In my last view on markets, I asked whether inflation fears had peaked? Judging by the price action since, the answer would seem to be yes, tentatively. It’s a cliché, but true. Markets trade at the very thin margin of the flow of economic information, and this edge has shifted in the past month. Inflation is still high, but it is no longer accelerating rapidly, and evidence of increasingly fragile economic activity is piling up. The headline surveys have weakened materially, especially in Europe, and we recently learned that the US economy entered a technical recession in the first half of the year. For markets, this means monetary policy tightening will be less pervasive, both in terms of speed and sustainability. Upside inflation surprises now are associated with sharp flattening, even inversion, of interest rate curves, as markets perceive the window for policy tightening closing, fast.
Read More"Where are we in the business cycle?" is a question macroeconomists often are asked by investors. On the face of it, it is a reasonable question. The macroeconomic backdrop is an important input variable for key asset allocation decisions such as whether to be over- or underweight stocks relative to bonds, sector rotation, not to mention FX and credit positions. The question invites the idea that economic expansions are on the clock. They are in the sense that their average length is a question of a relatively simple empirical exercise. But a classic truism still remains. "Economic expansions don't die of old age, they're killed by economic policy", a phrase I have adapted from the U.S. version ending with the idea that economic expansions usually are killed by the Fed.
Read MoreThe new year has started like the old one ended; volatile and with confusion among punters and analysts with respect to the notional Narrative™. The volte-face in expectations for U.S. interest rates is a good example. In October, eurodollars were implying a Fed funds rate of just under 3.3% in December 2019 and 2020. At the beginning of the year, they had collapsed to 2.6% and 2.4%, respectively, effectively pricing in an imminent recession, and Fed rate cuts in 2020 to counteract that. Indeed, at some point, the Fed fund futures were even pricing cuts this year, a position that was stung badly on Friday by the hilariously bullish NFP report. Although neither the Fed nor markets know where the terminal/neutral rate—not to mention that this is a moving target—I reckon that the past six months have given us a decent clue. Anything close to 3.5% probably is too high, while sub-2.5% is too low, at least as long as the economy remains in a more-or-less stable expansion. Looking beyond the navel-gazing that is U.S. monetary policy, I am warming to the idea that (equity) markets will pivot towards cyclicals at some point this year, but we are not there yet. Over Christmas, I toyed with the idea that the next shoe to drop would be a downturn in the (hard) global economic data. The numbers have already deteriorated, but I reckon that they could slip further.
Read MoreWe will probably spend a big part of Q4 deciphering the economic data through the murky looking-glass of U.S. hurricanes and Asian typhoons, so just to be clear. I am still not happy with the trajectory of global leading indicators. Narrow money growth has collapsed, and recent data suggest that the slowdown will worsen in Q3. M1 in China rose 3.9% year-over-year in August, the slowest pace since the middle of 2015, and the trend in the U.S. and Europe also is poor. In the U.S., M1 is growing just under four percent on the year, the weakest since 2008, and the EZ headline also has slowed, though it is robust overall. The crunch in narrow money chimes with central bank balance sheet data. My home-cooked broad index, which includes the SNB and Chinese FX reserves, is now falling on a six-month basis. These data don’t mean the same in all economies—M1 is not a good LEI in the U.S. for example—and the Chinese numbers will turn up soon to reflect recent efforts to ease financial conditions. That said, a slowdown in US dollar liquidity matters for non-US markets, and the Chinese M1 numbers lead by six-to-nine months. The overall story is clear: Global liquidity growth has slowed to a trickle, warning about risks of growth and asset prices.
Read More