Yesterday was pretty simple- By concentrating on inflation, Powell jawboned the breakeven inflation rates lower (orange line) while nominal rates slightly rose (white line) from overly dovish expectations.
Financial conditions tightened and systematic investors seem to have priced in an overly-hawkish Fed NOW because of self-reinforcing volatility targeting flows.
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Credit Tightened a bit and HYG broke the 50 day. This will be important to watch going forward to see if the longer term bull has ended, but the economy is in way different shape and a lot of debt has been termed out.
The biggest risks in credit are geopolitical (from China imploding).
The front month VIX hit 27 which the 3 month VIX hit 24 signaling an inversion in the volatility structure.
This has generally been one of the best contra-indicators where equity has been an incredible buy for the last 10 years.
My favorite John Burbank line is "“Last price is a liar, [real] price is an equilibrium of liquidity.”
How does this relate to bitcoin and meme stocks?
A Thread..
Now, imagine there was a utopian island where everyone wanted to live.
This island was relatively unknown, but for the majority who lived there, it was extremely coveted.
Every citizen loved the island so much, there was absolutely no price at which they would sell their home.
Even in the middle of a black swan event like the coronavirus pandemic, only 14% of residents were forced to sell their homes because of external financial issues.
When ownership of any asset class is cornered by large institutions, everything trades on the margin.
When large institutions own a majority of shares, the remaining shares that are available to trade on the open market (known as the float), become constricted.
“For 9 in 10 companies on the S&P 500, their largest shareholder is one of the Big Three [Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street]. For many, the indexers control 20% or more of their shares. Index funds now control 20 to 30% of American equities, if not more.”