Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Debt Problem
U.S. Treasury Bonds have historically been known as the safest investments on the planet. But now top money managers such as Pimco’s Bill Gross are calling our debt issuance a Ponzi scheme, where one arm of the government – the Federal Reserve Bank, is supporting the US Treasury, by buying as much as 70% of the new debt that has been issued since last September.
Many pundits are stating that this move by the ratings agency to lower its outlook for U.S. paper from "stable" to "negative" caught investors off guard. While this is a first since it began rating the creditworthiness of government bonds back in 1860, this action should hardly be a surprise. Our debt has skyrocketed over the last few years to levels only achieved during major wars.
Today the total outstanding public debt in the US is around $14 Trillion. The debt to GDP ratio is among the highest in the world. The federal deficit has approached this echelon only a few times in US history; during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and today in aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008.
Should our government debt get downgraded in the future, we would have to pay a higher interest rate to attract new buyers. More problems would occur, as many institutions are banned from holding anything but AAA rated investments. That would force a sale of their holdings, which would result in lower prices and even higher interest rates.
As troubling as this may be for the US, the situation in parts of Europe are even more problematic. Greece and Ireland have already needed to be bailed out by the IMF and other Euro zone countries and are still reeling. Both countries have had their credit rating downgraded again in the last month.
Portugal is now and need of a bailout. Also there is speculation that Spain and Italy will need help in the near future. Should Spain require a bailout, it is estimated that the money needed would amount to the sum of all three of the previous countries combined. It can be surmised that as bad as the situation is over here with our current debt warnings, the problems are even bigger in Europe.
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Dollar Destruction
As infamous trader Jesse Livermore used to say, “Conditions are ripe for a sell off.” The litany of global problems that exist seem to be compounding every day. As if the market doesn’t care, the major indexes have spiked up over the last few weeks. It does seem odd to see such strength under these circumstances.
This week however, trading started off the day quite positive but then gave back much of it by the close. Strength in the morning followed by weakness in the afternoon is usually a bearish sign. While the S&P 500 has been up three of the last four days, we‘ve had only a fractional gain this week.
Usually the start of each month and especially the start of a new quarter is a time for strength as retirement plans of every ilk get funded and new money flows into the market. With April’s monthly strength period now over, hardly a dent has been made towards a market advance.
The strong season for the market is also coming to a close. There is historical statistical evidence that gives credence to the “sell in May and go away” concept for period investing. While markets don’t have a calendar, the November through April timeframe historically has significantly outperformed the May through October period, and May is coming soon.
Investor sentiment is running high. The recent Investors Intelligence Sentiment Survey reveals that less than 16% of professional newsletter writers are bearish and over 57% are bullish. This Bull to Bear ratio of 3.65 displays even more optimism than at the market peak in 2007.
This survey has been widely adopted by the investment community as a contrarian indicator. Since its inception in 1963, the indicator has had a consistent record for predicting the major market turning points.
Another contributing worrisome factor is the coming end of the Fed’s Quantitative Easing Program (QE2). When the Fed stops buying bonds, monetizing our debt, and pumping billions of new dollars into our economy on a daily basis, how will the markets fare? That is a big question. Currently it’s as if the economy is cycling ahead with training wheels on. What happens when they come off?
Should markets correct on anticipation of or at the end of the QE2 money pumping machine, it would mean that a market top was occurring at almost precisely the same time it did last year, which included the Flash Crash.
One of the key factors that markets appear to be ignoring today is the ever rising price of oil. High oil prices have always led to a recession. Oil is a direct reflection of a falling dollar. With the ongoing destruction of the US dollar, caused in a large part by the QE2 program, commodity prices are going through the roof. Now is a time for caution.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The New Era
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Luck of the Irish
On a technical basis, all the major market indices appear to have broken their up trends and recent support levels. Because markets rose at such a fast past since the beginning of September, there is very little support between here and their respective 200 day moving averages. This could mean there is more downside to go before reaching next support.
There is a lot riding on the depth and duration of this correction. The primary reason the rally started was that traders felt that the Fed had their backs in a sense. As Ben Bernanke outlined his Second Quantitative Easing Strategy (QE2), many traders did a little math and recognized that $4 to $5 Billion of new money was going to move from the Central Bank to Primary Broker Dealers on a daily basis for the next nine months.
