Socialism For The Rich Is Doomed

Ponzi markets are priced for perfection in a pandemic depression. What could go wrong? Having neither the fundamentals nor the technicals in their favour, today's gamblers have fallen back on the extant belief that human history's largest asset bubble can always get bigger. While the smart money is betting that the bubble explodes at all time highs, the dumb money is betting that the bubble keeps growing, and should it explode they will be made whole on their collapsed Bitcoins... 

Amid record wealth inequality and a peak pandemic, Biden must now contend with the biggest post-election asset ramp in U.S. history. Trump's legacy of socialism for the rich...

"Looking back historically, the all-time champion for Election Day to Inauguration Day performance had been the one-term Republican President Herbert Hoover"

Beating Hoover's record is a bad omen. The difference is that back in 1928 the stock market was partying at all time highs and the economy was booming. Whereas now, in this Idiocratic economy, the stock market is booming amid the worst unemployment since the 1930s. We have a DotCom bubble in a Great Depression economy. But, fortunately we have unlimited stimulus and a generation that no longer cares about debt. At the current rate, the Fed, BOJ, and ECB are expanding their combined balance sheets at the rate of $6 trillion annualized. Yes, you read that right. This market is over-stimulated, over-valued, and over-heated.

This week, global markets are going late stage parabolic with the swearing in of President Biden. The only people happier than Democrats that Trump is gone, is the entire rest of the world ex-Russia.

Now that Trump is no longer in office, several economic/financial risks have fallen off the ledger: deflation, gridlock, COVID denial, war with China, Twitter buffoonery etc. However, therein lies the problem - this market has priced out all risks. Biden's election triggered global euphoria at the worst possible time in the cycle. A time when investors should be de-risking. Nevertheless, this Obama, Trump, now Biden cycle must never end.

"With markets at these dizzying heights, everything must go right, but pitfalls are everywhere"

It’s not just stock prices that are at extreme levels.

Ed Clissold of Ned Davis Research noted that traders were exhibiting “extreme optimism” and wondered, “Are there any bears left?”

Technical levels are also at extremes. The 200-day moving average for the S&P 500 is a standard metric to measure momentum. The S&P 500 is now 16% above the 200-day moving average, twice the normal levels even in bullish markets. Other technical levels also are flashing overbought."

Chinese markets in particular have been going bonkers this past week. Some would say it's because Old Joe will be easier on China than Trump. He will certainly be more civilized and measured. However, there doesn't appear to be too much thinking going on behind these markets lately, because Chinese stocks have been going up even as Trump levied one sanction after another on Chinese companies. Meanwhile, this week Janet Yellen vowed to keep the heat on China:

Joe Biden, and the unexpected blue wave gifted by Trump on January 5th, have theoretically ushered in true economic reflation. If so, it portends badly that Tech stocks are STILL leading this rally:

 

Meanwhile, banks are rolling over:

Call central banks because social mood is rolling over and the losses are about to accelerate and spread to other asset classes

The Last Trump Rally

Today is the last day of the epic gong show known as the Trump Administration. The experiment with having the most morally and mentally challenged people running the country has ended badly, as any intelligent person would expect. Which is why no sheeple see this record Ponzi bubble ending...

The Republican party is now fractured into multiple competing factions, and is entirely leaderless. The never-Trump faction jumped ship four years ago and are now guest speakers on MSNBC, where they get paid to denounce their former party. What mainline Republicans remain within the party are now cowering in fear from Trump's rabid mob. Which means that the Qanon mob is now leading the party. A conspiracy of idiots following their reality TV game show host into the political twilight zone. Going forward, in order to galvanize these cult followers into actual votes, the Republican party will be obliged to pay tribute to the Qanon leader and his cult followers. Trump's last remaining advisor is the My Pillow Guy, who informs Trump on all matters foreign and domestic and how to get a good night's sleep. 

We are told that those of us NOT wanting any part in this insane gong show are silently aiding and abetting cannibalistic pedophiles. We can't win.  

