Tom Lee, CFA
FS Insight Head of Research
The Federal Reserve FOMC will announce its September interest rate decision on 9/20 at 2:00pm ET. The August PPI, released Thursday, was the last key "hard data" point before that and futures markets have now priced in a mere 2% probability of a hike in September. The odds of a November hike have tanked recently to 33% from 48% a few weeks ago. As we have written multiple times over the past few months, we believe these odds eventually fall to 0% and that the July hike is the last hike of the cycle. To me, this is the most important development in the next few months and also the cornerstone for why we see equities rallying into year-end.
On Thursday, the ECB raised interest rates by +25bp, its 10th consecutive hike, to 4% and the ECB President suggested this could be the last hike. The reaction was immediate in markets as the future hikes were quickly repriced away and yields throughout the Euro area fell and triggered a large risk rally. Fed funds futures also repriced meaningfully, aided by the ECB and by the August PPI. And the odds of a September and November hike are at multi-week lows.
To me, the market reaction to ECB is a prelude to how markets will react when the Fed eventually reaches that same point. The point when the incoming data ("data dependent Fed") will convince the Fed to no longer see the need for further hikes. On that day, we expect multiple markets to reprice:
-- long-term yields likely fall
-- interest rates across the board adjust as markets start to believe "cuts" are possible
-- 30-yr mortgage rates fall by 150bp or more, as the excess spread disappears
In all, Thursday's ECB and the market's reaction is a harbinger of the 1982 moment ahead for the S&P 500. We have written previously about this, but the key takeaway is equities went to an all-time high 17 trading days after Volcker publicly considered "ending the inflation war" (NY Times 1982).
Thursday's August PPI was inline and core (ex-Energy and ex-Food) is still running a very very good 2% YoY range. So, inflationary pressures for producers have been very stable at below 2%. That is bolstering our view that CPI will stay muted as well. After all, producers/corporates pay worker salaries. And with elevated wage gains, PPI is still below 2%. Think about that.
BOTTOM LINE: Our base case is September softness is "front loaded" and rally into month-end.
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Mark L. Newton, CMT
FS Insight Head of Technical Strategy
* SPX, QQQ weakness makes US stocks vulnerable with Treasury yields pushing higher.
* Homebuilding & home construction stocks have begun short-term technical declines.
* Japanese equities appear relatively attractive after their breakout back to monthly highs.
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Sean Farrell
Head of Crypto Strategy
* While we've been in favor of maintaining risk exposure recently, the ongoing seasonal headwinds and decline in global liquidity make tactically scaling back on altcoins a prudent strategy for better positioning in future market conditions.
* The declining 30-day moving average of Entity-Adjusted SOPR below 1, coupled with a downward trend in Long-Term Holder SOPR since July, indicates diminishing market confidence, even among long-term Bitcoin investors.
* Four weeks of consistent outflows from the Bitcoin network and a lack of stablecoin growth over the past year, along with recent withdrawals from crypto ETPs, suggest caution is warranted as these factors indicate a current trend of reduced market confidence.
* Amid ongoing liquidity constraints and a robust U.S. dollar, the persistent decline in global central bank liquidity since April casts doubt on a quick market turnaround, even with potential relief from softer CPI figures.
* Core Strategy -- Despite initial hopes of overcoming the typically negative September seasonality in the crypto market, this year seems to be following the trend, leading us to recommend reduced exposure to altcoins and more cautious risk management in the coming weeks.
* We see multiple reasons to expect improved market performance going into the second half of September.
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L . Thomas Block
FS Insight Washington Policy Strategist
* House Republicans' internal disagreements force Speaker McCarthy to pull the Department of Defense appropriations bill, legislation that normally has broad bipartisan support.
* The effort to agree on a Continuing Resolution to avoid or postpone a shutdown will likely hinge on the issue of further U.S. assistance for Ukraine.
* Spotlighting the issue, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits New York next week to address the United Nations General Assembly before heading to Washington for meetings with President Biden and Congressional leaders.
