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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It is correct that the new home premium (green) above existing home prices (blue) has collapsed from 38% in 2013 to below zero today (the lowest in 54 years).
Why?
See new home prices (orange), they stalled.
3/7
Here is the average home price (orange) and the home's size (blue). The reason prices are falling is that builders are constructing smaller homes.
But as the bottom panel shows (green), the price per square foot is as high as ever.
I assume Marks is referring to the 1-year forward P/E ratio for the S&P 500, the standard Wall Street valuation metric (which is closer to 25 now, but was 23 a few weeks ago).
Here is a long-term proxy for that ... the Shiller Cyclically Adjusted Price/Earnings (CAPE) ratio back to 1881. It is a 10-year average of P/E/ ratios.
At 40, it is one of the highest readings ever, even higher than 1929.
It shows the NEXT (future) 1-year REAL (after inflation) return of the stock market on the y-axis.
The CAPE on the x-axis.
The red box is the returns when the CAPE is above 34. It's a mixed bag of positive and negative returns.
Restated, valuation is NOT a good timing tool.
3/4
But if the y-axis is extended to the NEXT (future) 5-year REAL (after inflation) return, then THERE IS NO EXAMPLE, OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS, OF THE STOCK MARKET BEATING INFLATION OVER THE NEXT 5-YEARS WHEN THE CAPE IS ABOVE 34.
Restated, valuation is an expectation tool. Unless one makes the case that corporate earnings are going to have their most significant surge in history, the stock market is destined to disappoint over the next several years.
The preliminary November University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey was released this morning (blue). The "current conditions" measure of this survey set a new ALL-TIME LOW.
Before 2020 (COVID), the stock market (red) was the primary driver of the public's economic outlook. These two series moved up and down together. Since COVID, this relationship has completely disconnected.
This leads to some uncomfortable explanations.
Half of the country owns no assets and lives paycheck to paycheck. Have they now moved to being angry at a booming stock market that worsens inequality? Is this why socialists are getting elected? Do they want their agenda to knock the market down? Is a bear market now the goal, not the concern?
2/6
Why the anger?
Since the COVID recession ended in April 2020, cumulative price increases (orange) have outpaced cumulative wage increases (blue).
This devastates the bottom 50% of wage earners (and especially the bottom 30%) who own no assets and live paycheck-to-paycheck. They are having to do with less.
3/6
For comparison, the opposite happened in the 2010s. The cumulative gain in wages (blue) beat the cumulative rise in prices (orange).
In this scenario, the bottom 50% of wage earners were able to make ends meet and maybe get a little ahead, as their paychecks bought a bit more each year.
JP Morgan has identified 41 AI-related stocks, 8% of the S&P 500. These stocks now account for 47% of the Index's market capitalization, a new record.
The other 459 stocks, 92% of the S&P 500, are 53% of the Index's market capitalization.
2/5
The list of the AI-related stocks
3/5
ChatGPT was released on November 29, 2022.
Since this date, these 41 stocks have accounted for 74% of the S&P 500's total increase (blue). The other 25% came from the remaining 459 stocks (orange).