🟨 RECESSION? - TIGHTER CREDIT CONDITIONSFED CHAIRMAN POWELL'S STATEMENT 🎙️
Chairman Powell remains flexible regarding future rate hikes, emphasizing that decisions will be taken on a meeting-by-meeting basis. Notably, the removal of the word "anticipates" indicates a decrease in urgency for additional rate increases. Furthermore, the absence of the phrase "sufficiently restrictive" suggests that current policy has reached the desired level.
LENDING AND CREDIT CONDITIONS 💳
The Federal Reserve is closely monitoring lending and credit conditions as tighter credit may replace some of the rate hikes that could have been necessary. The current approach can be described as a "hope and pray" policy, where the Fed relies on falling inflation and tighter credit conditions to achieve a sufficiently restrictive stance, while hoping no other issues arise.
POTENTIAL RECESSION ON THE HORIZON? 📉
Tighter credit conditions might lead to a recession. However, it is essential to determine how much of this possibility has already been factored into the market.
Economy
AUUR-AUINTR HEADING FOR CONVERGANCE?The Interest rates are inversely correlated to unemployment rates in Australia. The last time they intersected was 2008 GFC, and they appear to be headed the same way, with unemployment forecast for 4.8% in Q12024.
- Takeaways
When interest rates are up unemployment is down and vice versa
Last time they had a major divergence/convergence was a global economic event (GFC, COVID)
Any thoughts let me know in comments?
Macro conditions don't foretell a market crash soonSome points here looking back to 2001. (2020 was an irregular event):
1. Unemployment Rate (UNRATE green) has to start rising before SPX (yellow) drops. Currently UNRATE is declining.
2. The Unemployment Rate (UNRATE green) seems to follow the Unemployed Persons Rate (USUP dark blue). USUP just fell so presumably we can expect UNRATE to fall too this month.
3. Continuing Jobless Claims (USCJC red) and Initial Jobless Claims (USIJC light blue) just fell slightly.
4. There are still more job openings than people to fill them (JTSJOL Non-Farm Job Openings minus USCJC US Continuing Jobless Claims)
And just announced today, Non-Farm Payrolls exceeded expectations.
Conclusion is that macro conditions don't foretell a market crash in the immediate future.
Of course that's provided we don't see another slew of bank failures, and that Congress can agree a new debt limit.
The German Unemployment Rate will grow again...The German Unemployment Rate will grow again...
With data from around 75 years, there is a possibility for growing again. With all these negative consequences for the employed people and their families. We must answer the question whether the Elliott Wave Theory is the right item to analyse what will happen and behave with crowds of people. The theory always leads to good results, but analysing and ...later believing is difficult.
The yellow circle shows equality in market behavior. And passing the point A in red (first circle in yellow) during the mid sixties we saw a growing rate. There is a fear this happened again. Faster and higher. And that will be for the politicians and the employees with their families a big (!) economic problem.
M2SL | Mo Money Mo Problems!Oh boy, many of them problems...
Sometimes there are cycles, some cycles are shorter than others.
In chart analysis, we are familiar when we analyze trends. Either short term or long term.
The economy does not function only in trends. There are cycles. The most common / important of cycles is the yearly one.
Unfortunately, cyclic patterns may prove tricky to analyze. But they are very important.
Since I haven't taken the time to create TradingView indicators that calculate cycles, I will instead use a spreadsheet.
For the following charts, I basically take all historical data of a cyclic chart and export that data. For every week or month, I calculate the average distance from the mean. With that, I try to calculate the "expected distance" from the mean, for each time of the year. Natural Gas prices one might say, are lower during the summer months. So an unusually high price in summer may become explosive during the winter.
Today's main subject will be money supply. Since the January's M2SL data hasn't yet updated, I will try to guess how much money supply we can expect the following months. There is a cousin to the M2SL index which is updated weekly, and it is WM2NS. This index however as you can see on the chart above fluctuates from M2SL throughout the year. So, the regular WM2NS price should be adjusted based on it's cycle against M2SL.
This curve shows the expected yearly fluctuation of the ratio, compared to the mean,
Specific care has to be taken when we calculate the "fundamental cycle duration". Some cycles last 2 months, 3 months, or 6 months. The fundamental cycle of the economy is 3 months which repeats 4 times during the year. While this may prove irrelevant, It is incredibly important in the "cycle spectrum" creation.
If we consider a 1M duration of the fundamental cycle, the chart isn't as representative as the 2M one.
The Diesel / Gasoline cycle is incredible. This comes to prove that these two are highly correlated.
With the same method we can compare gasoline price with crude oil price.
