Friday Macros
Technicals Indicate Be Bearish Rates...But They are Holding Support...China Ugh
Treasuries continue to hold 1.36 support and 10 year futures remain above 133-16. The long bond auction did not have the participation of Wednesday's stellar 10 year auction, yet you have a 4 basis point profit if you bought yesterday... Volumes are clearly summer volumes, where the Northeast remain under heat advisories (not here). We calculated 75% volumes in the overnight session.
Well, it is Friday the 13th and anything can happen, but our initial view is it will be a quiet one today... No Fed speakers today with Powell up next week in a town hall format for educators... So do not expect much from the Fed that we have not already seen... Do not be surprised if a Fed governor pops up on Fox Bus, BB, or CNBC, but nothing is scheduled... So with the Fed out and inflation already known to be high, what is there to make the next move in markets... 10 years have risen in yield 25 basis from its lows last week... But why did it rally there initially? Fear of Delta variant... Still a concern... China is more in the headlines of risk.
China slowdown continues... From a colleague... " the China growth story has darkened appreciably in the last few weeks, a confluence of regulatory actions, port closures/activity restrictions, and insufficient monetary support." Speaking of monetary support, M2, which came out last night continues to set new records... About a 14% one year increase....
Flows continue to show risk on patterns.. The latest BofA flows report shows 15.7 billion into equities, 10.1 billion into bonds, 1.5 billion into European equities. European equities are up for the 10 day in a row, a record that we have not seen since the dot com bubble... But most importantly from a risk standpoint,
PRIVATE CLIENTS WITH $3.2 TRILLION ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT
BOOST ALLOCATION TO EQUITIES TO RECORD HIGH AT 65% -
This is a wake up call... August remains the worst month of equities... So far that is not the case for the major averages, but it clearly is not a good month for many sectors... Worrisome trend, but not going to be corrected until after we see either Jackson Hole or possibly the Fed tapering meeting September 22
New issues High grade yesterday was a complete zero... Week to date is above expectations, but we said the issuance was going to be front loaded for this week and next. HY, 4 issuers priced 2.4 billion yesterday bringing the week's total priced to 12.75 billion .
Positioning in US treasuries remains lighter than normal.. Longs still are in control, but the numbers are light. The release of the Japanese MOF foreign investment data explains that the Japanese in the previous week continue to repatriate money back to Japan... However, that data is a week old, which also means the Japanese have dry powder, which we saw explode this week in the 10 year treasury buying from overseas... This knowledge that the Japanese will be there for back ups, as well as draw the line at 1.50, tells you that even with Fed tapering, the back up should be contained... But the IIF , Institute of International Finance, was out with a report this morning saying low US yields on treasuries is distorted by the Fed bond buying... Ya think??? After splitting out Fed purchases, the rest reflects the diminishing market demand that has fallen since the GFC. Given the Fed absorbed 60% of issuance in 2020 via QE, the bulk of issuance was off market. This suggests to them that rates should be much higher... We estimated that 2.25% 10 years would be where we would be in an interview we did last week with S+P, if the Fed had not been an aggressive treasury buyer...