Sunday, April 26, 2020

What is the market trying to say?

Based upon what I'm seeing on twitter, the financial media and anecdotally speaking to colleagues, there is a great sense of frustration and confusion about the refusal of the market to roll over. How in the blue hell can the market be down only about 15% from the all time high when we have all this massive economic damage? This is pretty much the question that is being asked. So what's the answer? Here are 2 possible explanations:

1) The market is forward looking and is pricing in a very sharp but short economic contraction because the threat of COVID has peaked and.authorities through their massive fiscal and monetary stimulus responses, will end up  preventing a financial crisis and prolonged economic slump. Although there will be a massive drop in earnings, they should bounce back rather sharply as this was an induced recession as the result of an exogenous shock rather than an internal problem with the economy i.e. excesses/imbalances  that need to be worked through. But what about the changes in consumer behavior in the post COVID world (i.e. social distancing, fear of traveling, ect)? Won't that be a major drag on the economy?  The market may be saying this will not be a long term issue and since stocks are a claim on the cumulative cash flows of all future years, one write off year doesn't matter much as earnings will bounce back. Even if earnings don't bounce back to where they were prior to COVID right away, so long as they are not significantly impaired for several years, it shouldn't matter much especially in an ultra low interest rate environment where the alternatives will be beyond piss poor. Low inflation/interest rates makes the value of future cash flows worth more and right now interest rates are literally rock bottom.


2) The stock market is anticipating at least a temporary bounce back in activity and/or the rebound has been "sticky"  because the market got very oversold in March and expectations got too low. There's been a shortage of sellers and an overabundance of  bearish bets coupled with FOMO and technical buying. The more the market shrugs off bad news and embraces any glimmer of hope, the bolder FOMO/technical buyers get and the more frustrated and angry the bears get. Eventually we may get to the point where expectations notably rise and most of the FOMO/technical buyers are in the pool with bears having been wiped out. It's at that point when the market will be vulnerable to rolling over again, probably right about the time when the rebound in economic activity starts to fizzle out or the damage in earnings becomes too hard to ignore anymore.

The 2 above scenarios are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It could be that 2) plays out first i.e. a retest or minor break of the March lows at some point after we've seen the re-opening of the economy and the pent up demand bounce fizzles out,  and then things stabilize and recover from there.  I do realize that I'm making a lot of guesses here. I'm personally going to take the pragmatic, open minded approach and for now assume scenario 2 is in play now. That means that there's room for this market to advance further before the rebound is over, but I will not chase and I'll error on the side of caution. If it turns out that scenario 1) is indeed playing out I should hopefully be able to transition to that view as the evidence presents itself.


The thing that is most suspect about this rebound is how very narrow it has been. The tech sector is by far the largest contributor to the bounce with financials, small caps and value badly lagging. These were trends that were in place prior to COVID for years and they simply got amplified even more post  COVID.  We're seeing the resurgence of speculative activity like the action in stocks like TSLA and SHOP which is also not good. It's as if the bull market got resurrected and is in a zombie, hyper accentuated state of its former self.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Black holes

Well, I stand corrected again. I thought I had seen it all during the March meltdown in the market and in the economy but apparently I didn't. WTIC collapsed to an inconceivable price of $-50 or so at one point. If oil hit $0 that would be mind blowing enough but to not only go negative but go negative in such size is....there's no word that would do it justice. Apparently this had to do with looming front month expiration of WTIC contracts tomorrow. WTIC futures contracts are settled by physical delivery and apparently there's very little of such buyers willing to take physical delivery as storage is all tapped out and so when long speculators were looking to close their positions there was nobody to sell to and sheer panic and madness ensued. At negative prices, anyone who had the ability to take delivery of oil could been paid to do so, and then sell it risk free in a month at $22 by selling June futures against it. It's fucking pure lunacy.

Asset prices going negative is not supposed to happen...it like breaking the laws of physics. Einstein came up with equations and theories that explains how the universe works, however apparently his equations break down when it comes to black holes. Black holes are the extreme objects of the universe as not even light can escape their gravitational pull. To form a black hole a star has to be compressed to unimaginable extremes. To get an idea of how extreme, let's imagine if the earth was a star; to turn it into a black hole you would have to compress it to the size of a small plum. That's mind blowing stuff.

