The numbers always prevail beyond the theme

Vestas (the Denmark headquartered maker of wind turbines) holds a lot of inventory on its books.

It’s equal to 35% of it market capitalisation or 45% of its annual revenue.

This helps explain why its stock price has been struggling.

It seems it either has some discounting ahead or is relying on a raft of orders to move that stock out.

On a positive note, Vestas has ample stock available for buyers looking to secure supply immediately.

While investors may like the renewable energy theme or a host of other ‘hot’ topics, the price being paid for that stock always matters.

I always remind myself that in the absence of value, price is questioned.

if you don’t think this is the case, then water never finds its true level.

November 3, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Today’s prices look deflationary

Due to secular underinvestment and the resulting tightness in various industries, I think inflation will stay at levels higher than we’ve been accustomed over the past 25 years.

This is the ‘new’ calculation and consideration for the next decade or so.

However, in the nearer term, I do think they will abate from the current levels of 7%, 8% or 9% being seen today.

If I’m pressed for a figure, let’s say 4% or 5%.

If pundits could cite and prove today’s inflation rate is a result of the rising prices seen across a host of commodities, shelter, groceries, services, etc……why are we (collectively) not acknowledging that falling prices may temper inflation?

Keep in mind that official inflation rates report the prices seen yesterday.

I have collated various charts showing prices rising and since falling.

Remember all of that palaver about soaring Lumber and Steel prices?

Take a look at them now.

This is part of my argument that inflation has ‘peaked’ and so have government bond yields.

I mean, I think we are in the last decile or so.

Other parts of my argument for lower prices in various assets/commodities and a subsequent abatement of inflation has been a combination of my long-term mean reversion thesis along with my written notes about the factor and velocity of interest rate hikes.

The last holdout in price declines remains in various energy prices such as Diesel and Heating Oil.

Interestingly, Crude Oil prices have only fallen 30% from their peak, they are now trading at prices last seen in 2011 – 2013, when U.S. inflation, at that time was being reported between 1.5% – 3%.

Back then, we weren’t making an overall ‘hoo-ha’ that inflation was about to scream higher.

Obviously there is more to this analysis and many variables from renewed supply chain disruptions coupled with continued tighter labour markets and pent-up demand when China fully reemerges from COVID lock-down could thwart this thesis.

Not assigning reasonable probability that these falling prices may/will contribute to lower inflation reports in coming quarters is something that may catch investors or the market, out.

The result of abating inflation will have an affect on suffering longer duration assets, the strong U.S. Dollar and interest rates, which have risen between 11-14 fold from their mid-2020 lows.

Once (if) that happens, then we move onto figuring out where inflation and prices move to from that moment.

November 1, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Government Confiscation

Not by who’d we normally suspect.

It’s being done by the United States government.

(Civil) forfeiture has been part of Biden’s business since he has been a senator when the introduced the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act in 1983.

The U.S. can confiscate assets of Russian nationals. (up to $30 billion at last count)

They can tell American and semiconductor companies abroad to stop doing business with Chinese corporations.

A new report from the Attorney General’s office proposes the ability to seize cryptocurrencies which doesn’t require a conviction or even criminal charges to be filed.

Now they want (to seize some of the) profits from oil companies.

‘Zero emissions Biden’ wants Big Oil to produce more of the stuff while he is draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and when they don’t acquiesce to his production requests, he now ostracises them and wants part of their profits.

You can’t make this stuff up !

Exxon’s $18 billion profit from this past quarter must be salivating to the Fed’s seeing that they have sent $17 billion in ‘aid’ to Ukraine.

After all, the U.S. could have tempered the risk of Russia invading Ukraine except Mr Blinken triggered something when he said that NATO entry to Ukraine is always open.

Through confiscation, they may be able to cover the estimated $300 billion (over the next decade) cost of student debt foregiveness.

They have confiscated land from families to be used for U.S./Mexico border wall construction.

Look up ’eminent domain’.