Bringing this all back to the economy and markets, history will say that Trump's tax cuts and trillion dollar deficits set the U.S. on an irreversible path towards dollar hyperinflation. For now, the forces of inflation are held in check due to the COVID lockdowns and mass job loss. However, Trump's election tempter tantrum gifted full control of the Federal government to the Democrats. Trump believes so little in conservative values that he preferred to cede all control to the Democrats rather than to admit defeat. Like a five year old taking his ball home. Trump's base, equally vicious and demented, supported him the entire way - now trusting the U.S. election system only when Republicans are elected. Any other outcome is rigged. What used to be useful idiots to the Republican party are now useful idiots to the Democrats. The well-cultivated GOP advantage has now turned against them. Thirty+ years of Faux News down the drain. 

The bottom line is that Trump paved the way for full scale "socialism", which means bailouts for the middle class at the expense of the rich. Instead of the other way around.

What about the Disney market explosion? Good question.

This impending crash will be a big headfake. Right now, the reflation trades are all crowded trades. This crash will clear out the weak hands. The rotation to cash will take place just as the money printer gets started in earnest. I expect the reflation trades - specifically gold and commodities to bottom first and rally the hardest. Deja vu of 2009. 

Recall that this entire Trump mega bubble got started with Trump cautioning that the Obama bubble would be exploded by higher interest rates. Well, as usual Trump had a kernel of truth wrapped up in a load of bullshit. It's HIS bubble that will be exploded by higher interest rates. And as biblical irony would have it, Janet Yellen who was fired by Trump will explode his signature bubble. And everyone who believes in it. 

Fortunately there is no later with this generation. There is only one long never-ending fire drill called "now". Interspersed by non-stop campaigning. 

Which explains how Trump and everyone else got sucked into human history's largest bubble. They knew it exists, but they didn't want to be left behind. The magnitude of a bubble is not measured in terms of dollars, it's measured in terms of numbers of eager participants. In the era of social media, investing has become a group activity. The Borg decides the next trending sector, and the Borg turns it into reality. If they decided white flour is the next hot investment they would corner the wheat market and send it into the stratosphere. Unfortunately, that's not how investing works. Investments are not supposed to be defined in terms of their magnitude of asset inflows.

All I can say is that when Trump goes off to the golf course which he never really left - his signature bubble will explode. And it won't matter what day or hour that happens, because it will be sufficiently cataclysmic to inform even the dullest of observers that this was all a bad idea. 

When it comes to biblical lessons, it's better late than never.

The Fool Or The One That Follows?

Extreme positioning going into a long weekend with the rest of the world going RISK OFF. What could go wrong?

This article sums up the risks at this juncture:

"Call-buying has pushed ‘gamma’ exposure to all-time highs"

"The feverish call-buying is fueling a bullish feedback loop in equities as market makers hedge their positions

“The unwind could potentially be violent given all the excess euphoria. It is more likely a question of when and not if.”

At the top in February last year, option speculation was likewise manic and ignored:

Feb. 26th, 2020: 

Reddit Traders Are Using Options To Manipulate Stocks

"What this moment shares with 1999 is a rising belief that someone else will come along to buy a surging stock at an even higher price, regardless of fundamentals."

"A favorite tactic on reddit/WallStreetBets is to swamp the market with call purchases early in the morning in an attempt to force dealers to keep buying stock"

When this article was published, the market was already exploding post opex - gapped below the 50 day:

Like a toddler on a sugar high, today's gamblers are massively over-stimulated on monetary heroin and fiscal stimulus.

And options speculation in this period far exceeds what took place last year:

This week saw a similar pattern in the Rydex ratio relative to what happened in 2020. A peak in December, then a pullback, then another surge in the New Year. This time coming a month sooner than last year. 

Volume has gone parabolic. And speculation in penny stocks is showing up in the record Nasdaq breadth thrust (lower pane). 

From the first article above:

"Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the day-trader craze came on Monday, when six stocks priced under $1 per share made up nearly a fifth of total U.S. volume"

Markets were unimpressed with Biden's stimulus package. One thing both parties have in common is that they have not the slightest idea how to create full time permanent jobs. Forty five years of jobs decimation has made that abundantly clear. 

