Wednesday Macros
Treasury Selling Exhaustion... Bear Steepening..Equities Ring "all clear" Bell
After studying the numbers yesterday we believe we have seen the selling exhaustion in Treasuries for now... We had 1 level of 10 years as the resistance yesterday and got to 1.126... We have had four of these events in the last few months, which usually lead to about a 25 basis backup in rates... 1.42, which we were at last week, is probably where the markets are going in 10 year terms...with a steeper curve... Equities have bounced nicely, making back all of its loses Tuesday from the previous day, which we referred to as "Reversal Tuesday" or Turn Around Tuesday... Markets are marginally higher this morning.
Bonds... Still good demand in corporates as 8 deals were priced yesterday led by VM Ware....spreads have come in nicely... The peak of the CDX HY, one of the easiest to follow, bounced off 300 Monday and back to 289 today...Treasuries clearly were following the "Delta" headlines where fear and panic got the better of them in the past two days... While the Delta virus gets the top headlines in the local news, the reality is that hospitalization and death rates among vaccinated people is extremely low, at about 3% and 1% respectively... It was the catalyst to get the shorts in the bond market to cover as they got stopped out...
Flows trump fundamentals...the markets are giving all the economic numbers lip service only... So is the Fed, but that might change next week... For now the price action is the action... And the flows go from fear and panic to all clear... 10 years overnight saw some buying in Asia, but once London opened we saw two block sellers of 10 year futures... Reversing some of the buying of the past few days... But 10 years could not get below the 200 day moving average of 1.26, this mornings high yield of 10 years was at 4.47 am, at 1.2567... So that remains support.
What does the Fed want?.. More employed people... The Fed prefers higher long interest rates, because that shows confidence in the economy... But the Fed will not raise short term rates in the near term... Not this year, but tapering is on the table... We expect it to be the major topic of next week's meeting and could be the catalyst that gets us back to 1.42... Jackson Hole is a focal point, but the September meeting is more likely to formally announce a tapering schedule that would start in December...
The price action will be the story until the Fed meeting next week... Players are long the treasury market, and the margin calls on Monday flushed out the weak equity and commodity holders...August still remains a lousy month for stocks, but the de-leveraging and margin calls over the last week have gotten the market back to onsides... But if the price action reverses for whatever reason, markets are vulnerable... It is still the summer and liquidity is poorer than normal...