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| Just reflecting on the market reaction to the Fed press conference. 50bp hike was telegraphed and expected. I thought the hawkish tone was also expected, but the stock market took it badly. However, for the bond market it seemed like a non-event. I was hoping for a hit to the bond market too to enable cheaper purchases of bonds, but if anything, bond prices rose and disregarded the Fed.
I think the bond market is right, and a recession is coming and the Fed has had to correct its mistake of keeping rates too low for too long by doing the opposite and raising rates higher and longer to tip the economy into recession. Perhaps initially they were naive to think they could get a soft landing initially, but reading between the lines, it seems that they are wiling to crash the economy to tame inflation.
Maybe the Fed will raise again in Feb, but perhaps that will be the last one because I think the Fed overestimates both the severity of the recession and the amount of control they have - once the recession starts, they will likely pause/cut, but it will be out of their hands and the recession will run its course.
I thought there might have been a way to trade the pivot and that that there would be a huge relief/pivot rally. And perhaps there will be, but the Fed is so behind the curve, this has to be balanced out against the recession impact. | |
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I completely took my eyes of the market for 3 weeks. Felt extremely refreshing! Now just coming back, and essentially back at the same thing. Agree with you on a lot, seems the India/China scuffle was a big nothing burger, for now... Taiwan let's see - the Chinese are starting to really kick ass in their own chip production and have started to go down to 7 nanometers (in a very Chinese way, copying and using different tools than what the west is using to get there), they might not need Taiwan after all - although starving them off vital chips is probably not the wisest geopolitical move at the moment as it could force China's hand to go to Taiwan.
For oil - I am just holding my future and rolling and closing my eyes. Seems the market is ready for the same as last year. Just all eyes on CPI and what the Fed will do - good article on zerohedge just now about language of the Fed this week ahead of Powell speech. I will have my eyes and trades ready on CPI thursday to try and make a quick buck (or lose a quick buck). One thing is clear, focus on short term bonds is still the name of the game here - but I bought some EDF perpetual in dollar recently that looked attractive, and I am going to add more to my Hungarian debt position. There are some cool 2035+ bonds here to start buying, I am going to start drawing a list and wait for a nice spike in the yield curve to add there. Equity just sucks for the time being - I went big long China at the end of last year, I've made something like 3/4% on re-opening, I was expecting much more and timed the trade ahead of the re-opening right - but seems the population is so scared they won't restart consuming and are staying indoors due to the trauma inflicted on them over the past few years...
2023 will hopefully be a nice quiet downmarket with bonds performing. Let's see also what happens to king dollar...