Cosa diavolo è la "narrativa" (parte 6)

Proprio ieri, il Financial Times ha pubblicato un articolo che lega il tema della "narrativa" alla forte tensione che si vede in Borsa.

Abbiamo deciso di riproporvelo, naturalmente NON per intero ma solo con alcuni brani che noi abbiamo selezionato per voi (come facciamo spesso lasciandolo in lingua originale) perché può essere utile per i nostri lettori avere un accesso diretto a ciò di cui si discute sui mercati finanziari, per definire quali sono i "temi caldissimi".

What exactly is the story? As I recounted recently, markets ride on narratives.

For a while the presiding narrative has been either MAGA (Make America Great Again) or Goldilocks (the economy that is not too hot and not too cold). This week was supposed be the story of The Businessman at the Fed, as Jay Powell made his debut meeting at the Federal Open Market Committee. It has not quite worked out that way. Instead, Mr Powell’s debut left virtually everyone somewhat nonplussed, with a marginal majority (judging by the market reaction) feeling that he had not been quite as hawkish as had been feared. I still tend to think that he was more of a hawk than others believe. But that turns out not be the story.

Instead, Thursday brought us some very disappointing "flash" ISM manufacturing surveys from Europe — those for Germany, France, and the broader eurozone, all fell. The belated apology by Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was widely felt not to have done enough to assuage the pressure on the company, as more revelations appeared, and he appeared to accept the prospect of higher regulation. The day also featured a much trailed White House announcement on tariffs to counter alleged Chinese abuse of intellectual property, amounting to potentially $60bn. And it featured the resignation of the president’s personal lawyer, and — after the market closed — the announcement that the famously hawkish John Bolton would replace the soldier-scholar General HR McMaster as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

It is always worth breaking down what is going on in markets into narratives. Some of the work going into this is fascinating (...). 

Disentangling the various narratives in today’s market, it seems we need to be far more cautious about "Synchronised Global Recovery" in the light of the disappointing economic numbers. "Revenge Against the Nerds" or Extraction of the Fangs" or "Downfall of the Monopolists" or whatever other label you want to put on the travails of Facebook, is going well. "Watergate II" or "White House in Chaos" receive a strong boost, aided by the wishful thinking of many, as does the narrative of "Nuclear Confrontation" as the president assembles a team far more likely to encourage him to take an aggressive stance with Iran and North Korea. Most clearly, the narrative that had recently taken over as fund managers’ most feared tail risk, according to BofA Merrill Lynch, "Trade War" received a great boost. (...)

In short, it is not clear exactly what the story is, but when there are so many narratives to choose from, and all of them imply bad things for the market in the short term, it should not be at all surprising that the market had a bad day. As Rich Bernstein of Richard Bernstein Associates put it, it was a "uniquely toxic cocktail" (which itself sounds like the title of another good story). All of these negative narratives tended to reinforce each other. (...)

So, the irritating market cliché that markets hate nothing more than uncertainty itself turns out to be true again. For now, at any rate, the new order for the market, and the prevailing narrative, appears to be Confusion