Thursday Macros - Was travelling yesterday.
Markets Not Playing By the Current Playbook...Treasuries and Equities
Markets are not playing by the projected playbook... With employment rising and economic numbers soaring in many instances, treasuries are not going down... One would have expected rates to be above 1.75 on the way to 2%... Not happening... Atlanta Fed second quarter at 13.5% expectation and a soaring expectation for employment tomorrow should be a catalyst for higher rates... Even the 1.3 million GS number for tomorrow will not do the trick... Maybe the Jefferies number of 2.1 million may spark some enthusiasm, but this week has seen 10 year treasuries remain in a 1.65-1.55 range, with us at 1.57 currently... Equities have a similar situation... Great earnings numbers and expectations have given way to a rotation out of the high fliers...Cathie Woods funds are seeing significant outflows and massive put buying... Best we can figure is a synthetic top is being put on the US economy due to the supply chain issues, semiconductors for one, and the massive shortage of labor we see everywhere... One wonders why the 8.5 million of unemployed people that Clarida and Powell continue to talk about is not showing up to take up the slack in labor... Meanwhile neither equities or bonds are not playing by the expected playbook
So what do we do?... Today we get claims...whisper number is close to 500000.. Tomorrow is the nonfarm number with a 998,000 expectation... Many economists are above 1 mm... Citi 1.15, Goldman 1.3, and the whopper of Jefferies of 2.1... We think it will take a massive number to get the treasury market back to higher rates... Given the recent trends, we are starting to wonder if June may be too soon to reach 2% 10 years... We may need the full summer to get to the Jackson Hole conference.... 5 years are on the verge of breaking .78 and 10 years 1.52... If we see these weekly closes through these levels tomorrow afternoon, we will have to go back to the drawing board...
Equities... Frothy seems to be the word of the week coming out of the market... Nasdaq has been a disappointment... We are hearing Pension funds are behind the moves... With the recent Millman report showing 98% pensions fully funded, pension funds are selling equities to lock in their gains and buying bonds... Certainly fits the narrative...the big fliers are under pressure... Some of it may be the proposed increases in capital gains projected for later in the year...either way Nasdaq is down over the last 5 days while the traditional Dow Theory, which follows the Dow and the Dow Transportation, hit historical highs yesterday.
Inflation... It is here... You can see it in Tips 10 year breakeven, which is the negative of 10 year tips of .90 added to the yield of 10 years, is now 2.47%, which in theory is the expected inflation + rates premium over the next 10 years... Do the same for the 5 years of 1.921 +.79 and you get 2.71% inflation (+ premium) over the next 5 years... And you wonder why rates are not higher... The Fed, ex Kaplan, continues to pound the idea of transitory, which the market seems to be listening too... Rosengren made some good points yesterday that given the current state of housing, the Fed should taper mortgages...
May is the beginning of the 6 month time frame of weak equity prices... We thought it could be avoided given the massive amount of current stimulus that is working through the system and the additional call of 4.1 trillion over the next few months, but the weakness is worrisome... If great earnings and outlooks can not get equity markets to rise, then we may be facing a period of consolidation. Corporate spreads are still rock solid with 9 billion of orders for the JPM deal yesterday for their 2 billion issuance... And over 4.4 billion of the oxymoron of High Yield issued yesterday... And for treasuries, if the expectation of a string of over 1mm a month employment can not get us to higher yields, along with 13.57% Atlanta GDP numbers, then we have to wait for more inflation... Again, markets are not playing by the playbook... Trend carefully.