Daily Chartbook #135

Welcome back to Daily Chartbook: macro market charts, data, and insights pulled from various sources around the Internet by a solo retail investor.

1. Black Knight HPI. In December, "home values post their sixth consecutive monthly decline, and prices at the national level are now 5.3% off their June 2022 peaks".

2. Home price bottom. "By the time U.S. home prices bottom out this summer, Goldman Sachs says national home prices will be down around 6% from the June 2022 peak. Previously, Goldman Sachs researchers were expecting that peak-to-trough decline to come in closer to 10%".

3. SFH inventory. "Available inventory of homes for sale dropped again this week to 457,000...Stronger demand + few sellers = the housing market is robust already for the spring".

4. Bidding wars. "Looks like multiple bids per resale home purchase contract might have bottomed in Oct/Nov/Dec".

5. Rent prices. "The rent slowdown continues... While we typically see a small pop in rents after the calendar turns each year (and saw a sizable bump in Jan 2022), there was no pop in January 2023".

6. Bankruptcies. The number of bankruptcy filings accelerated in January.

7. Headcounts. "Roughly 15% of companies in the S&P 500 have seen headcount increases of 40% or more since the start of the pandemic & only one-fifth of them have announced layoffs so far".

8. Unemployment vs. recession. "History teaches that labor mkt is not a good indicator to predict recessions. You get very little warning before it starts to crack, DB's Reid says. In 6mths before US recession unemployment is flat. In avg recession, rise in unemployment is 3pp. Recessions tend to be non-linear".

9. Recession probability. "We have cut our subjective probability that the US economy will enter a recession in the next 12 months from 35% to 25%".

10. Rapid easing. "Financial conditions (using Goldman Sachs Index) have eased considerably over past 90 days, now at fastest rate since September 2020".

11. Greed. "The spread US IG BBB bond yield vs T-bills lowest (60bps) since Jan'81…so rare & such “greed” (1929, '66, 73, '79, '07) preceded tops & crashes".

12. IG/HY spreads. "Today’s spreads are just slightly below the 2015 – 2019 averages, which says the corporate debt market is no more worried about a sudden decline in corporate earnings than it was in a period of relative financial and economic stability".

13. Corporate bonds. "Corporate bonds yield less than the Fed funds rate for the first time in 30 years. This is arguably the most expensive part of today’s market".

14. Soft landing. "Markets have rallied at the end of every Fed tightening cycle, regardless of recession or not. It always looks like a soft landing - which is why the market always prices it in. The NASDAQ rallied ~40% in mid 2000 during the pivot window".

15. Retail retreat. "Last month, trading activity among retail investors as measured by dollar volumes hit its lowest level since January 2020".

16. Gloomy outlook. "Expectations for economic growth and the stock market are the most pessimistic in Gallup’s periodic trend".

17. Smart vs dumb money confidence. "Dumb money confidence is now at extremely elevated levels. While smart money confidence has been dropping like a stone. This indicator does not however work as a contrarian trigger if we are in a proper bull market".

18. Sentiment positioning. "Goldman's sentiment indicator still 'light'".

19. Equity positioning (I). "Equity positioning climbed up further last week...but we are not at 'extreme' levels yet".

20. Equity positioning (II). "Equity positioning has risen lately, especially among the systematic players. Upside pain isn't the main pain trade going forward".

21. Hedge funds sell energy. "On a 12-mos. look-back, HF net exposure to Energy decreased over the past week from the $73rd%-tile to the 41st%-tile".

22. Short covering. "Hedge funds rush to unwind bets on falling markets as stocks surge. Short covering was largest since Nov '15 (exceeding even Jan '21 during meme frenzy) & ranks in 99.8th percentile vs past 10yrs. US & EU equities made up 61% & 38% of short covering, resp".

23. Semis shorts. "Hedge funds remain quite short semis".

24. CTAs. "CTAs have a whole lot of selling to do if markets start to roll over".

25. Put/call volume. "The Put/call volume ratio declined to the bottom half of its usual range".

26. Record buybacks. "2023 Estimated buybacks = $869 Billion x 10% (February) x 22 days = $3.95 Billion per day worth of demand in February. We are off to the best start to the year for authorizations on record (~$132B YTD). This is triple 2022".

27. Price targets. "Analysts continue to turn bullish … 30-day moving average of number of S&P 500 members with higher analyst target prices has climbed to highest since August 2021".

28. Fwd EPS vs SPX. "While we didn't get the definitive reversal .. we were expecting, the door is still very much open for our call to play out; though it could develop at a bit slower pace. .. Forward EPS growth has just gone negative .. earnings recession is not priced".

29. EPS cuts (I). "Ten of the 11 sectors witnessed a decrease in their bottom-up EPS estimate for Q1 2023 from December 31 to January 31, led by the Industrials (-6.9%) and Energy (-6.7%) sectors".

30. EPS cuts (II). And finally, “nine sectors witnessed a decrease in their bottom-up EPS estimates for CY 2023 from December 31 to January 31, led by the Energy (-3.6%) and Health Care (-3.5%) sectors”.

Thanks for reading!