Daily Chartbook #85

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

1. Ocean freight. "Ocean container rates from China to US West Coast are now over 20% lower than this time vs. 2018".

2. Tech layoffs. "Tech Layoffs Are Not a Sign of an Impending Recession .. the unemployment rate would rise by less than 0.3pp even in the inconceivable event that all workers employed in the ‘internet publishing, broadcasting and web search portal’ industry are immediately laid off".

3. Slow growth, high inflation. Among global fund managers (FMS investors) "stagflation is the consensus view".

4. Tail risks. "Inflation staying high the top tail risk, debt deflation the contrarian risk".

5. Household balance sheets. Household debt rose to $16.51 trillion on higher mortgages and credit card balances.

6. Record credit card balance growth. "The 15% year-over-year increase in credit card balances represents the largest in more than 20 years".

7. Gloomy outlook. "77% [of respondents to BofA’s Global Fund Manager Survey] saying a recession is likely over the next 12 months, the most since the COVID high in Apr’20".

8. Gloomy outlook (II). While a majority of respondents do not expect a stronger economy, S&P YoY returns have decoupled from this bearish sentiment.

9. Record monetary risk. "Net 91% of FMS [fund manager survey] investors view monetary risk as above normal, the highest on record".

10. Empire State (I). "Big improvement for November Empire Manufacturing, up to +4.5 vs. -6.0 est. & -9.1 prior … however, new orders fell into contraction, prices moved higher, and outlook soured … inventories rose alongside shipments, employment, and workweek".

11. Empire State (II). "Empire manufacturing future new orders in recession territory".

12. Producer prices (I). Both PPI and core PPI came in lower than expected in October, at 0.2% (vs. 0.4% expected) and 0% (vs. 0.3% expected), respectively.

13. Producer prices (II). PPI and core PPI MoM change with contributions.

14. Producer prices (III). MoM change with top 5 subcomponents.

15. Producer prices (IV). Year-over-year, both PPI and CPI prints were lower than expectations, at 8% (vs. 8.3% expected) and 6.7% (vs. 7.2% expected), respectively.

16. Fed terminal rate. Here are market expectations for the Fed terminal rate shortly after the PPI print.

17. Monetary policy vs. S&P. "Monetary conditions index (inverted) suggests there is still downside in the market for now".

18. Dollar effect. Removing currency factors, "Half of ACWI markets are above their 200-day averages but the US is not among them".

19. Overvalued DXY. "Net 72% of FMS investors believe the US dollar is overvalued, the most on record".

20. ETF shorts. "Short exposure against ETFs fell dramatically to the lowest levels in 2022 recently".

21. Risk-neutral. "Coming into this week our Risk Indicator was at its highest level since February. It's not (yet) in positive territory, but is higher than it got during the rallies off of the March & June lows and still improving".

22. Risk off. FMS investors say they are very much not taking on higher risk than normal.

23. Corporate spreads. "US IG and HY bond spreads have been holding in well in 2H 2022, sharing the equity market’s belief in stable future earnings".

24. Sector flows. "Last week, during which the S&P 500 was +5.9%, clients were net buyers of US equities (+$3.4B) after two weeks of selling".

25. Investor flows. "Flows moving away from U.S. government bond funds (peak ~month ago was their commanding 75% of all inflows on rolling 30-day basis) and towards equity, muni, and corporate bond funds ".

26. FMS investor positioning (I). "Fund managers are heavily overweight defensive assets, and underweight cyclical/risk-on assets".

27. FMS investor positioning (II). FMS investors are most net underweight (19%) tech since August 2006.

28. FMS investor positioning (III). "BofA FMS investors kept cash levels high in November".

29. FMS investor positioning (IV). Managers are overweight cash and alternative investments and underweight equities and bonds.

30. Vulnerable sectors. And finally, “which sectors are most vulnerable to earnings revisions?”

Thanks for reading!