Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets, Articles, & Clips – our basic inputs for this article.
Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting Tweets, Articles, Video Clips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television, Tweeter, and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Macro Viewpoints & its affiliates expressly disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the information in this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerance.
1.”He Goldilocked this one”
That’s how CNBC Fast Money star Tim Seymour described what Chair Powell said in his presser on last Wednesday. A longer & more detailed view came from Jim Caron of Morgan Stanley on Friday morning on The Bloomberg Open. He opened with,
- “… the most impressive data point for me – yes, Fed was important; yes equities are all making new highs; – what’s most important to me or most interesting is the 10-year yield didn’t actually go up; it went down despite what would be thought of as somewhat inflationary, somewhat procyclical, pro growth where Fed is running growth rates above their potential estimates; …. “
- “.. they do expect inflation to come down; the market is believing it; the10-year breakevens are about 2.4%; the market is basically saying that yes, the Fed has long-term inflation credibility; they are able to run the economy a little bit hot with no consequences of inflation; so the fact of the matter is the back-end, 10-yr yield & beyond, is actually believing this; its keeping rates low & that’s what is unleashing animal spirits; the equity market is just following along like a dutiful soldier doing what it is supposed to do in an environment like this; …”
But is the Fed worried & about what? Caron said
- (minute 8:14) – I think what the Fed is really weighing is that they believe that policy levels are very very tight; let’s say inflation is 3%; nominal Fed Funds rate is 5.5%; that means you have a 2.5% real policy rate which is very very high; which means the Fed is very worried their policy is so tight right now that the wheels can come off very very quickly if they stand by & do nothing; the employment rate could potentially shoot up very very high; that’s what I think they are making a trade-off on right now; that’s the battle the Fed is fighting … I think the Fed is really worried that they are very tight & things could slow very quickly if they sat by & did nothing … (minute 9:23) ”
He added later,
- “(minute 18:53) what the Fed is worried about is – if we get a rapid rise in unemployment rates, that will get a much more broader impact on the retail sector, housing sector & other sectors – that’s what they want to kinda stop; what we are observing right now is that wages are coming down, employment market is cooling but not collapsing; the miracle we are witnessing at this point is that inflation is able to come down but the unemployment rate doesn’t really skyrocket higher; … “
So what’s the takeaway?
- “… that is what is concerning at this point; what if we do start to slow down, if there is some tension in the jobs market, the job market starts to weaken, wages start to fall rapidly – you would see an unwind of a lot of the positive news propping up equity prices in markets in general & that could happen very very quickly; So I think the takeaway here is that we are skating on thin ice a little bit; so long as we get a soft landing, we are going to be fine “
The most interesting post Powell-presser action in the markets we saw was in the Dollar & commodity stocks – GLD, FCX, USO:
The above is clearly not a sign of markets interpreting Powell’s presser as adding unnecessary liquidity. The interest rates are also down but without benefiting the sectors they have benefited so far such as Small Caps over Large caps:
(TNX – 10-yr yld) (IWM vs. SPY)
Getting back to Caron’s “miracle that we are witnessing so far” comment above, Semis delivered a big positive message post Powell:
And that might be the “higher productivity days are here again” message:
“AI Could Push Productivity Up For Years.”– Neil Duttahttps://t.co/lLeattg1OQ pic.twitter.com/begVsiwgLu
— RenMac: Renaissance Macro Research (@RenMacLLC) March 23, 2024
We realize that we may have made too much of the two days that followed the Powell turn that surprised many. But it fits with what we have been thinking about for a bit.
And we saw another turn on Friday, one that showed an angry Becky Quick snapping at a guest while Joe Kernen showing a soft-spoken calm contrast. That might have happened before, but surely we can “Appreciate the lag” in between the two occurrences. By the way, that clip also featured JPMorgan’s Kelsey Berro calling for a “structurally higher income” era coming from BoJ’s action.
2. Market last week
Interest Rates & Bond ETFs:
- 30-yr yld down 4.5 bps; 20-yr down 7.6 bps; 10-yr down 9.8 bps; 7-yr down 11.5 bps; 5-yr down 13.2 bps; 3-yr down 14.6 bps; 2-yr down 13.2 bps; 1-yr down 10.4 bps;
- TLT up 1.1%; EDV up 74 bps; PFF up 1%; HYG up 79 bps; JNK up 1%; DPG up 55 bps; UTG up 1.1%; AGNC up 62 bps; NLY up 2.6%; EMB up 1.7%;
US Indices:
- VIX down 9.5%; Dow up 2%; SPX up 2.3%; RSP up 1.2%; NDX up 3%; SMH up 4%; RUT up 1.6%; IWC up 1.7%; DJT up 3.3%;
Stock Sectors:
- AAPL down 5 bps; AMZN up 2.3%; GOOGL up 6.6%; META up 5.2%; MSFT up 3%; NVDA up 6.9%; NFLX up 3.5%; BAC up 4.9%; C up 5.5%; GS up 5%; SCHW up 6.7%; KRE up 1.3%;
Dollar was up with UUP up 1.2% & DXY up 97 bps:
Commodities & Commodity Stocks:
- Gold up 23 bps; GDX down 1.1%; Silver down 2.4%; SLV down 2%; Copper down 2.9%; CLF up 7.8%; FCX up 1.1%; Oil down 23 bps; Brent up 32 bps; Nat Gas down 72 bps; OIH up 2.6%; XLE up 91 bps;
International ETFs:
- ACWX up 66 bps; EEM up 27 bps; FXI down 1.7%; KWEB down 68 bps; EWZ flat; EWY up 2.8%; EWG up 38 bps; INDA down 10 bps; INDY flat;
The China-related advice we get on Fin TV is to buy Chinese ADRs & Hong Kong stocks instead of mainland China stocks. This week we heard the reverse recommendation from Laura Wong, Morgan Stanley’s Chief China Equity Strategy:
3. Stunning Underwater City
Just over a month ago, we highlighted the opening of a Shri Krushn Temple in UAE and described the ancient city of Dvaarkaa that was established by Shri Krushn.
After the great Mahaa-Bhaarat war that consumed two generations (Kings & Princes) of the Indian Subcontinent, the city of Dvaarkaa sank into the Arabian Sea. Literally, almost every Indian believes that Dvaarkaa is still submerged at the bottom of the sea and would be discovered one day.
Guess what we ourselves discovered today, something that was reported a months ago by Graham Hancock, a “renowned” researcher. If you have 9 minutes, you could choose to be thunderstruck at what you see in the clip below – “incredible discovery of the lost city of Dwarka“.
The underwater cameras take you thru what are roads in the submerged city, the stunning architecture of what this team of researchers found. We ourselves couldn’t believe our eyes.
It will take a great deal of time and a huge amount of money to bring the sunken Dvaarkaa up. But this does show that it will be done someday.
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