Great Trades are Rarely Crowded: Long TLT and Short Twitter IQEveryone is a good trader in a bull market, but in a bear market, these good traders are reduced to hopium-fueled twitter analysts watching core CPI and interest rates. The former and latter data points serve nothing more as useless, out-of-context generalities for the single-celled Wall Street Bet retail enjoyer. But recent activity across the pond has sparked interest in the bond. These traders are now converting en-masse to self-proclaimed bond market experts with the thesis:
"The bond market is broken"
Except, the bond market is not broken. It is operating as intended, although two lines on a chart may disagree with anyone unfortunate enough to buy at the start of the year. Why is retail sentiment like this?
The simple answer is that the fed is late, but a more-elaborate explanation follows:
Bond yields rise because bond prices fall. It is the acquisition of a bond at a specific market price that determines that bond's yield, as a function of the difference between that bonds underlying rate (which is fixed) and the resale price. When interest rates rise, bond prices fall because newer bonds spawn with the higher base rate. This makes prior bonds, which have a lower fixed rate, less valuable because they output less extra cheddar. People then resell these bonds for a lower price and the yield rises according to market forces (the fed does not directly control this). Shorter duration treasuries follow interests rates very closely, whereas longer dated treasuries are difficult to influence by rate hikes. Either way these are secondary or tertiary market effects. This phenomenon is what results in an inverted yield curve: you can be paid more money to lend money for a shorter duration than a longer one.
But why would something so illogical even happen? The answer is because the treasury market is not just any pig, it's a truffle-sniffing pig. For every brain cell in the equity or corporate credit market, the treasury market has a thousand-fold more. With these one-thousand brain cells, this pig (specifically the longer-dated pig) is rewarded by looking further ahead into the future. What does this pig see when they look that far ahead? An recession that will obliterate the equity market like Exodia. The long dated treasuries have started to price in a recession (very slowly) by pricing in rate cuts. This is why stocks and bonds are still correlated, but the correlation has started showing signs of weakness. The longer tail of the curve is smarter and refuses to sell these bonds like a fire sale.
Recessions imply a fed pause and eventual rate cut, so no more high-interest treasuries. This makes bonds desirable, and this process is only starting now.
I can already feel the credit market enjoyers seething and muttering: SLR relief expired! Reverse Repo! Basil Tea! No, none of these buzzwords matter. It's true that the pandemic has modified the initial conditions of the bond market. The TLT suffered immensely as the federal reserve promised to not raise rates through forward guidance, broke those promises (as is should have), and also allowed SLR Relief exemptions to expire. This made bonds less sexy and glamorous for banks like JP Morgan because the expiry affected treasury exemptions: banks didn't need to hold additional collateral to slurp bond yields, and now they again do. It's much easier now to park money with the fed overnight and get a little more back. The RRP is a much better facility than treasuries as a result, so bond indexes have dropped even harder. SLR relief is a cherry on top, but this truffle has always tasted good without it. It's absence, and whether it is reinstated or not, should not be a determining factor in the recovery of bond prices, because:
No market has currently priced in a recession, and interest rate expectations demonstrate that without a chart, but when that happens, the bond market will get top billing. Bonds will decouple from stocks and TLT will rise from the ashes like a phoenix in the next quarters, incinerating twitter and reddit soys drawing lines on a chart and shorting the index. Nobody saw it coming, they will say, but good trades are never crowded. Smart money extracts the deep value from TLT in the pre-recessionary market by going long (DCA or otherwise). Degenerate smart money is gambling with TLT long calls. Whereas most of the market is still buying stocks, crypto, and chanting that the markets are broken and the fed will come roaring in. These pigs won't find any truffles in this market.
Interest rate expectations are unrealistic and the fed will have to pause sometime early 2023. The recession will destroy demand, taking growth, inflation, and equity market with it, rising bond prices and dropping bond yields. The stock market will crash (I don't consider this current price action a crash yet) and continue burning even as the fed pauses, and dip buyers will be buying a dip that keeps on dipping while you're selling your new truffles on ebay because you lost your job due to mass layoffs across the entire economy.
