Verso la fine del QE: prospettive per l'economia USA.

Cosenza (Italy), 15 Maggio 2011

La seguente foto è riferita alla settimana appena conclusa: in nero, l'andamento del Dow Jones; in verde l'andamento del cambio Euro/Dollaro USA.

Come si può agevolmente vedere, nell'ultima settimana i due indici si sono mossi in maniera molto simile: un aumento del Dow Jones è stato accompagnato da un apprezzamento dell'Euro sul Dollaro, mentre una sua diminuzione è stato accompagnato da un deprezzamento dell'Euro.
Inoltre, l'andamento dei future è al ribasso; per esempio, di seguito, ripropongo l'andamento del future sull'Euro riferito all'ultimo mese.

Se guardiamo invece alla volatilità dei mercati, espressa dall'indice CBOE-VIX, vediamo che essa - sia pure in aumento negli ultimi giorni - si mantiene a livelli molto bassi se riferiti all'ultimo anno.

Cosa può voler dire tutto ciò? A mio avviso, due cose:

1. La crescita del Dow Jones sembra essere collegata a denaro che sta rientrando in Borsa, probabilmente a motivo di un rafforzamento dell'economia statunitense;
2. I valori (tutto sommato) modesti della volatilità del mercato sembra indicare che l'economia statunitense sta entrando in una fase di relativa prevedibilità.

Ritengo che la conclusione del programma di Quantitative Easing della Federal Reserve USA (atteso per Giugno), contribuirà ad accelerare il percorso di crescita del Dow Jones, e i prossimi mesi saranno probabilmente caratterizzati da un periodo di euforia di Borsa accompagnato da attesa di tassi di interesse decrescenti (acquisto di futures). Per quanto riguarda il mercato obbligazionario, invece, la corsa all'azionario dovrebbe comportare un aumento dei rendimenti dei bond, per cui - probabilmente - si assisterà ad una maggiore inclinazione della curva dei rendimenti USA (yield curve) sulle brevi scadenze. Da qui a qualche mese ci troveremo forse di fronte una curva dei rendimenti a forma di V?

Per questo motivo, penso che l'CNBC 13/5 "Stocks End Mostly Down for Week; Nasdaq Gains", sia molto distante dal mio pensiero. Al contrario delle mie conclusioni, qui si dice che le azioni vivranno momenti difficili, mentre le obbligazioni hanno davanti a sé un futuro roseo.

Stocks began falling fast at mid-afternoon on Friday as the euro fell and the dollar strengthened. Also, bonds rallied, signaling bond investors have “no fear of growth and inflation,” said Brian Battle, vice president of trading at the Chicago-based Performance Trust Capital Partners. That combined with the fact stocks have risen more than 6 percent so far this year and are fully valued, means stocks are at more risk for downside, Battle said. “We need more confirming evidence of a recovery and we’re not getting it,” he said.

In questo scenario, probabilmente acquistano significato le opinioni espresse in questo articolo CNBC 12/5 "Dennis Gartman: The Trend is For Much Stronger Dollar", in cui si sostiene che il Dollaro USA è destinato prepotentemente ad apprezzarsi (anche se - a proposito del mercato azionario - si dice che l'indice S&P's500 è destinato a decrescere):

AGGIORNAMENTI

On Thursday, chatter on Wall Street had everything to do with the pullback in the dollar [.DXY 75.71 0.47 (+0.62%) ] and whether the recent strength was starting to abate. Considering energy [XLE 73.79 -0.36 (-0.49%) ] and materials [XLB 38.65 -0.50 (-1.28%) ] had been the top two sectors over the past two quarters when stocks rallied, the dollar could make or break this market. That’s because a stronger dollar makes commodities more expensive to holders of other currencies, which in turn drags down demand. If commodities and commodity related stocks in the energy and materials sectors sell-off due to dollar strength, the entire S&P [.SPX 1337.77 -10.88 (-0.81%) ] could go with it. And that leads to the multi-billion dollar question – what’s next for the dollar? [...] And he says until these nations break away from the EU, there will be an overhang of discouragement. ”The trend is toward a much weaker euro and a much stronger dollar over time,” he says.

