Tuesday, October 26, 2010

10/26 11:45

I posted the Daily last night that QE is neutralizing market sentiment.  That seemed to have bothered some.  I have been making money throughout the QE acceleration of the past month. QE is not creating credit, which is how fiat economies grow. QE is creating money which is depreciating the dollar and artificially increasing the nominal value of dollar-denominated assets.  The marginal demand that drives the markets are hedge funds and carry trade.  Borrowing dollars for nothing and throwing them into non-dollar-denominated markets suppresses the dollar due to the exchange.  This is what has driven commodity markets to double since the 2009 low.  CRB from 150 to 300 which in the Weekly I marked as a completed abc following the 5-wave 2008 commodity bear market from 500 to 150. 
Although I did not like Greenspan's rate policy I believe that he would never have embarked on QE except in the most limited sense. Bernanke-style QE will not be a permanent part of the monetary landscape. It is a temporary phenomenon that will be discredited once the full ramifications of it are felt. The whispers on the street are that another big round of QE is coming. I don't believe this will happen because enough of the impacts of original QE are being felt and are creating an economic island U.S. This is what the socialists want, to erect fences around the economy to keep out the bad and only allow the good. So a falling dollar is seen as a good to them, but the bad aspects have yet to be felt. So far inflation at wholesale and consumer level has not responded to the panacea. The prices of commodities have gone up but these have not filtered into final goods costs either here or overseas. The trading partners do not perceive this as a good because they pay double, with increased commodity costs which are difficult to pass along into product pricing and a rising currency at the trade table. I actually heard a $2 trillion number floated for QE2. How preposterous! The final number will be much smaller and probably incremental. QE will fail and be shown as bad policy, but markets have to wait for the fallout to occur.  William Miller was Fed chairman in 78-80 when the dollar tanked as a direct result of radically misguided Fed policy. The result was not economic good, but evil itself. We've seen an increase in gold to 1350 as scared investors seek to avoid inflationary fallout. Yet that inflation has yet to occur. Why? Because nobody wants to go further into debt and banks don't want more loans on their balance sheets.  So the majority of this money has gone into leveraged speculation.  The unwind will be legendary and will discredit the Fed, along with the increasing ire of our trading partners.  This is Greek-style monetary policy and the Germans are not amused.
So I1 measures market sentiment toward the most sensitive litmus, the stock market.  However, a falling dollar prevents that sentiment from translating into lower nominal prices.  Hence, watching the dollar as a cue that the Fed's effect has worn off.  If the dollar can have a sustained rally then market forces will be shown to overwhelm Fed action.  The amount of Fed action is miniscule given the volume of international dollar flows, in and out.  However, by enabling the carry trade and hedge funds the Fed multiplies the effect, not into the real economy, but into speculation.  It never ends well.

13 comments:

  1. Total speculative commodity futures positions are at an all-time record. Something I have yet to see noted anywhere.

    The unwind will indeed be spectacular.

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  2. Hook,
    Thanks for the post. A lot of the carry trade has found it's way overseas, so this is a worldwide phenomenon. Hedge funds are also primarily speculating overseas at this time. So our record futures' open interest is also reflected internationally.

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  3. Hi Steve,
    Does what you say mean that I1 does not work anymore?

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  4. What I mean is that fighting the Fed the I1 will not result in declines but periods of flat prices. I have been maintaining minimal stock shorts during decline I1 because critical support has not been taken out yet. I've been making money by being realistic about the battle at hand. Commodities have peaked, so shorting commodities until stock support is taken has been making me money. After the elections the Fed will cut back. I know that the street expects the Fed to continue big-time but the repercussions of their actions are accumulating.

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  5. Have you looked at the Trade History?

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  6. My view, for what it's worth, is that the Fed may have its hands tied after the G20 meeting last weekend. Timmy's language changed, re supporting the dollar. I am pretty sure the Chinese flexed their muscles (supported by most of the rest of the world), and told the US to stop devaluing the dollar. The Chinese have enormous leverage over the US now.
    Whilst Bernanke (idiot that he is) would love to do $2trillion next week, I reckon he does nothing, or just a token £200b to attempt to halt the huge sell-off that will follow.
    It will sell-off though.
    I may be wrong, geopolitics is always a tricky one to read, but just look at rare earths, the Chinese interest rate hike, they are in the driving seat now.

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  7. Maybe it will be time to short U.S. bonds....treasuries and corps.

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  8. Here is a good article for your consideration:
    http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/535538/Dont-Trust-the-Rally%3A-%22Its-Just-High-Speed-Guys-Chasing-Each-Other%2C-Saluzzi-Says

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  9. I forgot to mention the HighFrequency boys in my list of plungers. I was too focused on Ben's impact on commodity prices.

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  10. 2 trillion sounds like an unbelievable sum. And yet isn't the Federal deficit running at more than 1 trillion ANNUALLY?? That's over 1 trillion added to the national debt (your debt and my debt) EVERY YEAR!

    So if QE II ends up being 2 trillion, it's really a drop in the bucket, it takes care of the Fed's deficit spending for a year or two.

    (How much was QE I?)

    I suspect that no matter what number the Fed comes up with for QE II, the markets will sell off. If it's a big number, maybe a sucker rally first. If it's less than 2 trillion, markets will tank immediately.

    The wildcard IMO is the PM's, especially gold. Other commodities should drop as the dollar rallies, but I don't know what gold will do. It sometimes goes opposite the way of the stock market and if the market drops fast and deep, gold could be the fear trade.

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  11. Steve, I agree that is true. How do you track overseas futures markets speculative positions? Also, have you broken down the size of overseas positions vs. (current record spec) US futures markets positions.

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  12. Hook,
    One way is ICE Futures Europe which clocked record volume and open interest in September.
    If I were doing carry trade I would most likely be foreign, borrowing dollars and buying foreign assets which I understand and to avoid depreciating dollars. Of course, when the dollar starts appreciating then the carry trade will unwind very quickly. This situation is fundamentally different from the derivatives bubble last time in that many of those assets were in relatively illiquid instruments. This time the bubble is liquid because there are limited secondary markets for the illiquid stuff and banks won't lend against it.

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  13. Yep. The commodities market has always been one of the most leveraged markets.

    I would also add that ETF's have allowed retail investors to grossly increase their speculation in commodities and emerging markets which benefit from the carry trade. They are very much all-in on emerging markets stocks and bonds.

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