GLOBAL ECONOMICS AND POLITICS

Leo Haviland provides clients with original, provocative, cutting-edge fundamental supply/demand and technical research on major financial marketplaces and trends. He also offers independent consulting and risk management advice.

Haviland’s expertise is macro. He focuses on the intertwining of equity, debt, currency, and commodity arenas, including the political players, regulatory approaches, social factors, and rhetoric that affect them. In a changing and dynamic global economy, Haviland’s mission remains constant – to give timely, value-added marketplace insights and foresights.

Leo Haviland has three decades of experience in the Wall Street trading environment. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Sempra Energy Trading, and other institutions. In his research and sales career in stock, interest rate, foreign exchange, and commodity battlefields, he has dealt with numerous and diverse financial institutions and individuals. Haviland is a graduate of the University of Chicago (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Cornell Law School.


 

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US TREASURY YIELDS, FED MANEUVERS, AND FISCAL GAMES© Leo Haviland June 5, 2023

“Now if there’s a smile on my face
It’s only there trying to fool the public”. “The Tears of a Clown”, a song by Smokey Robinson
and the Miracles

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CONCLUSION AND OVERVIEW

The United States Treasury 10 year note yield probably will continue to travel sideways for the near term.

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In America and many other key countries around the globe, uncertainties and risks regarding numerous entangled economic and political variables and marketplaces remain substantial. In particular, inflationary and recessionary (deflationary) forces battle for supremacy.

Monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve Board and its central banking allies has helped to cut lofty consumer price inflation levels. However, significant inflation persists in America. Both headline and core (excluding food and energy) inflation float well above targets aimed at by these guardians. Price indices for United States personal consumption expenditures services for the past several months have remained high. Yet in comparison with actual consumer price inflation, inflationary expectations for longer run time spans have remained moderate. Unemployment in the US remains low, assisting consumer confidence and thus household spending, thereby tending to keep interest rate yields relatively high. Given the Russian/Ukraine conflict and OPEC+ willingness to support prices, how probable is it that petroleum and other commodity prices will ascend again?


America’s recent resolution of the heated battle over raising the debt ceiling avoided default. However, despite celebratory talk by many about how that new legislation displayed fiscal responsibility, the new law accomplished very little in substance toward reducing the towering public debt challenges confronting America. The massive and increasing public (and overall) debt in the United States (and many other leading countries) signal the eventual arrival of even higher interest rates.


Higher interest rates have diminished worldwide GDP growth prospects and boosted recessionary fears. History indicates that a negatively sloped US Treasury yield curve (short term rates higher than long term ones), such as has existed in America for over six months, portends a recession. Though history need not repeat itself, either entirely or even partly, significant disinflations induced by monetary policy tightening connect with recessions. But central bankers, Wall Street, Main Street, and politicians do not want a severe recession or a substantial fall in the S+P 500 and will strive to avoid those eventualities. The shocking banking collapses a few months ago in America and Europe seem largely forgotten. However, they warn of dangerous fragilities facing banking systems and diverse marketplace arenas, especially if US rates resume their ascent or price feebleness in commercial real estate assets becomes even more worrisome. The United States dollar, the leading international reserve currency, has depreciated from its major high milepost reached in autumn 2022 but arguably remains “very strong”. This robustness helps to make US Treasuries (and other dollar-denominated assets) relatively appealing to some overseas players. Prices of emerging marketplace stocks and interest rate instruments remain vulnerable to rising UST yields and
dollar strength. Also, even in an inflationary environment, fearful “flights to quality” (buying UST) sometimes emerge.

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US Treasury Yields, Fed Maneuvers, and Fiscal Games (6-5-23)

SUMMERTIME BLUES, MARKETPLACE VIEWS © Leo Haviland August 6, 2022

In “Summertime Blues”, The Who complain:
“Well, I’m gonna raise a fuss
I’m gonna raise a holler
‘Bout workin’ all summer
Just to try to earn a dollar.”

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OVERVIEW AND CONCLUSION

Within and regarding marketplaces and other economic realms, as in other cultural domains, diverse storytellers create and promote competing perspectives, explanations, and forecasts. In this process, the selection and weighing of variables (“facts”, data, evidence, and factors) differs, sometimes considerably. Thus rhetorical crosscurrents and a range of marketplace actions in stocks, interest rates, foreign exchange, and commodities battlegrounds inescapably exist. And since opinions can persist or change, so can significant marketplace trends and relationships, sometimes dramatically.