This latest stipend for the mass unemployed is "priced in":

"Reagan proved deficits don't matter" - Dick Cheney

It's Time For Minsky Asset Deflation

We've tried having a soaring stock market while the economy implodes - however most people were left behind. So now it's time to have a soaring economy while the stock market implodes. Try something different for a change...

One can make the case that the imaginary recovery is "priced in".

Wednesday night watching the futures I noticed that the Russell 2000 futures went vertical - deja vu of the vaccine news in November. Something was up. Now we learn that tonight after the close, Biden is planning to go big or go home:

"President-elect Joe Biden is expected to unveil a major Covid-19 relief package on Thursday (evening) and his advisers have recently told allies in Congress to expect a price tag in the ballpark of $2 trillion, according to two people briefed on the deliberations"

Biden's party believes it may have only a brief window to pass sweeping relief legislation and the President-elect has faced significant pressure from some Democrats to go big"

The following is a summary of the past several months of reflationary headlines:

Back in late August the Biden surge in the polls monkey hammered deflationary Tech stocks. Again in October when the Democrats looked liked they could win the House and Senate. And again in early November when the vaccine trials showed 95% efficacy. The Tech melt-up resumed in December during the winter COVID lockdown, however the rally was derailed again near the end of the month when the $900b stimulus was approved by Congress. 

What we notice via the chart below showing these events, is that the Tech/virtual economy bubble has been unstoppable despite many rotations to cyclicals. Now, since the beginning of 2021, both Tech and cyclicals are rising in tandem. It's the best of both worlds - an improving economy AND a massive stay-at-home Tech bubble. Someone is going to be wrong. Which means everyone is going to be wrong. Not only will the economy disappoint the cyclical stock buyers, but the Tech bubble will be final imploded by these constant rotations. The aptly named MAGA stocks (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon), are no longer leading the rally. They have been underperforming the broader market since Biden surged in the polls back in September. Go figure. 

The Momentum Tech ETF which is underweight the MAGA caps has continued to outperform, despite several close encounters with implosion:

Semiconductors are at the happy intersection of Technology and cyclicals, therefore they go up every day regardless of which paradigm is in rally mode - reflation or deflation.

Semiconductors are now at the epicenter of every Tech bubble - Bitcoin mining, cloud internets, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, video games, 5g wireless etc. etc. 

All of this U.S. stimulus has several implications for the EM trade. First off, it means the U.S. economy will outperform most of the world, and hence U.S. interest rates will be higher. Higher interest rates will boost the dollar at the expense of EM carry trades. In addition, the massive demand for capital by the U.S. government will crowd out Emerging Market credit. 

Here we see that EM currencies are diverging from EM stocks. 

 

The abiding belief since 2008 is that this expansion can continue forever as long as central banks hold interest rates at the zero bound. This delusion that central banks are in full control is well-entrenched throughout the economic establishment - only policy-makers control interest rates. Unfortunately, that is not actually true. Policy-makers can influence interest rates on a short-term basis, however, inflation expectations ultimately determine bond market values and hence interest rates. Bond markets are now starting to realize that this free money bonanza will lead to higher inflation, which is accelerating the end of cycle Minsky Moment. Per the Minsky Financial Instability Hypothesis, asset bubbles are imploded by higher interest rates. Whether those rates are due to policy-makers raising interest rates, or credit markets raising interest rates. It doesn't matter. To the extent that the Fed has given the U.S. Treasury carte blanche to issue new bonds, the Fed has now effectively ceded control of U.S. interest rates to the Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi may as well be the Fed chief now.

In 2020, the Fed monetized a $3 trillion deficit (15% of GDP). Which created human history's biggest asset bubble. This year, they are planning something even larger. We are now witnessing a ludicrous reach for risk at the end of the cycle in a pandemic depression. Something no one has ever tried before. For a reason.

Biden's election is the fifth wave blow-off top to the MAGA Tech rally which started four years ago. The same rally that gamblers believe just got started. 

The Age Of Greed Is Ending. Badly.

For four years straight Trump was untouchable, now he's a pariah. A cautionary tale for today's arrogant denialists who believe their vacation from reality will last forever...

