There is little I can write about yesterday’s market action. Traders assessed disappointing outlooks from a giant manufacturing and consumer products company. There are prospects of higher interest rates and oil slumped on predictions of an increase in supply.
The WSJ validated some of my views regarding HFTs stating few understand these trading vehicles; they exacerbate volatility, with little attention focused on leverage, a tenant that can potentially create a systemic event. Some are speculating this report could usher an investigation and ultimately regulation, two events that I fully support.
The Financial Times wrote 99% of all active managers have been outperformed by passive strategies since 2006. Wow! The first ETF was launched in 1993 but it took another 15 years for such to reach the market.
There was about 100 ETFs in 2002, swelling to over 1,000 at the end of 2009. Today there are more ETFs than listed securities. To remind all ETFs are passive investment designed to track a specific index. By definition the big gets bigger and the small get smaller.
In many regards, ETFs break a fundamental regulation inferring that past performance is indicative of future performance. A dated statistic states 84% of total volume in the “typical stock” is the result of indexing, inferring there is no analysis just buying the shares based upon capitalization.
I can write volumes about this subject but will only opine about two subjects. First if it was this easy for outperformance all would be gazillionaires. Secondly such strategies impinge capital formation hence contributes to anemic growth as capital is the lifeblood of capitalism.
Perhaps the proliferation of ETFs and cross collateralized trading (i.e. HFTs) is why most of the bulge bracket firms are bearish, suggesting a 5% to 25% decline is possible in the immediate future.
If everyone owns the largest stocks who is left buy when selling commences, selling perhaps the result of cross collateralized HFTs that few understand much less acknowledge the leverage involved. Leverage is both the money multiplier and divider, meaning results are accentuated on both the upside and downside.
Last night the foreign markets were down. London was down 0.98%, Paris down 0.63% and Frankfurt down 0.82%. China was down 0.50%, Japan up 0.15% and Hang Sang down 1.02%.
The Dow should open moderately lower as Apple disappointed and oil prices fell. And then there is the election. According to a Bloomberg poll, Trump has a 2% lead over Clinton in Florida. The markets hate uncertainty and Donald Trump is the epitome of uncertainty, the anti establishment candidate. As flawed as Hillary Clinton is, she is a known entity given her 30-years in politics. The 10-year is off 4/32 to yield 1.78%.
