Trader’s Narrative

The big new development today was the huge drop in short term Treasury bond yields. The benchmark 90 day T-Bill rate dropped to 0.005%. These are levels which we last saw just a few months ago when we were in the thick of the credit crisis:

The 30 day T-Bill rate 0.03% which is slightly higher than the double bottom it made in December 2008 and the end of October 2009 at 0.01%. And the 6 months T-Bill rate closed at 0.14% - a low it has seen twice before but is still jaw dropping. They haven’t seen these levels since 1958.

Even more shocking, for some short term government bonds maturing in January 2010 the rate fell to negative. I’m not sure why everyone is suddenly clamoring for US government bonds. Are they afraid that a new shock is coming to the stock market? is there some tragic news that is about to shake global financial market? or are major institutional investors simply afraid that the low interest rate environment and the dollar carry trade will inevitably lead to even more trouble?

And if so, how in the world is investing in US dollar denominated assets and trusting the US government in line with that sort of thinking? Honestly, I’m puzzled.

In any case, this is an important variable which isn’t getting as much attention as it deserves. One aspect of it is that it has an effect on the mutual fund cash level metric which we discussed before.

This is the where the level of cash held by US mutual funds acts as an indicator of market tops and bottoms. Usually it is adjusted to account for interest rates which need to be equalized to iron out the rewards during high interest rates and the punishment for holding cash in low interest rate environments.

While this indicator has been known and followed since it was introduced by Fosback in the 1970’s, I introduced an important improvement on this indicator - an idea that to my knowledge hadn’t been before; to adjust for real rates, not just nominal ones. Adjusting for the effects of deflation/inflation, mutual fund cash levels are actually very low - something which is bearish.

With this recent drop in benchmark rates, this metric drops even further into bearish territory and signals an even brighter red flashing light. And as persevering readers will remember, I cautioned that stocks had little room to the upside when the S&P 500 was at 1098.51 - it peeked above that level and has fallen again. We are now 17% above the long term trend. That’s a slight drop from 19.31% that we saw just a few days ago, but caution is still the watchword.

Market strategists have drawn a line and taken sides: is gold in a bubble? Jim Rogers and Nouriel Roubini had a verbal smack down via respective media interviews with the former manager of the Quantum Fund being the believer he’s always been in the power of commodities while the prophet of doom and gloom used the “b” word to describe the precious metal.

Now another pair of strategists have taken sides - although not as personal as Rogers and Roubini. Dennis Gartman, believes not only that gold is in a bubble, but that it should be obvious to everyone. But that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily climbing off the trend:

Meanwhile, David Rosenberg featured this chart to argue not only is gold not in a bubble, it is actually “cheap”:

Leaving aside the obvious arithmetic (instead of logarithmic) scale, comparing the S&P 500 index to the price of gold is a non sequitur. This is due to the incessant rise of the equity index, with that itself due to the survival bias built into the constituents that make up the S&P 500 index. And don’t forget a dash of inflation which pumps up stock prices and therefore, stock indexes. So a ratio of gold to equity prices will for the most part look like a ski hill - and be as meaningful.

I’m also puzzled why Rosenberg is so bullish on gold since he has been one of the prescient strategists who has beaten the deflation drum the loudest.

Market Measure of Forward Inflation
Other than the CPI figures from the US government sources, there is a market determined inflation measure. It is the implicit inflation as per the Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). The TIPS data that I showed back in 2008 is no longer published by the Fed. Thankfully, Bloomberg disseminates a metric based on the nominal forward 5 years minus US inflation-linked bonds forward 5 years. So basically, this is the average inflation that the bond market expects from 2010 to 2015:

Source: Bloomberg

In the final days of last year, inflation expectations were the lowest in a very long time, fallin to just 0.41%. Earlier this month they reached 2.89% but today’s forward inflation expectation was still a muted 2.68%. Clearly, the bond vigilantes are not signaling a runaway inflation debacle in the near term future for the US.

So can it be that gold is in an honest to goodness bubble?

Gold Sentiment
Here are two measures of sentiment for the precious metal. The recent survey of Bloomberg terminal users on their conviction for gold found a remarkable 94% to be bullish.

