Editor’s note: This report was prepared by Archaea Capital Research for release in October 2013 and is reprinted here with permission. It begins with comments made by leading figures in investment analysis and builds on those ideas to develop unique insights into the economy and the markets. It is reprinted here as an example of how charts and intermarket analysis can be applied to economic analysis.
Reflecting on Bill Gross’ recent investor letter re: Ray Dalio’s “Beautiful Deleveraging”
“The last time the U.S. economy was this highly levered (early 1940s) it took over 25 years of 10-year Treasury rates averaging 3% less than nominal GDP to accomplish a ‘beautiful deleveraging.’” – Bill Gross
Starting with the big picture.
We constructed this chart of the S&P, U.S. Nominal GDP Growth, and U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yields:
- Since the 2000 peak in Stocks, the U.S. has experienced two major deleveraging / deflationary events.
- Both events occurred simultaneously with U.S. Nominal GDP Growth falling below U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yields. We’ll call this the Dalio
Spread – discussed extensively in recent years by Ray Dalio of Bridgewater.
- The first event covered the bulk of the 2000-2003 bear market in Stocks. Nominal growth stabilized above Nominal Yields by mid-late 2003 (the Dalio Spread turned positive), as the Bull market got its legs.
- The second event almost pinpointed the 2007 top in Stocks, and lasted until mid-2010, just as the S&P hit its low for that year, around 1000. It missed the 50% rally from the 2009 lows, but when the Dalio Spread turned positive again, its high value provided a tailwind that lifted the equity market by another 70% since then.
A closer look at the recent history reveals the lowest “cushion” (Dalio Spread) since 2011.
The last time this happened, the market (not the Fed) self-corrected through a sharp downward adjustment in rates only a few months later. This eased the pain of deleveraging and allowed the recovery to continue.
During the corrective phase, Equities suffered the largest drawdown since the Bull market began.
Noting this similarly low cushion today, the market will have to price a solution to the following equation:
- If Growth picks up and Yields keep rising, as economists currently believe, Dalio’s Spread will probably not rise enough (a healthy increase should be around 100-140bps) to provide a sustained tailwind for asset prices.
- What is the configuration of incoming data that achieves this incremental 100-140bps, and its likelihood?
- With developed economies still highly levered, Stock Bulls should argue (hope) that this is achieved with Nominal Growth rising 100-140bps from here (to mid 4%), while Yields stabilize or even fall. In the eighteen quarters from the 2009 trough to date, this level of nominal growth was only achieved in five. Even worse, out of these five, yields actually rose 30bps and 80bps in two, and stayed flat or declined 40bps/50bps in three.
Based on the Dalio Spread, and its relationship with asset prices during this ongoing 15-year secular deleveraging, from these starting levels (Dalio Spread of 0.4972 as of the close on October 3, 2013) only one combination below is strongly supportive of Equities, and no combination is sustainably bearish Bond prices:
Revisiting our June Strategic Report: “Growth, Rates, and Inflation”
- The U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yields rise over the last year has now been equivalent to 65% of the prevailing Inflation Rate. This ranks as the fourth highest extreme in history. In June, we used this relationship to, in no uncertain terms, state that Bonds were at a strategic buying point. Yields rose another 30bps over the next two months, and have quickly fallen back to those June levels. However our ‘Inflation Rule’ remains historically elevated, and unless price inflation begins to pick up aggressively (an outcome we believe is unlikely), strategic portfolios should consider increasing duration here.
- Once more revisiting our June Strategic Report, the U.S. Treasury 10- Year Yield’s rise over the last year has now been equivalent to 32% of the prevailing Nominal Growth Rate. In June, we used this relationship to, in no uncertain terms, state that Bonds were at a strategic buying point. Nominal Yields have risen too fast relative to realized Nominal Growth, acting as an indirect tax to growth – a conclusion similar to what the Dalio Spread shows us today.
Thoughts on the U.S. Dollar
We have been structurally bullish the U.S. Dollar since March 2011. We continue to believe the U.S. Dollar is in a secular Bull market (more on this later in the section). However, while not outright bearish, we’ve not been constructive on the broad Dollar since our July 15 Market Report, which in hindsight turned out to be four trading days after Dollar’s high for the year. At the time, we observed a great deal of speculative interest in the Dollar against nearly all major currencies, and decided to quietly step aside.
This is what we wrote on July 15:
“The US Dollar is overbought and over-believed. Between April/Sept 2011, we produced several reports calling for the beginning of a secular, 5-10 year bull market in the US Dollar. We still hold this view. Tactically however, today we see completely opposite trade conditions, versus what we saw in the summer of 2011. At the time, we were universally bullish the US Dollar – and specifically recommended buying vs “every other currency in the world”. Today, tactically we think the Dollar Index will surprise everyone – by being at best dead money for 2-6 months. This is not a USDEM call. We use the Dollar Index for a reason – the USD might rally against some of the Index’s currencies, but it won’t be a broad-based move, preventing this basket index from posting meaningful gains. This will surprise many people. A great deal of money is staked on US being “better that the rest”. US Equities and the Dollar have rallied most of the year—every global equity mandate is now overweight both. In addition, if we are correct about a fall in US Rates, lower rate differentials should be another headwind for the overall attractiveness of the Dollar vs other majors.”
