Showing posts with label fixed income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fixed income. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Aren't we forgeting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa. Bart Simpson. Weekly Investment Meeting

The three driving PREMISES remains:
  1. Cost of funding drives market and valuations
  2. Price of liquidity new unknown (tax on money)
  3. No prior analogy historically will work (because this is different, very different)

Conclusion

Zero visibility from here - main topics for 2009 being:

Negatives:

  • Unemployment - we see >10% in both Europe and the US (see more under overall conclusion) - and losing your job makes people STOP ...stop living, stop buying, stop thinking... making it binary - while in the Ivory Tower of the banks they talk like its continues process - its not! You lose your job, you lose it...
  • Low oil prices - the impact could be massive on Social tension, geopolitcal risks and earnings power for EMG countries and companies. No one seems willing and able to imagine <20>
  • China growh makes it to zero - A story I have carried around since my Asia trip - seems banks now overtaking me..all of the sudden China not growing is the new Black, but even with growth at 3-5% China will be losing jobs, millions of jobs...and the 2009 will be real test for the THIRD WAY (you all know what happened to the 3rd way of Clinton, Merkel and Clinton)

Positives

  • Psychology so negative it can work positively for the market. If there is 100.000 jobs right now in Bank of America and 30.000 needs to go - then 100.000 are afraid and living like they will lose their job, but when job cuts are done theoretically the 70.000 will start spending again. (The risk being 30.000 jobs become 50 or 60.000 later on)
  • Q1 2009 circumstantial evidence would suggest there is "plenty of cash" on the sidelines, some of this should be deployed when we go into 2009?
  • Fed/Treasury plans does work. Unrealistic but let us put it up there. Fed takes rates to zero, start engaging in Investment Grade, they borrow not 3 trillion but 10 trillion of the future earnings of America... and it works!!! Hurrah!!!

I have put our target out before but for now we remain with key predictions of:

  1. S&P500 will see 500.00 in 2009
  2. Yield in Europe & US will go to zero
  3. China growth will be less than 3%
  4. Tension in the EU will increase
  5. Oil goes below 30.00 maybe even 20.00 US dollars
  6. EUR/USD will see both 0.9500 and 1.4000 in 2009?
  7. EMG underperforms everything else...
  8. Credit spreads will continue to widen.....

Investment meeting conclusion: There is some "nervousness" ahead of the FOMC on the text and its implications. It seems unlikely Fed will deliver more clarity if only because they do not have it themselves, but there will the usual: We will do whatever it takes to restart economy....market looking for minimum 50 bps. Meeting could disappoint.

We are still see incoming data being extremely negative, earnings likewise, and there is growing recognition of our own main theme: Unemployment - when this hit the "Street" it could take us down again to new lows.

Allocation:

This week: Unchanged 90% in cash, 10% deployed in negative stock markets.

Last week: Move from 70% to 90% based on lack of direction and incoming policy response being confusing.

Economics: (David Karsbøl)

  • Economy in freefall
  • Tankan worst in 30 years
  • CPI drop today expected to +1.5% from 3.4% biggest drop ever (?)
  • Empire Manu. contracting
  • Every single indicator at multi year low, some of the indicators can not go further down due to the way they are constructed!
  • Our weekly model remain low - staying low
  • The US and Sweden the two most decelerating economies

Main themes: Lack of credit & unemployment rising

Fixed Income:(Jesper Christiansen)

  • Where the Government is involved "value is being created"--- i.e lower spreads, but everything else is still showing pain, lots of pain
  • Next move from Fed would be to enter Investment Grade and High Yield -- Q1 2009?
  • Plenty of value prepositions. On-and-off-the-run Treasury gives you guaranteed 50 bps!
  • TIPS underperforming
  • US ABS almost unchanged - EUR ABS wider spreads
  • Danish mortgage spreads more or less unchanged with refinancing over
  • NOK and SEK putting pressure on DKK (deval in 2009?)
  • US Government fixed income outperform EU on quantative easing, Trichet talks down rate expectations, massive supply in EU Gov. FI in January
  • Credit spread making high after high - Deutsche Bank impact?
  • Investment grade starting to do better - FDIC bonds included?

OVERALL: Our mechanical model maintains serious overweight, so do we: (check bottom part of this blog for models allocations) http://saxomacro.blogspot.com/2008/12/market-is-long-hope-hope-and-hopethe.html

Technical Input: (John Hardy - copy version available here: http://drop.io/itvld6d# password: saxobank

Stoxx50 and S&P: Waiting to Bearish stance. Failure to maintain upside break disappointing.