That is a new record high since the survey started in 2004. Unfortunately, Bloomberg’s survey hasn’t been very good as a contrarian indicator. But it has rarely been above 90%. The closest it has gotten to this level was at the start of the year in January 2009 when it reached 91% bullish. Back then, gold was $900/oz. While there is a short history, the sheer lopsidedness of the recent consensus makes it noteworthy.

Courtesy of Elliott Wave, we get another measure of gold sentiment:

The Daily Sentiment Index (trade-futures.com) has been at, or above 90 percent gold bulls since November 3, a string of 10 straight days. The only other comparable streak of optimism over the past 22 years of data is leading up to the December 2, 2004 gold high when the DSI was at, or above 90 percent for 20 consecutive days. At that time, prices made a high at $458.70, declined over 10 percent, and did not exceed the December 2004 high again for the next 10 months. But during this entire 20 day stretch, optimism never reached the single day extreme that today did, with fully 97 percent of traders optimistic on gold’s future prospects. This time, we expect a larger decline, one that lasts longer too.

Last week I wondered if the strength in gold was due to the implicit strength of the precious metal itself or whether it was merely a by product of the weakness in the US dollar: US Dollar’s Weakness or Gold’s Strength?.

It is obvious now that the US dollar is being thrown to the carry trade wolves in order to save the economy. This is the same play that central banks made several years ago with the exception that back then it was the Yen that was sacrificed.

In any case, gold continues to walk higher on the chart - it reached $1,064.20 today at COMEX. The distinction may be a moot one because as long as it continues, those on the right side of the trade will profit. But since there was some questions regarding the way I tried to strip out the US Dollar effect on gold price, here’s another chart which uses a slightly different method:

Source: Elliott Wave Intl

The song remains the same. Gold hasn’t reached a new high when we strip away the effect of the dollar. The second chart above looks at gold relative to a basket of other currencies (Yen, Euro, Swiss Franc, Australian Dollar, Canadian Dollar and the Pound).

Also, as noted previously, large speculators have crowded into the long gold trade. The most recent COT shows them to have 50% of open interest. But in general sentiment towards gold is relatively muted - especially considering the many times it was unable to climb above $1000.

From a purely technical point of view, this is a gold bull market. But I’m trying to deal with some nagging questions. For example, if there is inflation on the horizon, why hasn’t it registered on the CRB? After all the commodity index is rading below its 30 year average and it is flat since June 2009.

Honestly, I can’t see any signs of inflation anywhere. In fact, you don’t have to look hard to see deflation almost everywhere. So the gold story is one written on the back of the US dollar. And with the US dollar sentiment so incredibly negative, it makes me cautious on gold - bull market conditions notwithstanding.

Yesterday we looked at the strange behavior of US mutual fund holders in shunning equities and stampeding into bond funds. That lead to lively discussion with different comments on what this means. Leaving aside the various arguments on whether this is a good or bad omen for the stock market, let’s explore the US retail investor’s sudden love for bonds.

We’ve just woken up to the realization that we have our own “lost decade” for stocks. From 1999 to 2009 the worst asset class you could have chosen would have been equities. In contrast Treasury bonds returned 110%, second only to gold.

But similar to the importance of timing the stock market, when you purchase bonds is pivotal to success. While we use metrics like P/E ratios or price dividend ratios to gauge the stock market, the bond market is much simpler. According to a study by Vanguard, all we have to do is look at the current yield. If it is low, the future returns will be similarly low. If high, then future returns from bonds will also be high.

You can download the report from the Free Trading Resource section (Reports & Articles folder: “The Historical Impact and Future Implications of Extraordinary Markets”). Here is how they explain their historical study:

…we put the historical yield levels for the 10-year constant-maturity Treasury bond into quintiles and show the range of returns over the next 10 years for those initial yield levels. For example, with an initial yield between 7.8% and 14.0% (quintile 1), the subsequent 10-year returns have been between 6.6% and 12.3% per year. Intuitively, these high returns stem from the fact that higher initial yield levels have been followed by systematically declining interest rates over the subsequent 10 years.

Here’s the resulting chart:

In late 2008, during the darkest days of the financial crisis, the 10 year Treasury bond yields sunk to 2.2% (5th quintile). The current yield on the 10 year is 3.44% which puts it in the 4th quintile. Based on historical data (from January 1928 to December 2008) the median return for the decade ahead is only 3.2%. And if you really want to get technical, you would subtract a reasonable inflation rate - say 2%? - which would bring the return to almost zip.

