It's always fun having Paul Ciana on the podcast. You guys familiar with the show have already heard some our conversations over the years. They're always insightful, and he always gets me thinking.
While here at Allstarcharts.com we approach the world through the lens of an equities investor, and use other asset classes as a supplement, Paul does the exact opposite. His days both begin and end with the study of fixed-income markets, commodities, and currencies. Paul is the Chief Global FICC Technical Strategist at Bank of America.
In this episode, we dive right into it starting with the US dollar, gold, crude oil, and the most important currency crosses for stock market investors to focus on.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
Our focus has been on US Treasury yields in recent months – and for good reason.
The 30-year yield recently undercut its summer lows, and the 10-year yield briefly lost the critical 1.40 level. Both have since recovered. But these crucial rates remain stuck in the same messy ranges that have defined most of 2021.
Given the lack of decisive action in domestic yields, we think it's a good time to check in on the overseas bond markets in hopes of gleaning some insight into the potential direction of yields outside the US.
In today’s post, we’re going to switch things up and take a look at the 10-year yields from other major developed countries.
But more recently, market breadth is getting all the attention. Everyone is a breadth expert now, you notice?
I'm even getting software developers asking me about my breadth analysis wishlist so they can build it for me. Which I love and I certainly appreciate, but just goes to show you another sign of the times.
The way I see it, if you're trying to get defensive NOW because of breadth deterioration, I think you might be looking at it completely wrong.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
It was only a month ago that we discussed the TIPS versus Treasuries ratio hitting its highest level since 2013 as investors prepared for rising inflation.
Fast-forward to today, and the inflationary backdrop looks very different.
Inflation breakeven and forward expectation rates have rolled over aggressively since the middle of November. This is illustrated by the TIP/IEF ratio, which recently undercut its May highs. Combine this action with the lack of follow-through on last week’s kick save from the 30-year yield, and the prospects of rates rising across the curve aren’t looking too hot.
But what does that mean for risk assets?
For starters, commodities will miss out on all the usual tailwinds that come with inflationary pressure. Let’s take a look at a chart that highlights that relationship.
On Monday night we held our December Monthly Conference Call, which Premium Members can access and rewatch here.
In this post, we’ll do our best to summarize it by highlighting five of the most important charts and/or themes we covered, along with commentary on each.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
The recent risk-off action came to a head last week, with commodities, stocks, and interest rates all violating key support levels.
We saw a brief flight to safety, as long-term treasury bonds $TLT broke out to their highest level since early January.
Yes, money was flowing into bonds, which is not a good look for stocks and commodities.
Bottom line, there was a lot of damage done to the primary uptrend in a very short time. Market participants needed to come out and repair the damage ASAP.
In the handful of trading sessions since the selling stopped, bulls have managed to claw back much of the losses from last week.
Buyers needed to quickly step up to the plate. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now, as stocks and other risk assets are rebounding aggressively off the recent lows.
As for bonds, the breakout in TLT failed, and the 10-year and 30-year both snapped back above critical levels.
We held our December Monthly Strategy Session last night. Premium Members can click here to review the recording and the accompanying slides.
Non-members can get a quick recap of the call simply by reading this post each month.
By focusing on long-term, monthly charts, the idea is to take a step back and put things into the context of their structural trends. This is a valuable exercise, as it forces us to put aside the day-to-day noise and simply examine markets from a “big picture” point of view.
With that as our backdrop, let’s dive right in and discuss three of the most important charts and/or themes from this month’s call.
From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Ian Culley @IanCulley
Treasury yield spreads are contracting.
Inflation has been the talk of the town in recent weeks. But, now that the Federal Reserve has finally joined the chorus, the market seems to be headed in a different direction. At least over the near term.
We’ve been closely monitoring long-duration rates for signs of further weakness. As we write, the 30-year is violating its summer lows, and the 10-year is testing a critical level of interest around 1.40%.
The bulls really need these levels to hold. If they don't, we’d better get used to the recent volatility--because it’s likely to get worse.