What we saw in the oil market today and with the stock market last month can only happen in the the upmost extreme of situations, which as we all know is the situation we find ourselves in now given the world economy being offline for a prolonged period of time. We aren't ever supposed to see a fundamentally essential commodity like oil have a negative price or be close to $0 in any way. It's inconceivable, incomprehensible yet it happened.

Bonds are another example of an asset being caught up in a black hole type environment with the US 10 year at 0.60% or so. Just like how light can't escape from the powerful gravitation pull of a black hole, bond yields can't seem to escape the powerful pull towards 0% and possibly below.

If we can see such crazy extremes with oil and bonds, what about the stock market? If shit gets ugly, it could end up really, really ugly. Worse than what the bears even think is possible. I sure hope that doesn't end up happening but quite frankly it can given the situation we are in right now. As stated last post, there's room for the rebound from the March bottom  to continue as there is a favorable sentiment underpinning, however, generally speaking there's very poor fundamental underpinning  and if the weak fundamentals become too hard to ignore, it will overpower any favorable sentiment backdrop. The action in oil today was a warning shot across the bow as to how fucked up of a situation we are in right now and bad things can get. Tread carefully.


Saturday, April 18, 2020

Buying capitulation to S&P 3000?

In my last post I mentioned how the market could continue to ignore bad news and embrace hope and that's what has been happening. Friday's move was at least partially based on a potential effective treatment of COVID-19 based on a drug called Remdesiver. It didn't matter that it's nothing definitive yet, any type of postiive news relating to COVID-19 like this is being embraced at the moment. Trump announced a 3 phase plan to get the economy open again as well.

You can argue with the market all you want, cuss at the Fed or what have you, and it's going to get you nowhere.  With all the economic devastation going on why isn't the market going down like it should be right? That there appears to be problem - the cat's out of the bag already and investors/traders have made a big rush to cash and shorts/hedges in anticipation of bad numbers. The market is a discounting mechanism and it's already priced in bad news - that's what some people are saying, but to me it's more a function of Mr. Market doing what he does best which is to make fools out of as many men as possible.

What I'm seeing is a similar response to the rally coming out of the December 2018 low which is a relentless amount of put buying/shorting into strength. Initially there was FOMO buying as I had noted but it was able to sustain itself because it turned out that a lot of others looked at the initial rally off the low as an opportunity to make big bearish bets and now those bets have ended up going bust and the market has been climbing upon the broken backs of the bears yet again. Meanwhile, there's still a lot of sidelined money from the "pros" that is probably on the brink of buying capitulation. Look at for instance the NAAIM sentiment survey which shows that their members are still woefully under-invested at only 28% long.  AAII sentiment still showing more bears than bulls and the VIX at 38 is still quite elevated with plenty of room to unwind. I also read about a survey by BOA showing that global fund managers are holding historically high levels of cash and turned quite bearish near the lows.

All of the above on a stand alone basis is suggesting the rally has a lot of staying power. I know how crazy that sounds given the economic devastation. I also know that the rebound has been narrow  being primarily led by some of the big tech companies with some sectors like banks and small caps badly lagging (exacerbating the trend that's been in place prior to COVID) . Despite all this, you have to respect the action. If you've been short during this bounce you should be terrified how the market has been able to shrug off all this bad news and embrace any hint of good news. 

It seems clearer to me now that we are on the brink of buying capitulation which is leading up to the re-opening of the economy which means S&P 3000 is quite doable in the next month or 2. That sounds so ludicrous I know...but that's probably why it can happen!  But it wouldn't be wise to chase strength at this very moment. Let's see if the market can consolidate a bit here to work off a ST overbought condition.  