This study proves what we all know intuitively. Current rates are extremely low and the probability is therefore skewed towards rising rates, which means lower future returns. The higher the rates rise, the lower that return. So if you really believe in the inflation boogey man, you would be actually avoiding bonds not running into their arms as the average US retail investor is doing right now.

Instead of buying bonds, if you expect runaway inflation, you should be buying Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) - bonds whose coupon increases along with inflation, and decreases with deflation.

A surprising number of retail investors are doing exactly that right now. Here’s an excerpt from a recent article from the Wall St. Journal:

Richard Seelig, a retired high-school math teacher in Pelham, Mass., bought shares of the iShares Barclays TIPS Bond Fund last December for his Roth individual retirement account. “I looked at the amount of money the government was spending that it didn’t have, and I thought, well, that is going to come back to haunt us,” he says.

But we are not in an inflationary environment right now. The yield gap between TIPS and normal Treasuries is 1.8% implying that that is the inflation rate in the US right now. But that may be deceptive for two reasons. Everything we’re seeing right now in terms of economic measures is signaling strong deflationary pressures. And two, the strong retail demand for TIPS has pushed their prices higher.

Even as retail investors rush to put their money into TIPS, there is no guarantee that they will see a payoff. This is because as inflation is sighted by the Federal Reserve, they will raise interest rates. And as interest rates rise, the value of bonds will decline.

So current buyers of TIPS are not only betting that inflation will be higher than 1.8% in the future, they are also betting that the Federal Reserve will be a pushover. That assumption may come back to haunt them.

If the above arguments are not persuasive, here’s another. Based on the historical data for US bonds, Prof. Jeremy Siegel has plotted a cumulative return for this asset class over the very long term (chart to the left). Total bond returns move in slow, multi-decade arches swinging above and then below a regression line (red). Right now, the cumulative return for bonds is extremely high relative to their historical trend. A reversion to the mean will happen. The only question is when and how fast. For more information on this valuation approach, see this article from MarketWatch.

Two Wrongs
If the shunning of equity funds by US mutual fund investors is bullish in your opinion due to contrarian analysis. Then it is difficult to not be labeled a hypocrite if you also believe in a future inflationary Armageddon. Either the “dumb money” retail investor is wrong in disbelieving the equity bull market, or they are wrong in expecting inflation.

While I completely understand and empathize with the traumatized psychological state of the average US retail investor, tragically, it looks as if they are jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Last week we looked at the levels of cash and free credits being held in institutional and retail trading accounts in the US: Mutual Fund Cash Levels & NYSE Free Credits. I briefly touched on a research report on mutual fund cash levels by Jason Goepfert, who by the way, runs a great service at SentimenTrader. However, I wrote that:

Unfortunately, Goepfert’s research report does not take into consideration inflation or deflation but simply adjusts the level of mutual fund cash levels according to the 90 day T-Bill rate. I’ve sent him a message about this so hopefully when he’s back from vacation he can update it with this new twist thrown in.

Upon his return, Jason accepted my suggestion and lost no time in whipping up a new indicator which takes into account the added variable of inflation/deflation.

To be able to understand what this new chart is saying, it is helpful to go back to the award winning research report. In it, Jason argues that before we try to use mutual fund cash levels as an indicator, we need to adjust it for the prevailing interest rate environment. For example, in the 1980’s, with interest rates in the double digits, there was ample reward for sitting in cash. Stripping out this effect, therefore, is important because otherwise it is a distortion.

Using statistical modeling, we can determine how much cash should be held by assuming a certain level of interest (90 day T-Bill rate). After that, it is easy to compare the actual cash levels to this theoretical level to determine if mutual funds are overweight or underweight cash. Looked at this way, mutual fund cash levels are neutral, telling us that managers are neither overweight or underweight cash right now.

Alright, so what happens when we also take into account the effect of inflation or in today’s case deflation? In other words, the real rate of interest?

A completely different picture emerges. This isn’t surprising because we are currently experiencing real interest rates close to +6.5% - a far cry from the nominal rate of 90 day T-bills. Here is the inflation/deflation adjusted chart of mutual fund cash levels:
Continue reading ‘Mutual Fund Cash Levels Adjusted For Inflation’