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BEST OF DOUG NOLAND
October 3, 2006
With the debt markets having inflated at a much more rapid pace than
the real economy over the life of this Amazing Credit Bubble, Credit and
Speculative Dynamics throughout the Financial Sphere Now Significantly
Overshadow Those of the Economic Sphere. To be sure, speculative
leveraging these days in the fixed-income markets has an unparalleled
capability of creating abundant liquidity for the markets and system
generally. And as bond prices inflate in response to heightened
speculative leveraging and resulting liquidity creation, those that had
been positioned for higher rates (both speculations and hedges) are
forced to unwind these trades – in the process creating only more price
inflation and liquidity over-abundance. Meanwhile, the yield curve
gyrates and causes bloody havoc for myriad curve and rate
speculations…..
We should also anticipate $900 billion Current Account Deficits in
the not-to-distant future. The atypical slowdown now unfolding is rather
concentrated in the housing and U.S. automobile manufacturing sectors.
The Fed is focused on economic vulnerability, ensuring an exaggerated
response from highly over-liquefied and speculative markets. There has
been little indication of waning household consumption, while the
markets' histrionic over-reaction will ensure robust household and
business demand for imports. Alas, the specter of unending Credit Bubble
excess, unending Current Account Deficits and resulting unending foreign
buying of U.S. Treasuries, agencies, ABS, and MBS is providing the
impetus for one heck of a liquidity-driven dislocation in bond market
pricing.
There is certainly nothing like a concurrent descent in energy prices
and bond yields to get the inflation doves chirping rather maniacally.
Yet, the reality of the situation is that sinking bond yields and
attendant gross liquidity excess are poised to stoke fires for sectors
already demonstrating flaming inflationary biases. Sitting near the top
of the list, you should assume Mr. Income Inflation is salivating from
recent market trading dynamics.
And, yes, Income Inflation is supporting inflated home prices that
sustain the Mortgage Finance Bubble - that maintain over-consumption -
that assures endless massive Current Account Deficits - that guarantee
massive foreign buying of U.S. securities while writing yet another
chapter in History’s Greatest Bond Market Bubble. Inevitably, however,
there will come a point when The Unrelenting Inflation in the Quantity
of Late-Cycle U.S. Debt Instruments Collides with the Grossly Inflated
Market Price of Total Dollar Financial Claims. And, sure, U.S. financial
sector and bond market dynamics certainly increase the likelihood that
this collision manifests in the currency markets. Even assuming that
dollar confidence holds in the near-term, there remains the more
nebulous issue of a bloated and foolhardy leveraged speculating
community faced with the Upshot of Heightened Monetary Disorder,
including wild volatility across the spectrum of global financial
markets, widening spreads, wildly vacillating marketplace liquidity
dynamics, and acute general financial and economic uncertainty. The bond
market rally has become destabilizing.
Doug Noland is a market strategist at Prudent Bear Funds. Their
website is www.prudentbear.com. |