History will say that the age of greed ended extremely badly. Not for lack of trying mind you.

During the Me Too movement Trump bragged about grabbing pussy. During the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump made common cause with Neo Nazis. For four years straight the Banana Republican double standard grew to ludicrous levels. All the while, Trump was protected and venerated by his mob of zealots and supported by silent Republicans, bribed with tax cuts. Then last week he pushed his luck too far.  Finally, the checks and balances closed in around him and shut him down. The Deep State - what idiots call functioning government - finally took him down. Now Trump is radioactive. Corporate donors are abandoning him, social media sites are shutting him down, banks won't lend him money, and even prominent Republicans have reached their limit. McConnell, who lost his majority due to Trump, now sees blood in the water and the opportunity to end Trump's political career forever.  

After Biden won in November, Trump was furious that Republican politicians were not helping him overturn the election. He was particularly angry with the state of Georgia which Biden won by a narrow margin. As luck would have it, the seminal runoff to decide the balance of power was in Georgia. So what to do, Trump went down there ahead of the Jan. 5th runoff and he essentially told his base not to bother voting, because the Georgian election system is rigged. He sabotaged the election, and handed full control of the Federal government to Democrats. They couldn't have done it without him. So now that Trump's attempted coup d'etat failed last week, McConnell has signaled he is supportive of Trump's impeachment to implode Trump's political career forever. All of this backstabbing is taking place WITHIN one deranged party of infantile assholes.

The Founding Fathers in their sage wisdom created a robust system of checks and balances based upon the rule of law. A system that would not be fully tested until over two hundred years later at the hands of a venal Idiocracy. Trump did everything possible to destroy the American system of democracy because he was incapable of understanding its inherent value, much less how it functions. He believed he was an all-powerful dictator who could bulldoze his way through checks and balances with impunity. Which points to the fact that in the two centuries since the Founders penned the Constitution, the Republican Party has cultivated a useful Idiocracy incapable of understanding what the Founding Fathers wrote. Their erstwhile "greatness" has been reduced to waving flags and blowing smoke up each other's asses, the entire mission of Faux News.

Biden promised to heal the divide in this country, and a second impeachment is off to a bad start. However, Nancy Pelosi wants her pound of flesh and it's not hard to figure out why - when Trump's mob attacked the Capitol last week they were out to kill her in particular. Far be it for me to judge someone who was the target of enraged psychopaths. The Republicans pushed their luck too far and now the blood is in the water. 

2021 is off to a great start.

All of Wall Street's "Goldilocks" full year predictions around gridlock are already wrong and it's only the second week of January. So what to do - just keep the same price targets and pretend that a Democrat sweep is the new "Goldilocks". Stoned gamblers are too high on monetary crack to notice the sleight of hand.

Unfortunately, all of these political machinations are obscuring the imploding economy. Policy-makers are falling further behind the curve, and are ignoring the glaring warning signs. Due to the lethal overdose of monetary euthanasia, gamblers are now convinced this is the beginning of a new cycle. When unfortunately, it's the end of the longest cycle in U.S. history.

Banks are the intersection of the financial markets and the economy. They are warning that this is a fraudulent recovery based upon record debt and printed money. Nevertheless, the masses have been convinced they've found the new El Dorado. The motherlode. 

They were fooled by central banks last time too.

This is Trump's last full week as president. To celebrate, global gamblers went ALL IN on an epic scale. 

Record Nasdaq volume, record breadth thrust, record call/put ratio. Does it get any riskier than this?

No.

The Efficient Explosion Hypothesis

Gamblers are wondering what will be the catalyst that explodes the biggest asset bubble in human history. Great question. COVID resurgence, fake recovery, vaccine clusterfuck, rampant speculation, mass complacency, extreme overvaluation, Disney markets - pick one, and rest assured all of these ignored risks will soon matter...

