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Category: 1 – Liquidity Trader- Macro Liquidity

How Fed and Treasury policy, Primary Dealers, real time Federal tax collections, foreign central banks, US banking system, and other factors that affect market liquidity, interact to drive the financial markets. Focus on trend direction of US bonds and stocks. Resulting market strategy and tactical ideas. 4-5 in depth reports each month. Click here to subscribe. 

Real Time Tax Data Hot Like the Weather

Lee Adler

I wanted to take a short break from my short vacation to get this post out. I’ll take a few more days hiatus and get back to a regular schedule posting next Monday.

My headline for the revenue update last month was Seven More Weeks of Bond Market Nirvana. Well, that’s four weeks down and three to go. But it could be 3 months. Because tax revenue momentum is still, hot, hot, hot, like the weather where I am in central Europe. They’re calling for a high of 100 on Thursday, here in Bratislava, where I’m currently sweating out a short visit.

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The Debt Ceiling Looms Over the Fed Balance Sheet

Lee Adler

Note: Holiday Publication Schedule- I’ll be taking a brief break from publishing over the holiday week. I expect to resume publishing on July 6. Enjoy your holidays! 

The Fed’s balance sheet continues to grow. But the often repeated figure of $120 billion per month in Fed asset purchases is inaccurate and misleading. The Fed’s balance sheet grew by $198 billion for the 4 weeks ended June 23. The Fed’s total QE purchases for the month of June were $202 billion, including the weekly Treasury purchases, and all the forward MBS purchase contracts that settle in the third week of the month.

I wanted to get this report out before the holiday weekend, and my planned travels over the next two weeks. I’ve been planning the trip and at the same time packing up for my exit from Croatia after residing in this wonderful country for the past 18 months. I apologize for this report being perhaps more disjointed and incoherent than usual. Hopefully, the ideas I want to communicate are clear enough.

The Fed’s balance sheet continues to grow. But the often repeated figure of $120 billion per month in Fed asset purchases is inaccurate and misleading. The Fed’s balance sheet grew by $198 billion for the 4 weeks ended June 23. The Fed’s total QE purchases for the month of June were $202 billion, including the weekly Treasury purchases, and all the forward MBS purchase contracts that settle in the third week of the month.

Other Wall Street observers don’t count everything. They ignore the Fed’s MBS purchases bought to replace those MBS holdings that were prepaid because borrowers paid off their balance either by sale or refinance.

That money comes out sale or refinancing proceeds of individual mortgage borrowers. It has no impact on the financial markets. To replace those prepaid MBS, the Fed buys more MBS from Primary Dealers. The cash the Fed pays to replace those prepaid MBS goes right into the accounts of the dealers. It makes absolutely no difference why the Fed bought the paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s new paper or rollover paper. All $202 billion went into Primary Dealer accounts. Not $120 billion.

Another factor boosting the markets lately is the Treasury’s T-bill paydowns, which I’ve been reporting for you regularly. They totaled $133 billion in June, coming out of the Treasury account on the Fed’s balance, sheet, and mostly going into RRPs. You would think that the markets would have done even better with all this cash flooding in. But most of the paid off T-bills were held by money market funds. They’re not going to put that cash into longer term Treasuries or stocks. They had no place to put the cash, so they sent it off to the Fed for safekeeping, in the Fed’s RRP program, while they wait for T-bill issuance to pick up again.

That will happen, but the question is the timing. The debt ceiling is the wildcard.

This report examines what it means for the stock and bond markets, particularly when we can expect bullish to turn bearish. Click here to download the complete report.

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Now The Balance Begins To Shift

Lee Adler

The balance between QE and Treasury supply will begin to shift in July. The underlying bid it has provided for stocks and Treasuries will begin to fade.

This report tells why, and what to look for in the data and the markets.

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Bond Market Has Mitigated Some of the Risk, But Don’t Go To Sleep

Lee Adler

In Part 1 of this report, I covered dealer positions, financing, and hedging.  Dealers have mitigated a significant amount of risk by selling paper to the Fed, reducing their inventories, and increasing their hedges. They’ve also benefitted from the rally in prices over the past few weeks. That rally has largely been driven by the Treasury paying down T-bills.

This report looks at several large bank measures, including net unrealized profits or losses of large banks on trading positions, and week to week changes in total bank capital. Those changes indicate the profits of the entire banking system, or in this case, the 25 largest US banks.

The data suggests that the big banks who are largely the parent firms of the primary dealers, haven’t been as profitable as their earnings report suggest, or that at least they have not increased their capital at all.

