Home » Posts tagged 'Securities'
Tag Archives: Securities
Hobson’s Choice
Hobson’s Choice
More than two months have passed since the August “flash crash.” Fragilities illuminated during that bout of market turmoil still reverberate. Sure, global markets have rallied back strongly. Bullish news, analysis and sentiment have followed suit, as they do. The poor bears have again been bullied into submission, as the punchy bulls have somehow become further emboldened. The optimists are even more deeply convinced of U.S., Chinese and global resilience (the 2008 crisis “100-year flood” view). Fears of China, EM and global tumult were way overblown, they now contend. As anticipated, global officials remain in full control. All is rosy again, except for the fact that global central bankers behave as if they’re utterly terrified of something.
The way I see it, underlying system fragility has become so acute that central bankers are convinced that they must now forcefully (“shock and awe,” “beat expectations,” etc.) react to any fledgling market “risk off” dynamic. Risk aversion and de-leveraging must not gather momentum. If fragilities are not thwarted early, they could easily unfold into something difficult to control. Such an outcome would risk a break in market confidence that central banks have everything well under control – faith that is now fully embedded in the pricing and structure for tens of Trillions of securities and hundreds of Trillions of associated derivatives – everywhere. With options at this point limited, the so-called “risk management” approach dictates that central banks err on the side of using their limited armaments forcibly and preemptively.
With today’s extraordinary global backdrop in mind, I’m this week noting a few definitions of “Hobson’s Choice”:
“An apparently free choice that actually offers no alternative.” (The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms)
“A situation in which it seems that you can choose between different things or actions, but there is really only one thing that you can take or do.” (Cambridge Idioms Dictionary)
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Liquidity Crisis Intensifies: ‘Prepare For A Bear Market In Bonds’
The Liquidity Crisis Intensifies: ‘Prepare For A Bear Market In Bonds’
Are we about to witness trillions of dollars of “paper wealth” vaporize into thin air? During the next financial crisis, a lot of “wealthy” investors are going to be in for a very rude awakening. The truth is that securities are only worth what someone else is willing to pay for them, and that is why liquidity is so important. Back on April 17th, I published an article entitled “The Global Liquidity Squeeze Has Begun“, but it didn’t get nearly as much attention as many of my other articles do. But now that the liquidity crisis is intensifying, hopefully people will start to grasp the implications of what is happening. The 76 trillion dollar global bond bubble is threatening to implode, and if it does, the amount of “paper wealth” that could potentially be lost during the months ahead is almost unimaginable.
For those that do not consider the emerging liquidity crisis to be important, I would suggest that they check out what the financial experts are saying. For instance, the following comes from a recent Bloomberg report…
There are three things that matter in the bond market these days: liquidity, liquidity and liquidity.
How — or whether — investors can trade without having prices move against them has become a major worry as bonds globally tanked in the past few months. As a result, liquidity, or the lack of it, is skewing markets in new and surprising ways.
Things have already gotten so bad that Zero Hedge says that some fund managers “are starting to panic” about the lack of liquidity in the marketplace…
Fund managers who together control trillions in assets are starting to panic in the face of an acute bond market liquidity shortage.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
