Abbiamo anticipato la pubblicazione dei nostri Post, in ragione del fatto che nel weekend potrebbe essere presa qualche iniziativa di emergenza da parte delle Autorità politiche e monetarie.

Che qualche cosa fosse cambiato, lo avevamo capito perfettamente già mercoledì sera, il 26 febbraio. Poi i mercati ce lo hanno ampiamente confermato, giovedì 27 febbraio.

Purtroppo, e contro la nostra volontà, siamo stati costretti a scrivere e parlare spesso delle uscite del Presidente degli Stati Uniti Donald J. Trump a proposito della Borsa di New York.

Per Trump, la Borsa è stata una vera ossessione, una quotidiana ossessione.

Per ben tre anni, quest’uomo molto abile è stato capace di trasformare la sua ossessione in una eccezionale capacità di manipolazione del pubblico dei piccoli investitori negli Stati Uniti, con un effetto di trascinamento su tutto il Resto del Mondo.

Oggi, ci sentiamo di segnalarvi che qualche cosa, da questo punto di vista, sta modificandosi, come ci dicono appunto i fatti degli ultimi giorni di mercato. E come potete leggere anche nell’articolo dal tono leggero ed umoristico, ma la cui sostanza risulta importante, pubblicato dal Wall Street Journal, che Recce’d ha selezionato per voi su questo delicatissimo argomento.

Two out of three ain’t bad, sang Meat Loaf.

But what about one out of three?

That was President Donald Trump’s record from Wednesday night’s coronavirus press conference, when it came to talking about the stock market.

Let’s start with the one thing he got right: This week’s sharp fall, while a shocker, is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. The 2,000-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average comes to around a 7% loss. It’s taken us back to where we were at the end of October. Ugly, but not, at this stage, anything worse than that. Stock markets do this all the time.

There is something downright weird about people complaining that stocks sometimes go down as well as up. (Especially when a reporter asks — literally — “Mr. President, the stock market has taken a big hit over the past few days. What can you do about that?”)

Since Trump was elected president in November 2016, the Dow has risen from around 18,000 to around 27,000. The S&P 500 has produced a total shareholder return of 55%, equivalent to about 14% per year.

That is way ahead of the historic average. Everyone can argue about the reasons. But whether you like Trump or hate him, facts are facts and the stock market has done very well. The market would have to drop a long way before it was back below trend.

OK, so that’s the thing he got right.

However. What on Earth?

Trump went on an extended riff blaming the market’s fall on Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate.

Excuse the word salad, but the meaning is reasonably clear.

“I really think the stock market is something I know a lot about,” he said. “I think it took a hit maybe for two reasons.” One, he said, was coronavirus, and the effect it was having on business and supply chains. However, he said, “I think they looked at the people you watched debating last night and they say, if there’s any possibility that can happen. I think it really takes a hit because of that.”

He went on, a little later, “I think the financial markets are very upset when they look at the Democrat candidates standing on that stage making fools out of themselves, and they say, ‘if we ever have a president like this,’ and there’s always a possibility, it’s an election. when they look at the statements made by the people standing behind those podiums, I think that has a huge effect.”

Jumpin’ Jimminy Cricket. The “Democrat” debate took place on Tuesday night.

The stock-market slump took place on Monday and Tuesday. The stock market actually closes at 4 p.m. So the two-day rout had ended four hours before the debate even began.

I know the stock market is supposed to be a forward-looking indicator, but this is ridiculous.

It’s very unlikely the “Democrat debate,” even if it leads to a Bernie Sanders nomination, is causing the other economic indicators signaling possible danger — like the sharp slump in the worldwide price of copper that began in early January.

As if this wasn’t weird enough, Trump then suggested he had no idea how money works in our economy. Well, he’s a former businessman. Businessmen don’t print money, they borrow it.

So he started complaining that because of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, he had to pay too much in interest. (Once again, apologies for the word salad).

“I disagree with the head of the Fed,” the president said. “I’m not happy with what that is.” Then he added, “President Obama didn’t have near the numbers, and yet if you look at what happened he was paying zero. We’re paying interest.”

Translation: It’s not fair. I have a better economy than Obama did, but I have to pay higher rates of interest.