In addition to the risks listed above, the record Wall Street pump and dump in 2020 has accelerated in 2021:

"The acronym LMFAO, laughing my fucking ass off, which we can’t print [I can], is a pretty good description of the state of play in Spac-land these days...Some $80 billion in Spacs were listed in 2020, meaning the year turned into an epic bonanza for investment bankers, lawyers and companies looking to go public in a Spac deal"

via IPO Scoop

"More than two dozen SPACs (special-purpose acquisition companies, or blank-check companies) were priced last week, raising nearly $7 billion – a record in the number of deals and the dollar volume raised, according to SPAC experts at Renaissance Capital and SPAC Insider. On Thursday night, Jan. 7th, an astonishing 14 SPACs were priced"

Put it this way, the $ amount raised last week - the first week of 2021 - is more than 50% of what was raised in all of 2019 from SPACs. We are told that this record Wall Street pump and dump can go on for years.

These are the top performing SPACs of 2020. The #1 top performing SPAC of 2020 was an electric vehicle charging station play, called Quantumscape.

It goes downhill from here.

 

However, as I have said many times, the biggest risk to Disney markets are Disney markets themselves. The past three of four Mondays has been hard down in the Casino. This should come as no surprise for those of us who have been tracking the manipulation of stocks using weekly options. The way it works is quite simple, starting at the beginning of the week, speculators bid up call options on their favourite stocks which forces market makers to buy the underlying stock. The hedging ratio is determined by a factor known as "gamma" which is the second derivative of delta - rate of change in delta with respect to the change in the underlying stock. As stocks accelerate higher towards the most popular strike price(s), the "wall of calls" causes momentum to peak and pin the strike at weekly expiration. Then, on Monday, the invisible bid disappears and stocks crash back down to reality. Rinse and repeat. All of this market manipulation has been well documented and well ignored by regulators. Now, however, Nomura is warning that this insanity is peaking this week due to the monthly options expiration. 

ZH: Full Tilt Insanity Mode

"Nomura MD notes that it is Op-Ex week, and the options positioning is absolutely going to matter"

McElligott warns that there is a TON of Gamma set to roll-off, which matters when Delta is this “extreme long” and thus could very likely be monetized as a “supply source” to potential correction in price"

This is a fancy way of saying that there is a lot of options open interest expiring this week due to last week's seminal election. As those options approach expiration, the options driven melt-up will peak and then rollover. The selloff doesn't have to wait until next week, however, because gamma is a function of time to expiration and price. As long as price momentum remains higher, the options melt-up continues. If momentum reverses however, then the gamma squeeze reverses and begins to unwind, selling down the underlying stocks. Per the article cited above:

"We have to be ready for the “down trade” window opening around Wednesday’s VIX expiration and thereafter, with Gamma coming-off"

SpotGamma puts the selloff acceleration zone a mere 50 S&P points below the current level, at 3750, which is only halfway down the rising wedge (red line). As we see, the S&P is doing battle with the upper trendline:

Bond yields continue rallying higher monkey hammering the bond market. However, we see here that banks just finally filled their open gap from last February lockdown:

Big cap Tech is trading like a brick, but so far the market hasn't done anything "wrong".

Which means that gamblers have no warning as to what is coming, other than their own tomfoolery. Yes, that's a word.

EM Currencies are already rolling over hard. Emerging Markets/Global RISK OFF is the BIGGEST near term risk heading into the U.S. long weekend:

Below, on the weekly, we see new highs on both major exchanges at or above February 2020 levels. Which means that Tech stocks will not be a safe haven from implosion this time around...

Bulls are convinced their latest reflationary Disney narrative has staying power this time, entirely unaware that it's their own belief in delusion that is now the biggest risk.

Road To Reflation

Now that the blue wave is de facto, the likelihood of true reflation at some point down the road took a major step forward...

My overall thesis is that policy-makers are far behind the curve economically. They are looking in the rear view mirror at lagged economic data while driving the car forward over a GDP cliff. Now that the Dems have their blue wave, the likelihood that they will eventually step on the gas has taken a major step forward. But they are not there yet. 

As I've said many times, Disney markets will not cross Death valley unscathed. Markets will not remain levitated at all time highs waiting for five years of economic recovery to get pulled forward into 2021. At some point, the weekly and monthly job carnage will feed back into lower bond yields and deflation. 

