Carry, LTRO, Data, And VIX

Once again we seem to have a discrepancy between what “credit” people think and what “equity” and “FX” people think.  The broad market rallied strongly today, at least in part because of the LTRO.

On one thing, everyone agrees, the take up rate will be high.  There will be strong demand for the LTRO.  What differs is the impact that will have on the market.

At one end is a belief that banks will be borrowing this money so they can purchase new assets.  The allure of carry will be too much to pass up, and with government encouragement, they will rush to purchase new sovereign debt and maybe even lend more.  That will turn the tide in the European debt crisis since there will be buyers for every new issue, and the market can move on to “strong” economic data in the US.

The other end of the spectrum is that the banks will use this facility to plug up existing holes in their borrowing.  They won’t have to rely on the wholesale market or repo market as much as they can tap this facility.  It will take some pressure off of the “money market” as banks won’t be scrambling for as much money every day, or over year-end, but it won’t lead to new asset purchases by the banks.  Banks need to deleverage and that hasn’t changed.  The bonds can have a 0% risk weighting, but that doesn’t mean anyone, including the banks, believe it.  The road to hell is paved with carry.  That is an old adage and likely applies here.

High Yield did well today (with HY17 outperforming HYG and JNK).  Investment Grade did okay as well (LQD tightened on a spread basis, though it shows up as a loss for most retail investors).  IG17 also was tighter as no one wanted to be hedged.  Away from that, more exotic trades, like curve trades didn’t show a similar strength.  These are the sorts of trades that would do well if everyone was looking for carry and thought the problems were solved.  Little things like that further underscore how likely it is that banks will participate.

Most banks are overexposed to these risks in the minds of investors anyways.  Will buying more of something that is risky really help?  Will loading up on a single position to the point that it can wipe you out be deemed as prudent?  I think banks that have managed themselves well to this point will be very reluctant to add significantly to their exposure.  You may get some token purchases so they can tell their regulators that they are playing nice, but beyond that, they will wait and see if the situation is really fixed.

The reason banks are not buying more of these bonds has little to do with funding costs being too high.  Risk and leverage are too high.  That hasn’t changed here, and most credit people believe that this new funding will encourage new asset purchases.  Without that, it helps the banks by reducing some uncertainty on their existing debt rollover needs (let’s not forget the hundreds of billions of bank issued debt that needs to be rolled this year), but doesn’t encourage asset purchases or balance sheet expansion.

Earlier today I had a bullish tone and did say 1300 and 1100 as being equally possible.  With a 40 point move from overnight lows it seems like a lot, especially since to the extent I was right, it was for all the wrong reasons.  I continue to believe that there may be an agenda behind the truth that is emanating out of Europe recently, but this LTRO plan doesn’t do it for me.  With our models showing seasonality being strongest from close of business tomorrow until the 27th, it is hard to be short, but without real news, we will be fading this.

On the data front, I am a bit confused why housing starts going up is a good thing.  The only industry that may be worse at predicting future demand than the airline industry, is the homebuilder industry.  They build homes, it’s what they do.  Carefully managing inventory to demand is not their strong suit.  A story about great demand and shortages of homes for sale would be much bigger news and may warrant a rally, I put this in a neutral category, at best.

On the earnings front, it seems like as many companies are missing as beating.  Oracle missed after the bell and is being punished.  It is far from clear to me that the earnings story is that compelling, and the strength in the dollar is the last thing the nascent surge in manufacturing needs.

We have a political system that couldn’t agree that the sun comes up in the morning without holding special sessions.  Their ability to provide any help to the economy is zilch and no matter how many times people say it, there is no strong evidence that “gridlock” and “a government that does nothing” is actually a good thing for stocks over the short term (even though it may be by far the best thing for the economy in the long run).

VIX is back to levels last seen in August.  The fact that those levels preceded a sell-off is largely being ignored on a day the DOW moved up 337 points, but as far as I can tell, VIX is as much a “risk on” / “risk off” asset as anything else and has limited predictive value (as in none).  Somewhere out there, the quants are analyzing the skew of longer dated options as a better tool that may retain predictive value, but that is complex, and requires effort, but is probably the work that is required to make some sense of what the “vol” market is telling us.  It is definitely the sort of work that serious tail risk hedge funds and quant funds are looking at and analyzing.

Here is the “vol skew” graph function on the SPX on Bloomberg.  As far as I can tell you would need to be either a rocket scientist or a Deadhead to understand it.  I am neither, but am convinced that to the extent the vol market contains useful information, it is far more complex to figure out, than pulling up a VIX closing level.

Source: Bloomberg