There are many more examples of domestic and international confiscation that been conducted, let alone corporate standovers.

Beyond this being a political observation and comment, within it lies investing ideas and opportunities.

If you are a Chinese national who owns real estate in California, Seattle or Vancouver, one may consider selling and moving your money back to (a cheaper and beneficially weaker) Chinese Yuan.

They may find better asset protection in their own country rather than anywhere else.

Should an Indian national who owns assets in United Kingdom become nervous should his government buy much more oil from Russia?

Incidentally, the Swiss have been freezing Russian assets.

The (neutral) Swiss !!

Putting xenophobia aside, I can understand the suggestion for U.S. exchanges to delist Chinese companies for not being transparent about their audit and their books……but the U.S. can’t even manage to have a former President present his tax returns.

The bully in the room has been gaslighting many to believe that ‘others’ are the oppressors when it’s actually them.

All of this and they can’t manage to confiscate guns?

Votes !

Happy mid-term elections everyone.

November 1, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Macro Extremes (week ending October 28, 2022)

The following assets (on a weekly timeframe) registered an Overbought or Oversold reading and/or have traded more than 2.5 standard deviations above or below its rolling mean.

Extremes “above” the Mean (at least 2.5 standard deviations)

Orange Juice

U.S. 10 year minus German 10 year bond yields

Overbought (RSI > 70)

Cattle

U.S. 2, 5, 10 and 20 year government bond yields

German 2 year government bond yields

U.S. 5-7 year corporate bond yields

U.S. 10 year minus Australian 10 year bond yields

The Overbought Quinella – Both Overbought and Traded at > 2.5 standard deviations above the weekly mean)

TBT

U.S. 30 year government bond yields

Extremes “below” the Mean (at least 2.5 standard deviations)

Coffee

Shanghai Composite

Oversold (RSI < 30)

Tin

Hot Rolled Coil Steel (HRC)

Cotton

Iron Ore

IEI & TLT

CSI 300 Index

Hang Seng & HSCEI Indices

Taiwan’s TAIEX index

KRW/USD

CNH/USD

JPY/USD

INR/USD

IDR/USD

The Oversold Quinella – Both Overbought and Traded at > 2.5 standard deviations above the weekly mean)

None

Notes & Ideas:

There have been many changes from last week’s list especially within the currency and bond markets.

New additions to this weeks list include some eclectic bond spreads.

The big news this past week was the stellar advance in equity markets. Individually, they warrant attention and trend analysis. For example, Spain’s IBEX market has risen 10% over the past 2 weeks.

In other observations, I’m watching if indices such as the DJ Industrials and Transports make ‘higher highs’.

Weekly extremes in the AUD and CAD are no longer oversold.

The USD (DXY) is not overbought.

Many government bond yields fell notably during the week telling us bonds were ‘catching a bid’.

The 10 year bond yields of Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, France, the UK, Italy and other…are not overbought, following a few weeks of appearing as so.

The German 2 and 5 year yields aren’t overbought anymore, while the U.S. listed bond IEF isn’t oversold.

The interest rate differential between the U.S. 10 year and Australian 10 year bond yields hit an overbought level (on my usual weekly basis measure) not seen since May 2019.

And finally, I want to remind and emphasise the height of the noise seen in British 10 year Gilts a few weeks ago, when yields touched 4.63%. They are now 3.50%.

A 25% move in 3 weeks is quite something, within a few weeks.

When bonds were being thrown away and sold by spooked by investors tuned in to the ‘temporary’ noise, they did so, at the wrong time.

This weekly publication is designed to highlight when pendulums are at the extremes points of their arcs.

The rest of the week’s notable movers are below.