For fuel prices, it seems that the end of the year can serve as a good baseline for the outcome of the next year. Absolute and relative are at their minimum in this time of year.
Similar charts can be drawn for DJI. While more chaotic (wider error lines), weeks 10 and 44 (March and October-November) appear as the weakest periods of the year.
So what M2SL price can we expect in the following days? I am an impatient man, I cannot wait for the results!!!
After a substantial drop in money supply, one might fear that further downside is to follow.
There are charts that calm such fears. Price has never touched the Quadratic Kernel indicator (a form of historic moving-average), and it may never touch it.
When RRPONTTLD increases, money supply decreases (I am oversimplifying because I don't know the exact specifics).
Bullish stochastics may signal more upside for money supply.
Finally, I will analyze the protagonist chart:
Suddenly, the 1.2% increaase doesn't sound that extraordinary...
Sometimes, a simplistic analysis like this one above, may prove correct like this one below:
Final thought:
With inflation higher than expected and money supply about to increase yet again, how high of an inflation can we expect?
With commodities bull-flagging against money supply itself, and Bitcoin bull-flagging against the Tech-Bubble, things can get pretty bad for equities...
Tread lightly, for this is hallowed ground.
-Father Grigori
PS. I have analyzed several cycles for different kinds of commodities. If you are interested ask me so as to post them.
USD Liquidity vs S&P vs BTC - Liquidity Leads AssetsPlotting USD Liquidity for the past 5 years versus the S&P and Bitcoin. Made twitter-famous by Raoul Pal and Arthur Hayes. As we can see in the chart, liquidity is tightly correlated with the S&P and also drives Bitcoin cycles.
Liquidity looks to lead price movements in both assets classes.
Question for the community: How can we best forecast moves in USD liquidity?
Arthur Hayes USD Liquidity IndexFormula constructed based on Arthur Hayes post, 'Teach Me Daddy'.
USD Liquidity Conditions Index = The Fed’s Balance Sheet — NY Fed Total Amount of Accepted Reverse Repo Bids — US Treasury General Account Balance Held at NY Fed
USD Liquidity — Number Go Up:
Fed Balance Sheet — Increases
RRP Balances — Decreases
TGA — Decreases
USD Liquidity — Number Go Down:
Fed Balance Sheet — Decreases
RRP Balances — Increases
TGA — Increases
Market Analysis: The Coming RecessionIn this post, I will present a market analysis with a focus on recession metrics and indicators. Right now, many of them are sending a recession warning.
Home Prices -
U.S. home prices are surging higher at the fastest quarterly rate of change on record. (See chart below)
This extreme rate of change in home prices is occurring as U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage rates also explode higher at nearly the fastest quarterly rate of change on record. (See chart below)
Additionally, we see in the chart below that 30-year fixed mortgage rates have potentially broken out into a new uptrend on the longer timeframes. The best way to detect trend reversals is by using the Ichimoku Cloud. When the price closes above or below the cloud (the shaded area) it is considered to have "pierced" the cloud. Once the cloud is pierced to the upside, resistance becomes support. In this case, assuming the piercing sustains, we can see a sustained period of higher interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages.
Exploding home prices and exploding mortgage rates occurring simultaneously is unsustainable. Examine the yearly chart of U.S. home prices below and notice the similarities between 2005 and 2022. Notice that the Stochastic RSI is extended to the upside, and that home price extends above the upper Bollinger Band. Looking at this chart one could reasonably conclude that in the coming years home prices are likely to revert to the mean (orange line), as they did during the Great Recession.
Many analysts try to contradict what this chart is suggesting by claiming that we are in much better shape now than during the sub-prime mortgage crisis prior to the Great Recession. But are we really? With spiraling inflation, every mortgage holder suddenly becomes relatively more sub-prime. We also did not see mortgage rates explode then as quickly as they are now.
Unemployment -
Analysts point out that the current low unemployment is a reason to believe a recession can be averted. But under the surface, that's beginning to change in a hurry. Below is a chart of most leading unemployment data published by the Federal Reserve: Seasonally Adjusted Initial Claims (Weekly).
In this chart, we see that in about a period of the past 4 months, the amount of new unemployment claims has risen by around 100,000 or about a 50% increase. Compare this to the chart from the 2007-2008, when the U.S. economy was beginning to enter a recession (the shaded area represents where the recession began):
In the period leading up to the Great Recession, we saw a rise of about 50,000 new unemployment claims or about a 15% increase over a similar 4-month period. Therefore, the rate of increase of initial unemployment claims (both in real numbers as a percentage) is higher now than when we entered the Great Recession.