VIX: We need > 60% for bearish sentiment go gain tracktion.

10 yr US: Buy option for downside (price risk) ?

Yield curve in EU and US huge different. Europe is steepning while US is flattening.

EUR looks stretched.

Equity

  • Market is historically fairyl priced, but based on forward earnings expensive
  • Lack of credit remains key issue.
  • Unemployment will hit earnings and consumptions.
  • Commodity cycle repricing from recession to depression a negative?
  • Low low physcology could lift the market.

Commodities

  • Contango begs for being crude for delivery but no one got balance sheet to do so.
  • Gold, Silver at breaking point failure would lead to big sell of.

OVERALL

End of the year, we are in wait-and-see mode, however almost as per usual we remain extremely negative on the outlook - believing there have not been a proper pricing of the impact on ACTUAL UNEMPLOYMENT ABOVE 10.0% into stock market and valuations of housing stocks.

There simply is not anything worse the losing your job, except death, and for some people losing their job would be equivalent of that!

When people lose their job everything stops for them. They do not care if stock market goes or down, that Wal-Mart has discount of 50%, that Bernanke talks positively, that the Government wants to help them, they need to be back at work that's it.........

Obama gives us(US) hope, but is it enough, is it too late? I think so - I would love to the positive guy calling for higher markets, lower unemployment, but I am paid to be sceptical, paid to deliver real return (unlike Madoff's)....so for now I will be concerned, more concerned than ever before, but then again, I am merely a poor farmer boy from Denmark.

Safe trading,

Steen

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

when in doubt......go on holiday?



My colleague David Karsbøl have developped a model based on the supposed short-term model of The US Treasury mentioned in Paul O'Neills book, where he states based on only weekly data alone The Treasury's growth model exceeded Wall Streets economist forecast accuracy (Mind you that's an easy goal to set yourself!), but the point being this:

David models continues its free fall indicating we are now moving into solid negative growth and consumer demand.

The later is best seen through the spectrum of credit cards - The US consumer has always been willing to flaunt the plastic even when they have negative equity, but in the land of designer credit cards things are turning to the worse:
Moody's Investor service reports that the charge off rate, which measures defaults as percentage of loans outstanding - rose 6.05% in in March, from 4.64% a year earlier.

The charge off rate peaked above 7% in the 1991 and 2001 recession.

The underlying trend indication is for worst to come as:
1. The repayment amount are decreasing. The US consumer is simply paying less into the bills, obviously indicating either consumption preference or lack of hard dollars...

2. The amount of people skipping 3rd and 4th payment also on the rise.....again not exactly the best sign..
The thing to understand, and this is important.... The financial "melt-down" in banking has been avoided (for now) by Bernanke and his Merry Men's circling of the wagons, but the next phase is one of considerable weakning global demand, the tail risk being we will revert back into credit crisis, as personable income collapse, margin erodes, corporate defaults starts to rise, and banks continues to hoard capital.
Trichet, a man who at long last is gaining some respect from me, hit it spot on yesterday: "The worst could be to come, and an ongoing, very significant market correction is in process"...

My respect for Trichet is rising(note: rising - not gained!) as maintaining unchanged ECB rates does the job for now - it gives him some credibility vis-a-vis inflation, and he realise, correctly, cutting rates not doing anything to real economy as the banks are in trouble.

He also, between the lines with his insight into the European banking system, indicates the European banks needs to earn up to the credit issue and the incoming freight train called potential stagflation.

The European banks are heavily subsidised through the liquidity provision in place, with Spanish banks issuing mortgage backed paper at 101 with ECB and seeing the actual price in the market trading @ 90 bid at best - talk about indirect support.
In terms of the temperature of the market, the bullish consensus hitting new highs, and CNBC commentators, their guests, can not stop talking the market higher - I have been neutral but I am slightly concerned about the market from here;

1405-10 in the S&P was supposed to get us flying, now in the 4th week we trade 1395-1435 and

VIX volatility is coming off - we are due for volatility spike and a range break-out.

I feel downside is the more likely as Q1 earnings was massive disappoint overall.