The larger advancers over the past week comprised of;

Australian Coking Coal 8.9%, WTI Crude 3.4%, Gasoil 7.9%, Heating Oil 18.7%, Cattle 1.7%, Natural gas 14.6%, Dutch TTF Gas 22.7%, S&P GSCI 1.8%, AEX 2.3%, KBW Banks 5.9%, CAC 3.9%, DAX 4%, DJ Industrials 5.7%, DJ Transports 7%, MIB 4.5%, IBEX 4.9%, KOSPI 2.5%, S&P Midcap 400 5.3%, Nasdaq 100 2.1%, Oslo 2.9%, Copenhagen 5.1%, Stockholm 3.8%, Russell 2000 6%, SMI 3.4%, SOX 4.2%, S&P Midcap 5.3%, S&P 500 4%, STI 3%, TSX 3.2%, S&P SmallCap 600 6.1%, Nasdaq Biotech 6.8%, Nasdaq Composite 2.2% and Australia’s ASX 200 rose 1.6%.

The group of decliners included;

Rotterdam Coal (11.1%), Baltic Dry Index (15.7%), China Coal (9.2%), Iron Ore (2.8%), Lean Hogs (3.4%), Hot Rolled Coil Steel (HRC) (6.8%), JKM LNG Gas (7.1%), Coffee (11.1%), Lumber (14.8%), Tin (4.2%), Nickel (3.2%), Palladium (5.4%), Gasoline (3.7%), Sugar (4.4%), Cotton (8.9%), Florida Gulf Urea (9.6%), Middle East Urea (8.3%), Oats (2.6%), Wheat (2.5%), Shanghai Composite (4.1%), Hang Seng Index (8.3%), HSCEI (8.9%) and Brazil’s BOVESPA fell 4.5%

October 30, 2022

By Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au   

Who is China’s preferred supplier of Iron Ore?

Here is a chart comparing the stock prices of Iron Ore’s Big 4 to the 62% grade Iron Ore price.

Rio Tinto is cuddling more sympathetically to iron ore’s recent decline.

Fortescue is next.

BHP less so.

VALE being the least.

The percentages that these stock prices are tracking Iron Ore’s price may be a representation of each company’s mine localities, corporate domicile, national allegiance or perhaps ‘politics’.

It may be a the market’s interpretation of who China may see as their preferred supplier?

October 30, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Iron Ore, China, Australia and the U.S.

What if the U.S. requests (instructs) Australian companies to not sell Iron Ore to China anymore?

After all, it’s being done amongst the semiconductor industry.

Does Australia comply in line with its signed security pacts?

The price of 62% Iron Ore (as traded in Singapore) closed at $81.00.

I’ll look for $76.00 price early next week.

This latent weakness correlates well with the leading weakness seen in the AUD/USD.

And Iron Ore related equities are dancing in tune as well.

The risk (or opportunity) lies in the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this note.

October 28, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Mean reversions nearing the end

The big mean reversion back to the 200 week moving average has been underway.

While somewhat ‘smaller’ growth stocks did it much earlier and sharply, I have been highlighting the FAANNGM stocks as the ones to watch due to their hugh weighting and skew in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices.

The FAANNGM acronym accounts for the companies Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Nvidia, Google and Microsoft.

I also included Tesla in some of my commentary due to its $1.4 trillion market capitalisation also adding to this concentration at the top.

This week, Google (Alphabet) traded back down to its 200 week moving average.

Microsoft is nearly there.

Amazon and Nvidia did it several weeks ago.

Netflix and Facebook (Meta) plunged through that level many months ago.

But Apple and Tesla haven’t done so.

While there isn’t a rule that suggests they need to fall all the way to their mean but the stretched levels which they were trading at told me to either sell or not chase them higher…..because gravity does exist.

Incidentally, the Nasdaq 100, the Philadelphia Semiconductor and S&P 500 indices also reverted back to its 200 week moving average  (WMA) over the past month, as have the Small-Cap, Mid-Caps, Banking, Transportation indices. 

We have seen all the ‘rubbish’ or over priced and zealous technology stocks tank first, followed by many other sectors including the industrials, then notable indices caught up with the decline and the last to follow are the originally identified culprits, being the FAANNGM stocks.

