What do markets look like when they are freaking out?
Answer, like they look this week.
Why? The realization/fear that the Fed is going to slam on the brakes ... hard. And the panic that the stock market is going to get thrown through the windshield.
A 🧵to explain
2/10
Let's start with Tuesday (Jan 18). The SPX was down 1.8% the same day the 10-year yield was up 9 basis point.
This has only happened seven times since 2000
3/10
And today
The S&P was up 1.53% at today's high. It closed down more than 1%.
Only 8 times since the Global Financial Crisis in 2009 has the S&P 500 been up more than 1.5% intraday and then finished down more than 1%. And 4 of the 8 were in March 2020 (bolded)
4/10
The RTY, it has been argued are a better metric of the state of the economy than the SPX. RTY is 10% foreign revenues where the SPX is 40% - 50%.
RTY is getting murdered, now corrected more than 17% (bear market down 20%).
The SPX is down just 6.5%
5/10
I'm going through the exercise to confirm what we all suspect; the stock market is indeed have unusual movements that you only see a handful of times a decade.
Something more than a standard correction is underway ...
6/10
... maybe a realization/fear that the Fed is going to "address" inflation and slam on the brakes ... hard.
Restated, if the Fed is going to slam on the brakes, you would expect markets to freak out. They are freaking out; this is freaking out!
7/10
Why is this happening? Professional managers "blew it." They continue to believe inflation is transitory and the Fed is merely "jawboning."
This is the Jan BofA fund manager survey, out Tuesday. Majority think inflation is STILL TRANSITORY!
8/10
The Ds are panic their polling is terrible, and they will get crushed in November. The #1 issue is inflation.
Biden said it clearly yesterday, he green lighted the Fed to "stop inflation." If that means slamming on the brakes hard, so be it.
Fund managers still think the Ds will be ok in Nov (chart), even though the betting markets expect a wipe out.
They failed, or are failing, this get that this year is about making 40% of the population with less than $1,000 in savings and rents "not mad" about inflation.
10/10
If the stock mkt has to be sacrificed, then it will. And if fund managers are not positioned for this reality, we would expect chaotic markets...like we now have!
This started 3 weeks ago when the bond market was crushed, explained in this thread
The table above has a mistake I just became aware of ... March 21 and March 22 are a repeat of March 20 (they are also a Sat and Sun). My sort accidentally included them.
So, it is 5 times since 2009 and twice in March 2020.
Here is the corrected table.
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Yesterday, Jim appeared on Bloomberg TV, warning that if the Fed cuts rates and the market thinks this is wrong, 10-year yields could surge through 5%.
(Perspective ... 10-year yields were last above 5% in October 2023 and as high as 4.85% in January).
🧵
2/8
President Trump disagrees with this thinking and believes the federal funds rate should be 1% right now.
From a "truth" posted on June 30.
3/8
If (or should I say when) Trump gets a Fed Chair to make 1% happen, how will the 10-year react?
Reminder of what happened last year to long rates when the Fed cuts rates (peach arrow) and the market does not think it's a good idea (cyan arrow).
I would argue that if the Fed cuts rates and you assume mortgage rates follow the federal funds rate lower (they may NOT be the case), home prices would rise, putting the monthly payment right back at $2,860.
Polymarket recession odds peaked at 65% on May 1st, the April ISM release date, suggesting Liberation Day and the 20% stock market correction did not damage the economy, as the "soft data" warned.
Subsequent April data confirmed this.
Will May see more of the same?
🧵
2/12
The prevailing narrative in the market for months has been that the labor market is going to fall apart, forcing the Fed to cut rates.
This has not happened, and so far, the "soft" (survey) data have been wildly off in predicting the economy.
3/12
ISM Employment upticked in May from April. The first monthly "May" data point suggests the labor market is still not weakening.
See the red line on the right. With increased tariffs (red line to the left), the prices of goods originating from China are increasing rapidly.
Also note that the Chinese-originated price rise (red line to the right) began around May 1st, the same time truflation started its upward march.
3/5
From the FT:
The Yale Budget Lab says the average US family would pay $2,800 more for the same basket of products purchased last year, should tariffs remain at their current level, with lower-income homes more exposed.
Chinese products being sold in the US have already seen marked increases in retail prices, according to analysis of high-frequency data from PriceStats by Alberto Cavallo of Harvard Business School.