Inflation fears are back

Inflation fears and fear-mongering are back in full swing, but I don’t buy it. I have to admit that I have benefited on multiple levels from the inflation fears making their rounds, as I have short exposure to treasuries, and long exposure to precious metals including palladium and platinum, which have outperformed gold and silver. I’ve also faced some headwinds, as I have been long the dollar versus the euro and yen for a long time. Separately, I’ve been overweight energy for a whole host of reasons, but inflationary pressures have certainly helped keep the price high.

So why am I doubting the recent fear mongering over ever-higher corn prices and the run up in everything from lean hogs to cocoa? My main reason is the consumer. First, on an anecdotal level: Go into any department store. These days, they’re seeing more traffic than in the recent past, a positive. Yet, almost everything is on sale. 30-50% sales are now the norm, and quite honestly, I don’t know why anyone would buy without the sales, especially given that you can buy so many things pre-sale, namely, buy it now, put it on hold, and get the sale price, while the store gets the carry. That’s fine for cashflows, but it’s only borrowing from future revenue; I guess it’s a cheap loan. Second, inflation in staples can seep through, but we’re not seeing it keeping up with the rise in inputs, which necessarily means a squeeze on margins. Don’t believe me, just check out MCD, which just came out with earnings. This is great for the midwestern farmer (voter) and land owner, fine for the coastal consumer, and crappy for everyone in between. Certainly it’s not a net positive for stocks that won’t be able to keep up earnings and meet these valuation expectations.

But back to our mongering…The question remains of what happens to the firms in between that are getting squeezed? For starters, I don’t think employment can pick up, which in turn will lead to continued low savings. In fact, numbers just released show that consumers are dipping into their savings at unprecedented levels. Considering the fact that these funds aren’t coming from HELOCS, they must come out of investable and liquid assets. That can only go on for so long. In a debt deleveraging cycle, which we are facing, the main problems will be margin contraction coupled with more difficult financing. Inflation fears today will end up being ephemeral and much deeper, scarier structural problems will surface. For traders playing the rotation, this is a fine time to look at underperforming commodities and just consistently rotate into them. For investors, the commodity space, except some very specific exposures, will not provide the anticipated returns.

Relevant ETFs: MOO, COW, DBA, GLD, SLV, PALL, PPLT

Euro and Pound

It’s been relatively quiet on the equity front, even with the market going up – but the currency front continues to be a big focus.

The euro continues its slide:

I’m still amazed that the yen has continued to stay strong, but I guess this is part of unwinding various carry trades. Still, I can’t help but think that once those unwinds occur, the yen will completely fall apart. (Short yen positions.)

Today, though, the story is GBP. The pound has been weak recently, but not as weak as it should have been, and today it looks like the pound is showing increasing signs of stress:

These moves are providing some support to the Treasury market with safe-haven buying, but we’re wary of the long bonds for security. So are other people, with gold as the original safety outlet, and now silver looking like its receiving some of the flows.

We’re maintaining our positions in silver, gold, gold miners, palladium, and platinum, along with our short euro, short yen, and short treasury positions.

What we’re watching unfold…

Warning: This post has nothing new for readers of our newsletter. It’s just that things are unfolding almost according to plan, so we thought we’d put some of today’s headlines and moves in front of you, all in one place…

In no particular order:

• Italian derivatives draw scrutiny as Greece tensions heighten: Yes, Italy used currency swaps. It will turn out that others did as well. Are you surprised? 6 months ago, before anyone had coined the term PIIGS, we were discussing the crowded short USD trade, and the feeling that the markets were overconfident in Europe, even though it faced structural issues. The euro continues to face headwinds. Greece was the canary, but the real issue is Italy and Spain. We continue to be short the euro vs. USD.
• Coming Soon: Chapter 9 Municipal Bankruptcies: This was an interesting post about a little know quirk in bankruptcy law regarding municipalities. In essence, Chapter 9 gives municipalities protection from creditors as they work out payment plans. Guess who holds muni’s…yup, individual, taxable investors.
• PEW Study Shows Trillion Dollar State Pension Gap; Can Anything Be Done?: As if muni problems weren’t enough with tax revenues falling faster than expenses, Mike Shedlock highlights the looming pension shortfalls. If governments accounted for their liabilities like any corporation (other than Enron), they’d already be insolvent. We continue to hold no direct exposure to muni’s. When the stampeded out the door starts, every mutual fund and laddered portfolio will take a massive hit (and will form the basis of a once in a lifetime opportunity).
• Gold: I don’t want to write to much about this, but suffice it to say that Soros came out saying gold was in a major bubble (obviously hoping to talk the price down) as he accumulated one of the largest positions in the world. Read the full article on Soros here. Simultaneously, the IMF is selling some more gold (I won’t even link to it since it’s all over and is old news) and the market is waiting to see if India buys more (and front runs China again?). We’re maintaining our position in GLD, GDX, SLV, PALL, PPLT.
• Meanwhile, 10-yr yield is over 3.8%. We continue to have exposure to short Treasuries. Fun little graphic from Mike Shedlock here.

None of these are specific recommendations, since we do not know your particular situation. These are our thoughts and positions ONLY.

Bank of England Halts Bond Purchases, Obama Supports Free Trade, where we went wrong, and more

The carnage from yesterday masked a lot of interesting news bits, some good, some bad, some just plain confusing:

• For starters, CBS Marketwatch ran a story about Bank of England Halts Bond Purchases. As central banks around the world face up to the reality that even they are not bigger than the markets, quantitative easing programs are likely to be pulled back. We’re seeing it in England, but as the PIIGS come under continued fire, they’ll also be mandated to cut back fiscal spending. Unlike the US, the PIIGS are closer to states in that they have limited leeway on deficits and printing. It might actually end up being their saving grace if they can get their PR story straight.

• On our side of the pond, President Obama made a step in the right direction by going against his party, and coming out in support of free trade. The NY Times ran the following story: White House Unveils Plan to Double U.S. Exports. While encouraging, the language did not contain the commitment that we’d prefer to see, and I’m afraid that this is all just talk.

But in announcing the new strategy, the commerce secretary, Gary Locke, did not say when the administration might send Congress three completed free-trade accords — with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Many trade specialists say that is essential to prod other countries to negotiate with the United States. But the move is likely to cause a rift with Mr. Obama’s liberal supporters in the Democratic Party, as well as free-trade opponents in the Republican Party.

So we’re left holding our breath. I don’t think the Obama administration will have the political will or power to go against their base of unions and left and right wing protectionists. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see protectionist measures implemented over the course of the year.

• Obviously, Australia left it’s interest rates unchanged. Screwed the carry trade for a lot of people yesterday, but was not that surprising to us. Remember, we’re long USD vs. JPY and vs. EUO. We just believe that USD will still be the beneficiary of the unwinding of risk as must happen. We should have been like Wells Fargo, who shorting the carry trade on the yield curve, and taken more aggressive positions in long USD.

• Where we went wrong: We’ve allocated a small portion of our portfolio to a metals portfolio. We built a position in gold and maintained it. We increased our exposure by building positions in SLV, PALL, and PPLT. We got in too late and should have diversified some of our gold holdings earlier. We are down between 8-18% on the positions. While it’s painful, we continue to hold these positions. First, the individual positions are small. Second, the entire position in metals is relatively small. Third, we maintain that the reasoning behind owning exposure to physical metals continues and we’re happy about the diversification into metals other than gold. We’re not in copper at all. Additionally, today we added a small exposure to GDX as the spread between GDX and GLD seems to imply that there is more potential for outperformance in the miners than in the physical. Here’s the chart from StockCharts.com:

This is the ratio of GLD:GDX. It’s not at the hyperextended levels of Oct. 2008, when the ratio was over 4, but it still looks like the valuation of the miners is low relative to the price of gold.

