Back to the future: Rosenberg says it’s like the crisis never happened
In today’s morning with Dave article, Gluskin Sheff’s Chief Economist and Strategist says the macro environment makes it look like 2007 all over again – as if the crisis never happened.
It’s like 2008 and early 2009 never happened. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index just hit a 14-month high as the island benefits from Chinese growth, U.S, interest rates and competitively supercharged currency link. In fact, the entire MSCI Asia-Pac index added 1.0% today, with broad-based gains and taking the index to its highest level since September 1, 2008.
The VIX index, at 21.49, is back to where it was on September 3, 2008, when most economists didn’t even know we were knee deep in recession, strategists believed we were only in for a mild correction and the Fed still thought it was fighting a liquidity battle as opposed to a credit contraction. In fact, to show just how complacent the market is now regarding that dirty, but now forgotten four letter word called “risk”, the VIX index is flirting near levels we saw back in October 2007, when the S&P 500 was just coming off its all-time high of 1,565 and market pundits were dreaming up new ways to redefine ‘global liquidity’.
Meanwhile, the DXY (USD index) is still recovering a bit but still on very shaky ground (Japan reiterated that it will not intervene in the FX market) and the commodity complex is bid with copper enjoying a nice session yesterday (though off a tad this morning) and oil heading for $80/bbl. It is amazing that the surge in oil prices and the challenge to the economic outlook isn’t making front page news, but it is arguably very tough to push Dow 10,000 off the front pages of the morning papers. The market seems to like Apple’s earnings — my kids sure love its products — and Texas Instrument’s too with futures up and the tech sector on a big roll right now — the Nasdaq is up 38% so far for the year!
Corporate bond spreads have continued to tighten (even in the face of a massive supply boom, a record $1 trillion of new U.S. issuance has hit the market this year) and the “undervaluation gap” in this once-very-cheap sector has now closed given that it is de facto discounting 2.5% U.S. economic growth in the coming year (equities now are close to 5% — not far off from what they were pricing back at the October 2007 peak). Question that still must be asked is that if we are into some big reflationary trade here, why are U.S. Treasuries not getting absolutely smoked? In the last couple of sessions, they have rallied (10-year T-note yield at 3.38%) and being led lower by real rates, which is generally not consistent with pro-growth cyclical beta performance.
It’s what’s called reflation! And it will end in a very bad way.
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