Democrats can't reflate the economy while they themselves are the major proponents of lockdown. Stimulus won't reach the real economy until the lockdowns abate which many predictors posit as second quarter. I would agree - April - June. However, markets have already priced in full recovery and return to normal at 0% interest rates. 

What could go wrong with this record asset bubble in the meantime?

Many pundits are comparing this current everything asset bubble to the Dotcom era and saying don't worry about the buyer frenzy, it is still early days i.e. a ten month rally. I totally disagree - I believe this has been a three year top in the making starting with the tax cut meltup in 2018, the Fed rate cuts in 2019, and now the COVID monetary insanity of 2020.

In addition, most pundits are saying that zero percent interest rates are the primary rationale for owning stocks. Again, I totally disagree. Far from being a great reason to buy financial assets at any price, zero interest rates are a warning that monetary policy from an economic standpoint is totally out of gas. Picture a Dotcom bubble in a 1930s economy - that's what abides today. When the bubble bursts, many gamblers will find that their savings buffer is now wiped out at a time when jobs will be scarce. Worse yet, many people are putting their stimulus checks into the stock market, which accounts for part of the vertical rally last week. 

The Motley Fool is recommending gamblers buy Tech stocks (QQQ) with their "stimmy":

Suffice to say, Gold is the biggest warning that reflation is not taking place as the stock market expects. My opinion is that when markets crash, gold will recover first. At that point, I will look to be a buyer of gold in what could be the opportunity of a lifetime. However, I will scale in over time as the crash itself will be extremely deflationary.

As far as Bitcoin goes, I did some research on that alternative currency as well. I read through the original specification and despite having 25 years of IT experience, 15 as a programmer, I felt my eyes glazing over several times. I suggest that the vast majority of people gambling in Bitcoin have no clue how it actually works. Below is my best effort to condense my understanding, while sparing the minutiae:

Bitcoin is a distributed network that uses cryptographic algorithms to create a virtual internet-based transaction ledger, as an alternative to the traditional banking system. The system relies upon distributed servers "miners" to verify all of the transactions between buyers and sellers. In order to incentivize these miners to support the network, the Bitcoin system gives rewards (Bitcoin) in exchange for computing power ("hashrate"). In order to keep this virtual "sun" burning forever, there are a fixed number of total Bitcoins that can be mined, however, the Bitcoin reward amount is halved every four years. An event that increases scarcity. After each halving, Bitcoin skyrockets in value (2016, 2020) etc. As the value increases due to scarcity, more and more miners and computing power are sucked into the network to reap the increased profits. As more miners join the network, the "difficulty" level of the hashrate increases (every two weeks). This has the effect of requiring even MORE processing power to validate transactions. 

All of which is why server capacity (not shown) and electricity consumption grow exponentially along with the price of Bitcoin:

"At 92.8 terawatt hours annualized, bitcoin’s power consumption is slightly ahead of Pakistan’s consumption in 2016, and not wildly away from the Netherlands’ consumption that year. Put a different way, the electricity consumed by minting bitcoin could power all the tea kettles in Britain for 21 years."

Bitcoin's power consumption doubled since November:

So, is Bitcoin stable and scalable, not really. At current price predictions of $400k one could imagine many more Switzerland's of electricity, creating absolutely zero economic value. As I see it, Bitcoin's primary "value" is as a Ponzi scheme that sucks in the maximum money at the top of every rally and then explodes as it's doing right now. Why that's "good" is not for me to say. I didn't see anything about that in the Bitcoin specification.

Recall last week the Bitcoin Trust had multi-year high weekly volume, so it was overdue to monkey hammer latecomers:

This debate on reflation will be an ongoing saga. As each new proposal comes forward and the data catches up with reality, the model will need to be revisited. The pieces are now starting to fall into place for a paradigm shift towards reflation however, it's an extremely crowded trade and the current paradigm is still firmly deflationary. And about to become far more deflationary when "stimmy" checks get obliterated in Tech stocks. And, the now reversing dollar monkey hammers global risk markets.

(FYI, to get around Marketwatch's pay wall, you have to clear your browser cache. Same with Bloomberg)

I predict there will soon be an ETF for this sector ("KILL?"). But, in the meantime it's a stock picker's market.