“Hi there. Sorry if I took a snap at you at one time. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat.”

-Finding Nemo

I’ve watched that movie at least 30 times (I have a 3 and a 5 year old). And while I haven’t seen this market movie before, I have seen how the waters tend to flow toward a burst of entropy, over the dam.

I’ll get to the flows of how this macro trade snapped in a minute, but first wanted to give credit to where it’s due. Ben Bernanke was fantastic yesterday – in terms of storytelling, that is. He was so convincing that the market finally realized it’s fiction.

Markets (particularly the bond market) losing faith that Bernanke can find Nemo, is not a good thing. Even the Gold market realized that his entire policy depends on fictional forecasts at this point. That’s saying something.

Back to the Global Macro Grind

Follow the flow of the last 6 months:

  1. Bernanke teaches the Japanese how to eviscerate their currency for short-term political gain
  2. The Japanese take it up 20,000 feet and roll with 132 TRILLION Yens of easing
  3. Yen gets blasted to 103 and the Weimar Nikkei rips a +75%, 6 month, move
  4. The 57% (average Japanese Household net worth has that much in JGBs and Cash) says, buy Weimar Nikkei!
  5. To buy Weimar Nikkei, Japanese dudes have to sell JGBs
  6. JGBs breakout above the Hedgeye TAIL risk line of 0.81% (on the 10yr)
  7. Implied volatility in JGBs starts to rip (Japanese breakevens are already ripping too)
  8. Japanese Government guys say we got this move in the bond market under control, right?
  9. USA’s Central Planning overlord (Bernanke) says I got it on this end too, right?
  10. US stocks, bonds, and Gold all snap intraday; Yen stops going down; Nikkei closes down -7.3%

I sold all but 7 LONG positions and took our Cash position to 50% in the Hedgeye Asset Allocation Model at 10:38AM EST right after Bernanke spewed something about “savers wear multiple hats.”

It was only the 2nd day since November 29th that I was net short intraday in Real-Time Alerts. Sorry if I was snapping on him on Twitter in real-time. I gotta speak my mind, kids gotta eat.

Not only was Bernanke’s thing about savers a slap in the face to any upstanding American who has taught their children Benjamin Franklin style frugality, but it showed a genuine lack of respect for the sacrifice savers (deposits) have made to backstop the most asymmetric, levered, and tax payer funded, trade in US history.

Sorry Ben. You lost my trust and respect a long time ago. Now you are losing the market’s. So now what? After consensus hedge funds bought SPY call options at their most aggressive pace since 2007 (on Tuesday, ostensibly having some inside info on what Bernanke was going to say about tapering), is it officially time to freak out?

Well, since Rule #1 is don’t lose money and rule #2 is probably turning into don’t freak out when other people are – we should probably respect the all encompassing rules of market mortality as well (I learned this one from Nemo too):

Marlin: Now it's my turn. I'm thinking of something dark and mysterious. It's a fish we don't know. If we ask it directions, it could ingest us and spit out our bones. 


Dory: What is it with men and asking for directions? 

Marlin: I don't want to play the gender card right now. You want to play a card, let's play the "let's not die" card. 

Ok. So that about sums up my call this morning – we’ve had a great run; let’s not die.

We’ve already snapped some lines where price momentum chasing machines will end up dead via stop loss this morning. What was immediate-term TRADE support is now resistance for the DAX, Nikkei, and SP500 at:

  1. DAX = 8,389
  2. Nikkei = 15,097
  3. SP500 = 1657

The good news is that bullish TREND supports for all 3 remain firmly intact (for the SP500 that’s 1558). The bad news is that those TREND lines of support are a lot lower than last price.

In my last few weeks of rants (notes titled “Sovereign Yield Risk” and “The Waterfall”) I’ve outlined how all of this could potentially play out. My general advice for 6 months has been don’t buy bubbles that are popping (Gold, Commodities, etc.).

Bernanke is big on asset bubbles (Housing, Commodities, and now Treasuries). And the Japanese are big on Bernanke. So the last thing you want to be buying this morning are more of the Japanese (JGBs) or Bernanke (Treasuries).

If you are hungry for Yield – I guess that’s too bad. We’ve had plenty to eat – and eating the artificial stuff won’t fill your family’s belly forever; your hard earned Savings will.

And, as for you Mr. Bernanke… Marlin, Mr. Market, and I are going to start teaching you how to eat that Yield Chasing thing like Dory was taught, “Cause you are about to eat my bubbles.”

Our immediate-term Risk Ranges for Gold, Oil (Brent), US Dollar, USD/YEN, UST 10yr Yield, VIX, Russell2000, Weimar Nikkei, and the SP500 are now $1, $100.97, $83.84-84.69, 100.11-103.39, 1.86-2.03%, 12.94-15.73, 964-988, 147, and 1, respectively.

Best of luck out there today,

KM

Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer

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