Very interesting charts from @MacroCharts & @MacroOps.

Investors sentiment has become very bearish on Treasuries & Gold, while the price of Copper is in a blow off top.

To us, this indicates the reflation trade has become consensus & risks are high it’s about to reverse.
Yes, it’s ironic that Gold often correlates positively with Treasuries as a deflation trade,

and has inverse correlation to stocks & commodities like Copper & Oil (both of which look overextended now).

Copper vs Gold and Stocks vs Treasuries ratios are important to watch.
The chart above, and the one in this tweet (by @BittelJulien), show overwhelming bullish consensus on the stock markets.

Every man and his dog is expecting higher prices ahead — usually occurs near peaks just before corrections & crashes.
Bloomberg recently posted a series of articles discussing imminent inflation risks.

When everybody is thinking the same thing, chances are no one is thinking.

Naturally, as a contrarian, we are now leaning more into market surprising with deflationary trend outcome.

Let’s see.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Tiho Brkan

Tiho Brkan Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @TihoBrkan

10 Mar
When you hear people say phrases like:

“trillions in institutional dry powder”
“huge liquidity sloshing around”
“wall of cash on the sidelines”
“more capital available than ever”

You should know we are closer to the point of maximum optimism, which is THE sell signal.
Here is a brief side story.

I started investing in 2006 and the world was experiencing an unprecedented global boom.

Emerging markets were booming, US consumer was riding a household & RE wealth bubble as credit was in abundance.

Every time I’d tune into CNBC or Bloomberg...
...some market pundit, private equity firm or hedge fund manager what say one of those 4 lines above,

describing the unbelievable amounts of liquidity in the market place.

Being young & inexperienced, I was thinking: how can markets even correct more than -5% to -10% at most?
Read 7 tweets
8 Mar
It is always fun to see how sentiment works. The Energy sector over the recent year is a great example.

Down at the bottom, no one wanted to touch them, calling for widespread bankruptcy.

Now?

Wall Street has a love affair with Oil. Everyone on Twitter is recommending them.
"An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from knowing his operations are exactly the opposite to those of the crowd.

Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic."

— Ben Graham
"Buy when others are despondently selling & sell when others are euphorically buying. It takes great courage but provides the greatest profit.

Maximum pessimism is the best time to buy. To have a better performance, you must do things differently from the crowd."

John Templeton
Read 5 tweets
1 Mar
It can be a real eye opener to see how different real estate markets function.

Being the most liquid & largest, US is a great yardstick for other countries.

However, it’s characteristics aren’t always positive.

Lending is very aggressive compared to other jurisdictions.
US RE investors are used to:

• interest only loans (never pays down the principal of the loan)

• cash refinance (most countries won’t give cash out of the property like an ATM after 2008)

• aggressive loan book growth by local banks (as if they don’t remember the 2008 GFC)
However, there are also wonderful tax advantages & benefits, which rest of us can only dream of having:

• endless deferral of capital gain tax liability via 1031

• depreciation of income to further reduce taxation

• opportunity zones which have incredible tax advantages
Read 4 tweets
22 Feb
Hedge funds are not smart money.

High exposure to the stock market in 2007 was just prior to the global crash.

High exposure in 2015 was just before the Emerging Markets crash, US stock correction & commodity bust.

Record exposure today is just prior to...
I’m really surprised at the outright speculation in recent quarters.

Persistent amount of call buying over puts was last seen during the late 1990s and (eventually) ended in a huge crash.
There is complete disconnect between the economy and stock earnings on one side,

And prices / valuations that investors have pushed share prices on the other side.

Even on forward earnings!! markets look ridiculously unattractive.
Read 6 tweets
20 Feb
If you:

1. work with extremely experienced construction team

2. take on minimal leverage

3. meaningfully save on hard costs (expensive materials) & soft costs (inhouse architecture)

4. buy sites from motivated sellers with unlevered profit on cost >30%

You cannot lose money.
Incase you’re wondering what happens during the worst downturns you will:

• have meaningful margin of safety from your initial purchase (you make your money when you BUY)

• even if prices decrease broadly, I’ll be adding additional value to your site
• safe with a minimal debt discipline by never putting your principal at risk & remaining in control of the project

• be making a substantial saving into your bottom line, either with in-house architects + designers or by keep expensive materials like marble & parquet at cost
Read 5 tweets
15 Feb
In the US, the real estate tax code is written in a way twisting investors’ hands to always be exposed only via equity.

However, this is not the case in other jurisdictions.

We make a case that mezzanine debt is the most versatile exposure throughout the whole cycle.
In a perfect world:

• at the early stage of the real state cycle be accumulating at depressed valuations

• at the mid-cycle continue accumulating, while also lending via mezz debt

• during the late-cycle stage lending via senior & mezz debt, with rare if any equity exposure
Deal selection will always be the most important aspect of the alternative asset capital allocation process.

We have a saying: #greatdealsonly which means we will search far & wide, and look at 100s of opportunities, before deciding to expose to a single one.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!