Trump went on to complain that he — or, more accurately, Uncle Sam — was also paying higher rates of interest than weaker economies like Germany, where the rates are actually negative. “I think we’re the greatest of them all, we should be paying the lowest interest rates,” he said.

Well, Jumpin’ Jimminy Cricket all over again.

No, Mr. President. Interest rates are not a reward. Uncle Sam is not a business. Strong economies have to pay higher rates precisely because they are strong. There is more demand for money, and the Fed raises rates to prevent overheating. Interest rates go up in a boom, or are supposed to. They go down in a slump. America’s higher rates are a sign of the economy’s relative strength — for now.

If Trump wants lower interest payments, he must be thrilled by the collapse this year in the rates on long-term Treasury bonds. The interest rate on 10-year Treasurys has fallen by a quarter since Jan. 1. Alas, this isn’t a sign of economic health. It’s a sign of potential weakness ahead.

But if Trump really is the “king of debt,” as he once boasted, and he is complaining about interest rates, he has a simple solution. He could refinance more of the federal debt into long-term bonds. The rate on the 10-year Treasury has just plunged to a paltry 1.33%, and the 30-year to 1.8%. These aren’t even enough to cover expected inflation. The money is effectively free in real, inflation-adjusted terms. If Trump believes he can grow the economy at a “real,” inflation-adjusted rate of 3% a year, as he says, there seems no reason not to borrow long at a real rate of about zero.

Over to you, Donald.

Abbiamo anticipato la pubblicazione dei nostri Post, in ragione del fatto che nel weekend potrebbe essere presa qualche iniziativa di emergenza da parte delle Autorità politiche e monetarie.

Potrebbe sembrare incredibile: ma tutti i nostri lettori sanno che non solo è credibile. E’ anche la realtà.

In Italia, una parte maggioritaria degli investitori si affida ancora alle Reti di vendita dei Fondi Comuni (che siano private bankers, o family bankers, o personal bankers, o chiamateli come volete: sono tutti e sempre promotori finanziari, ovvero venditori di merce). Si fa togliere ogni anno dalle tasche il 3-4%, e in cambio riceve

1. un portafoglio di Fondi che investono in cose che il Cliente NON conosce

2. una suddivisione del portafoglio che corrisponde alla regola “un po’ di tutto a tutti”, una specie di macedonia

3. un portafoglio che va su e giù a seconda di ciò che fanno gli indici del mercato

4. se va su, è stato bravo il promotore finanziario

5. se va giù, sono problemi del Cliente: e naturalmente “ci rifaremo l’anno prossimo”

6. il Cliente viene poi tenuto buono con telefonate e incontri basati su una lettura superficiale del Sole 24 Ore e Milano Finanza

Fanno così: non tutti, per fortuna, ma la maggior parte: pagano il 3-4% ogni anno, per un servizio di scarsa o scarsissima qualità … e sono felici così, almeno fino al giorno in cui Draghi tende loro una Pietosa Mano e trasforma in geni della finanza anche gli analfabeti (della finanza, ovviamente).

In fasi di mercato come quella in corso, che mettono in dubbio la stessa visione dei mercati finanziari, del loro ruolo nell’economia, dei criteri di valutazione e delle caratteristiche di comportamento, viene però alla luce una fondamentale differenza tra i venditori di Fondi Comuni ed un consulente (autentico) indipendente come Recce’d.

Recce’d non vi vende nulla: nei nostri portafogli, ci vanno soltanto strumenti finanziari che hanno un potenziale di guadagno per il Cliente, basato sulla valutazione. Non abbiamo altri scopi, non dobbiamo piazzare nulla, non abbiamo “obbiettivi di collocamento” e neppure “nuovi prodotti da collocare”.

Fa una bella differenza. anzi, fa tutta la differenza: noi di sicuro non mettiamo in portafoglio strumenti finanziari con l’obbiettivo di fare perdere soldi al Cliente, e neppure allo scopo di incassare (noi) commissioni su quello strumento oppure prodotto finanziario.

La differenza è sostanziale. Quando uno strumento va in minusvalenza, e ci rimane magari per un po’ di tempo, il Cliente non è costretto a domandarsi “per quale ragione me lo hanno fatto inserire nel mio portafoglio?”.

