Macro Dragon: Synthetic Friday... + 8,236,000

Macro Dragon: Synthetic Friday... + 8,236,000

Folks as a pin going forward during this turbulent times, let us please remember:

The Covid-19 crisis with all its challenges, stress, chaos & opportunities will also eventually pass. What defines humanity & ourselves as individuals is how we both individually & collectively act under adversity. Think of how you want to look back over this period, doing your part to keep your family healthy, society healthy & functioning. Keeping a cool head, when others are losing theirs, maintaining an objective list of positive aspects & negative aspects of the policy responses & economic shock the world is / could go through. And lastly gratitude, sympathy & empathy for one another. Parts of Asia got / are getting through this & so too shall the RoW.

The one big positive from all this, is it reminds us we are all One. Plus we are not at the top of the food chain. Covid-19 does not care if you are rich, poor, what your ethnicity & skin color are, what passport/s you hold, nor what you age or profession is. Our greatest achievements are almost always those that we collectively do with others & sometimes as in this case, potentially as species.

Lastly keep your mind open to growth & opportunities.

Top of Mind…

• Welcome to synthetic Friday, given that most developed markets will be closed tmr due to the Good Friday Public holiday, with some even getting Mon off (HK, AU, NZ, most of EU) – no doubt this a long wkd that we can all use. Note our Saxo Market Call podcast will be back on Tues for the European Morning

• Cannot speak for everyone - yet spending countless of hours on screens, digesting research & synthesizing all the moving data in this one of a kind Coronavirus Storm has been everything from exhausting, frustrating, exhilarating… to incredibly rewarding from a craft development perspective… to also realizing the more you learn, the less you really know… to being grateful that one’s family & loved ones are healthy, safe & well… to an ocean of empathy & compassion to the millions out there globally who are facing colossal disruption in their lives & may never fully recover from all this…. To optimism that this to shall all pass & hopefully there will be parts of the world that will rebuild a better skin-in-the-game framework around the economic model of countries, the social contract, universal healthcare, growth at the expense of people/stability, etc…

• If there is one great thing that Covid-19 has done, is its reminded us all – that we are all one. Lets hope aspects of that stay on…

• So Bernie is out & so long as Biden does not catch the bug – looks like there will be no one thrown beneath the bus on this democratic presidential nomination (i.e. remember how the Burn got burnt in 2016 from +30K Emails Hillary?)

• Speaking of the bug, looks like Bojo – likely the closest leader to Churchill that the UK has seen – is getting better, which is great for the UK, sterling & its assets

• Meanwhile the political risk in Europe only increases, check out Dembik’s take on the recent Eurogroup videoconference. Here is a short summary:

  “After 16 hours of unsuccessful negotiations, the Eurogroup is suspended. Italy and the Netherlands are still at loggerheads. The discussion between finance ministers should resume on Thursday again. The press conference that was initially scheduled at 10 AM (Brussels Time) is canceled.”

• Jobless number today seems to be c. 8.2m expected by economists, which likely means the whisper number expected by traders is higher… if the last two wks are anything to go by. These huge numbers seem to be well discounted by markets, it may just be about outlook from companies as we get into earnings season in the US. Still to KVP, this is shocking… again it took us 2yrs post eh gfc to get to c.10m people without jobs… we have already done that here in two wks… & we could be close to doubling that tonight. Still feel, people are underestimating just how quickly these jobs are going to come back – KVP of course could be wrong

• SPX close up +3.4% to 2750, leaving us just shy c. 40points to get back above the key 50% fibo retracement lvl of 2793. Quite a few folks are targeting that lvl to either cut some of their longs (if they have been playing the bounce, squeeze, bottom is in, etc) or to revisit shorts – either outrights or through puts.

• Personally looking for the downside at that lvl, may be better expressed through picking up US 10s, as that is likely more convex – plus once again, remember the META TREND – yields & rates are going lower & they are staying low for a long time…. Why? Because they have to, there is too much debt (& more coming) on the government balance sheet for them to let interest rates go up

• A lot of chatter around Trump looking to re-open the US & some European countries looking to loosen some of the lock down steps – too early too soon? We’ll again, only know down the line… in the case of the US, there could be a divergence on the state levels, with some Democratic states potentially likely to be more conservative on when they get back to biz & some Republican states being likely to be more aggressive on opening up – will be interesting to see

• Enjoy the long wkd folks, Macro Dragon will be back on Monday

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We could continue to be in a gang buster period of volatility both to the up & down side until at least mid-Apr to back-end of May. Some, time decay is needed in the system, both from a Covid-19 spread (past peak velocity upwards), even bigger & even better government / fiscal / monetary policy response, to overall heads of governments giving this the 2^nd & 3^rd order consequences thinking that it needs. This to shall pass. Keep you minds & hearts open  

Good luck to everyone out there, be nimble & position accordingly  


Namaste,

KVP