Markets stay booster’ed

Equities rally continues

US markets managed to maintain omicron is weak, buy everything rally overnight, albeit at a much less frenzied pace than the day before. That sits nicely with my V for Volatility outlook for December and readers should not be fooled into thinking the risks of whipsaw price have now disappeared. I’ll say it again, volatility will be the winner in December, not directional plays.

Having said that, I am not calling for the end of days for the 21-month stock market rally, merely that we can now expect a lot more two-way volatility going forward. A case in point is the Nasdaq, which has once again bounced off its mighty March 2020 trendline support and will probably be a classical technical analysis case study for years to come. Here’s what CFD from OANDA looks like, the actual physical chart is even sexier, and I’ll leave readers to draw the lines on that one themselves.

Another sign that we may need to wait for next week’s FOMC meeting to climb aboard the taper trade again comes from currency and bond markets. The Australian dollar, the risk sentiment indicator to rule them all, rallied powerfully overnight. Even the euro managed to recover, and the US dollar generally had a tough day at the office. That came as US 10-year yields rose back above 1.50% to 1.53%.

The divergence in price action is a warning sign for tomorrow night’s US CPI. It suggests that the street is positioned for a “risk-off” taper move. With the US 10-year rising around 20 basis points over the last few sessions, reversing recent losses, there may not be much juice in the tank at a 7.0% CPI print. Quid pro quo, US dollar selling and equity buying hint that a 7.0% CPI is increasingly priced in. We likely need to see a print much higher than 7.0% to revive the taper trade in the near term and it wouldn’t surprise me if an on-expectation CPI release sees US yields fall, the US dollar fall, and equities jump once again. Remember what I said about V for Volatility and whipsaw price action?

Helping things along, although with a gentler market impact, were comments from Pfizer and Moderna suggesting a third shoot would do the job against omicron. Given that the US and Europe can’t even get 65% of their populations to have even two shots, let alone a third, we can assume two things. Omicron will yet have a role to play in surging cases over the winter, and vaccine hoarding by rich countries will continue until 35% of their populations stop taking advice from social media and saying me, me, me, instead of we, we, we. That means that the poor in the rest of the world will be waiting longer, thus allowing a higher chance of more nasty variants to arise. And thus, the cycle continues, sigh…

Today’s data calendar in Asia is thin. New Zealand Manufacturing Sales in Q3 fell a dismal 6.20%, suffering from the Auckland Covid lockdown hangover. You can’t buy anything in New Zealand these days anyway; it’s either too expensive thanks to the RBNZ, or there’s none of it left thanks to Covid-19. The New Zealand dollar continues to underperform its Australian cousin, thanks to being another 2,250 kilometers (1,400 statute miles for non-decimal dinosaurs) east of Australia, and the RBNZ hitting the W for Wimp button at its last policy meeting.

On a brighter note, Japan’s Large Manufacturing Index QoQ for Q4 outperformed, rising by 7.90%. Some Q3 baseline effects are in there, but overall, it bodes well for next week’s Tankan survey and suggests that Japan is recovering after it Q3 delta wave. Services may have a more difficult time as the country shut its borders to Johnny Foreigner again this month.

China’s Inflation data has proved benign as well, giving regional markets a small sigh of relief. YoY Inflation for November rose to 2.30% (2.50% exp), while MoM Inflation rose by 0.40% (0.70% exp), giving markets a nil-all draw. That should provide more relief to local equity markets which despite the bad news pouring in from the property developer space this week, is taking their pleas for debt restructuring as meaning the government will facilitate “something.” At least Kaisa suspended trading of their stock in Hong Kong, I’m surprised Evergrande still is. A debt restructuring is not usually good for stock prices, even if they have already fallen by 90%.

The rest of the day’s calendar globally is second-tier. Some regional inflation measures from Europe and Germany’s Balance of Trade. The focus will be on US Initial Jobless Claim with markets hoping for sub-200k prints to resume. Overnight, US Jolts Job Openings for October jumped to 11 million unfilled jobs. That doesn’t really compute with US Non-Farms falling to 210,000, or even a Household Survey suggesting 1.1 million jobs, or unemployment falling to 4.20% with a 61.80% participation rate.

The Federal Reserve may have shot itself in the foot with its unlimited free money we’ll backstop the dumbest investment decisions monetary stimulus which should have been a short term “shock and awe,” and not a monetary Vietnam. Macroeconomics is a beautiful thing when the orchestra all plays in tune, but too often, sticking your finger in one leak sees another pop up nearby. By enriching substantially, any American who owns a home, crypto, a meme or any other stock, they have created a situation where people don’t have to go back to work or have retired. The inflation trade may waver this week, but don’t put it to bed just yet. If James Bond can return from his most diverse and politically correct movie ever (the end credits said he would), inflation sure can as well.

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