Saturday, April 11, 2020

Mr. Market won't make it easy for you

We've seen quite a rebound based purely on hope and Fed actions. Hope that we may be approaching the peak of COVID-19 in the US, hope that new therapies for treating the disease are effective and yet another Fed back stop of $2 trillion+ . The Johnny come lately bears I've mentioned last time have been moaning and complaining while getting their asses handed to them for shorting the rally. "The Fed is rigging the market! It's not fair!" This is the same bs I've been hearing for 12 years.  So, after missing the bulk of the crash in March and possibly getting burned playing for a long bounce, the bearishly inclined trading community has lost money again shorting the recent rebound. These trapped shorts now have the potential to provide underlying support and fuel for the market to go even higher before this rebound is over. In the very short term the bears might get thrown a bone as Trump opened his mouth again about the market's rise. Last time 2 times he did this the market pulled back. 

The bottom line though is that there is room for the rebound to continue or least chop sideways before the market makes a run for the lows again. With all the stimulus and Fed interventions that have been thrown at the market and hopes that the economy will re-open in a month or 2, it may stay afloat for time being as people may be willing to overlook the bad macro and earnings while bears keep getting squeezed. But eventually reality is going to take hold. The stock market is ultimately underpinned by fundamentals the main one being earnings which are going to be impaired for quite some time and so there's only so much short squeezing and greater fool buying will take you. I see a lot of market analogs out there comparing this decline to 2008 and 1929. I place little value in analogs as no 2 market cycles are alike. It could very well turn out to be the case that the market doesn't re-test or break the low until the fall of this year. If you look at the post 911 rebound in the market, you will see that it lasted for 5 months. By then enough bears had been wiped out and enough bulls sucked back in before the market rolled over again eventually breaking the 911 lows 9 months later. I have no idea if the market low will be re-rested 9 months from now or 9 days from now...my point is that a bear market rally can last months even when there's shitty fundamentals. For this to be a new bull market we must have not only seen the worst in the coming earnings collapse but that we're going to go back to how things were prior to when COVID-19 hit in short order once the economy is back up running again with no lasting cascading effects. That's quite a leap of faith to take.

Here's how I can see things could play out and I emphasize the word could.  In the next few months we're going to see the world economy gradually open up again. There's going to be a pent up demand boost in growth and warm fuzzy feelings of hope. As scientists around the world are searching for treatments, we may end up finding some effective ones. All of this could end up keeping the market afloat i.e. up to choppy sideways action. Then around mid-late summer the market is going to roll over again as we start to face reality and come to accept the permanent damage that has been done during this shutdown and the new post COVID-19 environment.  In the meantime, bears will be wiped out and bulls sucked back in. Sentiment indicators have plenty of room to unwind before hitting complacent levels. But like said earlier, we never did see the extremes in bearish sentiment that you find at bear market bottoms - they were only extreme enough for a bull market correction bottom which makes me think that ultimately the market is going to test or break the lows.

As usual I will adjust as events unfold....and I suspect a lot of events will be unfolding!









Monday, April 6, 2020

Give it time

I said I was going to discuss the bull case but I'm also going to discuss the bear case and where we may be in this bear cycle.  As far as the bull case, it pretty much goes like this: We are in a manufactured recession caused by an exogenous shock and so once that shock has passed we should go right back to where we left off as there are no excesses to work off like there was with the tech bubble bursting  in 2000 and the housing bubble bursting in 2008. In addition, we now have super accommodating monetary and fiscal policies put in place which are not going to be tapered off for at least 2 years. The 35% drop in the market has cleared away a significant degree of excesses and we've seen some indicators such as the VIX hit extremes which historically have occurred during a time of extreme panic which is where major market lows tend to form. We also have a multi-year low in energy prices which will be another tailwind for the economy and such low energy prices are what you tend to see closer to a bottom than a top.

