It's A 'Turkey' Market

With Thanksgiving week rapidly approaching, I thought it was an apropos time to discuss what I am now calling a “Turkey” market.

What’s a “Turkey” market?  Nassim Taleb summed it up well in his 2007 book “The Black Swan.”

“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say.

On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.”

Such is the market we live in currently.

In a market that is excessively bullish and overly complacent, investors are “willfully blind” to the relevant “risks” of excessive equity exposure. The level of bullishness, by many measures, is extremely optimistic, as this chart from Tiho Krkan (@Tihobrkan) shows.

Not surprisingly, that extreme level of bullishness has led to some of the lowest levels of volatility and cash allocations in market history.

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Of course, you can’t have a “Turkey” market unless you are being lulled into it with a supporting story that fits the overall narrative. The story of “it’s an earnings-driven market” is one such narrative. As noted  by my friend Doug Kass:

“Earnings are there to support the market. If we didn’t have earnings to support the market, that would be worrying. But we have earnings.”

—Mary Ann Bartels, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

“Earnings are doing remarkably well.”

—Ed Yardeni, Yardeni Research

“This is very much an earnings-driven market.”

—Paul Springmeyer, U.S. Bancorp Private Wealth Management

“This is very much earnings-driven.”

—Michael Shaoul, Marketfield Asset Management

“Equities have largely been driven by global liquidity, but they are now being driven by earnings.”

—Kevin Boscher, Brooks Macdonald International

“Most of the market action in 2017 has been earning-driven.”

—Dan Chung, Alger Management

“The action is justified because of earnings.“

—James Liu, Clearnomics

In another case of “Group Stink” and contrary to the pablum we hear from many of the business media’s talking heads, the U.S. stock market has not been an earnings-driven story in 2017. (I have included seven “earnings-driven” quotes above from recent interviews on CNBC, but there are literally hundreds of these interviews, all saying the same thing)

Rather, it has been a valuation-driven story, just as it was in 2016 when S&P 500 profits were up 5% and the S&P Index rose by about 11%. And going back even further, since 2012 S&P earnings have risen by 30% compared to an 80% rise in the price of the S&P lndex!

He is absolutely right, of course, as I examined in the drivers of the market rally three weeks ago.

“The chart below expands that analysis to include four measures combined: Economic growth, Top-line Sales Growth, Reported Earnings, and Corporate Profits After Tax. While quarterly data is not yet available for the 3rd quarter, officially, what is shown is the market has grown substantially faster than all other measures. Since 2014, the economy has only grown by a little less than 9%, top-line revenues by just 3% along with corporate profits after tax, and reported earnings by just 2%. All of that while asset prices have grown by 29% through Q2.” 

The hallmark of a “Turkey” market really comes down to the detachment of price from valuation and the deviation of price from long-term norms. Both of these detachments are shown in the charts below.

CAPE-5 is a modified version of Dr. Robert Shiller’s smoothed 10-year average. By using a 5-year average of CAPE (Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings) ratio, it becomes more sensitive to market movements. Historically, deviations above 40% have preceded secular bear markets, while deviations exceeding -40% preceded secular bull markets.

The next chart shows the deviation of the real, inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index from the 6-year (72-month) moving average.

Not surprisingly, when the price of the index has deviated significantly from the underlying long-term moving averages, corrections and bear markets have not been too distant.

Combining the above measures (volatility, valuation, and deviation) together shows this a bit more clearly. The chart shows both 2 and 3-standard deviations above the 6-year moving average. The red circles denote periods where valuations, complacency and 3-standard deviation moves have converged. 

Of course, with cash balances low, you can’t foster that kind of extension without sufficiently increasing leverage in the overall system. The expansion of margin debt is a good proxy for the “fuel” driving the bull market advance.

Naturally, as long as that “fuel” isn’t ignited, leverage can remain supportive of the market’s advance. However, when the reversion begins, the “fuel” that drove stocks higher will “explode” when selling forces liquidation through margin calls.

While the media continues to suggest the markets are free from risk, and investors should go ahead and “stick-their-necks-out,” history shows that periods of low volatility, high valuations and deviations from long-term means has resulted in very poor outcomes.

Lastly, there has been a lot of talk about how markets have entered into a new “secular bull market” period. As I have addressed previously, I am not sure such is the case. Given the debt, demographic and deflationary backdrop, combined with the massive monetary interventions of global Central Banks, it is entirely conceivable the current advance remains part of the secular bear market that began at the turn of the century.

Only time will tell.

Regardless, whether this is a bull market rally in an ongoing bear market, OR a bull rally in a new bull market, whenever the RSI (relative strength index) on a 3-year basis has risen above 70 it has usually marked the end of the current advance. Currently, at 84, there is little doubt the market has gotten ahead of itself.

No matter how you look at it, the risk to forward returns greatly outweighs the reward presently available.

Importantly, this doesn’t mean that you should “sell everything” and go hide in cash, but it does mean that being aggressively exposed to the financial markets is no longer opportune.

What is clear is that this is no longer a “bull market.”

It has clearly become a “Turkey” market. Unfortunately, like Turkeys, we really have no clue where we are on the current calendar. We only know that today is much like yesterday, and the “bliss” of calm and stable markets have lulled us into extreme complacency.

