IT DON’T MEAN SHIIIIITTTTT.
Let’s put aisde all the nonsense. But I will offer this: The average hourly earnings are going to begin to take on increased significance as the energy sector begins a massive shedding of HIGH PRICED jobs. Also, many other high priced employees are going to be losing work so the data is going to reflect a hit to consumers not only through the loss of jobs but from the destruction of HOURS WORKED by high income earners.
Everything we’ve discussed at NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND has come to fruition in a very real time. This is not predicting year-end levels or quarter-end levels but very critical calls in real time. My inbox has been inundated with pieces from analysts well after the fact. Last Thursday. I warned about the need to weaken the DOLLAR. Any reader long dollars is desirous of losing money.
While the rate cutters were busy dumping on ECB President Christine Lagarde for not cutting and only announcing an increase in bond purchases I opined that Lagarde was getting more by doing less. Lagarde did not go down the Draghi route and lock up with Jens Weidmann and the Fiscal Austerians in the Hanseatic League. The ECB president played for a bigger prize and tonight she delivered with an announced 750 billion euro bond buying program of both public and private issues.
These are challenging times is the understatement of the decade.
The fear of pandemic has arrived and is causing great distress for families and the nation at large as we are tending to the sick and those forced into a change of everyday patterns. Since the beginning of February, we at NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND have been discussing the onset of the DEMAND SHOCK which would cause problems in the financial system because of the massive build-up of debt on a global scale. If businesses cannot operate as people hunker down in an effort to slow the spread of the virus then it goes without saying that DEMAND would suffer. If demand suffers on a global basis borrowers without cash reserves will struggle to sustain their businesses.
Well things are on the bubble as the Russians and Saudis had a “falling out” as lovers often because the OPEC talks resulted in an ostensible all-out war to break oil prices. The consensus loser will be the U.S. oil patch as the FRACKERS are carrying huge amounts of debt, which will not be paid while prices sharply decline.
There will be talks about a credit crisis as banks and other oil creditors will have to absorb losses and probably restrict lending to other borrowers. Those with private equity investments in the Bakken, Permian and others will be taking inventory on how battered their portfolios will be. The wily Putin will finally have his way as the sanctimonious Americans will have to rescind the ill-devised/ill-advised SANCTIONS that have had little impact.
In the 1960 classic film The Time Machine a traveler visits a future civilization in which a group of people is enslaved as a source of food. The food source are zombie-like and kept in comfortable captivity in an effort to control their protein source. After violence is done a siren sounds. When the time traveler questions the meaning of the siren the answer is it is ALL CLEAR but we never know what is all clear. Well, it seems the Coronavirus has been given the all clear signal based on the value of equity markets.
As we head into the global macro uncertainty of 2020, equity markets continue to elevate due to central bank liquidity additions. One year ago, U.S. equities suffered large losses, which some attributed to the FED firing its DOUBLE SHOTGUN of interest rate increases with QUANTITATIVE TIGHTENING (Druckenmiller/Boockvar).
Last week was filled with the culmination of many issues as we had the FED, ECB, trade agreement, UK election, impeachment hearings, and even an attempt at resolving the USMCA trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
What an appropriate song for the band Hedgehoppers Anonymous. This week is loaded with potential market-moving outcomes. On Wednesday we have the final FOMC statement of the year followed by Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference. The CONSENSUS is for no change in the current fed funds target range of 1.5% to 1.75%. The real key will hopefully be Powell’s press conference as market participants are hoping for any sort of dialogue about the Fed’s role in the repo market.
There are few questions about the one-dimensional nature of the driving force of markets around the world. Cheap money sustains equity markets as the vast amounts of central bank liquidity continues to provide support for low-cost borrowing and a lack of alternatives for investors. A subset of the cheap cost of capital has been the “hoped” for resolution to the China/U.S. trade conflict which without question has disrupted global trade. South Korea’s recent economic performance is a reflection of the impact suffered by key components of the global supply chain driven export-oriented economy.