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In today’s entangled global financial marketplaces, battling viewpoints frequently involve assessments of inflation (especially in consumer price measures) and fears regarding recession (or at least stagflation).

Long run American marketplace history shows that substantially rising United States interest rates in key benchmarks such as the United States Treasury 10 year note leads to bear marketplaces in the S+P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. UST 10 year yields began rising in early March 2020, accelerating upward following 8/4/21’s 1.13 percent trough as American (and worldwide) consumer price inflation became very significant. The S+P 500 peaked 1/4/22 at 4819, plummeting almost 25 percent collapse to its mid-June 2022 low.

A “too strong” US dollar also interrelated with (encouraged) ongoing price weakness in both emerging marketplace equities and dollar-denominated sovereign debt securities (both emerging marketplace equities and debt prices peaked in first quarter 2021). The very strong dollar and price slumps in emerging marketplace securities also helped to undermine the S+P 500. Prices for commodities “in general” climbed substantially after December 2021 (Russia invaded Ukraine 2/24/22), magnifying inflation concerns and levels and thus assisting the price decline in global stock marketplaces. Though commodities peaked in early March 2022, on balance they remained quite high until around mid-June 2022.

As prices tumbled in the S+P 500 and related financial arenas (such as emerging marketplace stocks; corporate bonds and US dollar-denominated emerging market sovereign debt), avid “searches for yield/return” transformed into fearful “runs for cover”. Consumer (Main Street) and small business confidence destruction interrelated with capital destruction (loss of money) by “investors” and other owners) in stock and interest rate securities marketplaces.

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However, during the past few weeks, the S+P 500 has rallied vigorously, about 14.6 percent from 6/17/22’s 3637 to 8/3/22’s 4167. Given the high consumer price inflation pattern as well as concerns about feeble economic growth, what intertwined factors probably played key roles in this S+P 500 ascent?

Within the context of a long run trend for increasing yields, a modest interim yield decline in the UST 10 year can help to spark a notable rally in the S+P 500. Note the timing of the recent yield top in the UST 10 year note, 6/14/22’s 3.50 percent in conjunction with the S+P 500’s 6/17/22 trough at 3637. Also, perhaps the renewed slide in the overall commodities field (especially the petroleum complex) since its June 2022 interim highs allayed the inflationary concerns of some marketplace participants.

Share buybacks, disappearance of substantial stock “overvaluation” in yardsticks such as price/earnings ratios, and ongoing optimism that nominal corporate earnings growth will continue over the long run (perhaps keeping pace with the Consumer Price Index) also helped to motivate an interim bull move in the American stocks. Perhaps short covering in American stocks further inflamed the ascent.

What other interrelated phenomena probably have promoted the S+P 500’s summer rally, especially after the second low on 7/14/22 at 3722? The US dollar’s depreciation since mid-July 2022, although not substantial in percentage terms, arguably has inspired some buyers to venture into American stock playgrounds.

Wall Street and its economic and political allies have long popularized, often as part of American Dream wordplay, the outlook that over the misty long run, American stocks in general (the S+P 500; investment grade equities) will keep rising (at least in nominal terms). Thus the roughly 25 percent slump in the S+P 500 since its majestic January 2022 pinnacle perhaps looked to many “investors” like a good buying opportunity over the misty long run, especially as the UST 10 year yield arguably fell sufficiently from its mid-June 2022 crest to mitigate (at least to some extent) concerns regarding inflation (and Fed rate-raising).

Everyone knows that the American stock marketplace is an investment realm greatly favored by Main Street retail players. Wall Street and Main Street guides and their friends in financial media diligently advise Main Street on the merits (goodness; reasonableness) of investment in United States stocks (especially over the long run) as a means of achieving economic security and wealth.

Institutional players of course play critical roles in US and stock and interest rate securities marketplaces. But retail customers have a very substantial impact on stock price levels and trends. Moreover, in contrast with the situation of several years ago, in regard to the equity securities of key US corporations in general (and many Exchange Traded Funds/ETFs), Main Street over the past few years has benefited from rapid execution (internet) and low (or no) commissions. As the coronavirus pandemic emerged in 2020 and persisted into 2021, apparently many Main Street dwellers ventured into the US stock marketplace (not just large capitalization S+P 500-type firms). Many of these Main Street adventurers (investors, speculators, traders) were new participants in the stock trading game. Also, in an era of significantly rising (and high) consumer prices (note the trend since around mid-2021), probably stocks—like homes—can be an inflation hedge for some devoted financial pilgrims. Besides, speculators and traders, not only investors, seek to identify and profit from “good bargains” in stocks (and other marketplaces).

