes, $700 billion in high-yeild corporates mature from 2012 to 2014:

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More from the Times article:

With huge bills about to hit corporations and the federal government around the same time, the worry is that some companies will have trouble getting new loans, spurring defaults and a wave of bankruptcies.

The United States government alone will need to borrow nearly $2 trillion in 2012, to bridge the projected budget deficit for that year and to refinance existing debt.

Indeed, worries about the growth of national, or sovereign, debt prompted Moody’s Investors Service to warn on Monday that the United States and other Western nations were moving “substantially” closer to losing their top-notch Aaa credit ratings…

Sovereign debt aside, the approaching scramble for corporate financing could strain the broader economy as jobs are cut, consumer spending is scaled back and credit is tightened for both consumers and businesses.

Private equity firms and many nonfinancial companies were able to borrow on easy terms until the credit crisis hit in 2007, but not until 2012 does the long-delayed reckoning begin for a series of leveraged buyouts and other deals that preceded the crisis.

That is because the record number of bonds and loans that were issued to finance those transactions typically come due in five to seven years, said Diane Vazza, head of global fixed-income research at Standard & Poor’s.

In addition, she said, many companies whose debt matured in 2009 and 2010 have been able to extend their loans, but the extra breathing room is only adding to the bill for 2012 and after.

The result is a potential financial doomsday, or what bond analysts call a maturity wall. From $21 billion due this year, junk bonds are set to mature at a rate of $155 billion in 2012, $212 billion in 2013 and $338 billion in 2014.

The credit markets have gradually returned to normal since the financial crisis, particularly in recent months, making more loans available to companies and signaling confidence in the pace of economic recovery. But the issue is whether they can absorb the coming surge in demand for credit.

“Returned to normal” apparently means lending money to people who can’t pay it back. And of course junk bonds are just part of the debt load:

TheTreasury Department estimates that the federal budget deficit in 2012 will total $974 billion, down from this year’s $1.8 trillion, but still huge by historical standards.

Next in line are companies with investment-grade credit ratings. They must refinance $1.2 trillion in loans between 2012 and 2014, including $526 billion in 2012. Finally, there is the looming rollover of commercial mortgage-backed securities, which will double in the next three years, hitting $59.7 billion in 2012.

Even if most of the debt does get refinanced, companies may have to pay more, if heavy government borrowing causes rates for all borrowers to rise.

“These are huge numbers,” said Tom Atteberry, who manages $5.6 billion in bonds for First Pacific Advisors, and is particularly alarmed by Washington’s borrowing. “Other players will get crowded out or have to pay significantly more, because the government is borrowing so much.”

Most critics of deficit spending have focused on the budget gap alone, but Washington will actually have to borrow $1.8 trillion in 2012, because $859 billion in old bonds will come due and have to be refinanced in addition to the deficit. By 2013 and 2014, $1.4 trillion will have to be raised annually.

In the late 1990s, the federal government ran a surplus and actually paid down a small portion of the national debt. But with the huge deficits of the last few years, the national debt has grown to more than $12 trillion.

All this debt is simply unpayable, and soon unserviceable. There is no solution but default. When the government bumps up against the limits of its credit, that will be the coup de grace.