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Two One-Way Lanes on the Road to Ruin
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The reason we are facing a renewed economic downturn is that our policy makers never addressed the essential economic problem, the need for debt restructuring. There are two one-way lanes on the road to ruin, and these are unfortunately the only ones on the present policy map: 1) Policies aimed at distorting the financial markets by suffocating the yield on lower-risk investments, in an attempt to drive investors to accept risks that they would otherwise shun; 2) Policies aimed at defending bondholders and lenders who made bad loans, which they now seek to have bailed out at public expense.
Recession Warning, and the Proper Policy Response
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
As of Friday the S&P 500 was below its level of November 2010, when the Fed initiated its second round of quantitative easing. Aside from a brief bump in demand that kicked the recession can down the road a bit, the U.S. economy is not much better off. Meanwhile, countless individuals in developing countries have been injured by predictable commodity hoarding and global price instability. The Fed has leveraged its balance sheet by over 55-to-1. As policy makers look to address the abrupt deterioration in U.S. , we should ask ourselves: Do we really long for more of the Fed's recklessness?
More Than Meets the Eye
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Our concerns remain focused on significant "core" issues facing the markets and the economy, including overvaluation, compressed risk premiums, over-reliance of investors on the maintenance of record profit margins, unresolved mortgage strains, and sovereign debt problems. Valuations remain rich on the basis of normalized earnings, market internals have deteriorated considerably, and recession risks are increasing. There are certainly various policy developments that are likely to provoke investor enthusiasm from time to time. What is important to us is the weight of the evidence.
Simple Arithmetic
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
For most countries in Europe, government revenues typically run between near 40% of GDP, while government spending presently runs several percent ahead of that. In Greece, government debt now represents about 150% of GDP at interest rates between about 10% for very short and very long-maturity debt, to about 25% annually on 2-year debt. The overall average yield on Greek debt is close to 15%. The problem is that 15% interest on 150% of GDP works out to 22.5% of GDP in interest costs if the debt actually has to be rolled-over without restructuring it.
Dabbling with Support
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The market continues to have the look of a broad topping process, in which it's very common to see it's confined to a trading range of about 5-7% for 6-8 months. Near-term, tests of widely-recognized "support" are often met by a bout of short-covering, similar to what we observed two weeks ago. Given the moderate improvement in market internals produced by that rally, a retest of those lows that isn't overly hostile to market internals might provide some latitude for market exposure. Suffice it to say that constructive opportunities are likely to be limited, but not impossible to achieve.
A Wile E. Coyote Market
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Fridays employment report, showing an increase of 18,000 in non-farm payrolls and a jump in the unemployment rate to 9.2% was widely viewed as a "shocker" Frankly, I dont understand the surprise. Between February and April, weekly new claims for unemployment (4 week average) dipped below 400,000, which was associated with a few months of nice growth in non-farm payroll employment. Since then, weekly unemployment claims have moved higher, and have been running at an average near 425,000 new claims weekly. Historically, thats a level that's correlated to zero growth in non-farm payrolls.
Chutes and Ladders
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
We are all playing a game of Chutes and Ladders where it is not at all clear which game-board is applicable. To believe strongly in a certain investment outcome is to imagine that there is only one correct model of the world, and that the correct model is in hand. Investors appear very eager to apply post-war norms to the economy, and to apply the elevated valuation norms of the past two decades to the stock market. I doubt that these models represent the correct view of the world, but our approach is to allow for these possibilities and dozens of alternate ones.
Brief Update
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Despite the brief reprieve of market concerns Thursday on tentative agreement over Greek aid, we saw little change in the value of Greek debt. While there is a great deal of short-term attention on day-to-day developments on this front, credit spreads effectively indicate expectations of certain default within a roughly 2-year window, but very small risk of near-term default. Until we observe a firming in market internals and in leading economic measures, we expect that enthusiasm about Greece may provoke short-lived market spikes and short-squeezes, but little of durable effect.
Greek Yields: 'Certain Default, But Not Yet'
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Either long- and intermediate-term Greek debt is a tremendous bargain here, or it is going to default. Unfortunately, the fiscal situation would almost inescapably require other European countries subsidize Greece for decades to come in order to avoid a debt restructuring. Taken together, the evidence surrounding Greece screams "Certain default, but not yet."
