Russia Blinks...Risk On...Stocks Soar to Overnight Highs 3am...Bonds slump
The roller-coaster of Ukraine and Russia continues... Markets took a dive yesterday when the sarcasm of the Ukrainian President, saying that Russia would invade tomorrow, was taken as a given rather than how he, a former comedian, meant it... Nonetheless at 3 am there were multiple reports that the Southern and Western Armies of Russia were reporting back to their barracks... S+P started to rally and are at near overnight highs, up 70 points... Similarly the Dow is up over 400 and Nasdaq up over 300. Corporate spreads are tighter by over 10 in CDX HY....European equities are up about 2%... Overnight Chinese equities were up over 1% as the Chinese Central bank continues to ease... The PBOC pumped in cash via policy loans for the second straight month.
Rates... As the risk on started the selloff of FTQ assets reversed.. European 10 years are back by 2 basis, remember they were closed when treasuries rallied at the end of the day yesterday... US rates are higher and steeper with 2/3 only higher by 1.5 basis while 10/20/30 are back by 4.6 basis...
Fed... Bullard tried to double down with his 100 basis by July talk, but he has not been backed up by anyone and the time for an inter-meeting has passed with the Fed Normal Board meeting yesterday...Rate hikes remain closer to 7 than 6 for year end, but we are not wavering from 4... And we think the market is way ahead of a plodding Fed... If the Fed was going to be as aggressive on rates that many project, would you not think they would have ended QE?... We see no Fed speakers today and the next event is the FOMC minutes tomorrow, where we will look for clues...The NYT has an article today " FEDERAL RESERVE OFFICIALS CALL FOR A MEASURED RESPONSE TO INFLATION...the article did not say anything new that we did not hit yesterday... But we think the big boys have it wrong and are too aggressive...
Inflation..PPI is supposed to drop from 9.7 to 9.1 today for YOY...things are changing so fast that the information is already old... The SF Fed put out a report on the soaring rents and inflation ""the extraordinarily large increases in two leading indicators of future rent inflationasking rent inflation and house price inflationpoint to significant upside risks to the overall inflation outlook. The potential increases are particularly significant for CPI inflation, which places a larger weight on shelter costs."
FRBSF Bank America Survey... Reuters put out a report on the latest Bank of America survey at 4.40 am BOFA SURVEY
BOFA: ONLY 30% INVESTORS EXPECT AN EQUITY BEAR MARKET IN 2022; 41% OF INVESTORS EXPECT FLATTER YIELD CURVE, HIGHEST SINCE FEB 2005
RUSSIA-UKRAINE TENSIONS IS 5TH BIGGEST "TAIL RISK" FOR MARKETS; HAWKISH CENTRAL BANKS REMAIN TOP RISK
BOFA FEB INVESTOR SURVEY: BIGGEST UNDERWEIGHT POSITION OF TECH SINCE AUG 2006
BOFA SURVEY: CASH LEVELS JUMP TO 5.3%, HIGHEST SINCE MAY 2020; BANKS REMAIN TOP GLOBAL SECTOR OVERWEIGHT FOR VALUE
Rtrs
Outlook...we do not want to repeat anything we wrote yesterday so here is what we are thinking... Still think rates are going higher, but we are not convinced this is the big back up and that Central Banks are still going to manipulate rates to where they want them rather than where they should go... Looking at the chart of the ETF TLT, we can see support around 134.25... Which would equate with a long bond yield of 2.44... We can see 10 years more in line with 2.20... And 5 years slightly above 2%... But if the street is right as to what they expect in inflation and rate rises, then these will not be the levels that hold...Meanwhile BOFA said that they think the worst of the this years selloff in Munis might already be over.
Equities... The biggest tech underweight of 16 years tells us that the bottom of the Nasdaq may be in... And with plenty of money on the sidelines and our idea that the Fed will be going slow, we think the bottom of the S+P is probably not far away... But it is way too early. So enjoy the big upside move in equities today, it could reverse at any time...as Rick Rieder said over the weekend, the top cut of liquidity in equities is at times only 1-2 million rather than the 10-20 times higher he has seen over the years.