The Fed monetizing debt, while simultaneously pumping banks with a plethora of cash, gave a level of comfort to traders that the stock market would be a one way street up. Until mid February, that has been true. The VIX “fear index” dropped below levels of complacency not seen since before the 2007 Great Recession began. Optimism among both institutional and individual investors held bull to bear ratios at extreme levels for extended periods.
It almost felt like the golden age of investing was back, as the “mom and pop” investors who missed the double off the bottom over the last 20 plus months started to come roaring back in. Now that the belief that the Fed can print our way into prosperity is coming into question, a vacuum of confidence could occur.
In the near term it appears that the market has more downside to go as support has been violated. Using one of the oldest and most actively traded ETF’s the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) to create a synthetic short position by Selling an April 125 Call for $4.24 and Buying an April 125 Put for $3.37 per contract could be profitable in this environment. In this example you start by pocketing $87 per contract immediately.
A couple of technical analysis methods point to SPY having a near term price target of $119. Two reasons: First, that is where its 200 day moving average is. Second, this run started at the end of August with SPY trading at $104.29. It reached a high on February 18th of $134.69. A normal 50% Fibonacci retracement puts SPY at $119.49.
Should this happen in a week’s time this trade could result in a profit of approximately $650 per contract. The risk comes into play should the market move up quickly. SPY closed yesterday at $126.18. Should SPY trade here or lower this will be a good trade.
If you currently own shares of SPY, employing the same strategy creates a collar on your position and is an even lower risk trade should the market recover as your exposure is limited, but so is your return.
There are many reasons to believe that the market could continue in its downward trajectory. Not only are markets ripe for a pullback, should it start to accelerate down, a generation of investors will be lost as they throw in the towel quickly and the confidence of even most astute investors could be shaken. If that happens SPY could overshoot $119 making this recommendation even more profitable.
The Real Price of Oil
The mood of the stock market has grown increasingly more downbeat over the last few weeks. It’s no wonder, as investors are facing widespread geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East and a catastrophe of yet unknown proportions in the world's third largest economy.
Almost defiantly, markets have displayed impressive resiliency. The combination of these events might have the ability to knock down any strong market. So far though it has absorbed these shocks, but markets remain vulnerable to a deeper correction.
Over the last couple of years governments have pumped money into their economies on a fast and furious basis to keep them propped up. This has resulted in a global increase of prices for food and energy. Higher food costs and lack of opportunity are the main factors causing much of the turmoil in Middle Eastern countries.
The problems over there are creating issues over here as we are seeing gas prices around $4 per gallon. Higher gas prices have the same effect as higher taxes only without any additional benefits. It leaves less money for consumers to spend on discretionary items, which could cause contraction for the overall economy.
In addition higher energy costs results in higher prices or fewer profits for most everything. Getting goods from the raw material stage through the manufacturing process to the end user will require additional cost. Already high food prices will surely continue to rise with the additional cost of shipping the goods from the farms to the grocery markets.
Unfortunately oil is the lifeblood of our society. Many daily activities require oil. From factories to farms, oil is needed as coolant or fuel. Heating homes, creating electricity; everything from lubricants to lipstick, and medicine to plastics, requires oil.
Americans consume more gasoline than South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia combined! We are gasoholics! We have an addiction with oil. Two thirds of all the oil used in America is for transportation.
With the earthquake that has devastated Japan; a huge problem for the country will be the restoration of power and water for many of their citizens. Electricity is out for millions and will take several weeks or months to restore. In the meantime, electricity would be rationed with rolling blackouts to several cities, including Tokyo.
A total of four nuclear plants in Japan have reported damaged and are offline – some permanently. There has to be a replacement for that energy shortfall. Nuclear power plants take years to build so it is not going to come from that source. Oil along with coal will be the most likely candidates as Japan will reopen some of their old non nuclear facilities. This will create an even higher demand for oil.
The battle in Libya as well as demonstrations in many other oil producing countries is a sign of instability. This could lead to supply issues and higher oil prices. There are several reasons to be concerned that our own economies fragile recovery could be derailed.
The United States Oil Fund (USO) is one of the most actively traded oil based funds on the market today. Through the use of the actively traded futures contracts, it tracks the price changes of light, sweet crude oil.