They aren’t required to mark their investment portfolios of long term bonds to market. If they need to liquidate any of that, then those losses will be recognized. There’s some chance that they will need to liquidate later in the year, as Treasury supply increases, putting downward pressure on bond prices.

Meanwhile, Treasury paydowns will continue to support a bid for both bonds and stocks, for as long as they continue. Rip roaring tax collections have slowed the drawdown in the Treasury balance, so the paydowns will probably continue at their current pace, if not more, until xxxx (see subscriber report)

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Despite the weakness in stocks and bonds in the wake of today’s FOMC announcement, these conditions argue for the churning slight uptrends in stock and bond prices to continue until xxxx. Conditons will then turn more bearish. I tell you when that will be, and what my strategy is.

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Have Primary Dealers Built a Muddle Through Scenario?

Lee Adler

For several months, I’ve been positing the idea that when the Treasury gets its cash level down to the legally required limit, the stock and bond markets would be in big trouble. The risk of a crash would be as great as it ever is. I posted an expected time window (in subscriber version)  where it would be a good time to get out of both the stock and bond markets.

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That conclusion came from the idea that:

• Primary Dealers were overleveraged in their fixed income portfolios.

• That the market has been artificially buoyed by the Treasury paying down T-bills. It has now injected $620 billion into the accounts of dealers and investors since February 23.

• That when the Treasury reaches the required cash level of XXX billion (reported in subscriber report), the paydowns will stop.

• That record levels of deficit spending would then no longer be partly funded out of the Treasury’s cash on hand. That would require a dramatic increase in debt issuance.

At first I estimated that that would happen in xxxx (see subscriber version), but lately I’ve pushed that estimate back to xxxx (subscriber version). At that point, the increase in Treasury debt supply would supposedly begin to push bond prices down both in Treasuries, MBS, and corporates.

Highly leveraged dealers would then face forced selling as they were required to meet collateral calls on the inventories they had financed with repurchase agreements (repos). Repos are just a fancy kind of short term borrowing to finance securities purchases, similar to when we use margin debt to buy stocks.

All of that still looks likely to happen. But instead of a crash, I can now see the possible outline of more of a “muddle-through” scenario. I still expect trouble to arrive around xxxxx (in subscriber version), with maybe a few weeks of Wile E. Coyote market action.

But maybe that trouble won’t be quite as bad as I first thought.

There are two reasons for that. Discussion in subscriber version.

The end of Treasury paydowns will, no doubt, cause yields to rise over a short period of time. And that could have been catastrophic.

But lo and behold, we see Primary Dealer data that suggests it won’t be as bad as I had feared. I show that data in a couple of tables and charts in this report.

We won’t know for sure until we get there. I’m still looking at xxxx (in subscriber report) as a likely top in the markets. We’ll just have to see how conditions evolve over the next (time period in report), and take action accordingly. For now, while the Treasury continues to pay down outstanding T-bills, we can follow this strategy (discussed in report).

Subscribers, click here to download the report.`

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FREE REPORT – Proof of How QE Works – Fed to Primary Dealers, to Markets, To Money

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Real Time Tax Data Shows Nirvana for Stocks and Bonds, But It’s Temporary

Lee Adler

Withholding tax revenues rose sharply again in May (chart in subscriber version). Non withheld taxes also rose sharply. The economy is growing faster than the Fed would have you believe, and that the Wall Street mob seems to believe.

Revenue momentum is hot, hot, hot. But spending is hotter (table in subscriber version). The impact of economic stimulus will lead to economic overheating and embedded inflation.

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Meanwhile, the Treasury’s bloated cash account is coming down slowly. To get to the level legally mandated by the budget law by the deadline (reported in subscriber version), the Treasury will need to continue T-bill paydowns. This will continue to provide a bid for both stock and bond prices.

But that will all reverse, and we know when. The Treasury’s excess cash will be gone. Enormous monthly deficits will then need to be fully funded by borrowing. Hundreds of billions in new Treasury debt will start hitting the market for months to come. The pressure on the markets will multiply instantly.

Both bond and stock prices would begin to decline rapidly. The Fed would be forced to act.

The media is reporting the Fed is thinking about getting ready to talk about tapering bond purchases. Forget about it. It’s ridiculous. When the Treasury gets down to its required cash level, not only will the taper talk masturbation end, but Fed yield control, with unlimited QE, would be in play.

A slow Fed response would come too late to prevent real, and possibly lasting, damage to market prices of stocks and bonds (Treasury yield and price charts in subscriber version).

