Tuesday Macros
Rates Marginally Wider...Equities Rotation Continues....Trends Developing
Rates started higher yesterday only to be surprised by the economic numbers. 10 year hit 1.65 then rallied to resistance at 1.58 and could not break... They then ground higher in yield... This morning we moved higher in yield and now moving back to 1.60... So where is the trend?... Treasury announced that the estimate for issuance in the second quarter is now 463 billion, over 4 x the original estimate of 95 billion... But the range remains... What we are seeing in Bunds is more interesting... The ECB is changing their view of where Bunds can go, which will allow the 10 year Bund to grind back to a positive number... 30 year Bunds hit .37 positive and remain around .35.. Global interest rates are rising... Now what are treasuries going to do?... We still think higher rates are in the cards, but we were challenged yesterday in our own internal meeting... We like to be challenged, it keeps us fresh and makes markets.. 2% 10 years are still a long way away , but multiple 1 mm plus non farm payroll numbers may get us there.
Equities are mixed this morning with Dow and S+P doing little and Nasdaq continuing to leak further. Flows continue away from the Faang and high tech stocks as value and small caps, the reopening equity trade, continues to make ground... How far will it go? States seem to be jumping over themselves to reopen their economies... Texas was one of the first, and their revenues are skyrocketing...Florida took off the gloves yesterday and Cuomo, along with the other tri-state governors, is trying to beat Deblasio to the punch, reopening further and sooner... GS said their offices will be open in June and the NY Stock exchange has said if you are vaccinated, you can come to the floor...this trend is accelerating... Will it lead to higher rates?..you know our view.
Commodities are higher...gas is up 10 cents over the weekend...Sugar is higher as Honors Commodity, backed by the Chinese government, took delivery of 61000 tons of raw sugar to settle the expiration of futures contracts on Ice Futures. The tapping of the Exchange to obtain physical quantities surprised traders.. Look for this trend to continue to other products as global shortages and supply chain disruptions continue.
New issue corporates had a good day yesterday with over 9 billion coming to markets... Almost as much as the full week last week...order books were 3.8 times oversubscribed.. Offerings moved 26 basis from IPT (initial price talk) and new issue concessions were negative by almost 4 basis.. Demand is there, and that remains a good thing.
FT has an interesting story where banks are now trying to discourage large corporate clients from depositing cash... Both Citi and JPM are trying to get corporations to stop depositing money and go into money market accounts... This is because of the change in the SLR percentages at the end of March...
https://on.ft.com/3vILjV9 crazy when you are forced to turn away your bread and butter by changes in government regulation... Too much money
WSJ editorial board writes that there is a lot less money to be found by targeting wealthy tax avoiders than the Biden administration thinks... And is probably a way to appease the left (our view). Estimates of an annual tax gap of 175 billion are based on outdated and incomplete data (WSJ)..
Kaplan speaks today... He has been the most outspoken of the Fed governors calling for tapering talk to start sooner rather than later... Either way we do not see a major catalyst to move markets today, and the range bound activity continues... But we sense a trend developing, so we will see...