Liquidity Trader

Watch out! The US Treasury is now in the process of actively discussing buying back outstanding Treasury notes and bonds in an effort to bolster the collapsing bond market.

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As reported by Bloomberg:

The specific step taken by the Treasury was in its quarterly survey of primary dealers, released Friday in connection with the financing plan to be announced Nov. 2. The 25 dealers were asked for a detailed assessment of the merits and limitations of a buyback program for government securities. When the last financing plan was released in August, the department’s industry advisers on the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee recommended further analysis of the issue. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/momentum-builds-creation-treasury-bond-174307311.html

The Treasury is holding $650 billion in its cash account at the Fed. This “rainy day fund” was set aside for just such occasions. And let’s not kid ourselves. When big government agencies start talking about doing something, it’s as good as done. This is going to happen, and when it does, it will push bond prices higher. And that will also give stocks a lift. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

So the questions are when and how much. As to when, the big boys are publicly speculating that it will be early next year. But looking at the bond market crash, and knowing what we know about Primary Dealer positions, leverage, hedging, and the crashing bond market, it will certainly be xxxxxxx, perhaps xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Meanwhile, a couple of my hot takes on the Bloomberg piece. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Liquidity metrics for the US government debt market are approaching crisis levels after a year of steep losses for bonds caused by rising inflation and Federal Reserve interest-rate increases, and with the central bank simultaneously cutting some of its holdings, the situation may worsen. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed concern about it last week.

Duh. Like I haven’t been reporting this for the past 2 years. And they’re just getting around to recognizing it. Geeze. They’re the rocket scientists. I just have a sixth grade education (I went to Temple) and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Taken together with Yellen’s recent comments and extreme volatility in the UK bond market in recent weeks, the query suggests “that the November refunding will likely show more progress toward opening a buyback facility,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. rates strategists said in an Oct. 14 research note. Strategists at Bank of America Corp. predicted a rollout in May 2023.

Are you kidding me? May 2023? The markets will have ceased to exist by then. I predict (in my best Amazing Kreskin voice) xxxxxxx xxx, or maybe xxxx xxxxxxxx. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Under current circumstances, which include large federal deficits, a buyback program would have different purposes. They include adding liquidity to parts of the market most in need of it, and allowing Treasury bills to be sold in more consistent quantities, with proceeds used for buybacks of securities less in demand.

That’s just BS. The purpose is to stop and reverse the bond market crash, however temporarily. And we know that it will be temporary. The effect will end when they run out of cash. Which will be at whatever level of cash they feel they need to hold. We don’t know what that is. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Furthermore, once they get to that point, and the market has rallied because of their buying, they’ll start borrowing again to build up their cash account back toward their magic number of $650 billion. Once they start to do that, it would reverse the bullish effects of the buybacks. So prepare for a roll coaster ride over the xx-xx months following the beginning of the program. First bond prices will soar and yields will come down. Then prices will rollover, and finally crash again with yields rising in tandem. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

On the other hand, when the Treasury is finished buying, the Fed awaits to take the handoff. It has not only the possibility to return to QE, which is unlikely as a first step, it has the $2.2 trillion RRP slush fund that it could force back into the markets. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Who knows where the Fed will be in its QT program by the time the Treasury cash for the buyback program effectively runs out.? If the PCE and CPI numbers cool enough, they’ll probably stop QT. That looks likely to happen in the next xx months based on past lead time between changes in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet and inflation data. I’ve covered that in a previous report. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

But I want to reiterate that it is not productive to guess and try to front run these things. Despite conventional wisdom that says otherwise, markets respond to money, not talk. Trade the charts, and invest based on actual macro liquidity flows. In that respect, we are not at a xxxxxxx xxxxx yet. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Meanwhile, the government has piles of cash that could be used to light a bullish fire under securities prices. One is the aforementioned Treasury cash account, and the other is the Fed’s money market fund of money market funds, its unlimited Overnight Reverse Repo (RRP) program. When they use those they could ignite bull runs that will look like bull markets. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The Treasury and Fed money are demand side impacts. Then there’s always the issue of supply.  On the Treasury Supply front, keep in mind that the updated TBAC forecast for the current quarter and advance forecast for Q1 of 2023 will be released the week of November 2. They’ll give us a roadmap on what to expect for the subsequent 4½ months. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

In this report, I describe what’s likely in the months ahead, and suggest what you might do about it to defend yourself, or even take advantage. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

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The PPI reading on Wednesday includes data which now enables us to project when the Fed will stop raising the Fake Funds rate. I call it fake because it merely mimics the market, but isn’t actually the short term money market. Nevertheless it’s what the Fed and the Street want you to pay attention to, and it’s what most sheep do pay attention to. I say Bah!

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I was able to make this projection using a highly sophisticated algorithm developed by artificial intelligence, that being my brain drawing trendlines. It’s a technique that I have developed over my nearly 60 years of studying technical analysis, including 40 years of computer generated analysis. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Naturally this formula is far too simple, direct and obvious to be recognized by the high priests of Economism. But I have spent my life specializing in simple, direct, and obvious, which is all that I am capable of. And so, I will attempt to the best of my ability to illustrate it for you. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Using this secret algorithm I was able to determine that the Fed should announce a pause in rate increases next xxxxxxx. The market will briefly celebrate that, but that will be a big mistake. Because the Fed has never actually raised rates and rates aren’t the problem. They are a symptom. The market has driven rates up and the Fed has rubber stamped that, while never quite getting to where the market already was. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Now, for the illustration of how xxxxxxx was projected to be the point at which the Fed decides to pause. xxxxxx is when the trend of the Fed raising the Fake Funds rate intersects with a somewhat likely trend of the Fed’s favorite inflation measure, the Core PCE. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

CHART Non-subscribers, click here for access.