Lunedi 16 Maggio 2011: E' entusiasmante constatare quanta poca chiarezza ci sia ancora intorno a questi argomenti, e prevalgano opinioni molt contrarie. Per esempio, il WSJ nell'articolo 16/5 "Investors Take Defensive Turn" rileva come investire in azioni collegate al settore dell'health care sia al momento un grande affare (+14% da inizio anno):

Stock investors have been trading horses lately. Out are hot "growth" stocks in the technology and energy sectors. In are the steadier, less volatile shares of utilities, health-care and telecommunications companies. The switch has been dramatic. Energy stocks gained 16% in the year through the end of March, while health-care stocks inched up 5%, based on subindexes of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Since then, health care has jumped 8.8%, while energy has tumbled 6.9%. Health-care stocks are now the best-performing sector of the year, up more than 14% in 2011, the sector's best start to a year.

Sempre il WSJ, nell'articolo 16/5 "Bond Pros Bet Treasurys Over Bunds" sostiene che acquistare bond USA invece che tedeschi sembra convenire in previsione di aumenti dei tassi di interessi europei. Sempre nell'articolo, si sostiene che nel 2012, il rendimento sui bond USA dovrebbe superare quello sui bond tedeschi. 

Investors have made money this year by buying U.S. Treasurys and selling German government bonds, and likely will continue to do this year, even if European interest rates rise more slowly than expected. Despite renewed concerns over the financial health of some members of the euro zone, which could slow down rate hikes, many investors say it's still a safer bet to expect the European Central Bank to raise rates more quickly than the Federal Reserve, which will likely push down prices of Bunds, as 10-year German government bonds are called, and push up yields. [...] Stuart Thomson, a fund manager who oversees about $100 billion at Ignis Asset Management in Glasgow, Scotland, said he believes the German yield will trade 0.25 percentage points above Treasurys by the end of this year. But in 2012, he said, it will be a good trade to bet the opposite, with the 10-year Treasury yield likely to move between 0.50 and 0.60 percentage points above Bunds. David Woo, head of global rates and currency research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said Bund prices are likely to reverse their underperformance relative to Treasurys in the coming three months as "the loss of global growth momentum, lower commodity prices and intensifying concerns about the fiscal sustainability of peripheral economies may reduce the pressures on the ECB to tighten monetary policy more aggressively." On the other hand, the U.S. debt ceiling debate will likely lead to an increase in U.S. yield premiums relative to Germany, at least until some clarity emerges regarding the outcome, he said.

Infine, l'articolo WSJ 16/5 "Selloff Scares Away Few Bulls" sostiene che la maggior parte degli hedge funds detiene numerosi contratti di acquisto a termine, segno che si attendono un aumento del prezzo futuro delle materie prime.

Hedge funds and other investors still have large bets that commodity prices will continue to rise, even after one of the steepest selloffs in years. Money managers cut their net-long position in crude-oil futures by 10% on the New York Mercantile Exchange during the week ended Tuesday, according to data released Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The decline left speculative investors holding 233,569 more long contracts that anticipate rising prices than short contracts wagering on a decline. A week earlier, these traders held 258,668 more long contracts.

Lunedi 16 Maggio 2011: A proposito di denaro che rientra nella borsa statunitense, segnalo l'articolo su Business Insider "Why The Microsoft-Skype Deal Has Big Implications For The Stock Market", in cui si dice che il recente acquisto di Skype da parte di Microsoft è spiegabile proprio come un modo per rimpatriare denaro senza essere soggetti ad elevate imposizioni fiscali.

