Markets

The Market Ear on the short squeeze.

Short squeeze on deck. The Market Ear. Nasty McElligott sums it up well. This is the scenario nobody (few) wanted: “…positioning and leverage exposure de-risked, Macro-Bearish and underweighted the “Mag8” U.S.

The Market Ear on diving US leading indicators.

It kind of crashed last night.

From the Market Ear: Is Nvidia’s great bull run over?

From The Market Ear: Complacency and calm, that is the way to describe the general sentiment in the markets right now and we are hearing more and more “volatility is dead” trades presented.

From the Market Ear: Broadening from hell Mag vs SPX equal weight needs little commenting… Disinflation ending… “….they have one more 25BP cut to get to neutral (Dec 18) and then, given the landscape, have every reason to stop.

The Market Ear with the latest on NVIDIA’s fade out and the resurgence of gold.

Firmly in the Friday afternoon category of research, analysts in China have found that ugly Chinese fund managers outperform good looking ones: In this paper, we study the relationship between stock fund managers’ facial attractiveness and fund outcomes.

Is there life yet in the cryptomarket?

Pick your pudding or poison and be careful what you wish for.

From the Market Ear: SPX unchanged since mid December… SPX and tightening cycles Some market poetry via DB’s great Kocic: “When the time came to reverse monetary policy in the face of high inflation, vol spiked triggering forced unwinds.

From the Market Ear: Looking deeper into the Jan effect JPM notes that: 1…the January Effect is most significant following years where the SPX had a double-digit gain or loss.

From the Market Ear: A strong consensus among Wall Street strategists that 1H of 2023 will be weak.

From the Market Ear: We haven’t had this many down days of 1% or more since 2008. In terms of both up & down volatility, December has actually not been that extreme. It only ranks tied for 10th in terms of the most 1%+ daily moves (since 1952).

Germany announced a New Year resolution = no more Russian oil!

One of the weirdest fallouts from the Ruzzian invasion of Ukraine this year has been the re-invigoration of crypto assets for a place for fleeing Russians escaping the draft or oligarchs wanting to move their stolen money offshore to escape EU and other international sanctions.

Morgan Stanley with the note: Tesla has shed $600bn of value in just 3 months.

By Albert Edwards at Societe Generale: And the big surprise in 2023 will be… … a return to deflation fears as headline CPI inflation drops close to, or likely below zero.

Morgan Stanley with the note: The fixation on inflation and the Fed continues, but markets appear to have moved past it and onto the real concern— earnings growth/recession.

From the Market Ear: The consensus call of the year Absolutely everyone agrees that consensus numbers for SPX earnings in 2023 are too high… “Consensus 2023 EPS growth is much more optimistic than our forecasts” (GS).