There were very few places to hide in this week’s stock market decline. A number of the old reliable places to hide aren’t providing much protection in the current stock market drop. But I did see two splashes of green today among the sea of red.
Anybody looking to reduce their energy reliance on Russia is looking for LNG (liquified natural gas) right now. As tight as supplies are, however, and Europe is essentially only able to increase its supply by poaching natural gas headed for Asian markets, the supply of new facilities to liquify natural gas and load it onto tankers for for delivery to European terminals looks even tighter.
Here is what I expect: A strong spring and summer rally–powered by FOMO and by gains in Post-Pandemic economic recovery stocks. But that rally will be subject to big plunges because so many investors are poised to sprint for an exit. And all of this, later in 2022 will be followed by an actual Recession market. My worry is that the FOMO rally will make it harder for investors to make the moves they need t make now to prepare for that Recession market. The time to prepare is now nd not when everybody has bid up the price of Recession market favorites. Tricky, no?
Over the last three trading days, hedge fund clients at Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage unwound risk at the fastest rate in three months. At the same time, according to flows flows tracked by JPMorgan, retail traders bought $4.1 billion in the week through Tuesday, with money sent to ETFs linked to the Standard & Poor’s 500 index more than 2 standard deviations above the 12-month average.
Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, broke above $95 a barrel on Friday to an intraday high of $95.66 before closing at $94.44, up 3.31%. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate closed ahead 3.58% to $93.1 after trading as high as $94.66. The short-term reason was increased fear of a wider shooting conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Long-term term, reason higher projections of global oil demand in 2022 from the International Energy Agency. The IEA raised its 2022 demand forecast and said it now expects global demand to expand by 3.2 million barrels per day this year. That would take demand to an all-time record.
In late November non-resident cash flows to emerging market assets, excluding China, turned negative for the first time since March 2020 and the Pandemic global economic dip, according to the Institute of International Finance.
On Friday news that China’s Internet food delivery giant Didi Global (DIDI) planned to delist its shares from the New York Stock Exchange hammered the stock in New York trading. Didi’s ADRs fell 22.24%. And other Chinese stocks with New York listings followed the path downward pioneered by Didi Global. Abibaba (BABA) closed down 8.29%. Tencent Holdings (TCEHY) slid 4.87%. And JD.Com (JD) dropped 7.71%.
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Saturday this week) Trick or Trend looks at what might (or might not) be emerging investible trends. Exclusively on JAM. This post won’t run anywhere else. Ever. There might be a trend here but with the recent performance of the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) it’s really hard to tell.
On Friday, August 6, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) retreated another 6.54% to 16.15. That puts the “fear index” back in the “complacency zone” where I’ve been looking to buy Call Options on the VIX in anticipation of a bounce back to the top of the current zone at 20 on the next “bad news” day. (Whatever the bad news might be.) This trade, which is not dependent on any call about a bear market or even a market correction but rather on the simple bounce from levels of extreme compliance, recommends buy the Call Option on the VIX when it breaks below !6 and then selling the Call Option when it breaks above 20.
Stock volume spiked on a quarterly event known as triple witching, when options and futures on indexes and equities expire. As of 11:45 a.m. in New York, volume on S&P 500 Index stocks was almost 50% above the average for that time of day over the past 30 sessions. The quarterly expiration usually coincides with a rebalancing of benchmarks such as the S&P 500, sparking single-day volumes that rank among the highest of the year. Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P, told Bloombertd that the rebalancing in that index alone could force $30 billion of stock trades. More than $2 trillion of S&P 500 options and futures were scheduled to expire Friday, Goldman Sachs estimates. The increased volume today and the jump in volatility for many stocks comes after a extremely calm stretch for the stock market. Measured by the 20-day volatility, the S&P 500’s price swings dwindled to levels not seen since the start of 2020. All this makes it very hard to look at the market reaction to the Fed’s news from Wednesday and today’s price movements and say which indicate a longer-lasting trend in market direction and which are simply a reflection of technical moves by traders closing positions ahead of the expiration or in reaction to the expiration.
On Wednesday, June 16, China will release its official data on economic indicators such as industrial output and retail sales. The numbers are expected to show a slowing from April’s torrid growth but still a very healthy pace of improvement. Which would be a good thing since an over-heating Chinese economy would be one source of potential global inflation, and especially of commodity price inflation.