Many regiments of Main Street inhabitants raced into the exciting cryptocurrency wonderland during the global pandemic (and after the crash in the S+P 500 and Bitcoin to their March 2020 bottoms). Though cryptocurrencies generally have not yet won the honored “investment” badge, some believe cryptocurrencies (or at least some brands of it) are a “good investment” and “worth owning for a while”. In any case, many people have sought to make money by trading cryptocurrencies, usually initiating positions from the buying (long) side.

Despite America’s ferocious cultural wars across numerous economic, political, and social parameters, and despite declining consumer (and small business) confidence and widespread dissatisfaction with the overall direction of the country, American consumers in general (or at least the crucial high-earning and substantial net worth segment, the “haves”, have enjoyed substantial jumps in their nominal (and probably real) net worth in recent years.

The US and global stock marketplaces are far larger than cryptocurrency ones. But picture as well the noteworthy upward flight in recent weeks within another territory favored by some Main Street retail players: Bitcoin. Note the roughly similar timing shifts (trend changes) since first quarter 2020 for Bitcoin and the S+P 500. However, the impressive 40.3 percent upward march in Bitcoin from 6/20/22’s 17579 (another low 7/13/22 at 18892) to its recent high on 8/1/22 at 24658 probably encouraged to some extent the price rallies in the S+P 500 (and some other search for yield marketplaces).

Despite the withering slump in the S+P 500 since its 1/4/22 top and the bloodbath in many cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin peak 11/20/21 at 69000; note interim tops on 12/27/21 at 52100 and 3/28/22 at 48236 occurred alongside highs in the S+P 500), overall US household net worth (and thus nowadays probably still remains quite high. Thus “buying power” remained available from a substantial portion the Main Street (general public).

Some of this Main Street (retail) buying power, even in the face of notable CPI inflation and recession concerns, probably enthusiastically jumped from the sidelines into action in the S+P 500 (and other US equities) and some related playing fields, including Bitcoin, in recent weeks.

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Institutional buying surely assisted the price rallies in the S+P 500 from its June 2022 and July 2022 troughs. But did institutional (Wall Street) money (insight and action) “lead” Main Street players into buying the S+P 500 around then? Probably not in a major way. Note the gloomy economic outlooks of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund released at that time. In addition, see the “dire” pessimism of “259 fund managers responsible for more than $700 billion in investments” [in other words, institutional/Wall Street types] manifested via a survey conducted between 7/8 to 7/15/22 by the Bank of America (cited on 7/19/22 by the NY Times website).

According to that Bank of America monthly review, optimism about global growth staggered to a record low, beneath levels in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse. The share of respondents who believed a recession was likely was the highest since April 2020 (as the coronavirus pandemic emerged).

However, these institutional investors apparently were holding the most cash since October 2001, (after the 9/11 attacks), over 20 years ago. Consequently Wall Street (institutional) influence probably decided to put some of that extra cash to work and thus assisted (jumped aboard) the S+P 500’s rally from its June/July 2022 valleys.

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Summertime Blues, Marketplace Views (8-6-22)

WE CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION: CULTURAL TRENDS AND FINANCIAL MARKETPLACES © Leo Haviland July 13, 2022

In “Satisfaction”, The Rolling Stones sing: “I can’t get no satisfaction.”

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CONCLUSION AND OVERVIEW

“Economic” confidence and satisfaction levels and trends interrelate with patterns of and anticipations regarding “economic” performance. These variables entangle with and influence price trends in stocks and other financial marketplaces. Thus consumer (Main Street) confidence and similar measures can confirm, lead (or lag), or be an omen for future movements in GDP, inflation, the S+P 500, interest rates, and so on.

Declines in American economic confidence in recent times confirm deterioration in the nation’s (and global) economic condition. The severity of those confidence slumps probably warns of further ongoing economic challenges in the future. These looming difficulties include not only the perpetuation of relatively high inflation for quite some time, but also slowing and perhaps even falling GDP growth. Since America is a leading economic nation in the intertwined global economy, what happens there substantially influences and reflects economic performance elsewhere.

