Daily Chartbook #59

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

1. OPEC+ quota vs. production. The OPEC+ production cut doesn't seem so severe when you consider members' continued underproduction. 

2. G7 debt. Government debt as a percentage of GDP across G7 countries is near previous peaks.

3. Broad & fast. Since June, 13 developed market central banks have raised rates by a “combined 1525 basis points…fastest in two decades”.

4. Auto warning. With prices for used cars dropping for 7 consecutive months, "Cathie Wood flagged the risk of 'serious losses' in the trillion-dollar auto debt market".

5. Heavy truck sales vs. recessions. "Historically, before recessions, heavy truck sales tend to peak and then decline"

6. Inventory problems (I). "Morgan Stanley Research expects overall demand to slow beyond the payback in overconsumption of goods as sentiment remains weak and inflation weighs on consumers".

7. Inventory problems (II). "Based on a macro analysis of different industries, Consumer Retail, and IT Hardware appear most at risk while Machinery appears least at risk".

8. Inventory problems (III). The spread between YoY inventory and sales for companies in goods industries is ~2x greater than that of the median S&P 500 company.

9. “Unversion” signal. As the arrows indicate, "it is when the curve UN-Inverts that is the signal" for a recession.

10. Energy shorts. Last week's "notional short covering in Energy stocks ranks in the 96th percentile vs. the past year".

11. Hedge funds keep selling. "Further net selling at end of last week as shorts re-engaged. Net leverage among Equity L/S funds is at the 1st %-tile since 2017".

12. Energy outperformance. "After its best week since November 2020, Energy sector is outpacing S&P 500 by 72.5% this year—by far greatest performance spread in history going back to 1990".

13. First to worst. “Morgan Stanley notes that Energy flips from being the leader in ’22 EPS growth to the primary laggard in ’23 EPS growth at -13% y/y”.

14. Foreshadowing. There was a record number of Bloomberg articles on negative pre-announcements in August.

15. Breadth thrust deadline. According to BofA, "equity market has until 10/13 to confirm a breadth thrust...Without a breadth thrust, the risk is that equities continue to struggle".

16. The Euphoriameter. "The good news is that the previous market froth and ebullience has been deleted. The open question is whether it is enough of a reset to be contrarian yet…".

17. Bearish streak. "Investors have been net bearish for 39 of 40 weeks so far in 2022. That's the most since 1988...and we still have more than two months to go".

18. Low short interest. Overall short interest has risen in 2022 but isn't particularly high (historically).

19. Record cash levels "Mutual Fund Cash Levels is at all-time highs, going into Mutual Fund Year-end".

20. Stock picking is hard. "The worst 80% of stocks had a combined 0% total return, while the best 20% accounted for all gains during the 1989-2015 period".

21. Yields vs. value vs. growth. The correlation between yields and value stock outperformance (relative to growth) has never been higher.

22. Interest rate impact. The impact of a +/- 1% move in interest rates across assets. In the words of Ayesha Tariq, “30Y treasuries 👀”.

23. Gold outflows continue. "The amount of gold held in exchange-traded funds just contracted for a 17th week—the longest stretch since 2018".

24. Crazy Dow. From Goldman: the “Dow Jones (30 largest industrial stocks on planet earth) is officially more volatile than bitcoin”.

25. Q3 earnings season reporting guide. 70% of the S&P 500 (by market cap) will have reported by October 28.

26. Margins headwind: sticky inflation. From Mike Wilson: "Thinking about the areas of inflation that are likely to remain more resilient into next year (shelter, wages, certain services) and the areas that are likely to decelerate (goods) does not paint a constructive picture for S&P 500 margins, in our view".

27. Declining EPS estimates. Consensus earnings estimates for Q3 and Q4 have declined YTD.

28. Earnings season caution. “Earnings season historically is not the best time to be broadly short equities…even during periods of weak quarters.  Also notable is the tendency for negative returns into earnings season to result in positive returns during the season”.

29. Expectations vs. likelihood. And finally,  as of today, S&P expected YoY EPS growth in Q3 is 2.4% (lowest since Q3 2020), but…"based on the average improvement in earnings growth during the past few earnings seasons due to companies reporting positive surprises, it is likely the index will report earnings growth between 6% and 7% for Q3".

Thanks for reading!