Financial Markets (Weekly)
Week-on-week, the main stock market indices continued rising, with the S&P500 gaining 1.8%, the NASDAQ 100 up 1.5%, and the RUSSEL 2000 up 0.9%.
Gold is up by 2.5%, and silver gained 5.9%.
The barrel of WTI is down 0.3% to 78$ per barrel.
Bitcoin rised 6% and is now around 37100$.
The relative
strength of the US dollar rised 0.2%.
Financial conditions remain stable, and loose.
M2 money supply has stabilized around 20.8T$.
US bond yields have stabilized, now sitting at 4.67% for the 2-year and 4.50% for the 10-year.
Comment Section
January Through May 2024
Interest Rates and Inflation
The FED has quickly raised interest rates from March 2022 until July 2023 (5.5%), and kept them unchanged since then. In the FOMC meeting in May 2024, policymakers acknowledged that while inflation has moderated over the past year, it remains elevated, and there has been a lack of further progress towards achieving the central bank's goal in recent months. Still, Chair Powell stated that he does not foresee a hike as likely and believes that the current policy is sufficiently restrictive to achieve the 2% inflation target. The FED has also declared its intention to reduce the speed of its quantitative tightening starting from June 1st. Additionally, Powell doesn't see stagflation on the horizon.
We must comment that raising interest rates doesn't restrict bank lending. What it does is to increase the cost of lending, compromising many business models! In its essence, raising rates is an inflationary measure because it raises the cost of lending, and thus the cost of everything. In order to achieve tightening, bank lending should be simultaneously restricted. Of course, if there are systemic problems or a big recession, and confidence within the financial system collapses, then the financial conditions will actually tighten and the availability of credit will be naturally restricted (hard landing scenario). But this is not a direct effect of the central banks increasing interest rates.
The way to control bank lending would be to increase the reserve requirements on the commercial banks (google that one yourself to learn more...).
Money Supply
M2 is the U.S. Federal Reserve's estimate of the total money supply, including all the cash people have on hand, plus all the money deposited in checking accounts, savings accounts, and other short-term saving vehicles such as certificates of deposit (CDs). Retirement account balances and time deposits above $100,000 are omitted from M2.
Check the M2 money supply and its correlation with the S&P500 index:
As the money supply stabilized in 2023, the S&P went back into a bull trend. But for how long? Are the economic conditions going to deteriorate, perhaps leading to more restrictive lending and to a recession, thus breaking the uptrend in the stock market? Maybe. Likely.
Financial Conditions
Another indicator to assess how tight financial conditions and bank lending are is the NFCI or the ANFCI. The ANFCI has shifted towards less restrictive conditions (below zero) from September 2023 until December 2023, and remained stable since then. The decrease in the NFCI (September 2023) coincided with the bottom on the stock markets!
Treasury Market
On the bond market side, the 10-year yield has been rising since January 2024, and now stabilized at 4.5%, likely due to the slower disinflation that has been observed. Nevertheless, the yield curve is still inverted (2Y relative to the 10Y) and the premonition of a recession is still in the cards.
US DOLLAR
The relative strength of the US dollar has also been on the rise. Take a look at Europe, which is in a much weaker position, and should start dropping interest rates within a month or two. Stagflation is a reality in Europe. The EUR-USD pair will probably continue weakening until the end of the year - bad news for investors looking to buy USD!!!
Stock Market
The AI-fueled tech stocks have been on fire in the past months! New all-time high on the NASDAQ 100! After a small correction, the index has been slowly creeping up again. However, looking at the low trading volumes on the QQQ, we would say that the uptrend is weak! Beware! Perhaps we make a new record high before a stronger correction starts.
Looking into the options market, it gives the impression that people are not very scared (put option premiums are low) and volatility has been low during the past week. Take a look at the VIX - very quiet. It looks like the calm before the storm.
Commodities
Looking at commodities, oil in general has been in correction territory during the past 4 weeks. WTI dropped from ~87$ to 78$. If it continues dropping, it should go to 75$/bbl, where there is some good support. If it goes up, the first target is 82$/bbl.
Gold had an amazing run from February through April 2024, where it momentarily reached a new high of ~2431$/oz. Where does it go from now? It depends on a balance of factors: some people consider gold as a hedge against inflation and money debasement, others seek protection against geopolitical risks - these factors should increase demand and push the price higher. However, if we enter into a recession or if there are deflation pressures, the demand will fall and push the price down.
Bitcoin, the new "commodity" with an underlying psychology resembling the dutch tulip mania, has been falling after hitting a new all-time high! Looking at one of the Bitcoin spot ETFs (BTCO), or even BITO, we see a falling volume, which shows there are not a lot of buyers, but the sellers still want to slowly sell. Is this a consolidation period? Or are the bulls loosing faith in the underlying? In the short term, there should be strong support around 60000$.
One thing is for sure: when liquidity is needed, this type of "crypto assets" will suffer a lot of downward pressure. You cannot buy food, fuel or shelter with crypto. You need cash! What about that???!!!
Final Words
Despite stock markets and speculative assets wandering around all-time highs, momentum has been lost. Thus, predicting the next market direction is very hard. It can remain bullish for a few weeks or even a couple months. But the underlying economy is not booming, so avoid over-optimistic scenarios and remain safe. Any developments can result in a big change in sentiment.
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