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Wall Street Debrief - Weekly Roundup
Key Takeaways
* The S&P 500 slipped 0.16% to 4,450.32 this week, even as the Nasdaq skidded to 13,708.33, down 0.39%. Bitcoin was around 26,392.10, down roughly 0.53%. * ECB commentary gives hope for positive news from the FOMC next week.
"I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing."
~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
It was a choppy week marked by continued challenges for investors and an abundance of economic data, including CPI and PPI numbers. Headline CPI for August came in hot, above both Street expectations and Fundstrat's. Yet, as Head of Research Tom Lee noted, "there was a relatively positive follow through" to the news, reinforcing his case that September's weakness was front-loaded. "We expect the overall tone of markets to improve as we head into the end of the month," he said.
There might also be a fundamental reason for the market's mild reaction to the higher-than-expected core CPI. Much of the increase was driven by an unexpected surge in the airline-fares metric used in its calculation. Ken Xuan, our Head of Data Science, found that this was due to the methodology used to strip out seasonality factors in airfares (they peak every year in the summer season due to high demand) rather than any inflationary pressure. In our weekly research huddle, Xuan argued that this is something the Fed's decision makers will be aware of and consider going into next week -- that, and the fact that rate hikes don't significantly affect airfares.
This week's ECB news was also a potential positive preview for the upcoming FOMC meeting. After its 25 bp hike on Thursday, ECB President Christine Lagarde admitted the possibility that "interest rates have reached levels that, maintained for a sufficiently long duration, will make a substantial contribution to the timely return of inflation to the target [of 2%]." After Lagarde's comments, Fed futures markets repriced the odds of a hike in September and November lower. Our constructive base case for the rest of the year remained further supported by Thursday's release of August PPI numbers, with core PPI still running at what Lee described as a "very very good 2% YoY range." He added, "This is bolstering our view that CPI will stay muted as well."
Yet in the nearer term, Lee sees the markets as having reverted back to a "frustrating game of inches." That's similar to the view of Mark Newton, Head of Technical Strategy.
"It's been an interesting few weeks. Markets have been largely choppy and sideways," he said during our huddle. "The market has broken down from July -- we attempted to rally but we're sort of churning."
Despite what we've seen with the major benchmark indices, Newton pointed out that "a lot of the equal weighted indices have been a lot lower." And to the extent that the indices have held up in recent weeks, "a lot of that has been because of Technology," he said. "Breadth has actually been contracting over the last couple months, but as long as Tech can hold in there, I think any sort of decline in September and October is probably going to prove pretty muted."
It remains important to watch yields, Newton said. "To get truly positive on equities, we need to see the S&P get up over 4550 or see rates really start to break down and get under 4.05%. That would be very encouraging, but neither of those have happened yet."
In fact, he noted, "Yields are still in pretty good shape. And my thinking is we are going to eventually break for around [4.36%] sometime over the next month, and that's going to spook equities."
Diving a bit deeper into his work, Newton told us, "The cycles are still sort of negative. I believe we might see a bounce in October, but my thinking is November is going to be the real turning point. I think we're in for a choppy couple months."
Lee acknowledged that "we are in kind of a risk-off environment." Still, he pointed out that "the equity put-call ratio surged to closing high of 1.2 yesterday, the third such elevated reading in 6 months. This often signals equity lows in the next day or two, and it strengthens our view that equity markets likely drift higher into month end."
Our Chart of the Week illustrates this final point:
On Regional Banks
Since May 7, we have had a tactical overweight call on regional banks (KRE) . As a group, they rose 15% (compared to 9% for the S&P 500). But there has been consolidation in recent weeks, even though -- as Xuan pointed out, "recent FDIC reports show that [their] health hasn't gotten any worse." He admitted that "they haven't gotten any better either," however.
Whatever the reason for the recent consolidation, Newton's technical views suggest that "regional banks are under a substantial amount of pressure. If you have a time frame of the next couple months, I don't think regional bank stocks are going to work, in my view."
For these reasons, said Lee, "we feel it is prudent to become more selective and remove our tactical overweight recommendation."
