An uneasy calm has descended on the markets since the end of the first quarter put a stop to the heavy liquidation in bonds and some gained the sense that commodities were perhaps a little overcooked. The rebalancing and retracements those two entailed could yet run further, but we very much doubt that we’ve seen the last of the inflationary wave.
Category Archives: Metals
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Burning Holes in Idlers’ Pockets
Inflation, Milton Friedman famously said, is a monetary phenomenon. But it is also one given the readiest of outlets through recourse to what we call ‘fiscal’ policy – i.e., by spendthrift governments borrowing money created at their call and forced into the system by means of warfare, welfare, contracting, cronyism, bureaucratic expansion and plain old boondogglery. Arguably, this is where we find ourselves today, in a world where supply is no longer likely to meet demand as abundantly and as effortlessly as has been the case these past twenty years.
China’s ports are humming, its exports booming to the point that it is causing evident stress in maritime trade. Freight rates are soaring and dockside space is becoming limited, threatening production and raising costs across the board. Despite the macro strength – and the vote of confidence this has received from forex and equity markets – the last few weeks have been testing ones in credit. Once more the nation’s vast superstructure of debt has creaked and groaned – but just about held firm, once more. One of these fine days…
We ended the summer by saying that – barring another disastrous, COVID19-inspired, mass governmental embargo on everyday economic activity – the miners, makers, movers, and merchants of the things we need to run our lives when we are not scrolling through Instagram or pretending to pay attention to a yet another pointless Zoom conference would begin to make up ground lost in lockdown to the providers of such diversions. State interference would henceforth take other, more chronic forms of hindrance: tending deliberately to boost demand while making its satisfaction progressively more difficult. So far – broadly speaking – so good.
The ink has not even dried on the US ballot papers (!) but the Market already thinks it knows what this will all mean. And then there’s Pfizer’s vaccine announcement – perhaps similarly preliminary in nature – but, hey, the Herd will always take every silver lining it can find. Some of the themes we touched upon at the end of the Summer are still in play: Japan has been attracting money, non-oil commodities are rallying, gold has lost some lustre, bond yields are creeping higher, and Value may just be topping out at last v Growth.
On the eve of what is shaping up to be a particularly momentous US election, we offer our view of what is at stake – both in the markets and out in the real world, far beyond the flickering screens of the trading room.
Since their Lockdown lows, commodities have performed as well as any other asset, though they still remain generally depressed. Can they now continue to rise?
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It’s not just the leaves that often turn when the year begins, with gathering pace, to slip towards its chilly end. Markets often do, too.
Given this backdrop, the sell-off in the Nasdaq – in the marvelled-at ‘Growth’ stocks, in the FAANGs, and in Tesla – comes at a moment which is particularly intriguing for reasons which go far beyond whatever coup SoftBank may or may not have attempted and whether those irritating Lockdown Livermores have finally gotten their comeuppance.
Thanks very much to my old friend, Steve Sedgwick at Squawk Box Europe for the chat this morning. We looked at Growth v Value, the US v ROW, we touched on bonds and borrowing, money supply, inflation, lockdown, commodities & gold – all in under 10 minutes!
Please find links to some of the commentaries made as part your author’s role as investment strategy adviser to Phenix Consulting & Asset Management over the course of 2018. ‘Market Movers’ provide updates on developments in and projections for commodity markets themselves while ‘Primary Concerns’ presents the L/S fund’s monthly results:-