USO went up 21% in a recent three week period, only to pull back 4% last week. USO closed Monday at $40.91 and has big support in $38 per share range. With all the negative issues regarding potential supply disruptions and increased demand for oil, we could see price increases for the foreseeable future.
An investment in OIL could act as a personal hedge and help offset some of your increased costs at the pump. Use a stop of $37.70 and be hopeful that it drops to that level, because that will spell relief for American consumers. If the cost of oil continues to rise, you can expect the stock market to eventually capitulate and tumble due to the higher associated costs for almost everything else. That is the real price that we could pay for oil.
Friday, January 14, 2011
What a Run!
The major indexes are extended far over their 200-day moving averages. Usually they have some sort of pullback, at least enough to test the support of their historical averages. Even through the strongest of bull markets, normal ebbs and flows to and from their long term averages happen. We are currently overdue for a retraction. From the current levels a retracement just to the 200 day moving average would be around 11% for the S&P 500, and 14% for the Russell 2000. That would erase much of last year’s 12.8% gain that the S&P had for all of 2010.
Another interesting scenario is that of the dollar / gold relationship. The dollar was down this week, but gold was down as well. Lately those trades have moved inverse to each other. Long bonds also continued to see outflows. The biggest sector hit this week was taken by municipal bonds. Fears that state and local governments are on the verge of default, as well as fears of rising interest rates took its toll on muni’s once again. The municipal market much like real estate is very localized. Therefore not all muni’s are bad and there probably are some great deals to be had – but that is a topic for another time.
The stock market has too many bulls and too much complacency. The AAII & II bull to bear numbers are flashing record optimism. The VIX shows no fear. While the market continues its ascent we are still invested long. However something does not feel quite right to some savvy professional traders. A change will most likely happen soon. It would be wise to lighten up when some more sell signals occur and pivot points are breached.
For the S&P 500 a drop below 1250 might be a cause for concern. The Russell 2000 below 777 would trigger a defensive move and for the NASDAQ Composite below 2640 should also warrant protective action. When the majority of investors are on only one side of the trade with no concept of fear due to an imaginative Fed, sometimes unintended consequences come along that rebalance the market. Be careful – the markets are currently over-extended, overbought AND over manipulated.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Santa Claus Came This Year
Yes ladies and gentlemen, the new Santa is none other than Ben Bernanke. He does have the beard and he did spend the end of this year bringing gifts of large amounts of cash to the once beleaguered Wall Street banks, but after that the similarities stop. I’ve never seen him photographed in a red suit and I’m pretty sure he arrives to work in a car with no reindeer or a sleigh in sight.
Now the Fed through their QE2 program is going to continue to flood Wall Street with billions of dollars through the spring, but will the rally continue? That remains to be seen. Complacency among investors is at almost unprecedented levels. The extreme bullishness is pervasive. It’s as if investors believe that nothing could go wrong. However, it is at times like these that the majority almost always is mistaken and the market does the most damage to highest number of participants.
So where are the warning signs? Oh they are out there and it is in the form of rising interest rates. The bond vigilantes may cause Fed Chair Bernanke some headaches. Recall that the Fed is trying to buy bonds with the intent of keeping interest rates low. They want low interest rates to attempt to stimulate the housing market and to keep corporate lending rates down to motivate businesses to borrow and expand, in an effort to create jobs.
The Fed also wanted to stimulate the stock market to recreate a wealth effect for investors and retirement plans. The success the Fed is having so far with stocks is causing bond holders to rethink their strategy of avoiding stocks and holding safer Treasuries. Rising stock prices are starting to influence droves of investors to sell their bond positions, which are driving bond prices lower and conversely resulting in higher interest rates. How far and how fast rates go up remains to be seen, but printing more money to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars historically would be considered inflationary. And inflation is bad for bonds as it also drives interest rates higher.
This new conundrum of higher interest rates with an economy struggling to stand its own is not good and will have to come to terms probably sooner rather than later. When? Perhaps next week or maybe money managers will do what they can to sustain the market one more week and wait until after the first of the year. One thing is clear Santa had his rally. The Wall Street gang is celebrating right now. While it is good to enjoy the season and the recent rally, there are some dark clouds on the horizon and to ignore them would be unwise.
Happy Holidays to all and best wishes for a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.