Let’s have a look at a long-term perspective on Treasury yields. The chart below shows the 10-Year Constant Maturity yield since 1962 along with the Federal Funds Rate (FFR) and inflation. The range has been astonishing. The stagflation that set in after the 1973 Oil Embargo was finally ended after Paul Volcker raised the FFR to 20.06%.
Now let’s overlay the S&P 500 to see historical pattern of equities versus treasuries. This is a nominal chart, which significantly distorted the real value of both yields and equity prices.
Here’s the same chart with the S&P 500 adjusted for inflation and the annualized inflation rate subtracted from the yields. The impact of stagflation becomes much clearer. We can better understand the severity of the decline in equities from the mid-1960s to the bottom in 1982. And we can also see why high yields can be deceptive in periods of double-digit inflation.
The most interesting series in the charts is the FFR red line. We can see how the Fed has used rate to control inflation, accelerate growth and, when needed, apply the brakes. Unfortunately, the FFR has been virtually zero since December 2008, so it is no longer available as a tool to stimulate the economy. Incidentally, I annotated the top chart with the tenures of the last three Fed chairmen so we can see who was managing the various FFR cycles since the summer of 1979.
The next chart is based on daily data and adds some additional Treasuries for a close look at yields since 2007.
The word ‘RISK’ is a simple four- letter word; yet, the management of risk is critical in any investment or income generating strategy. When historical norms no longer hold, and markets can make moves within a span of days, or just a few weeks what used to take a whole year or years to make, it becomes critical for trading and investment practitioners to rethink old models and adjust given new information or market realities. Whilst increased volatility increases market risk as a whole, it also provides tremendous opportunities to make an abnormal return if you are on the right side of the market trend. For market participants, the question is – are you prepared to assume the increased risk that can provide the environment to make huge returns, and at the same time, if your thinking is wrong, assume huge losses. Or, is it wise in a period of high volatility to disengage and get back in when sanity returns to the financial markets? This is a critical question that market participants have to answer and honestly face up to the conclusions they come up with. For most people detached from the market and not involved in any trade, there is always the false assumption with the knowledge of hindsight that they are prone to being risk takers. And given the choice, they will definitely take more risk rather than less and that somehow they harbor the wrongful notion that they would have been on the right side of the trade. Taking calculated and limited risk where the risk reward structure is favorable is always preferable to assuming tremendous amounts of risk in the hope of being right.
In an era of investment where crisis, whether real or imagined hit the market with such frequency, and cause extreme market moves within a compressed timeframe, what should one do? Should we totally disengage, call it quits and look for new avenues? Or, should we take cognizance of such realities and design our investment strategy for such markets? The market, it seems is so structured in a way that now a tsunami or an earthquake or a plane crash is no longer a real event that
Having retraced almost 61.8% of the September drop, Gold’s recent run up – as the USD strengthens no less (from 10/28) – suggests some demand for safety is back (or more simply is the demand for German Gold making the German’s hoard a little more?). Silver is actually outperforming from Friday’s close but remains below Friday’s highs for now.
As China ‘threatens/promises’ liquidity injections to its banks, Greek politicians argue over premium parking spaces, US brokers/exchanges squabble over the MF capital leftovers, and global liquidity goes from bad to worse – perhaps it is time to take a step back and focus on what really hasn’t seemed to matter – the economy. Ray Dalio published his Template For Understanding back in October of 2008 and has recently updated it (as of October 2011). For your Sunday evening reading pleasure – “How the Economic Machine Works and How It Is Reflected Now”. Critically, the hedge fund manager provides a framework for considering what he believes are the critical Three Big Forces: trend line productivity growth, the long-term debt cycle, and the business/market cycle.
When I imagined this I was thinking of three things, the hopeless tragedy embodied of last week’s EURO Freak Show, zombie bankers marching across Europe like the fascist armies of WWII and who will benefit most from the explosion when it finally occurs.