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Regarding and within cultural fields, definitions, propositions, interpretations, arguments, and conclusions are subjective (opinions). So-called “economic” (financial, commercial, business) arenas and analysis regarding them are not objective (scientific). In any case, as they are cultural phenomena, economic realms are not isolated from “political” and “social” ones. They interrelate with them, and sometimes very substantially.

Evidence of substantial (and in recent times, increasing) “overall” (including but not necessarily limited to political or economic) dissatisfaction within America are not unique to that country. However, since overall and political measures of declining confidence within and regarding the United States both include and extend beyond the economic battleground, at present they consequently probably corroborate current and herald upcoming economic troubles (economic weakness; still rather lofty inflation) for the US.

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Marketplace history is not marketplace destiny, either entirely or even partly. Relationships between marketplaces and variables can change, sometimes dramatically. Nevertheless, keep in mind that if prices for assorted “search for yield (return)” marketplaces such as stocks (picture the S+P 500) and lower-grade debt can climb “together” (roughly around the same time), they also can retreat together.

“Runs for cover” in recent months increasingly have replaced “searches for yield” in the global securities playground by worried “investors” and other nervous owners. Price declines in American and other stock marketplaces have interrelated with higher yields for (price slumps in) corporate debt securities and emerging marketplace sovereign US dollar-denominated notes and bonds.

The devastating price collapse in Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies surely has dismayed many yield-hunters on Main Street.

Declines in American confidence and satisfaction assist and confirm the price falls in recent months in the S+P 500 and other “search for yield” playgrounds such as corporate and low-grade sovereign debt. Thus confidence destruction has interrelated with capital destruction (loss of money) by “investors” and other owners) in stock and interest rate securities marketplaces. From the historical perspective, slumps in as well as very low levels for some of the confidence (“happiness”; optimism) indicators probably signal further price drops in the S+P 500 and interconnected search for yield marketplaces.

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The beloved Federal Reserve and its central banking friends finally recognized that consumer price inflation is not a temporary or transitory phenomenon and have elected to raise policy rates (end, or at least reduce, yield repression) and shrink their bloated balance sheets. Yet inflation probably will not drop significantly for some time. Besides, how much faith exists that the Federal Reserve will (or can) control and even reduce consumer price inflation anytime soon? How much trust should we place in the Fed’s abilities? The Fed helped to create inflation (and not just in consumer prices, but also in assets) via its sustained massive money printing and ongoing yield repression, and the Fed did not quickly perceive the extent and durability of consumer price inflation.

Long run history shows that significantly rising American interest rates for benchmarks such as the US Treasury 10 year note lead to bear marketplaces in the S+P 500.The US stock marketplace has declined significantly since its January 2022 peak. Home price appreciation, a key factor pleasing many consumers, probably will decelerate, and perhaps even cease. The Ukraine/Russia war continues to drag on. Despite recent declines from lofty heights, prices for commodities in general remain elevated from the pre-war perspective. Global government debt is substantial, and fearsome long-run debt problems for America and many other countries beckon. American and international GDP growth has slowed. Stagflation and even recession fears have increased. The coronavirus problem, though less terrifying, has not disappeared.

Therefore many American Main Street confidence indicators probably will decline, or at least remain relatively weak, over at least the next several months.

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We Can't Get No Satisfaction- Cultural Trends and Financial Marketplaces (7-13-22)

ECONOMIC GROWTH FEARS: STOCK AND INTEREST RATE ADVENTURES © Leo Haviland April 2, 2019

In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Lewis Carroll declares: “For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.” (Chapter I, “Down the Rabbit-Hole”)

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OVERVIEW AND CONCLUSIONS

History reveals that sustained rises in United State government interest rates generally (eventually) are bearish for the US stock marketplace. The United States Treasury 10 year note yield made a major bottom on 7/6/16 at 1.32 percent, an important interim low on 9/8/17 at 2.01pc, and a critical high in early October 2018 at 3.26pc. Japan’s 10 year government note yield peaked around then, on 10/4/18 at .17 percent. Germany’s 10 year government note rate established an interim high at .58pc on 10/10/18 (having built an earlier top at .81pc on 2/8/18). China’s 10 year central government note’s yield high occurred earlier (4.04pc on 11/22/17), but its lower yield high at 3.71pc on 9/21/18 connected with those in America, Japan, and Germany.