Since then, U.S. Equities have gone nowhere (S&P -0.22%, Dow -3.15%, Nasdaq +4.35%, Russell +2.65%) and the Dollar fell 4%.
In a follow-up report on August 28, we wrote:
“If we take a close look at the 1995 and 2011 bottoms, this is what we see (rescaled to size):
Should the Dollar consolidate around the 200-day moving average over the next 3-6 months, revisiting the bottom of the suggested trading range, we will send an alert and buy if positioning gets cleared out (likely). We do believe a strong Dollar breakout is coming, but we don’t think it is immediate. However, we stand watch for any signs of the DXY breaking above 85 with FORCE, and will react to the message if necessary.”
This is what the chart looks like today – never a dull moment in this business:
Patiently awaited for two months, speculative behavior toward the Dollar has been fully cleared.
Below, combined U.S. Dollar positioning, ex-JPY. In Green, Commercials are now back to long and increasing positions, while Large Speculator (Red) positioning is now short, and Small Speculator (Beige) positions are plunging into shorts and probably within 2-3 weeks of another extreme low.
This behavior is observed individually for EUR, GBP, CAD, and CHF, a collective weight of over 80% of the DXY:
EURO – Small Speculators back to Long, Large Speculators and Commercials now back to positioning consistent with major tops in the currency
- We look to sell EUR around 1.3650-1.3750 in coming weeks.
BRITISH POUND – Approaching 4-year resistance with positioning within 1- 3 weeks of another extreme
- We are sellers of GBP today.
CANADIAN DOLLAR – Struggling to achieve further gains, with positioning within 1-3 weeks of another speculative buying extreme
- We look to sell CAD around 1.0200-1.0250 in coming weeks.
SWISS FRANC – Strong surge in buying by Large and Small Speculators, within 1-2 weeks of a major extreme. Commercial positioning plunging into short territory
- We look to sell CHF around 0.8900-0.8950 in coming weeks.
Further, based on a number of proprietary estimates, we believe the U.S. Dollar Index may now be within 2% of a major intermediate bottom.
Below is Archaea’s proprietary currency model, for which we track a U.S. Dollar Index Sub-Model:
Once the secular line was established (after two bottoms), our Dollar Model has precisely identified both the 2011 and 2012 bottoms.
Interestingly in both recent cases, while the model did not call the true price bottom, it entered the market almost perfectly ahead of the acceleration point.
We believe:
- While price may be very close to bottoming, it could take a few weeks as the model completes this projected pattern. Strategic portfolios should already consider long Dollar allocations over this time frame.
- This short-term bottoming process should coincide with positioning reaching extremes, as suggested in the previous charts.
- The ultimate resolution of the current setup is very likely to be a strong, global Dollar rally.
History is on our side.
Below is Archaea’s currency model for the previous secular Bull market in the U.S. Dollar (1991-2001).
Note the identical evolution of signals, and ultimately the break of the model line, which identified the end of the Bull market.
Until our model line is clearly broken, the Dollar is objectively in a secular Bull market, and soon approaching another strategic buying point – further supported by the disappearance of speculative interest.
Reflecting on Equities
August was an important month for markets, in our opinion.
In early August our intermediate Equity models began triggering sells on several major market indices – many of which, despite some new highs in September, are again trading below their August sells.
For example, the FTSE’s and AS51’s August breaks are shown below, respectively. No bounce was recorded in September, and both models have weakened further.
The untold story, and we believe where the key is hidden, lies in Europe:
- We did not sell the DAX or CAC in August (fortunately) – as their respective models never broke down.
- The red circle below shows the DAX’s August bottom, and how close the model got to issuing a sell signal. Note the similarity with the CAC, in the second chart.
- While the ensuing price rallies have been strong, both models have weakened enough to risk breaking our trigger level, should these
indexes turn down from here.
We believe these patterns capture the relative strength in the European equity space to date—but just as they held in August, and have become leaders in the recent rally, once they join in global markets should once more become aligned to the downside.
Finally, revisiting our Risk Model, unless markets can produce a short-term aggressive rally from here, that relieves the weakening conditions we observe across the board, we believe the August sell signal is still fully in play, and Equities are setting up for a failure event similar to October 2007, August 2008, April 2010, May 2011, and July 2011 – illustrated by the horizontal blue resistance line below.
As always, we will continue to monitor and follow-up with clients on specific, relevant triggers mentioned throughout this report – most importantly, when we observe our Dollar model signal another potential bottom, or when we see European indices finally break their trigger levels.