Global Market Comments
November 19, 2009
SPECIAL BOND MARKET ISSUE
Featured Trades: (EUROPE), (JGB), (JNK), (PHB), (HYG)
2) The bond market vigilantes are gathering up for a lynching in Japan. Five year credit default swaps have jumped from 38 to 78 basis points since September, a move similar to the one that took AIG down last year, as institutions scramble to buy insurance before the house burns down. The rating agency Fitch?s is reaching for the Dramamine, threatening to downgrade Japan?s AA-?? rating as it sees the beleaguered country?s national debt soar from the current 180% to 227%, thanks to the new Hatoyama government?s policies. That would inflict a body blow on the bond market, and send the yields on ten year bond soaring from the current 1.42%. The big hedge funds are circling, with Greenlight Capital?s David Einhorn accumulating a major short in Japanese government paper. Remember him? He?s the guy who almost single handedly drove Lehman into bankruptcy a year ago. For more depth on the fundamentals behind this trade please, check out my ?End of Japan? piece? by clicking here. The only way to take advantage of this is to put on a short futures trade in Tokyo or Singapore, which trade from 6:00 pm to 3:00 am Chicago time, or to short the yen. If you want to know how to do this, e-mail me at madhedgefundtrader@yahoo.com, and I?ll get you set up.
3) One of my flock of canaries in the coal mine is the junk bond market, which is a great leading indicator of global risk taking. At the beginning of the year I stampeded readers into junk bond ETF?s like (JNK), (PHB), and (HYG), because the market was discounting a default rate of 18%, while I was expecting only 12% (click here ). These highly leveraged securities always overshoot on the downside when panic grips the herd. Believers reaped substantial returns, with JNK bringing in 65% since then. Now what? If you don?t get a double dip recession that default rate could fall to as low as 4%, as yield hungry institutions pile into the most leveraged companies with long term bonds yielding as high as 9.5% to 28%. That would cause JNK to double again from current levels. If we do plunge back into the Great Recession, as many hedge fund managers believe, then we could give up a chunk of this year?s gains. Let me know which one it is, will you? Even with the worst case scenario, I don?t think we will hit new lows. There was, after all, only one Lehman.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
?The ?new normal? never went away, it just went into hiding, and now it?s back,? said Vince Farrell, CIO of Soleil Securities.
CROSS CULTURAL MIX UP OF THE DAY
When Obama reviewed the troops during this week?s state visit, the Chinese Army Band played ?I Just Called to Say I Love You? by Stevie Wonder.