The S+P 500 attained its summit around the same time as the yield highs in the UST 10 year note, constructing a double top on 9/21/18 at 2941 and 10/3/08 at 2940.

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Subsequent yield declines in the UST 10 year note and the 10 year government debt of other key global realms such as Germany, Japan, and China accompanied a slump in the S+P 500 and many other benchmark stock indices. The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and other central bank engineers initially were fairly complacent. However, around mid-December 2018, the rate for the UST 10 year decisively retreated beneath about 2.80 percent. Also around then, the S+P 500, after tumbling from 2800’s temporary high (12/3/18), cratered beneath 2650 (a ten percent fall from the autumn 2018 high). Note the subsequent change in direction for Fed policy orations and actions.

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These fearful events (and other variables) portended weaker real GDP growth (and maybe even a recession) in America and other advanced nations, and an undesirable slowdown in China and other key emerging marketplaces. Stock owners (especially investors) and their investment banking and media allies in the United States and elsewhere screamed, troubled by the prospect of a twenty percent or more decline (satisfying a classic definition of a bear trend) in the S+P 500. Many politicians around the globe screeched, expressing concerns about economic dangers (more quietly, some worried about potential for increased populist pressures).

This unsettling scenario sparked the trusty Federal Reserve to halt its Federal Funds rate-raising policy (part of its normalization scheme), to underline that it would maintain a hefty balance sheet laden with debt securities, and to preach a much-welcomed sermon that for the near term it will be “patient”. The European Central Bank and other devoted central banking comrades promised continued easy money programs.

Some might wonder if the Fed and its friends in central banking (and in some political corridors) nowadays are aiming to produce an updated version of the joyous days (“irrational exuberance”, perhaps) of 2006-07 during the Goldilocks Era.

In any case, the central bank easing rhetoric and policy shift helped to rally equities and boosted confidence in growth prospects. The S+P 500 hit a floor on 12/26/18 at 2347 (20 percent fall from the autumn high equals 2353) and thereafter rose sharply. Many other global stock marketplaces established troughs around then, rallying dramatically in first quarter 2019. The UST 10 year yield touched 2.54 percent on 1/4/19. It thereafter climbed to 2.80pc on 1/18/19 (2.77pc high 3/14/19).

Given the reappearance of lower UST rates and the sunny prospect of continued benevolent Federal Reserve policy, arguably some of the feverish rally in the S+P 500 and other international stocks since around end December 2018/early January 2019 has reflected not only hopes of further (adequate) economic expansion, but also a frantic hunt for suitable returns (“yield”) outside of the interest rate securities field. The time of the broad S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (“GSCI”)’s bottom neighbored that in the S+P 500, 12/26/18 at 366. Note also the price rally in US dollar-denominated emerging marketplace sovereign debt securities.

The broad real trade-weighted US dollar’s rally from its January 2018 bottom at 94.6 (Federal Reserve, H.10; goods only; monthly average, March 1973=100) established a high in December 2018 at 103.2 (recall the major top of 103.4 (December 2016)/103.2 (January 2017). The dollar’s stop in its bull charge and its slight decline thereafter (about 1.4 percent) probably has helped to inspire the stock marketplace rally and related quests for returns in other landscapes. The combination of the drop in US government yields and the cessation of the US dollar’s upward march probably (especially) encouraged the recent price climbs in the stocks and government notes of many emerging marketplaces.

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For the S+P 500, the lower tax rates legislated via America’s end-2017 corporate tax “reform” spiked US corporate earnings and encouraged massive share buybacks. Although the tax reform will continue to support earnings to some extent, substantial year-on-year growth for (at least most of) 2019 earnings currently looks unlikely. Suppose marketplace enthusiasm generates a forceful challenge to the S+P 500’s autumn 2018 high occurs. The September/October 2018 elevation probably will not be broken by much, if at all. A one percent breach of 2941 gives 2970, a five percent advance over it equals 3088.

If further notable share buybacks and determined digging around for yields (“good returns”) are playing critical roles in the recent S+P 500 (and other stock) rallies, perhaps the S+P 500’s recent strength does not reflect the darkening vista for the American economy. US and other stock marketplace climbs from current levels do not preclude increasing economic feebleness in America and elsewhere.

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Economic Growth Fears- Stock and Interest Rate Adventures (4-2-19) (1)