You can try and fool yourself that weak earnings growth, low interest rates and high-valuations are somehow are justified. The reality is, like Turkeys, we will ultimately be sadly mistaken and learn a costly lesson.

“Price is what you pay, Value is what you get.” – Warren Buffett

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The Central Bank Bubble: How Will It Burst?

Alberto Gallo of Algebris Investments steps up to take his shot at the $64,000 (more like trillion) question in a report published this week “The Central Bank Bubble: How Will It Burst?”

Gallo manages the Algebris Macro Credit Fund described as “an unconstrained strategy investing across global bond and credit markets, and with lead responsibility for Macro Strategies” on the company’s website.

Gallo sets the scene as follows.

Most investors are still playing the game, and in the same direction. We estimate there are currently around $11tn in negative-yielding bonds and over $2tn in strategies that explicitly or implicitly depend on stable volatility and asset correlations. If low interest rates and QE have been the lever pushing up prices of dividend and coupon-paying assets, central banks are the fulcrum.

This fulcrum is slowly shifting: the ECB has just announced a reduction in its bond purchase programme, the Bank of England is likely to hike this month – even in the face of economic weakness –the Fed will likely hike rates again in December, and the PBoC has recently warned of asset overvaluation.

One of our favourite parts of the report is “The Magic Money Tree” infographic which explains how QE has benefited a plethora of investment strategies and created the current bubble to end all bubbles.

Now Gallo is obviously savvy because he doesn’t nail his colours to the mast on one factor which will prick the central bank bubble. Instead he offers four scenarios. The first threat is a rise in inflation, which he summarises as follows.

1. Inflation: after nine years of low-flation, the probability of a sudden rise in inflation is increasing, as job markets get tighter, globalisation leaves way to protectionist policies and liquidity reaches job-creating small and medium businesses as banks re-start lending.

Wage inflation aside, Gallo believes China could continue to export inflation based on a more resilient than expected Chinese economy. Gallo believes that China may have sufficient policy options to smoothly deflate its credit bubble. While we might disagree, it is a possibility.

The second threat to the central bank bubble is…central bankers.

2. Central bankers themselves: central banks appear to have shifted their tone to worry increasingly about financial stability. There are good reasons to do so. We are many years into a global synchronous expansion, and there will be little monetary policy ammunition to fight a new slowdown, with interest rates near record lows and $20tn in global central bank balance sheets. In some countries, like Japan and Switzerland, central banks have grown their balance sheets to sizes similar to their respective economies. The good news is some central banks are trying to curb stimulus before their mandate ends. The Federal Reserve is poised to raise rates again in December, the Bank of England will likely hike, the ECB has announced a reduction in purchases and the Bank of Canada has hiked too. The bad news is that markets have so far largely ignored this reduction in stimulus.

It makes sense…central banks created the bubble via QE and ZIRP/NIRP, so reversing that strategy might prick their own bubble.

The third threat is another merry band of miscreants.

3. Politicians: central bank QE has not only lowered yields and boosted asset prices. It has also artificially suppressed volatility. Yet volatility may come back as the consequences of rising inequality in the distribution of wealth, opportunity and natural resources across the world. The last decade has been great for billionaires, not so good for Main Street. Inequality of wealth and opportunity in developed economies has fuelled anti-establishment protest votes like the ones for Brexit or President Trump. Other populist parties are on the rise in Continental Europe and Scandinavia. In turn, domestic populism and nationalism in developed countries can increase commercial conflict and protectionism - see for instance the potential withdrawal from NAFTA, or the EU-UK tariff threat - as well as exacerbate militarism and geopolitical conflict. Populism has historically fuelled government spending and fiscal stimulus, higher taxes and aggressive redistribution policies, which could all re-price overvalued assets and/or target assets used as a store of value. 

We have nothing to add.

4. The market: rising growth, low inflation and low interest rates have proven a boon to global markets. There are now $20tn in central bank assets globally, and around 10% of global sovereign debt is yielding negative. Investors have been buying equities for yield and bonds for capital gains, and have been selling volatility explicitly or positioned in strategies that are implicitly short volatility. These assume a stable volatility and correlation among the price of assets. For example, risk-parity strategies assume a negative correlation between risky assets, like stocks, and "risk-free assets", like U.S. treasuries. But what happens if both decline together, and short volatility investors become forced to unwind their portfolios?

Exactly, this is what we’re waiting for, but what is the catalyst? Nobody knows.

If we were forced to guess what will prick the bubble, we would probably place more emphasis on China than the Algebris report does. However, putting aside what causes it, we share Gallo’s view on some of the key mechanics which will be “in play” when a crisis unfolds.

What will the next crisis look like?

The over $2tn in explicit and implicit short-volatility strategies could be the spark, similar to sub-prime for credit markets in 2008, which was $1.4tn. However, a future crisis would be very different from 2008. Growth in passive investing vehicles and in the mismatch between assets they buy and liabilities they issue, lack of risk-free assets and growing collateral chains, diminishing trading liquidity due to higher capital requirements for dealers point to more fragility in financial markets.

It's perfectly set up, if we only knew when.

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Fonte: Z.H.

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