“The better part of valor is discretion”
– William Shakespeare
 
Thanks Bill, and the better or necessary part of consumer spending is the staples.  Necessity is why staples are also called non-discretionary.  With their discretion, will consumers be so valorous as to empty their wallets for things they want, rather than need?  The almost vertical trajectory of discretionary consumer stocks suggests yes.  On the contrary, sound analysis indicates that consumers face an almost impenetrable ceiling, triple fortified by the Three S’s:  Savings rate, Stagflation, and Share of wallet.  I’d add consumer credit (bad) to the mix but it doesn’t begin with an S, we like 3s, and our macro team will be addressing this topic shortly.
 
So while Geithner may say that “things are better than 3 months ago, 6 months ago, before this recession began”, I would ask two questions:  By what metric and for whom?  Geithner’s preferred metric lately, it appears, is the rate of change or the “less bad” thesis that Research Edge was espousing when everyone else thought the world was falling apart (March 9th ring a bell?).  The stock market has already discounted “less bad”, then “stability”, and now is viewing the consumer as in “recovery” mode.  This is what scares me.
 
“Recovery mode” implies, well…recovery.  I’m certainly not seeing it in the consumer discretionary sectors of gaming, lodging, and leisure that comprise my analytical vertical.  Is business less bad?  Maybe, but I think the comparisons are just getting easier.  The consumer is not necessarily getting stronger.
 
“Recovery mode” also implies some lasting duration.  We are very worried about Q4 from a macro and consumer perspective.  The threat of stagflation is real, maybe coming as soon as Q4.  Stagflation is a consumer killer.  In a stagflation environment, fewer consumers have jobs and the ones that do can’t buy as much as before.  Will you take credit for that too, Mr. Geithner, when it happens?  Your policies and your predecessor’s policies (as well as the Bernanke constant) have created a fertile environment for potentially massive inflation, yet unemployment continues to grow.  Sure unemployment is growing at a slower rate (10% but it could’ve been 10.5%!). Congratulations - pop the champagne – at least the French consumer discretionary industry will benefit.
 
So if I’m out of work (thankfully I’m not) and my purchasing power begins to decline at an accelerating rate (rate of change cuts both ways Tim), am I really going to buy that 2nd boat, 8th Coach bag, or book that 3rd cruise this year, or will I feed my family.  Want versus need.
 
This also gets us to the share of the wallet question. In an inflationary economy, a larger part of consumer spending will go to non-discretionary items.  With stagflation, the size of the wallet shrinks.  One of my industries has a third problem:  even within the consumer discretionary segment, casino spending is shrinking as a % of Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) for the first time in 25 years.  Now that’s a triple whammy!
 
So what do we do?  Be careful and manage risk.  We can’t ignore the warning signs just because the stock market and consumer stocks are going up.  Timing, as always, is critical.  This is where I defer to our timing tutor, Keith McCullough.
 
On a separate note, I will be taking many moments of silence today to contemplate what happened exactly 8 years ago on a beautiful, sunny Tuesday morning.  The events of 9/11 had an impact on virtually every American.  The impact was personal for many of us living/working in NYC that day.  We move forward in part by looking back.
 
Todd Jordan
Managing Director


LONG ETFS

VXX – iPath VIX We bought volatility horribly the first time on 9/3. With the VIX testing our 23 level of support on 9/10, we added to the position.  

XLV – SPDR Healthcare We’re finally getting the correction we’ve been calling for in Healthcare. It’s a good one to buy into. Our Healthcare sector head Tom Tobin remains bullish on fading the “public plan” at a price.

EWH – iShares Hong Kong
The current lower volatility in the Hang Seng (versus the Shanghai composite) creates a more tolerable trading range in the intermediate term and a greater degree of tactical confidence.  

CYB – WisdomTree Dreyfus Chinese Yuan The Yuan is a managed floating currency that trades inside a 0.5% band around the official PBOC mark versus a FX basket. Not quite pegged, not truly floating; the speculative interest in the Yuan/USD forward market has increased dramatically in recent years. We trade the ETN CYB to take exposure to this managed currency in a managed economy hoping to manage our risk as the stimulus led recovery in China dominates global trade.

TIP – iShares TIPS The iShares etf, TIP, which is 90% invested in the inflation protected sector of the US Treasury Market currently offers a compelling yield. We believe that future inflation expectations are currently mispriced and that TIPS are a efficient way to own yield on an inflation protected basis, especially in the context of our re-flation thesis.

 
SHORT ETFS
 
LQD – iShares Corporate Bonds
Corporate bonds have had a huge move off their 2008 lows and we expect with the eventual rising of interest rates that bonds will give some of that move back. Shorting ahead of Q4 cost of capital heightening as access to capital tightens.

EWU – iShares UK We’re bearish on the UK’s leadership and monetary policy to weather its economic downturn. Although we’re seeing improved fundamentals within the country and across Europe we continue to see the country’s financial leverage as a headwind and increasingly the data suggests that inflation is getting ahead of growth. With the FTSE reaching a YTD high on 9/9, we shorted EWU.

DIA  – Diamonds Trust We shorted the Dow on 9/3.  In the US, we want to be long the Nasdaq (liquidity) and short the Dow (financial leverage).

EWJ – iShares Japan While a sweeping victory for the Democratic Party of Japan has ended over 50 years of rule by the LDP bringing some hope to voters; the new leadership  appears, if anything, to have a less developed recovery plan than their predecessors. We view Japan as something of a Ponzi Economy -with a population maintaining very high savings rate whose nest eggs allow the government to borrow at ultra low interest levels in order to execute stimulus programs designed to encourage people to save less. This cycle of internal public debt accumulation (now hovering at close to 200% of GDP) is anchored to a vicious demographic curve that leaves the Japanese economy in the long-term position of a man treading water with a bowling ball in his hands.

SHY – iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bonds  If you pull up a three year chart of 2-Year Treasuries you'll see the massive macro Trend of interest rates starting to move in the opposite direction. We call this chart the "Queen Mary" and its new-found positive slope means that America's cost of capital will start to go up, implying that access to capital will tighten. Yields are going to continue to make higher-highs and higher lows until consensus gets realistic.