Three of the smartest strategists at Goldman, Huw Pill, Francesco Garzarelli, and Peter Oppenheimer, have released what one could tentatively call a white paper on the “next steps” for Europe. Far from being the traditional permabullish sellside drivel, this is a must read note, as it cleanly lays out the risks for the Eurozone from this point. The note focuses on three key aces: 1) fiscal consolidation and the ongoing role of the ECB in the future of a Eurozone which still has no fiscal cohesion (which makes sense: just like in the US, the Fed is aggressively putting the ball in Congress’ court, as neither the monetary nor fiscal apparatus has any interest in being blamed for ongoing economic deterioration, so in Europe the ECB wants a federal union, complete with Eurobond issuance powers, so it is not in the cross hairs: alas, European politicians realize this is career suicide and the question remains: when push comes to shove, and saving the Euro requires career harakiri from politicians, will they step up to the plate?); 2) Italy, of course, as the country under the spotlight now and going forward; and 3) what the above two mean for BTPs and thus the European (and Global) equity markets. The sense we get from the Goldman trio is that while the company which has just spawned Europe’s latest central banking head, while cautiously neutral is pushing for a downside case: after all what better way to unlock the Heidelberger Druckmaschinen true potential, than with a full blown crisis…
From Goldman Sachs
1. Fiscal consolidation is a precondition for further support
Over the past week, the pace of events in the European crisis has again picked up, amidst increasing sovereign bond market tensions, particularly in the case of Italy. After a week of drama, we are likely to see the formation of a government of national unity in Greece, mandated to approve and oversee the financial adjustment package agreed with the EU ahead of national elections next Spring. Meanwhile, a routine vote on last year’s public accounts to be held this Tuesday in the Italian Lower House will be a test of how much support the government can still rely upon and may lead to political change there too. Finally, the much anticipated Cannes G-20 summit – which…
The Federal Reserve officially announced Operation Twist on September 21 with the stated purpose of lowering longer-term interest rates. The yield on the 10-year note had been hovering around 2.19 prior to the much-rumored announcement, which was 47 basis points above the historic closing low of 1.72 set a month earlier on September 22.
The Fed Funds Rate has been essentially at zero for three years. What has the 10-year note done since the “Twist” announcement? The interim high daily close was 2.42 on October 27th. The interim low was 2.01 on November 1st.
It’s too soon, of course, to tell how successful the “Twist” strategy will be for lowering interest rates; the program is barely off the ground. According to the Freddie Mac survey, the 30-year mortgage rate has fluctuated between 3.94% and 4.18% since the first week in September, and the most recent average (as of November 3rd) is 4.00%. But we will watch Treasury yields and mortgage rates in the weeks ahead to see if Operation Twist lives up to the Fed’s expectations.
Background Perspective on Yields
The first chart shows the daily performance of several Treasuries and the Fed Funds Rate (FFR) since 2007. The source for the yields is the Daily Treasury Yield Curve Rates from the US Department of the Treasury and the New York Fed’s website for the FFR.
Here’s a comparison of the yield curve at two points in time: 1) today’s close and 2) the daily close on the market’s interim high on April 29th. The S&P 500 is down nearly about 12.7% since then.
The next chart shows the 2- and 10-year yields with the 2-10 spread highlighted in the background. …
Even as the EURUSD is surging because of, uh, we are not quite sure – HFTs hitting all stops most likely, it is only 9 short hours until BTPs, that one and only fulcrum security for the entire European continent reopens. And while for Greece getting a new government, even if one headed by a former Fed member is somehow good news (we wonder how the people will react knowing that their fate as debt slaves repaying European banks has just been sealed for a few more months), in Italy government “stability” (we realize the comic value of this statement) is the key to prevent a blow out to the 10 Year BTP, and the launch of a domnino cascade that will stop only with French OATs, and potentially rip through through that final firewall: Germany (with or without BuBa’s billions in gold reserves… which we can only hope are not parked with the New York Fed). So back to Italian government “stability” which according to France 24 is not doing that hot. “Tens of thousands of Italians gathered in Rome on Saturday to protest Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s tackling of the country’s sovereign debt crisis. “Silvio out” was the rallying cry for the large crowd that took part in the rally organised by the Democratic Party, the country’s main opposition movement. Some demonstrators poured scorn on the prime minister after G-20 leaders humiliatingly put Italy’s struggling economy under surveillance, amid a lack of trust in Berlusconi’s reform pledges. At the summit in Cannes, the billionaire prime minister played down the gravity of the economic crisis with a trademark quip, claiming that “restaurants are full and the planes fully booked.” “I go to restaurants… to do the washing up,” read one banner at Saturday’s mass demonstration.” And the kicker is that over the weekend enough defections from his party have taken place which according to many, but not Silvio, are enough to lose him his majority: “There is growing concern Berlusconi no longer commands enough loyalty among MPs to ensure the quick passage that European and international financial officials say Rome must achieve to avoid falling victim to a dramatic debt crisis like that bringing Greece to its knees… “We don’t want elections. We want to govern,” Berlusconi added.” So much for democracy in yet…
Global X, the New York-based ETF sponsor known for its unique lineup of commodities and emerging markets funds, announced six of its ETFs will be reverse split, including three gold mining-related funds.