Meanwhile the US Treasury has pumped $600 billion into the accounts of holders of expiring T-bills since late February. Those holders are mostly money market funds, but include dealers and other big institutions. Dealers and big investors deploy that cash to buy longer term Treasuries and, in some cases, stocks. More paydowns are coming. That’s short term bullish for both bonds and stocks.

But beware! The end is nigh! And we know when. This report shows you how we reach this conclusion, and when you need to take action to either take advantage or get out of the way. With 9 beautiful charts and tables to show you exactly how and why we reach this conclusion!

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Available at this link for legacy Treasury subscribers.

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Have a question about Liquidity Trader? Click the chat link at the bottom right of the page, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions. I am often available to chat with you directly between the hours of 5 AM ET and 4 PM ET weekdays. At other times I’ll respond by email.

KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW, before the Street does, read Lee Adler’s Liquidity Trader risk free for 90 days!

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Goldilocks Correlation is Still Bullish, Still Bullish After All These Years

Lee Adler

Stock prices are currently right in the middle of the channel surrounding the liquidity line in the Compositite Liquidity Chart (viewable in subscriber version). By this measure the market isn’t overbought, as so many bearish pundits are bellowing. Nor is it oversold. It’s just tracking the growth of systemic liquidity. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. Goldilocks.

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Here’s Why the Treasury Paydowns Aren’t As Bullish As Expected

Lee Adler

The balance between QE and Treasury supply will remain bullish through through xxxx (subscribers only). This should provide a boost for stocks. It should keep the Treasury selloff at bay for another month or two.

However, this is not as bullish as I first thought. It appears that around 75% of the T-bill paydowns are going to money market funds and other institutions who must hold short term instruments instead of lengthening maturities or buying stocks. So most of the cash from the paydowns is ending up in Fed RRPs.

Only about ¼ of the money has been used to buy stocks and bonds. So the effect has been muted. There’s no massive blowoff. Instead conditions lend themselves to a churning topping action lasting through xxxx (subscribers).

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Banking System Fragile As Fuse For Implosion Nears Ignition

Lee Adler

Every time there’s a critical problem in the banking system due to banker malfeasance, the Fed steps in to paper it over and reward the criminals.

That’s why we focus on the Fed more than anything else. Regular review of the banking indicators was useful once upon a time. The Fed has rendered them irrelevant. But I promised to keep an eye on them, and it has been 5 months since we last looked. That’s enough time that, if anything material has changed, we need to know about it. So herein is a review, our first since last December.

In this report, I highlight the charts. Because there are so many, I’ve attempted to minimize the verbiage. I talk too much. The charts really speak for themselves.

The bottom line is that the system remains extremely vulnerable to a decline in Treasury prices that is  coming in xxx (subscribers only). Likewise, the return of optimism in commercial real estate is problematic. The banks are taking no precautions. There’s no sign of recognition of the looming losses.

It means that the entire banking system could be destabilized in xxxxx (subscribers only). The Fed will have to act, massively. History shows that the Fed won’t act in time to prevent a breach of the system. History also shows that the Fed has the power to ultimately make its actions give the appearance of stabilization, leading to the return of animal spirits.

But I don’t know if it will work yet again, and we can at least expect a significant break first. So here’s what I would do (subscribers only).

Now here’s a review of the banking indicator charts.

Subscribers, click here to download the complete report.

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FREE REPORT – Proof of How QE Works – Fed to Primary Dealers, to Markets, To Money

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Treasury Adds to Fed QE to Create Bullish Cash Tsunami

Lee Adler

The balance between QE and Treasury supply has gotten even more bullish and will remain so until xxxx (subscribers only). This should provide a boost for stocks. It should keep the Treasury selloff at bay until xxxx (subscribers only).

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I have previously made the case for the Treasury to run out of money in xxxx (subscribers). If that estimate is correct, the outlook will turn negative in xxxx (subscribers). But for now, bullish liquidity forces remain in place, outside of the usual month end supply pressure.

As delayed tax receipts come in, in May, the Treasury will have even more cash for paydowns. The rest of May into mid June could be very bullish as a result. A selling opportunity for both stocks and bonds will arise as the Treasury approaches the point where its cash hoard is used up.

Click here to download the complete report.

Get the complete report, including charts, tables, analysis, and outlook. and access to all past and future reports, risk free for 90 days!

FREE REPORT – Proof of How QE Works – Fed to Primary Dealers, to Markets, To Money

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