• Lastly, I want to discuss Treasuries. In 1992, as Soros was breaking the Bank of England, the trade was a simple understanding that no entity nor government is stronger than the market on a long term basis. We have been getting comments and notes about how we can see a continued debt deflationary environment, with a stronger dollar, and lower Treasuries. In the 1970′s, the thinking was that inflation and growth went hand in hand. Stimulate inflation and you’ll get to full employment (sound familiar?). Instead, we had a previously unimaginable situation where we had inflation and no growth, and with it a new term: stagflation. In my mind, we can enter a period where people will want to hoard dollars and not lend it out to the government. It’s the worst possible world for the Fed, whereby they will face higher borrowing costs without stimulating any inflation since the velocity of money will go down. If fiscal policy doesn’t cut government spending, we will be in a very weak position with very few places to hide. Once spending does start, we will face the specter of inflation that will continue to put downward pressures on Treasuries, this time on the short end. We are stuck and the losers will be the holders of long-dated Treasuries. For the Treasury market to rally from here, an investor would have to believe that the Fed, Treasuries, and government can orchestrate a “soft-landing” where domestic savings rates inch up, foreigners continue to want to finance our deficits, trade balances magically and incrementally improve, etc. I’m not a big believer.

Why I rewrote an article

I had an article written on thoughts for the week ahead, which included thoughts about the big direct bidder in the Treasury market (sovereign, PIMCO-like institution, big bank, short covering?), thoughts on PALL and PPLT (I have positions in both), dollar, etc. but I scrapped it because of talk of stabilization.

The market goes through turmoil. People become afraid. Stock market goes down. Stock market rallies. People begin to believe that we’re stabilizing. M&A picks up. Real estate speculators have infomercials on CNBC teaching you (again) how to make millions without working. Etc. WRONG! We have 10% unemployment and it’s not picking up except in specific industries (government and healthcare) that shouldn’t be growing right now, certainly not as a percentage of GDP. Commercial real estate has NOT been marked properly, but will in the next couple of quarters, and when it is, the regional banks that everyone is talking about being great deals, will be hurt badly. Credit is contracting. Interest rates are not going down, and if anything, will rise, certainly on the long end. Now, even if things were improving, valuations are NOT cheap. The market might have 10-20% upside, but the downside is greater.

Volatility seems relatively cheap, which means downside protection is relatively cheap. I just heard on Bloomberg a Citi bull speaking. A big MAYBE at best. Massachusetts is about to vote in a Republican!! What a statement to the Democrats, when MA, the state that lead the way in forced universal healthcare, votes against the Decomocratic Party’s platform and asks for change. Of course healthcare is rallying today.

Anyway, for our readers, if you’re going to discuss stabilization and why I should be buying here, please include some rational arguments that include potential upside, downside, and valuation metrics. Anything else is just speculation.

Rare earth metals

I’m on the fence about rare earth metals – is this really just a global economy trade? I don’t think so. I think if you take some of the reports we’ve been discussing about lack of infrastructure, and limited build out of different commodity operations, there might be some underlying support regardless of immediate economic performance. As a disclaimer, I purchased PALL and PPLT, two newly formed ETF’s for palladium and platinum a couple of days ago. I do not recommend them, since I do not know your individual situation!

So it was interesting to read the following article (click here) about molybdenum prices. Here’s a quote:

Prices for molybdenum, a base metal used to make stainless steel, will likely rise 55% in the next two years, JP Morgan analysts said Thursday.

The question is why will these move? Will it be a currency play? Inflationary pressure? Economic growth? Better yet, what will make the prices come down? Is it speculative positions that drove prices up and they will soon go back to previous levels? I’m not sure, but for now I like the fundamentals on the ETF’s I mentioned. They will probably be volatile, but it’s part of the metals allocation, so there’s not a lot of exposure from a portfolio standpoint. Just something to consider.