The $29.4 million Global X Gold Explorers ETF (NYSE: GLDX) will undergo a 1-for-4 reverse split while the $2.78 million Global X Junior Miners ETF (NYSE: JUNR) will see a 1-for-3 reverse split. The Global X Pure Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: ...
For the fourth consecutive week, the worldwide rally continues unabated. Seven of the eight indexes on my watchlist posted strong gains with Japan again topping the list with its 3.63% advance. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was the one index to take a breather. Amazingly enough, that Nikkei surge was three percent smaller than the previous week's 6.67%.
The Shanghai remains the only index on the watch list in bear territory -- the traditional designation for a 20% decline from an interim high. See the table inset (lower right) in the chart below. The index is down over 34% from its interim high of August 2009. At the other end of the inset -- four indexes, the ones for Germany, the UK, and J...
Public health historians discuss thwarted efforts to hold the lead industry accountable for toxic exposure threatening American children.
Science can be a battleground — witness the politics of climate change, the teaching of evolution, the uncharted terrain of genetic modification and stem cell research, among other contentious issues. But when industries release untested chemicals into our environment — putting profits before public health — our children are the first to suffer. Nowhere is this more troubling than in the ongoing story of lead poisoning.
Bill talks with David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, public health historians who’ve been taking on the chemical industry for years — writing about the hazards of in...
Not a day passes without the financial media denouncing gold as an investment option and hailing the bureaucrats heading the world's monopolist monetary central planning agencies as superheroes. It began prior to gold's recent breakdown, with widely cited bearish reports on gold published by Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, among others. Never mind that most of their arguments were easily unmasked as spurious. ...
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It seems that every Tuesday in 2013 since January 8 has been positive on the Dow. And this past Tuesday was no exception. Now that sounds like a trend to put money on -- buy the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) at the close each Monday and close out the position late on Tuesday.
The Dow and S&P 500 both hit new all-time highs once again on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq hit its highest level since November 2000. The “risk on” allocation of new investment capital into cyclicals continues, although Wednesday saw leadership from defensive sectors Consumer Staples, Utilities, and Telecom, along with Financials. Nevertheless, ConvergEx reports that the average correlation of the ten S&P business sectors to the overall index averaged 82% last month. While that is below the 86% averag...
BMY - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. – Shares in drug maker, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., are ripping higher today, up 6.5% at $44.94, the highest level in more than a decade, ahead of the release of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2013 Annual Meeting abstracts tonight. The ASCO Annual Meeting begins on May 31st in Chicago. Options on BMY are far more active than usual today, with overall volume topping 64,000 contracts by 12:25 p.m. ET, versus average daily volume of around 11,400 c...
We are starting to see some very extreme readings on our monthly and weekly index charts since there has been no correction this year. I posted below first the monthly chart of the S&P 500 going back 15 years showing bollinger bands – rarely do we get above the upper one, and never have we been this far above. Then below that I posted (with 4 charts of 4 years each) the weekly data and you can see we are at a rare time we are above the weekly bollinger band as well. This non stop rally is getting very historical.
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Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
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Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(
