The Great Escape
Posted on Saturday, June 24th, 2017
It is a 10 year anniversary for us this week. This week marks 10 years since our move to Georgia or as I like to call it “The Great Escape”. It also marks the 10th anniversary of the dawn of the financial crisis. Not a coincidence I assure you. Having traded through the Internet Bubble and watched Lucent Technologies, which was that bubbles’ “Darling” stock, trade from $79 to 79 cents we knew the real estate market would have also have to get as bad as it was good. And in 2006 -07 it was very good. We foresaw the real estate crisis and sold our house in New Jersey for an exorbitant price which according to Zillow it still has not climbed back to. As a side note, Lucent never got back to $79 either. We say this not to brag but as an investment lesson learned well. Trees do not grow to the sky. Know when to cut back on your risk.
Not much is being made of the 10th Anniversary of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) but there has been a lot of consternation surrounding the Federal Reserve’s most recent decision and path going forward. If we have established that the growth in central bank balance sheets around the world has been responsible for the run up in asset prices it stands to reason that any shrinking of those balance sheets would diminish asset prices. Here is another timeless lesson of investing. Never fight the Fed. While the Fed has spent the last 10 years injecting liquidity into the system to pump up asset prices it is now talking about taking liquidity out – Quantitative Tightening (QT). Ironically, during our time on Wall Street the phrase QT was a questionable trade, an error that needed to be resolved and it usually cost you money. The question facing us now is the Federal Reserve making a questionable trade and will it cost you money?
The economy is growing, albeit slowing. That is due to the immense amount of debt on the United States balance sheet. This slow growth is now being met by a central bank that seeks to raise rates and shrink its own balance sheet. Now instead of a tailwind, the economy and markets are looking at a headwind. As we have written in prior posts, the Federal Reserve could have been acting since December with the impulse that more stimulative fiscal policy was going to come out of Washington, in the post election period. The new administration Trumpeted the advent of a new era with tax reform and deregulation at its forefront. The Fed sought to get ahead of the curve by applying tighter money policy. Well, Washington is at a standstill and has provided none of the above.
Is the Federal Reserve making the ultimate central banker mistake? Are they tightening into a slowdown? The bond market seems to think so. The yield curve is flattening which indicates that bond investors do not see inflation on the horizon and see sub-par growth in the economy. Yet the stock market keeps chugging along. Who is right? Generally, we always go with the bond market. We believe that the Fed is tightening due to financial conditions and not economic conditions. That is what the stock market is missing. As long as the market expects the Fed to stop tightening because of slowing economic conditions then the market will continue to rally and the Fed will continue raising rates. Someone is going to blink first.
We think that the animal spirits playbook is still alive. Markets have not broken down and still seem to be headed higher. Higher markets may force investors to chase it even higher.
The Federal Reserve’s thinking has two main problems. One is that the Fed believes in stock and not flow which means that the Fed believes a big balance sheet helps the market. We believe it is the flow that determines the direction of markets. Flow is the direction in which the Fed and policy are headed. The Fed also believes that the market will discount their talking points as they move towards QT. We believe that the market will change when the flow changes.
Oil continues to get pounded as it is down 20% from March highs even though things in the Middle East heat up. Oil may try to find a bottom here as oil production will slow below $40 a barrel, at least here in the US. Biotech has had a great week as investors rotate there as the pressure from Washington on that sector seems to have ebbed. Equities are still in the middle of what we anticipate to be the new range on the S&P 500. For now we see support at 2400 on the S&P 500 with 2475 providing resistance. Interest rates may have seen their interim low for awhile.
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I think we aspire less to foresee the future and more to be a great contingency planner… you can respond very fast to what’s happening because you thought through all the possibilities, – Lloyd Blankfein
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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill