1/5 A thread to go over my interpretation of interest rates.
First this is what the market currently has priced in. 36% for the 5th hike in Feb 2023 is the highest ever.
First hike in March is now 86%. At this point any talk of no hike in March would move the market.
2/5
Earlier this morning Mike Wilson of Morgan Stanley was on Bloomberg TV. He is looking for 1.60% on 2-year yields at mid-year (from 0.945%).
3/5
This fits our view that the 10-year minus 2-year curve can invert by mid-year.
4/5
Why are 10yr ylds trending sideways as 2yr ylds relentlessly rise?
10yr ylds are a risk-off instrument, not an inflation pay. The fact that 10yr ylds are not rising in the face of inflation is a market signal that the Fed is going to hike too much and break something.
5/5
We will know when the Fed has “broken something” when/if the yield curve inverts.
It might not be obvious what broke the day the yield curve inverts, but the market will be signaling that something is indeed broken and it will be apparent in short order.
Bonus
Why will the Fed hike so much they will break something?
Inflation got away from them and is now intensely political. The economists can leave the FOMC board room. Hiking to address inflation is now the domain of politics and PR people worried about Fed optics.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
In some respects, what happened in bond markets last week was epic, something we might be talking about for many years.
A thread to explain
2/14
When discussing bond market moves, I believe the best metric is total return. It encompasses both price change and the level of yields (accrued interest).
The next set of charts show calendar week total returns. That is, the week ending Friday (Thursday if a holiday).
3/14
The 30-year data goes back to 1973 and last week was the worst calendar week total return in at least 49-year history! The long-bond lost 9.35%!!
If this was a year, a 9.35% total return loss would be the 5-year worst year ever.
Narrative is US cases will peak any day following South Africa pattern.
Keep in mind:
* South Africa is only 30% vaxxed (US 63%)
* It's young with few restrictions
* So, everyone "breathed on each other" cases went up 100x in 30 days and then peaked.
The orange line is the probability of a March hike. It has been above 50% since December 21, over 2 weeks now.
The blue line is a June rate hike. That has been priced in since late-Oct.
The Fed minutes should not have been a surprised, it's been priced in for some time.
3/8
For a while I've talked about the disconnect between what the market has priced in and what the consensus says will happen. It is rare the market pricing is NOT the consensus view.
Just shy of 5 million Americans have tested positive in the last 10 days. This is 2.50% of the workforce.
2/3
Anecdotally ... companies are so confused by the CDC, and so scared by the liability of sick employees returning too fast, that they are ignoring the constantly shifting CDC/Fauci advice and requiring a 10-day quarantine followed by a negative test to return to work.
3/3
That is assuming one can even get a test in the first place.
So, yes, this is becoming a huge drag on production with this much of the workforce on "injured reserve."
Demand holding in, production lagging from a thinning workforce = more inflation.
Energy stocks experienced their best year on record. The S&P Energy Index returned 54.64%, more than doubling the returns of all but the financials and info tech sectors.
3/4
Whether calculating returns in U.S. dollars or local currency, U.S. equities topped almost all other developed countries in 2021. In dollar currency terms, the MSCI U.S. Index outpaced the MSCI World Ex-U.S. Index by almost 14% last year.