I would really be on board with the bull case if the lock down that we are currently in was already over. Unfortunately, that's not the case and we're going to be locked down for at least another month and I believe we are beyond the point of no return whereby it's not going to be business as usual once we emerge from lock down and so the bull argument that we'll go back to where we left off doesn't hold water in my book. Until there is a vaccine for COVID-19 there's going to be a notable change in the way we do business and interact with each other. There will be a notable increase in the savings rate of consumers, seniors will be more likely to avoid vacationing and the like. To sum it up, there's  going to be a notable and lingering amount of skittishness in general in the post COVID world until there's a vaccine. Meanwhile, while we are awaiting the recovery, the economic damage is devastating and is increasing by the day. The cascading risks I mentioned a few weeks ago are unfortunately happening because the lock down has simply been for too long for many business/corporations to bear. I've read an article about how 10% of Canada's restaurants/cafes/bars are now permanently closed and this is only after 3 weeks of lockdown. I'm sure there's many other businesses suffering similar fates. It's only going to get worse as the lockdown is going to continue for at least another month it would seem and quite possibly 2. So, when we do get out this it's not going to be business as usual. Governments are trying to do whatever they can to mitigate the damage, but that's all it is - mitigation. How can they bail out everyone and make them whole again?  I know a restaurant owner who's business has declined by 60% which if not for catering would be near 0%. Is the government going to give him a cheque for all that lost revenue? No. However, if the government engages in massive deficit spending in addition to the wage subsidies and support they are providing the unemployed, it will indeed plug some of the gaping hole in GDP that is going to be lost, but certainly not all you can't hold your breath for that.  Before that happens or kicks in we're going to see the biggest plunge in corporate earnings ever and investors are going to have to face the grim reality of this. Yes, the market is forward looking at we're expecting to see bad news....perhaps this is best thing the bulls got going for them in short term. We could be in a situation where there's too many johnny come lately shorts at a time where others think there's "value" in the market and decide to ignore the bad news thinking it's already priced in while focusing on any glimmers of hope. We saw the same thing happen in late March 2001 and in late March 2008 where the market staged a multi-month rebound (almost identical ones)  only to succumb to new lows later in the fall of those years. Such a thing could very well happen again. I'm not saying I expect it but rather that it would not surprise me. If we simply tanked to new lows in the near future I'm not going to be surprised either because as it stands right now I don't believe this bear market is over. The reason I believe that really all boils down to this. We're going to see the biggest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression which as I discussed is not going to result in business as usual once things go back online and so I find it very hard to accept that a 35% decline in the stock market is all that we are going to see when history suggests otherwise. Once again, I would love to be wrong and I'll keep an open mind to all possibilities but I got to call it like I see it. I think ultimately the market will drop at least 50% from the peak which translates to a target of SPX 1700. Why 50%? Well, if the burst of the tech and housing bubbles created a 50% drop why can't the COVID crisis do at least the same when the economic damage will be far greater than the fallout of those 2 bubbles?  Ya, I get it, there will be a strong snapback in activity as there is pent up demand but a lot of damage that is being done right now is permanent which is growing every day we stay locked down. Some of that damage will be offset by fiscal spending but how much and when? Do you want to hold your breath thinking that the authorities can bail out the entire economy? I'm not. And as mentioned before do you think that it will be business as usual once the lockdown is over ? Not for a while it won't.


Here is one chart which gives a pretty good indication as to where we are in the sentiment cycle.



You can see that AAII investors have made a sharp move out of stocks and into cash but it is still not at the dark green level where it was near the bear market bottoms of 2003 and 2009. It suggests pessimism is high enough for a bull market correction bottom but not high enough for a bear market bottom. Again, I re-iterate, if this crisis is at least on par with the tech bubble and housing bubble busts, we should see a similar level of decline in the market from the peak and the extreme level of pessimism associated with it which means for the above chart to eventually touch the dark green line. If I'm right and we still haven't seen the final low, don't think Mr. Market is going to make it easy for bears to profit from it. The motto of this blog still applies. The bear market low could take several weeks or even months to play out which in the meantime the market would have all kinds of short lived rallies to punish bears and suck in bulls. We could very well see such a rally now if people decide to ignore the ugly economic reality for a few weeks and focus on any glimmer of hope of COVID slowing down.

So in conclusion, give it time and be very patient and be open minded. I'm leaning long term bearish short term neutral. If the bull case is going to play out, it would be more likely to see the market behave as it did after the 1987 crash or after the big 2011 drop whereby it spent a few months building a base. But unlike those 2 previous times, we have an economy that is collapsing and that's a very big deal because ultimately stock prices are fundamentally underpinned by earnings and that underpinning will be gonzo for a while and when it comes back it probably won't be as robust as before which to me suggests we're still in a bear market and the final low may not happen until later this year or even a year from now when expectations are sufficiently lowered in the post COVID world. As usual I may adjust my viewpoints as events unfold.