Internal Injuries
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
We're seeing a measurable and potentially dangerous breakdown of market internals in an environment where risk premiums remain very thin. Short-term conditions are fairly compressed, which invites a rebound, but the expectations for that have to be tempered by the still-complacent sentiment of investors. Indeed, about the only areas where we see real concern is in measures where such concern is actually predictive (rather than being a contrary indicator). These include widening interest-rate spreads in peripheral European debt, and surging credit-default swap spreads for major U.S. banks.
Handicapping QE3
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
As disappointing economic news mounted last week, the attention of market participants immediately turned to policy responses - will the Fed embark on QE3? In my view, there are three central questions relevant to this issue. The first is simply this: Has QE2 been successful in a way that the economy should desire more of it? The second: How much scope for intervention does the Fed have left? The third: Is Bernanke so invested in this attempt at balance-sheet expansion that he will push forward an extension of the policy despite its economic ineffectiveness and speculative distortions?
Small Windows in an Unfavorable Long-Term Picture
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Last week, bullishness pulled back to 43% according to Investors Intelligence, but advisory bearishness also fell to 19.4%, with the remainder boosting the "correction" camp to 37.6%. That's not much of an easing in overall sentiment, but it was enough to give us a bit of latitude to allow us to vary our exposure between a tight hedge and a 10-15% exposure to market fluctuations. That's been of help, but mainly to offset a shallow correction in a few defensive sectors like health care. Our latitude to accept risk will vary in proportion to the average market return/risk profile.
Scarcity, Usefulness, and Getting an Edge
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
While my sense is that many investors and institutions are holding a greater market exposure than is appropriate given present return/risk prospects, I should mention that there isn't a great deal of evidence that bears and short-sellers have a particular "edge" here either. Our own investment stance is defensive but also fairly neutral, and with a preference toward moderate, if transitory, positive exposure. At the point we see a greater deterioration of market internals the market environment will probably turn hostile in a more sustained way.
Hanging Around, Hoping to Get Lucky
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Despite the unique challenges of the most recent market cycle, I do expect that we will observe frequent opportunities to accept market risk in the coming years, even in an environment where valuations gradually work lower from a secular perspective. Even here, if we can clear some element of the hostile overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yields syndrome that has characterized the market, we will be open to moderate, if transitory exposure to market fluctuations, provided that we maintain a line of index put option protection against any abrupt deterioration.
The Menu
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
One of the ways investors can think about prospective return and risk is from the standpoint of the Capital Market Line, which lays out a menu of investment possibilities at various levels of return and risk. In theory, investors like to believe that this menu is always a nice, positively sloped line, where greater risk is associated with greater prospective return. And somehow, regardless of where market valuations are, investors often seem to believe that 10% is 'about right' for the prospective return on stocks. As it happens, valuations exert an enormous effect on the prospective returns
Extreme Conditions and Typical Outcomes
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
As of Friday, the S&P 500 has advanced to a point where it is either within 0.1% or fully through its top Bollinger band on virtually every horizon. We can define an "overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yields syndrome" a number of ways. The more general the criteria, the better you capture historical instances that preceded abrupt market weakness, but the more you also encounter "false positives." Still, as long as the criteria capture the syndrome, we find that the average risk profile for subsequent market performance is negative, regardless of the subset of history you inspect.
Monetary Policy in 3-D
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
One of the most important factors likely to influence the financial markets over the coming year is the extreme stance of U.S. monetary policy and the instability that could result from either normalizing that stance, or failing to normalize it. It is not evident that quantitative easing, even at its present extremes, has altered real GDP by more than a fraction of 1%. Moreover, it's well established that the "wealth effect" from stock market changes is on the order of 0.03-0.05% in GDP for every 1% change in stock market value, and the impact tends to be transitory at that.
Approaching the Eraser
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Market conditions in stocks continue to be characterized by a hostile syndrome of overvaluation, overbought conditions, overbullish sentiment, and rising interest rates, which has historically been associated with a poor return/risk profile, on average, across a wide variety of subsets of historical data. Though I question the ability of the economy to "pass the baton" to the private sector as government stimulus effects run off in the coming 8-10 weeks, I should emphasize up front that our present defensive position is not driven by those economic concerns.
