Daily Chartbook #30

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

1. Global hawks. "More than 80 central banks have hiked rates this year."

2. Don’t expect a pivot. US newspaper use of “dovish” vs “hawkish”.

3. DXY vs. Oil. "For most of first half of this year, U.S. dollar (DXY, blue) and oil prices (Brent,  orange) were positively correlated (120d shown), but relationship has dipped back into negative territory".

4. Market-implied recession probabilities. Commodities are pricing a recession more aggressively than any other asset class.

5. GDPNow. The AtlantaFed's GDPNow model is now estimating 1.6% growth for GDP in Q3.

6. Dallas Fed (I). The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index improved to -12.9 in August but remains in negative (contraction) territory.

7. Dallas Fed (II). The production index (below)—which measures manufacturing conditions—declined to 1.2 while new orders (a leading indicator) remained negative for the 3rd month in a row.

8. Housing inventory & stocks. "Changes in new home inventories lead changes in equities.  Higher inventories have tended to imply lower equities 6m later. This is one of the largest increases we have seen in inventories in 60 years…"

9. Death of the holding period. "In the 1960s, the typical investor held a stock in its portfolio for about 7-8 years on average. Today, we are looking at 4-5 months."

10. US vs. World (I). This chart shows the price vs trailing 10-year average earnings for the US and 46 other countries. "Relative to the past decade, both the USA and the rest of the world are still not cheap."

11. US vs. World (II). This chart shows a large divergence in the forward P/E for the US vs. the All Country World ex-US index.

12. S&P buybacks. Announced buybacks have slowed down over the last 3 months.

13. Underweight Big Tech (I). "The average mutual fund added 154 bp of exposure to the 7 Big Tech stocks in Q2."  

14. Underweight Big Tech (II). Mutual funds are the most underweight Apple which has been the only stock of the seven to outperform the S&P 500.

15. VIP "shit-list". Both mutual fund overweight stocks and hedge fund VIP stocks have been underperforming. "Here is the combined list of the stocks that are on both these 'VIP shit-lists'".

16. Big shorts. Hedge fund short positions in S&P futures last week hit their highest since June 2020.

17. Bond outflows. "Retail investors have pulled a substantial amount of capital out of bond funds this year."

18. Financial inflows. Financials saw their biggest inflows since January after 14 consecutive weeks of outflows.

19. No capitulation. Flows into major stock ETFs have not reflected capitulation yet.

20. Cash levels. BofA's private clients are holding less cash than usual.

21. They’re not selling either. BofA's private clients’ holdings as a % of AUM show investors are not selling off.

22. Goldman forecast. Goldman Sachs' 2022 price target for the S&P is at 4,300 and its 2023 earnings forecast calls for an optimistic $234 EPS.

23. EPS estimates (I). Earnings estimates for Q3 and 2023 are declining rapidly (and broadly).

24. EPS estimates (II). Mike Wilson's (Morgan Stanley) leading earnings model agrees and "projects a steep fall in EPS growth over the next several months".

25. Capitulation. "The stage is set for another round of capitulation".

26. Late for defense. "Defensives are the most expensive vs SPX since the late 90s".

27. S&P operating EPS. And finally, “with 96% of companies reported, S&P 500 operating earnings are down 9% year-over-year, the largest YoY decline we've seen since Q2 2020. Earnings during the quarter were down 17% from their peak in Q4 2021 and the S&P 500 is currently down 15% YTD.”