Stripped for oil companies, the 441 companies who reported so far saw profit tank 30.2% this quarter and 26% in the last.
Energy companies now make up 50% of all profit in the S&P!
Not exactly reason for joy - the fact is the market became oversold in January and March, and now its overbought, the next bigger directional play will be based on how the real economy tracks from here - my take as described above being a path of grinding slower growth, something a very smart friend of mine calls: growth recession indicating negative quarter by quarter growth but probably not outright recession numbers.

It should also be noted Q1 from growth perspective saw one-off factors which will be hard to copy in Q2 - Germany and Europe saw unusually high investments rates- probably covering the fact that most European companies faced bottle-necks in production, input materials and labor.

While in the US the massive inventory build was hardly a choice situation for US companies...but as always I am merely putting odds on this not making predictions.

Strategy

Moving away from Beta long, to net short exposure on market as of today; short banks-, big europeans industrials, and net indices - all on valuation and lack of technical upside break.

Still like credit overall in high grade names.....

EMG- extremely overpriced - looking to sell.......

FX - still firmly believing in new cyclical final low for US dollar- pricing in 100 bps hikes in the US a joke right in front of prolonged slow-down..........Long CAD, AUD, EUR vs. US dollar.
FI - mean reversion play long Bunds @ 113.38 ish... mainly options...

Commodities- stopped in agri- and still long long-term puts in crude....but looking for normalisation of commotidies to gradually reflect growth slow-down.

Best of luck,

Steen

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Bear Market is here.... but too early for 1929 like crash?



I am not hiding! I took off all the bullish trades late yesterday which turned out to be extremely lucky.

Only done two trades today:

JPY: Bought some good size 106.50 JPY call for Friday as my good friend Drew Baptiste of Morgan Stanley been telling me if 107.22 goes it#s 3rd of 3rd wave target ting 97 +-

Drew has been extremely right on JPY plus it mixes well with my prevalent view that Q1 is all about risk adjustment and going "home" on investments.

The second trade is long EURGBP 0.7546 / my "favourite" salesperson telling its "key reversal" and other terms I clearly do not have the capacity to understand, as I cant for the life of me think of ONE reason why GBP should do better the Europe. Brown is doing everything wrong, Darling (what a name) is already joke 3 month into the job, and todays GA in Northern Rocks shows the incompetence of the government and its adviser's.

It is very clear to me some significant repricing is taken place, and in the process the "counters" are losing out. Counters are the very people who buy on dips and who thinks this time is like the last few times.....Nothing could be more wrong...

The policy action from the central banks is "print some more money!!!!!!!!!", in the US the FOMC, they are cutting rates and normally the bank will "blow" up their balance sheet to match the expected cut, only problem being that this time the balance sheets of the banks are so stretched they cant even do origination on deals, and one loan after the other gets negated, so the market stuck with banks going around to anyone, like me, with a positive current account, begging me to take some of "their special deals for you, my friend!" off them in order to clean up the balance sheets.

There are several so called investment banks running desperate to find someone with money to spend.

Another thing; SWF, SWF - I noted yesterday and I will note again today; Dubai Ports can not buy a port in the US, but they can 'as much as you like' in the banks? Logic? None! Banks are even more "strategic in nature" than ports..........

The US dollar crisis is very, very close now...... 1.5000 goes and we will see central bank intervention in my mind. The weaker US dollar makes the Fed decision even more difficult, but the Fed does not care about the US dollar, Bernanke has no clue, neither does the rest of adminstration. They should be hiking rates to defend the US dollar, make US more attractive and re-establish their inflation expectations.....but......thats almost as likely as me being drafted to play for Denmark along side Tomasson.

Strategy

FOMC is desperate. Desperate people does desperate things. We are HIGH alert rest of the week......Only Fx positions as of now.. and mainly in options..

FI: Getting hammered on long bond, but hedged through the JPY. Still expect very dynamic move to higher rates inside this week....... Looking to do spread long Europe short-end vs short long end US....

Commodities: Still "pis.... off" at myself for negating trade ahead of USDA report Friday, but...fact remains commodities NEED to reflect "recession mode"......

FX: Short GBP, Long JPY.....

Equity: Neutral, still better buyer than seller....

Good luck,

Steen

Monday, January 14, 2008

Recession, negativisme, and willing central banks..



There is no doubt more negative mood on the market than in a long, long time, probably since 1998. This move reminds me of 1998 as a matter fact; coming of the heels of Asian crisis, the Greenspan folks, reignited the great Debt cycle by producing some more money through the printing press - it eventually led to the IT bubble of 2000, but it "safed" the world economy, and gave the derivative of "deflation" through the Asian lower production cost.