US stocks rallied on Tuesday, and some folks tried to draw a connection between that rally and Microsoft's acquisition of Skype, based on the whole "Animal Spirits" notion, that big deal activity is generally a bullish sign of confidence. That argument may be flimsy, but there is a fundamental aspect to consider, which is that Microsoft used $8 billion of the $42 billion in cash it holds overseas, as noted by Eric Savitz at Forbes. Cash held overseas by US multinationals is a big deal, as it can't be repatriated or used as dividends without a huge tax being paid. There's been a lot of talk about a tax "holiday" that would allow companies to repatriate cash, but for the most part the Treasury Department has resisted this, instead preferring some sort of comprehensive reform to the system. So the fact of the matter is that if companies start deploying their foreign cash for acquisitions, then at least at some level that's cash being turned from an asset that's just sitting there, into a productive asset for the company. Now, bear in mind, it's not necessarily so simple for companies to just use their foreign cash this way. The only reason Microsoft was able to do this is because Skype is actually headquartered in Luxembourg, as WSJ explains. But surely it's not the only foreign-based company that will look juicy to a US multinational. Suddenly, for all these big, lumbering companies sitting on mounds of cash, investors realize they have one path for deploying it.

O ancora, l'articolo Business Insider 23/3 "Is This Treasury Department Blog Post Super-Bullish For Tech Investors?":

[...] The Treasury Department has put up a post about the politics and cost of a repatriation tax holiday -- letting companies move a bunch of cash from overseas accounts back to the US without paying a ton of taxes on it. The general tone is negative, that such a tax holiday would be costly, and with little benefit, but Citi's Steve Englander detects some important wiggle room. [...] Today's comments on a Treasury blog by Treasury Assistant Secretary Mundaca were viewed by many as a hardening of the Administration line but his conclusion reiterates the Administration's willingness to deal: "The tax treatment of overseas earnings could be considered as a part of broader corporate tax reform, but as Secretary Geithner has said, it would not be sensible to consider a repatriation holiday outside of that context." As a footnote, the Bush Treasury was no more enthusiastic about HIA-1 in 2004 than the Obama Treasury is about HIA-2 now, and on largely the same grounds. However, it was very attractive to the broad business community, caused direct pain to no one and had considerable Congressional support.

Maggiori informazioni su "Treasury Notes" (Fonte U.S. Department of Treasury)

Lunedi 16 Maggio 2011: Ecco un articolo che sembra confermare appieno quanto da me scritto, cioè investire in azioni anziché in obbligazioni. Si tratta di un intervista fatta a Bill Gross, Amministratore Delegato del gigante PIMCO, che su CNBC 16/5 "Slow Growth, Inflation Make US Bonds Bad Buy: Gross" così scrive:

The US economy is headed for a period of higher inflation and lower growth that makes the nation's debt unappealing when measured against its global competitors, Pimco's Bill Gross told CNBC. The head of the world's largest bond firm, with nearly $1.3 trillion under management, explained the firm's position further as it has cut out all longer-dated exposure to US debt. Instead, the firm is comfortable with more stable countries such as Canada, Brazil and Germany. At the same time, Pimco also has turned to the equity markets to combat low-yielding US debt as the country tries to get its finances under control. "Debt tends to slow economic growth," Gross said in a live interview. "We're going to have a slow-growth economy and probably one in which inflation goes higher, which is not a conducive recipe for financial markets." Gross said the firm prefers countries with "pristine balance sheets," company in which the US does not belong as it reaches its debt ceiling and grapples with a budget deficit approaching $1.4 trillion and a national debt of $14.3 trillion. [...] "The situation is really one in which Treasurys yield so little and it's better to look for higher yielding opportunities." He also insisted that even though Pimco has quit Treasury notes in favor of bills, the firm is not "short" a US debt position, meaning that it is not placing any outwards bets on further declines in bond prices.

Matteo Olivieri >> Le informazioni qui contenute non (!) costituiscono sollecitazioni ad investire.