Pundits are all waiting for some indication of a market capitulation.

Could that occur when Apple and Tesla reach their 200 week moving average?

That may only matter if you are owning or trading Apple or Tesla.

Many indices are at higher prices today than when they touched their 200 WMA back in June or September 2022.

This story had a lead up which I began writing about in 2021.  

3 days before the S&P 500 peak, I wrote this note which highlighted the extreme percentages that the indices and in particular the FAANNGM stocks were trading at.

https://mailchi.mp/karriasset/a-distorted-sp-500-amongst-extreme-peaks

In the next newsletter, I illustrated the damage already being done (at that time) amongst the lesser technology starlets and warned of that spreading to the bigger boys. 

This article from January 2022 discussed how recently stratospheric FAANNGM stocks where looking weak and about to break below important support lines.

https://mailchi.mp/karriasset/there-is-gravity-in-the-stratosphere

This article written days later in February 2022, reiterates the story about the 200 week moving average being something to watch in the pending reversion to the mean.

Now that these mean reversions have occurred or are close to doing so, it doesn’t automatically render them a Buy suggestion.

There is more analysis to be done and basis required for such a recommendation

Clients will soon receive commentary with my views about what to consider next. 

October 28, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Trimming public company fat

Why is Elon Musk saying that he may/will cut 5,600 of Twitter’s 7,500 (75%) workforce?

It is simple. Save costs because the company is too ‘fat’.

Because in the absence of a major shareholder or founding executive, public companies are often run with some largesse in attempts to increase productivity or roll out products so to increase revenue, in order to satisfy stock analysts and shareholders.

Musk is gonna trim some fat.

When companies are private, they are run leaner.

There are some conundrums though.

I don’t know why Meta (Facebook) has 72,000 employees nor why Spotify and Airbnb each have 6,000.

The former is cutting 15,000 jobs soon. Airbnb cut 25% or 1,900 employees in May 2020.

All three have majority or a founder as CEO, yet they have more employees than what I think is logical.

I bet if they were private companies, they would have a lot less headcount.

October 28, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

Ship out the Cattle herd

It’s time to lock in the selling price for your cows.

In other words, for sellers of Cattle, prices are now in the territory of being ‘good enough’.

In fact, beef farmers are looking at Cattle prices trading at ‘extremes’ not seen for a while.

The ‘circles’ in the ‘weekly based” chart below show prices coinciding at certain percentages above Cattle’s 200 week moving average, 2.5 standard deviations above a rolling weekly mean and registering a weekly Overbought RSI reading.

It’s advisable to ‘take the fat part of the trade’.

For Aussie, Canadian and Brazilian beef farmers who are receiving proceeds in USD, you’re in a particular purple patch whilst your currencies are trading at reasonable weakness.

Albeit, currency conversion is a seperate trade.

Specifically, for the AUD/USD, I think there is a good probability of seeing the AUD/USD trade below 63 cents again, in the near term.

October 27, 2022

by Rob Zdravevski

rob@karriasset.com.au

The energy dominos are falling one by one

Now that RBOB Gasoline, Natural Gas, Dutch TTF Gas and the JKM LNG Marker prices have halved, I think other commodities in the energy complex are at a critical juncture.

While I remain cautious and specifically bearish on crude oil prices (I expect WTI Crude to move towards $65-$68 from its current $84.50), the larger declines could be seen in Heating Oil and Diesel (Gasoil).

They are currently trading at $3.95 and $10.82 respectively.

Both Heating Oil and Gasoil remain in downtrends across various timeframes and now I am watching a few more indicators to confirm strength and the next leg downwards.

If so, there could be 40% further downside in Heating Oil and Gasoil.

This view all seems quite perverse as the Northern Hemisphere winter approaches.

p.s. the largest use of diesel is in transportation, not electricity generators

I’ll write when/if the probability of this increases.

October 25, 2022
by Rob Zdravevski
rob@karriasset.com.au