The bulls will argue todays market is similar, it is only matter of getting the engines re-started, i.e: rate cuts from the Fed, some of the more optimistic even argue that the mere fact the banks are in trouble will only make the policy makers do more and deeper cuts. That is all fine, but how about the premise that bank are the very INSTRUMENT by which the policy makers express their wishes?


Investment banks are travelling to see ANYONE who have positive current account in order to offer them: "special prices for you my friend" - the very point being the need to cut their external balance sheet exposure and fast, otherwise the origination and other traditional high earners of the banks will dry up due to lack of "room" on the balance sheet.


Am I the only one raising an eyebrow to the almost begging like style the US Investment banks have when offering their company to Middle East and Chinese companies?


Less than one year ago it would have been unthinkable that the Chinese could buy billions worth of stock in a US bank, now it happens weekly, no questions asked. Is that what Paulson calls "movement on the Chinsese issue" when he is praising himself and the administration?


I don't feel comfortable about the Chinese agenda here, but in the investment banks, money is money for now, as they try to survive. Yes, survive, the banks are bleeding to death. This mornings story on UBS is simply disturbing, no less for someone like me who used to work there!


I spend Friday on a rare conference in Copenhagen, invited by Skagens Fonds, and I had a great time listening to Larry Summers and Swenson, from Yale Endowment. Both were formidable speakers, but Swenson left me, 'a market timer', confused on why I exist!


It was exciting stuff and Yale funds are only 40% in stock, 60% in alternatives! True diversifikation if anything - Swenson had several other common sense advice to offer, and I suggest you read up on his Yale model, as its truely exciting and with 16% net return for 25 years its beating S&P hands down.http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/09/yale_endowment_.html

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Strategy>

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This morning we closed all our positions.


We had some luck in Crude, short USDJPY and short STOXX50 last couple of days, and with rumors circulating on Friday that Fed is so desperate they could even more inter meeting, I think its time to take some chips of the table.
The positive drift of stocks should NOT be ignored, neither should the fact that most "recession" type like corrections are down about 25% from peak to through.
Right now DOW is down 10-11 pct. leaving us vulnerable for an additional 10-15 pct in the next move, I do however expect some 'rallying' from here in the market, and hence takes constructive stance on the market...


We are:


Long USDJPY @ 107.78

VERY short T-bonds through options

Short EURUSD @ 1.4880

Long S&P @ 1413.00


USDA report on Friday was simply stunning. Read it - and try to understand the ramification for grains and inflation in the world; http://tinyurl.com/yrpthw


Good luck,



Steen

Friday, October 19, 2007

Back from Paris.. sorry for lack of updates...

Maybe I shud add that these updates are as live as when I m in my office in London or Copenhagen, unfortunately the next quarter takes me around the world once, but....

Leading into G-7 I got some feeling in Paris, or rather a confidence that the french feels they can get some sort of 'action' which could stop the weakning US dollar. The french do talk extensively, but this time there seem to be odd confidence I have not seen in a while. I know the media is busy saying this is non-event, but since then has the media been AHEAD of time?

I got strong feeling, which could be proven wrongly shortly, that we are inside 1-3 EURO from top of the EURUSD cross. I remember moving back to Europe in 2000 from the US and how EVERYONE was betting their house the EURO would go to zero even dissolving.......people forget quickly.

I will follow up with more detailed analysis this pm....

Otherwise straight to the positions..

FI: We are and haven been long 10y notes since the last blog...and this time size through Dec 110 calls...

FX: We are VERY long US call vs EURO and NOK - and obviously losing some money.....
We are also long JPY calls.....in less size but with nice 116.00 strike...

Equity: Initiated one unit short (of maximum 3).. yesterday in STOX50 (4.464)...
We are also short AMZN and will add some more single stocks 2day - basically I am going to short the idiot Cramers index of high risers.... !!!

Commodities: No present positions


Bank of America reporting was interesting in several ways;

1. The steep decline in investment banking..
2. The amount of loss provisions...
...but ...
3. Most interestingly, BoA is the cleanest RETAIL bet in the US. BoA is by far the biggest bank and with the biggest exposure to the US at large. I find that as KEY INDICATOR in that consumers are more hurt than present numbers indicate......

Add to this that SIV's and off-balance sheet vehicles seems to be coming back to the surface of the trouble water indicating ROUND 2 is about to start.