Mentre in altri casi, l’investitore dovrebbe domandarselo, ogni mattina.

Abbiamo anticipato la pubblicazione dei nostri Post, in ragione del fatto che nel weekend potrebbe essere presa qualche iniziativa di emergenza da parte delle Autorità politiche e monetarie.

Recce’d ve lo ha segnalato con energia e costanza, negli ultimi anni: si è via via accumalto, ed ingigantito, un grosso problema per tutti gli investitori.

Il mercato del debito, delle obbligazioni e degli altri strumenti di credito, è cresciuto fino a raggiungere dimensioni del tutto non coerenti con le dimensioni delle economie reali, e quindi è diventato ingestibile, è finito fuori controllo.

Non sono le Borse oggi, al centro della nostra attenzione, né lo saranno in futuro: oggi la strategia di investimento cambia, e si concentra sul comparto obbligazionario, per le ragioni che oggi spieghiamo in modo dettagliato nella nostra Lettera al Cliente. Lo scenario, oggi, è simile a quello degli Anni Settanta.

In the early days, when virtually nobody paid attention to the coronavirus pandemic which China was doing everything in its power to cover up, markets were not only predictably ignoring the potential global plague - after all central banks can always print more money, or is that antibodies - but until last week, were hitting all time highs. All that changed when it became apparent that for all its data manipulation, China was simply unable to reboot its economy as hundreds of millions of workers refused to believe the government had the viral plague under control, starting a potentially catastrophic 2,3 month countdown to millions of small and medium Chinese businesses going bankrupt, resulting not only in untold devastation in the world's 2nd largest economy but paralyzing and crippling supply chains across the world. Worse, it also triggered the biggest equity selloff in years.

And now, the coronavirus pandemic is about to leave yet another market in critical condition as the global credit machine is grinding to a halt.

As Bloomberg points out, the $2.6 trillion international bond market, where the world’s biggest companies raise money to fund everything from acquisitions to factory upgrades, came to a virtual standstill as the coronavirus spreads panic across company boardrooms.

While hardly a surprise with US equity markets suffering one of their worst selloffs since the great depression, Wall Street banks recorded their third straight day without any high-grade bond offerings, an unheard of event - especially in this day and age of ravenous yield apetite - outside of holiday and seasonal slowdowns. Across the Atlantic, European debt bankers had their first day of 2020 without a deal on Wednesday. And bond issuance in Asia, where the virus first emerged, has also slowed to a trickle.

As Bloomberg puts it, "it has been a remarkable turn of events for a market where investors had been snapping up almost anything on offer amid a global dash for yield. Europe had been enjoying its strongest ever start to a year for issuance, and sales of U.S. junk bonds have been on the busiest pace in at least a decade. With so many borrowers having postponed their issuance plans, a calming in global markets could kickstart debt sales again."

Honeywell, Virgin Money UK and Transport for London were among the numerous European borrowers who had lined up deals before financial markets turned upside down. Before the slowdown, Europe had seen 239 billion euros ($260 billion) of bonds sold in January alone. Across in the US, the investment-grade market was expecting around $25 billion of sales this week before virus fears froze the market on Monday. Excluding the seasonally dead December holiday season and typical two-week summer hiatus in late August, there hasn’t been that long of a break to start the week since July 2018.

As shown in the chart below, after record new issuance in the investment grade market, the last week of September has seen a total paralysis in the primary market, similar to the freeze of China's economy.

Amid a surge in uncertainty that has crushed dip buyers, and left even central bankers scrambling to figure out what the proper response is, credit investors have been rattled by the potential impact on company earnings - now that most realize collapsing supply chains could result in catastrophic number in coming quarters - from disruption caused by the virus, which has seen huge parts of global supply chains shutting down. Meanwhile, as traders await the the panic selling to kick in, a derivatives index that gauges credit market fear in the U.S. had its biggest jump in more than three years on Monday as investors rushed to hedge against a wider selloff.

"It’s a coin toss as to what tomorrow will look like, or even the rest of today," said Tony Rodriguez, head of fixed income strategy at Nuveen. "You have to respect the fact that when you don’t have an information advantage to not make any significant moves."