I use the just reported PPI for core final demand consumer goods (PPI-CFDCG) as a leading indicator of where the PCE is likely to be headed. The PPI-CFDCG dropped from an annual rate of +8.5% to +8% in September. This was the first decline in this series, which tends to lead CPI and the Fed’s favorite measure, core PCE, by anywhere from 3 to 12 months. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Note that this downturn follows the beginning of the Fed’s Quantitative Tightening or QT, by 6 months. That’s also normal. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

I then drew a trendline extrapolating this downturn into the future. The validity of doing that is supported by the fact that the upswing rose on nearly a straight line basis as it followed Fed pandemic era QE with a lag of about 6 months. As goes the money supply, so goes inflation, the one thing that Milton Friedman got right. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

By the way, “inflation,” doesn’t mean only consumer prices. Inflation is classically defined as a rise in the general level of prices. General means everything. That includes asset prices. Modern priests of Economism exclude asset prices from the definition of inflation, so that they can conveniently ignore the jillion percent increase in asset inflation we’ve seen over the past 13 years. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The only inflation they accepted as real was consumer price inflation. And that is utter nonsense. The refusal to recognize asset price inflation as an element of general inflation is at the very crux of the intractable problem we face today. Now we must pay the price for that willful ignorance. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

So now we see the impact of reducing money supply on both types of inflation. The problem the central banks have in their drive to reduce consumer price inflation is that asset prices react immediately and directly to tightening money supply. Consumer prices react with a lag. Asset prices, both stocks and bonds, have already collapsed. Consumer prices haven’t budged yet. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

And now we can see that this process will continue for months. It has the potential to cause unfathomable financial destruction. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

This is a huge problem for Wall Street. Because of the nature of the Fed’s inflation fight, the tightening of money supply versus rising money demand, is absolutely destroying asset prices in a process that will continue until the Fed stops tightening. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Again, the Fed Funds rate is irrelevant. To halt the downtrend in asset prices, the Fed must stop reducing the money supply and must start increasing it again by an amount sufficient to absorb almost all Treasury issuance.  Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The Fed pretends that it will only stop tightening when the Funds rate that it sets every 6 weeks is supposedly neutral. The Fed’s focus is on the PCE, and the PCE follows the curve of the PPI finished core consumer goods series by a few months, at a lower level. We can therefore project the trend of PCE by mimicking our favorite PPI trend as I showed in the chart above. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

In so doing, the falling core PCE would meet the rising Fed Funds rate in xxxxxx. The Fed will yell “Pause” in a crowded theater, and everybody will rush into the market. There will be a buying panic when that happens. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

But the buying panic will quickly die and the collapse of asset prices will resume unless the Fed also reverses from QT back to QE. Because the money market would otherwise continue to tighten, and short term rates would resume rising. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The markets get a break in xxxxxxx because the US Treasury xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxx then. That enables the Treasury to pay down T-bills in xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx x xxxxxxxx.  This will take the pressure off the money market for a few weeks in this coming xxxxxxxx. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

But supply pressure will explode in xxxxxxx because the xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx that month, while at the same time tax revenue xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxpoints of the year. The government’s cash need will soar, and so will its short term borrowing. At that point the markets are very likely to crash again. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

I say again, because the supply demand imbalance in the financial markets between now and xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx will be the worst it has been in this market. There will be immense pressure on asset prices for the next xxx months. The conditions for a crash are in place. That may force the Fed to act weeks before it gets Fed Funds to a so-called “neutral” rate, which looks like x.x%. A xx and a xx would get us there. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Surprise, surprise, surprise! This is essentially the consensus outlook. But so what! Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The destruction of stock and bond prices will be epic by the time this rate path is complete in January.  Might that be enough for the Fed’s resolve to crack before they’ve gotten to x.x%? Of course. Or might the Fed hold out until that x.x% rate is reached? Sure. We just don’t know. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

But remember, the Fed merely follows market interest rates, such as on the 13 week T-bill. That rate is merely a meter of just how tight the money market supply-demand balance is. And it is the imbalance of supply of securities over effective demand for them that causes falling prices, and their mirror, rising short term rates and bond yields. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The dynamic of prices trending lower WILL NOT CHANGE until the Fed reverses from QT, back to QE. And it must do so in enough size to once again absorb most Treasury issuance as it did during the 12 years of the bull markets. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Anything less than aggressive QE will not end the bear markets in stocks and bonds. It may alter their courses. It will generate rallies on the bear market slope of hope. But it will not end the bear markets. That would take a massive policy reversal by the Fed. Non-subscribers, click here for access.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it will do us absolutely no good to anticipate this so called Fed “pivot.” Markets turn on money flows. The bear market will end when the Fed supplies enough money to end it. Any speculation on when it will end, even if the guess is correct, will hold no advantage whatsoever. What’s the point of being early? Non-subscribers, click here for access.

Buy the markets when the monetary facts change. Not before. Non-subscribers, click here for access. 

Simple, direct, obvious.

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KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW, before the Street does, read Lee Adler’s Liquidity Trader risk free for 90 days! Act on real-time reality!