After having been EXTREMELY confident in August that this evolve into crisis, I am far more prudent this time. I think the odds are 60 vs 40 for a full blown crisis, but we need to break 1520-1525 in S&P ....

On the FX market, make no mistakes; the fact we brokes 115.80 yesterday made excellent medium term forecaster like Andrew Baptiste calls for bare mimumum of 111.61 low tested with real chance of 105.00.

My comment: Why not ? Despite some renewed disappointed in Japanese economic numbers, they JPY should based on their growth and future yield path have been much lower. I think 100.00 is fair value. JPY is quasi Yuan so follow G-7 for related follow through. In terms of positioning JPY carry is back in force although not in same size as in late July.

Performance MTD etc... up later - report running late today......

Steen

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

US dollar is the worst over? 2000 revisited?


....a while back we did some test of one currency pair leading another, which is extremely difficult math-exercise, the only thing we did find was that EURAUD, leads EURUSD.... in high frequency...

then now... I am noting NZD+AUD reacting a little this morning and made enclosed chart.. which is merely.. aud+nzd divided by 2... and eurusd in same chart... is this sign of top in place /

I know evert bank in the world falling overthemselves to put EURUSD outlook higher but........

1. European investors still got issue funding their US assets, maybe they need to take those USD into EUR soon ?

2. US fixed income extremely cheap in currency adjusted basis, plus from mean rever. perspective its cheap..

3.Seems to me there is more CREDIT NEGATIVE news coming from Europe than US recently,..

4. ECB is stubbornly looking for higher rates while consumer sentiment, credit conditions CLEARLY showing risk of more neg. growth..

5. UK is mess, post BOE and Government bail-out... 5. 1.42 1.43 always been touchy area for politicians....

6. EURUSD was .8600 in 2000... now 1.4200 ??? I remember destinctly how NO ONE wanted EURO then, this is the same US momement in my always naive farmers opinion... Steen

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

A day in positive-land...

Well, once in a while it's good to join the other side, to get a different perspective.

I did that today, first I spent some time reading up on some of the better independent research firms out there BCA & Bridgewater, then I joined Soc. Gen for their lunch presentation with their Chief US Economist Stephen Gallagher, who writes some excellent research pieces week in and week out.

The arguments of the "positive" camp summed up by me are:

- Looking back at prior crisis' there is something missing this time....
- The consumer not going to back down.....
- Fed will do what's needed......

It is hard to argue with them if you only use data since 1982, which 99,9% of them do in their analysis. Yes, then something is missing, but.....

What lacking is not signs, but the reaction.... the automatic pilot which "bails" them, the economist, and the market out each time.

The central banks DOES realise there is moral hazard in rushing to the rescue, I think the best analogy of the present situation was given by McCulley, of Pimco....

He talks about, having been at Jackson Hole, how the Fed wants to reset the strike price of the Fed put.

I.e: slower and less predicable. That's a huge difference from the present mindset of the idiots like Cramer & Kudlow. Who thinks: Cut= Good No cut= Bad.

He goes on... "Fed does realise that risk aversion has not historically been broken except by cuts if Fed Funds policy rate". Freakin exactly!

So.. what we got is; a New reaction function, which is NOT automatic AND we got CB's, not only Fed, who wants to let the market play out its games, because it is ALL games!

I find it so ironic that the very people who wants and calls for Fed to cut, are arguing stock are cheap based on fundamentals! Why then do Fed have to cut?

Enough on this, I was inspired yesterday by John Makin latest op-ed in WSJ, which calls for Q4-2007 to have negative growth of 0.8%. I could not do his piece justice by trying to para-phrase him but here is the link:

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.26775/pub_detail.asp


A few headlines from him:

- Reduced flow of credit to all borrowers, while increasing the cost of borrowing for credit worhty borrowers"
- Every time in the last 50 years that residential investment been this negative - it has meant a RECESSION
- American recessions unusual because it implies "negative consumption growth"
- The Excess of 2000-2001 bubble was in the capital stock, hence no material impact on consumer, and it took eight quarter to run this unwind
- the -0.8% comes from: Flat consumer growth, a negative 1 pct-point from fixed business investment, and plus 0.2 from the rest (which is average since 2001).

Well, I am really not in position to feel confident about neither the Positive-land story or the negative as represented by Mr Makin, but.... I am defensive still.

There is absolutely NO reason to be brave right now. There is still bubble in carry-trading, market believe in Santa Claus (Santa Bennie), and credit market is on a strike not seen since Reagan flighted the flight controllers!