Perhaps more worrisome is the difference in how accommodative the Federal Reserve was in response to rising unemployment. Here is how the Fed Funds Rate changed as unemployment began to rise in late 2007 into 2008:
As unemployment was rising, the Federal Reserve began to cut interest rates. Compare this to the current situation in the below chart which shows the Federal Reserve raising interest while unemployment is rising. This change in context is reflective of both the fact that the Federal Reserve is behind the curve with containing inflation and the fact that the Federal Reserve is prioritizing the current problem (inflation) at the expense of the future problem (unemployment).
We are experiencing a macroeconomic situation whereby rapidly rising initial unemployment claims are being paired with rapidly rising interest rates. This combination is unlikely to end with any other outcome than a recession.
For more details on unemployment data see here: www.dol.gov
To interact with the initial unemployment claims data on a weekly basis you can go here: fred.stlouisfed.org
Yield Curve Inversion -
The 10-year minus the 2-year Treasury yield is used to detect an impending recession. When the 2-year yield rises above the 10-year yield that creates a yield curve inversion, which can often indicate that a recession is coming. Right now the yield curve inversion is very steep. In fact, just recently, the yield curve inversion actually steepened to a level that was even worse than what we saw before the Great Recession.
Perhaps most alarming are the rates of change in interest rates. Look at the 10-year yield Rate of Change on a 3-month basis:
Here's the 2-year yield rate of change:
The federal reserve uses the 10-year minus the 3-month as a more reliable indicator for detecting an impending recession than the 10-year minus the 2-year. However, the rate of change for the 10-year yield has been so parabolic to the upside that the 3-month yield has been struggling to invert relative to it. However, that may soon change. Here's the 10-year minus the 3-month yield chart:
Volatility -
As you know, volatility is measured by the VIX. The yearly Stochastic RSI for the VIX is trending upward, signally the potential for greater volatility now and throughout the years ahead.
This part is a little confusing, but try to follow if you can: Volatility of volatility is measured by the VVIX and is considered a leading indicator of the VIX. Currently, the VVIX is so suppressed to downside that the K value of the Stochastic RSI oscilator has reached zero for only the second time ever. (The first and only other time this has happened was in 2008). While this may be more coincidental than predictive, it nonetheless suggests that volatility of volatility has nowhere to go but up. See below.
Margin -
Margin has already unwinded both in real numbers and as a percentage by a magnitude that is consistent with, and usually only occurs during, a recession. See chart below.
Credit to Yardeni Research, Inc. You can view their full report here: www.yardeni.com
Stock Market -
Several bellwethers in the stock market are showing that, while we may have a robust rebound from extremely oversold levels in the short term, the longer timeframes look quite bearish, especially for the interest rate-sensitive tech and growth sectors.
For more details, here is my analysis on the QQQ/SPY relative performance:
Tech and growth are not alone in the bearish context. Indeed, the bull run from the end of the Great Recession to the current period has been characterized by increasing prices but decreasing volume. This is generally bearish, and may reflect that quantitative easing was a large cause of the bull run. Now, quantitative easing is ending in the face of spiraling inflation.
Other Metrics -
There are many other metrics that are used to detect recessions (e.g. GDP, PMI, M2V). Some may even look toward shifts in demographic trends, rising geopolitical tensions, declining globalization and climate change as recessionary factors. While I cannot discuss every possible metric, one last metric worth considering is the corporate bond market.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 shutdown, in order to stabilize markets, the Federal Reserve rushed in to save corporate bonds from crashing fearing that high borrowing costs for corporations could cause liquidity issues. Corporate liquidity issues can cause a whole host of issues from bankruptcies to layoffs. Currently, however, corporate bond prices have fallen to nearly that of the COVID low when the Federal Reserve rushed in to buy, yet the Federal Reserve is only just beginning quantitative tightening and just now beginning to roll bonds off its balance sheet.
Finally, I will leave you with this note: The time-tested winning strategy is to continue contributing as much as possible to your retirement fund. If the stock market crashes, do not stop or lower your contributions or try to pull money out because you think the world will end. Rather, continue to contribute as much as you can afford no matter what to a retirement mutual fund with diversified holdings. Contributions during market downturns will buy you more shares of your retirement mutual fund relative to the number of shares your contributions bought prior to the market crash. When price rebounds (and it will) you would have been glad to stick to this investment strategy.
Global Liquidity being injected from the Major Central BanksThis is a chart that illustrates global liquidity that has been injected into the worldwide financial system.
See the Net USD liquidity line - black - Note that from the 1st of Jan 2023 until todal liquidity has increased from 5.56 Trillion USD to 6.25 Trillion USD.