Charles Plosser and the 50% Contraction in the Fed's Balance Sheet
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Last week, an unusual event happened in the money markets that should not escape the attention of investors. The yield on 3-month Treasury bills plunged to less than 5 basis points. As I noted this past January in Sixteen Cents: Pushing the Unstable Limits of Monetary Policy, a collapse in short-term yields to nearly zero is a predictable outcome of QE2, based on the very robust historical relationship between short-term interest rates and the amount of cash and bank reserves (monetary base) that people are willing to hold per dollar of nominal GDP.
Will the Real Phillips Curve Please Stand Up?
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Much of the intellectual basis for the Federal Reserve's dual mandate "to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates" is based on the Phillips Curve. The curve, named after economist A.W. Phillips, is understood as a "tradeoff" between inflation and unemployment. The idea is so engrained in the minds of economists that it is taken as fact. High unemployment, is associated with low inflation risk, and in that environment, policy makers can pursue measures targeted at increasing employment, without consequences for inflation.
QE2 - Apres Moi, le Deluge
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
As rules of thumb go, "the trend is your friend" historically performs better than "don't fight the Fed". While the market tends to perform better when both are true, the exception is the overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yields syndrome, which is uniformly negative regardless of the random subset of historical data one examines. There is certainly a tendency for "unpleasant skew" featuring a persistent series of marginal new highs for some period of time, but on average, those are ultimately overwhelmed by steep and abrupt losses that finally clear this syndrome.
This Is, Because That Is
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The market action of the past two weeks contrasts with the generally uncorrected advance of recent months. I suppose it's possible for investors to characterize the recent decline as a "panic" if they press their noses directly against their monitors, but in that case, they really do have a short memory. The pullback has been negligible relative to the action of the past several months, and is indiscernible in the big picture. As of Friday, the market remained in an over valued, bullish, rising-yields syndrome that has typically been cleared much more sharply than anything we saw last week.
Anatomy of a Bubble
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Over the past decade, investors have seen near-parabolic advances in a variety of assets, followed by crashes. These have included dot-com stocks (which peaked and crashed well before the general market peak in 2000), technology stocks, housing, commodities, and stocks in a variety of emerging markets. These experiences have made investors somewhat more attuned to the destructive potential for speculative bubbles in various assets, but has also created something of a "casino economy" where a great deal of resources are directed in hopes of participating in these bubbles.
Quantitative Easing and the Iron Law of Equilibrium
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
If you think about equilibrium, it helps to clear up all sorts of fallacies that people hold about the financial markets. For example, the currency and money market securities that are held by investors will - in aggregate - never "find a home" in any other form or market. If one takes their cash and tries to buy stock, they get the stock and the seller gets the cash. Nothing disappears, and nothing is created. The money-market securities held by investors is not a reflection of "liquidity looking for a home," but is a measure of how borrowers are on short-term sources of credit.
Cash or Credit - Implications for the Financial Markets
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
From the standpoint of prospective investment returns, it is important to recognize that the main effect of quantitative easing has been to suppress the expected return on virtually all classes of investment to unusually weak levels. It's widely believed that somehow, QE2 has created all sorts of liquidity that is "sloshing" around the economy and "trying to find a home" in stocks, commodities, and other investments. But this is not how equilibrium works.
December 2010 Semi-Annual Report
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
For the third time in a decade, the Federal Reserve has embarked on a policy that addresses structural economic problems by provoking speculation in asset prices. The first two attempts were ultimately followed by stock market declines greater than 50% each. As we enter 2011, the stock market remains in what we view as an already strenuously overvalued advance, which has driven our estimates for S&P 500 Index total returns to less than 3.2% annually over the coming decade. My expectation is that this attempt to create ?illusory prosperity? will end no better than it has in the past.
Rich Valuations and Poor Market Returns
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
At present, my view on monetary policy is that the inflation outlook following the completion of QE2 will be quite unstable, because small changes in interest rates are likely to induce very large changes in the willingness of individuals to hold base money. Any external upward pressure on interest rates beyond a fraction of a percent will have to be rapidly offset by a large reduction in the outstanding monetary base in order to avoid a deterioration in the value of money relative to goods and services (i.e. inflation).
Misquoting Keynes
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The famous quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes - "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" - is a favorite of speculators here. Actually, I very much agree with this observation, provided that it is correctly understood. Solvency is always a function of debt, and it's extremely important for investors to recognize that when you take investment positions by borrowing on margin, you'd better use stop-losses, because the debt obligation stays intact even if the investment values decline.