End of this game is how the American consumer reacts, or in worst case, the foreign investors in the US dollar.

The second part have got some headline recently as US dollar index broken the 80,00 pretty much predicting free fall on the cards now.



I remain EXTREMELY sceptical on the US consumer, his headwinds are considerable:

Higher living costs, higher energy cost, no growth in disposable income, higher funding costs.

We have seen major ticket item stocks like Harley Davidson collapse recently, to me that's sign things are NOT that good. A seen by this chart (click on it to enlarge) the HOG stock been drifting down since MAY!.. Leading or lagging? I will let you be the judge.

Tactical

Fixed Income: Neutral. Long some Euribor calls as ECB too hawkish, but valuation is stretched even though duration data supports long position.

Commodities: Looking to short Soya and Corn. Crude = neutral

Foreign Exchange: Long JPY vs EUR and USD, short US index

Equity: Long Asian real estate, mining, and Asia in general, vs. long gamma position in Dax and S&P500.

Cash: Still 60% ish...

This is trying times for all of us; central banks, hedge fund managers, investors, the real questions to me remains: Is the paradigm shift?

Yes, I believe it is, the consequences will start to materialise over the next six month via increased leadership from Asia, increased SWF impact and repositioning of central banks reserves, but as always I am merely small farmer son from Denmark with less predictive powers than a monkey throwing darts.

Steen

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Do I owe Bernanke an apology?

The jury is still out, but Bennie even telling the market that the moral hazards was the markets issue to deal with not his, was pretty surprising! Bennie definitely gained some delta on my rating radar, but he is still public servant and the Bush/Bennie show was coordinated to almost perfection for most impact.

However, the real dilemma remains the sceptisme with which the fixed income market treats this event. They are telling us, bail-out, go to life boats, while the stocks market guys are enjoying their Martinis on the sun deck, seeing no icebergs or anything in the horizon which should get them take of the party cloth!

Is this is a matter of eventually, the stock market understand that when there are NO funding, there are no party, or is it the "doom sayers" of credit who needs to get a life?

For me its neither or, as both things are facts. Fact is EMG and Carry trading is back in full swing. Fact is there will be both earnings issues and down-turns in the economy, but....the real impact is on the consumers and here I am very pessimistic.

Two in three Americans thinks the US in a recession, according to WSJ poll!
The leverage consumer is stuck; the food bill is exploding, the gas bill..exploding, the rent bill... exploding, and the real income is flat, so this credit crisis is in REAL TERMS a surcharge tax on the consumers (the very reason Bush is trying to "help out")....

From an allocation point of view September have by far the worst seasonal returns:

ADVFN’s analysis found that the FTSE 100 drops an average of 1.37% during September, making it the month that sees the worst market performance of the year. (http://www.growingbusiness.co.uk/September_worst_month_for_stock_market.YeISIT1op7A9-A.html)

This makes me maintain my extreme long cash position: 60% - the bulk of my allocated assets are in Asia, mining and Asia real estate:

Aberdeen Global - An Asia Pacific fund YTD: +13.14%
Merrill Lynch World Mining fund - YTD: 32.86%
Morgan Stanley Asian Prop. - YTD: 10.19%

Even though these trades are part of leverage trades is for the long term. Mining have excellent supply-demand function, demand exceeding supply, Asia as whole will do more "internal investment" amoung each other, something the SWF(Sovereign Wealth Fund) will escalate, and property, well Asia is cheap vis-a-vis more developped economies and as the population grows, and gets richer so does their housing demand.

I am also long technology relative to banking. I was net negative banking but have shifted in to more balanced approach, as I really dont have any gauge on who "wins" the above conflict; the fixed income guys or the stock guys...

Either way the next directional move will be BIG in velocity and in re-valuation as;

1. IF.. stock gets fixed income guys convinved ... there will have to be bought a lot of stock to get portfolios back to neutral weights....
2. However..if fixed income prevails, there is serious revaluation needed. The present forward earnings have hardly budged. In other words the E in the P/E have remained untouched by the credit, add ot this that margin at cyclical peak, and you have dynamic cocktail.

In closing; Im long gamma downside in stocks, I cant afford not to be, looking to way of increasing long US dollar exposure.......neutral fixed income, neutral energy, and looking to sell both grains and energy.

A very confused .....Steen.... safe trading... and as always... toss a dice and you will most likely do better than me..

Steen