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Month: October 2022

There’s Still Time to Hedge Tail Risk — At Least for Stocks: Kris Sidial (Szn 4, Ep. 29)

Published October 19, 2022

Kris Sidial of The Ambrus Group joins the podcast to discuss tail-risk hedging: how it works, why it’s important, and how investors can still take advantage of volatility mispricings to protect themselves against further downside — at least in stocks.

Content Highlights

  • What is tail risk hedging? (3:19);
  • Traditional hedges haven’t worked, starting with the 60:40 approach. How might investors hedge stock and bond exposure? (6:15);
  • There are numerous options for investors to protect against downturns. But it’s not always as easy as buying put contracts on indexes (8:24);
  • Variance swaps, one way to compound returns on movements in volatility (10:25);
  • Thoughts on UK pensions and what might have caused issues in that segment of the market (15:27);
  • What investors are doing in this environment in terms of tail-risk hedging — there are still opportunities to hedge (20:02);
  • Background on the guest (30:08);
  • Discussion of systemic risk as a result of the layers of options trades and counterparties: “There is a systemic hazard taking place right now in the derivatives market” (39:32);
  • Speaking of risk, what about the regulatory environment? Are regulators asleep at the switch? Reasons to believe Dodd-Frank is perhaps not as effective as people think.. (43:37)
  • Thoughts on cryptocurrencies (50:01).

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The Fed’s Inflation Battle Is Doomed to Fail: Fabian Wintersberger (Szn 4, Ep. 28)

Published October 12, 2022

Fabian Wintersberger joins the podcast to discuss his views on the economy, inflation, and Fed policy.

Content Highlights

  • The Fed will not succeed at bringing inflation down to 2%. There will be no soft-landing for the economy (2:48);
  • Interest rate hikes will proceed until something breaks in the real economy, forcing the Fed to reverse course (5:04);
  • Bond yields: We haven’t seen the highs yet (8:16);
  • Background on the guest (14:10);
  • The situation in Europe. Central banks have no choice but to follow the Fed higher (16:38);
  • The situation in Wintersberger’s native Austria, which faces an unprecedented winter with dramatically higher energy costs (18:55);
  • Austria has historical ties to Russia, including in its banking sector, where one institution still has business in the country… (23:27).

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Collision Course: US Economy and the Fed Wrecking Ball

Published October 7, 2022

A short synopsis of the Fed’s determination to ‘break things’ 

The following is an amended version of the Oct. 7 Daily Contrarian. This briefing and accompanying podcast are released to premium subscribers each market day morning by 0700. To subscribe, visit our Substack.

Non-farm payrolls this morning came in at 263,000, ahead of economist forecasts of 250,000. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% (it was expected to hold at 3.7%). The headline number was a decrease from the 315,000 figure seen last month and constitutes the lowest reading of the year. That was little consolation for investors who took the opportunity to sell stocks again.

Here the formula was the same it’s been: investors were rooting for a soft number signifying a slowing labor market, simply because it would bring more hope of a quicker Fed pivot away from interest rate hikes.

‘Breaking Things’

The NFP report demonstrates that in the US economy at least, nothing really appears broken. Consumers have been able to afford the higher prices for goods and services — mainly because they’re still employed and even still getting raises. That’s a problem because Fed officials are on record stating they are determined to tame inflation even if it means ‘breaking something’ in the economy.

Of course, talk is cheap. Each time investors bid up stocks they have essentially been calculating that if there is a real pain point in the economy, the Fed will probably see it as reason enough to pivot and flood the market with liquidity again.

Miley Cyrus 'Wrecking Ball' feat Jerome Powell. Meme by author
Meme by author via IMGflip.com

Perhaps this calculation will even be right. But the ‘pain point,’ wherever it ends up occurring, is likely to cause a blast radius with second- and third-order effects. The damage will likely be widespread, perhaps even in areas none of us can envision right now. Unwinds of this magnitude are very rarely painless.

Remember too that it takes up to a year for Fed rate hikes to work their way through the economy. This tightening cycle started in March. That puts us seven months in. Potentially still months away from when things even start breaking.

That all makes for a guarded market. Sure, there’s a chance investors could throw caution to the wind and bid up assets into year-end. But with all this uncertainty still out there, it’s difficult to make the case for taking risks. Markets hate uncertainty more than they hate bad news.

For what it’s worth, none of this is investment advice. Do your own research, make your own decisions.

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