Mapping the Molecular Pathway of Autism
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
In recent years, much of the Hussman foundation's research has been centered on autism. Meanwhile, the finance research has been centered on "ensemble methods" to integrate the information from multiple data sets, and to better measure both risk and uncertainty*. As it happens, statistical methods can be adapted to approach difficult problems in both genetics and finance. So as we developed various approaches to integrate multiple data sets in our finance research, it was natural to extend those methods to deal with genetics data.
Sixteen Cents: Pushing the Unstable Limits of Monetary Policy
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Completing the Fed's planned purchases under QE2 will require a decline in 3-month T-bill yields to just 0.05% in order to avoid inflationary pressure. Otherwise, liquidity preference will not expand enough to absorb the addition to base money, even if we assume GDP growth at 4%. Given the extreme stance of monetary policy, the avoidance of inflationary pressures increasingly relies on a very persistent willingness by the public to hold the outstanding quantity of base money in the financial system. Small errors will have surprisingly large consequences. This is not a stable equilibrium.
Borrowing Returns from the Future
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
It will come as no surprise that we continue to anticipate poor 10-year total returns for the S&P 500 over the coming decade. Our present estimate is about 3.3% annually, which includes dividends. That is about 1% less than the 10-year total return that we estimated just a few months ago, but this makes senses.
"Illusory Prosperity" - Ludwig von Mises on Monetary Policy
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Perhaps more than any other economist, Ludwig von Mises got the theory of money and credit right, because he made distinctions between various forms of money and credit that are often conflated by other theorists. The amount of real physical investment in the economy is, and must be, precisely equal to the amount of output not allocated to consumption but instead to savings. Unlike many other economists, Von Mises not only recognized this identity, but carried it through to what it implied for monetary policy.
A Fed-Induced Speculative Blowoff
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Why are Treasury yields rising despite hundreds of billions of Treasury purchases by the Federal Reserve? There are two possibilities in the current debate. One is that the Fed's policy of purchasing Treasuries has scared the willies out of the bond market on fears of higher inflation, and that the policy is a failure. The other is that the policy has been such a success at boosting the prospects for economic growth that interest rates are rising on anticipation of a better economy. From our standpoint, neither of these explanations hold much water.
Things I Believe
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
1) Investors dangerously underestimate the risk of an abrupt and possibly severe equity market plunge. 2) Agreement among "experts" is not your friend. 3) Downside risk tends to be elevated precisely when risk premiums and volatility indices reflect the most complacency. 4) We did not avoid a second Great Depression because we bailed out financial institutions...
Warning - An Updated Who's Who of Awful Times to Invest
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
In recent weeks, the U.S. stock market has been characterized by an overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yields syndrome that has historically been hostile to stocks. Last week, the situation became much more pointed. Past instances have been associated with such uniformly negative outcomes that the current situation has to be accompanied by the word "warning."
A Most Important Rule
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
A decline in bond prices has modestly improved expected returns in bonds, but not yet sufficiently to warrant an extension of our durations. Precious metals have become more overbought, and while we are sympathetic to the long-term thesis for gold, intermediate term risks are now elevated. Finally, we have observed a further deterioration in market conditions for stocks.
House on Ice
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
If our policy makers had made proper decisions over the past two years to clean up banks, restructure debt, and allow irresponsible lenders to take losses on bad loans, we would be quickly on the course to a sustained recovery. Unfortunately, however, we have built our house on a ledge of ice.
Outside the Oval / The Case Against the Fed
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Ever since the Bear Stearns bailout, I've been insistent that the Federal Reserve is increasingly operating outside of its statutory boundaries. Ensuring the legality of Fed actions is not a Democratic issue, a Republican issue or a Tea Party issue. Rather, it is about whether we want America to function as a representative democracy.
The Cliff
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
We estimate that the S&P 500 is priced to achieve sub-5% returns, albeit with significant risk, for every horizon out to a decade. Treasury securities are clearly priced to deliver similarly low returns. It's possible that internals will improve sufficiently to shift the expected return/risk profiles we observe in stocks, bonds and precious metals. For now, we are tightly defensive.
Bubble, Crash, Bubble, Crash, Bubble...
