Daily Chartbook #159

Welcome back to Daily Chartbook: the day’s best charts & insights, curated.

1. Housing vs. rates. "Sixty percent of all mortgages outstanding were issued in the past four years at much lower mortgage rates than today, making the US housing market less vulnerable to rising interest rates than in other countries."

2. Mortgage rates. Sudden bank failures have resulted in a drop in mortgage rates.

3. Bank failures (I). SVB was "the 53rd bank failure since 2001."

4. Bank failures (II). "The 2nd and 3rd largest bank failures in US history happened in the last few days."

5. Bank failures (III). "The risk remains contained within business focused deposits with a higher invested capital per deposit."

6. Global business activity. "Global business confidence at one-year high...Wage inflation expectations unchanged at elevated near-record level...Hiring and investment plans revised up."

7. Truckload index. "Truckload spot rates at cycle bottoms. No sign of a Spring bounce in the truckload market (2023 white line)."

8. Consumer expectations. "Inflation expectations collapsed at the 1-year horizon, plunging by 0.8% to 4.2%, the lowest since May 2021...and the biggest monthly drop on record for the series!"

9. CPI tomorrow. "Don't forget that tomorrow we get CPI for February  Historically, the February report (released in March) has rarely come in lower than expected."

10. Fed funds rate (I). "Current market expectations for the path of the Fed Funds Rate: Mar 22, 2023: 25 bps hike to 4.75%-5.00%...Pause...Rate cuts start in July 2023 w/ a Fund Funds Rate of 4% at the end of 2023 and 3% at the end of 2024."

11. Fed funds rate (II). "Sept is now -65bps from +110bps. These are 10-sigma moves."

12. US02Y (I). "Drop in 2y Treasury yields among biggest in decades as nervousness around banking sector prompted investors to scale back Fed hike bets. US 2y yields plunged 0.57ppts, on track for its biggest 1d drop since Oct 20, 1987 — session after Black Mon crash."

13. US02Y (II). "The two-day drop in Treasury 2-year yields is the biggest since the aftermath of the equities crash of October 1987."

14. Un-inversion. "Biggest bps move up in 2s10s (I think) since Jan 1981."

15. Dollar liquidity. "Dollar liquidity is getting very stretched as the world reaches for 'cash' and is willing to pay up to show it on their balance sheets."

16. Dollar devaluation risk. "The US sovereign credit risk (or devaluation risk of the USD) - based on 1Y CDS spreads - has soared to a record high, above the debt-downgrade and govt-shutdown peaks from 2011 and 2013."

17. Calls vs. puts. "Beginning of February: record call option volume (blue)...Last Friday: record put option volume (orange)."

18. Commodities Sharpe ratios. "Risk-adjusted returns (measured by Sharpe ratio) have continued to fall for commodities ... one exception is livestock category, which has been pushing higher and going against others' trends."

19. CTAs copper. "CTAs are boosting their bets on copper."

20. CTAs equities. "CTA equity allocation remains elevated."

21. CTAs downside. "CTA downside convexity is back and is rather big."

22. Consolidated equity positioning. Equity positioning has moved up close to neutral.

23. Cash is king. Highest cash inflows since September 2020.

24. Retail flows. "One way traffic…"

25. SPX vs. peak inflation. "World isn't ending .. Fed will pause, and we see inflation slowing in typical lagged effect .. (Mild) recession is more a risk to start in 4Q23E.. but for now resilient albeit flattening EPS. We see $SPX trading (and largely remaining) in a low-4,000s range in 1H."

26. Sector breadth. "% stocks above 50-day MA collapse as banking crisis emerges."

27. EPS estimates. And finally, “expectations for 2023 remain too high...Our own view is that S&P earnings power this year is closer to $200/share, not the $223/share baked into analysts’ estimates. This would still be a healthy $50/share per quarter."

Thanks for reading!