S&P: With Emphasis on Poor
With everyone calling for another turning point in the S&P, the short trade is becoming less crowded. I prefer SPY 300 puts dated about six months out. Here are some ridiculous arguments I've heard for the recovery.
1. The fed will pivot or pause
A fed pause or pivot indicates that economic conditions are too poor to continue hiking, implying that mass layoffs are already happening. There's nothing bullish about that for growth-chasing equities desperate for earnings. Companies are tightening their balance sheet because they can't generate profit and you're buying them?
2. Inflation is sticky bro
Remember when we are all experts on the used car market? I do, that's why I sold my used car for more than the price I bought it new over five years ago. The common consensus was that the prices would keep going up, well the common consensus was--as usual--dead wrong. Used car prices have been dropping ever since. The manufacturer deliver times have stabilized since and production resumed in spades. Now the price of used cars continues to drop and the experts are nowhere to be found. Where are they hiding?
They're hiding under a new narrative: inflation is sticky bro. I'm supposed to believe that a stimulus can reverse the effects of a mountain of debt and poor worker demographics projected to decrease for the next five years. We aren't in the 1970s anymore, the populace doesn't have the demographics to naturally drive inflation. This is a monetary issue and crushing demand will quickly undo what was done with COVID. With supply chain disruptions no longer an issue, the last man standing is oil. Can oil alone continue to drive inflation as a singular microeconomic phenomenon while the services sector which consumes the highest amount of oil comes to a standstill? I think the answer here is no.
3. The strong dollar will drive foreign money into equities
This is by far the dumbest argument I've heard people parroting, and I would really like to know where it's coming from. The idea here is that the rising dollar will cause foreign currencies to drop and this will cause those market participants to buy the dollar and then buy equities, saving the equity market for some reason. Nobody can seem to explain why these supposed market participants will buy the falling equities instead of just holding the dollar or some form of fixed income. Are these market participants completely obtuse to what happens to equities in the event that nominal growth declines and earnings fall? Do these same market participants not realize that a recession will put an eventual pause on hikes and the dollar will reach a cycle top while equities continue to crash. The whole argument is based on an assumption that dumb money will enter the market before the recession and lacks historical precedence. If you know who originated this idea, I would like to hear from you.
In conclusion, there is no reasonable argument convincing enough to call a bottom for equities aside from contrarian aspirations of "stonks only go up". In which case you're in for a big surprise and only depositing your money into Jerome's money shredder. The equity bull sees SPX at 3000, the bear sees 2000, the pig buys here now calling a bottom. There's no bottom in sight here folks, and that's all.
1. The fed will pivot or pause
A fed pause or pivot indicates that economic conditions are too poor to continue hiking, implying that mass layoffs are already happening. There's nothing bullish about that for growth-chasing equities desperate for earnings. Companies are tightening their balance sheet because they can't generate profit and you're buying them?
2. Inflation is sticky bro
Remember when we are all experts on the used car market? I do, that's why I sold my used car for more than the price I bought it new over five years ago. The common consensus was that the prices would keep going up, well the common consensus was--as usual--dead wrong. Used car prices have been dropping ever since. The manufacturer deliver times have stabilized since and production resumed in spades. Now the price of used cars continues to drop and the experts are nowhere to be found. Where are they hiding?
They're hiding under a new narrative: inflation is sticky bro. I'm supposed to believe that a stimulus can reverse the effects of a mountain of debt and poor worker demographics projected to decrease for the next five years. We aren't in the 1970s anymore, the populace doesn't have the demographics to naturally drive inflation. This is a monetary issue and crushing demand will quickly undo what was done with COVID. With supply chain disruptions no longer an issue, the last man standing is oil. Can oil alone continue to drive inflation as a singular microeconomic phenomenon while the services sector which consumes the highest amount of oil comes to a standstill? I think the answer here is no.
3. The strong dollar will drive foreign money into equities
This is by far the dumbest argument I've heard people parroting, and I would really like to know where it's coming from. The idea here is that the rising dollar will cause foreign currencies to drop and this will cause those market participants to buy the dollar and then buy equities, saving the equity market for some reason. Nobody can seem to explain why these supposed market participants will buy the falling equities instead of just holding the dollar or some form of fixed income. Are these market participants completely obtuse to what happens to equities in the event that nominal growth declines and earnings fall? Do these same market participants not realize that a recession will put an eventual pause on hikes and the dollar will reach a cycle top while equities continue to crash. The whole argument is based on an assumption that dumb money will enter the market before the recession and lacks historical precedence. If you know who originated this idea, I would like to hear from you.
In conclusion, there is no reasonable argument convincing enough to call a bottom for equities aside from contrarian aspirations of "stonks only go up". In which case you're in for a big surprise and only depositing your money into Jerome's money shredder. The equity bull sees SPX at 3000, the bear sees 2000, the pig buys here now calling a bottom. There's no bottom in sight here folks, and that's all.
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