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Given that interest rates are already quite depressed, Bernanke seems to be grasping at straws in justifying QE2 on the basis further slight reductions in yields. By irresponsibly promoting reckless speculation and illusory "wealth effects," the Fed has become the disease. The economic impact of QE2 is likely to be weak or even counterproductive. Even though the S&P 500 is substantially below its 2007 peak, it is also strenuously overvalued once again.
Lessons From a Lost Decade
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
If the past decade has a lesson for investors, that lesson should have two components. The first is that valuations matter. Although valuations often have little impact on short-term returns over periods of less than a few years, they are undoubtedly the single best predictor of long-term market returns. Moreover, high valuations are ultimately followed by far deeper periodic losses than emerge from low valuations. Put simply, greater risk does not imply greater reward if the risks that investors take are overvalued and inefficient ones.
Bernanke Leaps into a Liquidity Trap
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The belief that an increase in the money supply will result in an increase in GDP relies on the assumption that velocity will not decline in proportion to the increase in monetary base. Unfortunately for the proponents of 'quantitative easing,' this assumption fails spectacularly in the data - both in the U.S. and internationally - particularly at zero interest rates. Once short-term interest rates drop to zero, further expansions in base money simply induce a proportional collapse in velocity.
The Recklessness of Quantitative Easing
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
With continuing weakness in the U.S. job market, Ben Bernanke confirmed last week what investors have been pricing into the markets for months - the Federal Reserve will launch a new program of quantitative easing, probably as early as November. Further attempts at QE are likely to have little effect in provoking increased economic activity or employment. This is not because QE would fail to affect interest rates and reserves. Rather, this policy will be ineffective because it will relax constraints that are not binding in the first place.
No Margin of Safety, No Room for Error
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Over the past 10 years, the S&P 500 has achieved a total return, including dividends, averaging -0.03 percent annually. Over the past 13 years, the total return for the S&P 500 has averaged just 3.23 percent. These poor returns were entirely predictable during the late 1990s based on the historical relationship between valuations and subsequent returns. What's more, current valuations suggest similarly poor returns over the next five to seven years.
Economic Measures Continue to Slow
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The latest evidence from a variety of economic measures continues to suggest deterioration in U.S. economic activity. Data coming in from the Institute for Supply Management and other surveys is a bit less negative than anticipated, but continues to deteriorate in a manner that is consistent with stagnation. Still, with the S&P 500 at a Shiller P/E of more than 21, and Hussman's own measures indicating an estimated 10-year total return for the S&P 500 in the low 5 percent area, it is clear that investors have priced in a much more robust recovery than is likely to occur.
Not Yet Out of the Woods
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
While we know the Economic Cycle Research Institute data has deteriorated further since June, we won't have GDP figures for a while yet. Given the data in hand, it's clear that past growth downturns of the same extent have often gone on to become recessions. The bulk of the growth that we did observe coming off of the June 2009 economic low was driven by a burst of stimulus spending coupled with a variety of programs to pull economic activity forward. These synthetic factors are now trailing off, with little intrinsic economic activity to propel a recovery.
Sequential Signals
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The U.S. economy is still in a normal 'lag window' between deterioration in leading measures of economic activity and (probable) deterioration in coincident measures. Though the lags are sometimes variable, as we saw in 1974 and 2008, normal lags would suggest an abrupt softening in the September ISM report (due in the beginning of October), with new claims for unemployment climbing beginning somewhere around mid-October. If we look at the drivers of economic growth outside of the now fading impact of government stimulus spending, we continue to observe little intrinsic activity.
Impulse Response
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
The next three months represent the most serious window for the U.S. economy and labor market. The typical 23-26 week lag between leading indicator deterioration and new unemployment claims deterioration suggests that we may observe upward pressure on new claims for unemployment beginning about mid-October. However, these lags can be somewhat variable, and the leading indicators tend to have a better correlation with price fluctuations in the securities market. By the time the coincident economic evidence is clear, securities markets have often completed a large portion of their adjustment.
The Recognition Window
by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds,
Over the course of the market cycle, one of the primary areas of risk for stocks (and conversely, one of the best periods for Treasury bonds) is typically the 'recognition window' where economic activity begins to deviate from the upward trend that is priced into the market, and investors begin to recognize that an economic downturn is, in fact, likely. The instant relief provoked by the manufacturing purchasing managers index and the employment report was an overreaction to data that is still very early in that window.
Results 51–100
of 136 found.