It's not just the IG market: offerings also came to a halt in the junk-bond market, where until the past week, $67 billion of sales had been running at the fastest pace since at least 2009, Bloomberg data showed. Mining giant Cleveland-Cliffs was the latest to try and crack the primary market freeze on Wednesday, with a $950 million offering of secured and unsecured notes testing the market in an attempt to refinance an acquisition target’s debt. And the Canadian market remained open for business as utility company Hydro One Ltd. raised C$1.1 billion ($827 million) in the largest Canadian dollar bond from a non-financial company this year.

Ironically, one can argue that there is a simple way to reboot the credit market: just offer higher yields:

Overall borrowing costs remain very low, however. A rally in U.S. Treasuries has sent all-in yields on U.S. investment-grade debt to record lows. U.S. investment-grade funds have reaped near-record inflows each week this year, as investors seek high-quality income assets. High-yield and leveraged loanfunds, however, have seen more outflows.

Almost as if investors don't buy credit for the (relative) yield, but for the capital gains from selling it to a greater fool.

Meanwhile, the worsening pandemic is already taking a toll on companies’ balance sheets, with drinks maker Diageo set to book as much as a 325 million-pound ($422 million) hit to organic net sales. In the U.S., United Airlines Holdings withdrew its 2020 profit forecast Tuesday as it can’t guarantee its earlier earnings goal. Microsoft was the latest to cut its guidance for personal computer sales. And it's all downhill from here.

The biggest concern however: with bond markets frozen, just how will IG-rated companies obtain the funding they need to keep buying back their stock, and pushing the market higher. In fact, one can argue that the freeze of the credit market is far more dangerous to the stock market than the inability to refinance a 1% bond with something paying 0.5%. If that's the case, expect far more pain for stocks in coming weeks and months as the market's entire buyback spree of the past three years goes into a very painful and dramatic reverse.

Abbiamo anticipato la pubblicazione dei nostri Post, in ragione del fatto che nel weekend potrebbe essere presa qualche iniziativa di emergenza da parte delle Autorità politiche e monetarie.

Forse qualcuno tra i lettori del Blog ricorderà ciò che Recce’d scriveva della Borsa di Milano solo qualche settimana fa.

Oggi è il caso di ampliare il discorso, e associare alla Borsa di Milano anche i BTp.

Per l’Italia, l’italia delle Aziende, l’Italia della politica, l’italia della società nele senso più ampio, il 2020 si presenta come un anno di appuntamenti decisivi, come ci anticipa anche il commento di Nomura di cui riferisce l’articolo che abbiamo selezionato per voi lettori e che trovate qui sotto.

Leggete con attenzione, sia in quanto investitori, sia in quanto cittadini di questo Bel Paese.

One week ago, a team of analysts at Nomura research covering the European economy made a bold prediction: Italy's economy would enter a technical recession during Q1 as the fallout from COVID-19 reverberates across global supply chains upon which the country's prosperous North depends.

At the time, Italy had only 3 confirmed coronavirus cases, and it appeared that the outbreak would mostly pass it by without much of a direct economic backlash. Fellow economists commiserated about this 'aggressive' call, and speculated about the impact that declaring a 'technical recession' in the eurozone's third-largest economy might have on consumer sentiment across the Continent.

On Tuesday, that picture was looking very different. And while the call appeared aggressive a week ago, today, if anything, it might not prove weak enough.

Though the virus officially spread to the Italian South on Tuesday, it has mostly affected the affluent North, particularly the regions in the "splayed" top of the Italian 'boot'. So far, the 100,000 Italians under army-supervised lockdown are located mostly in towns and villages. Still, the fallout For Lombardia, Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Piemonte could have serious repercussions. Veneto and Lombardia alone constitute two of the three most important provinces in terms of contribution to overall GDP.

The fact that the virus has made it to Milan is particularly alarming. The city is the 12-most densely populated in Europe, and it's widely considered the center of Italian industry - Italy's New York City. 2.5 million people live in Milan, and there are 10 million in Lombardia, the surrounding province.

On a QoQ basis, Italy's economy contracted in Q4 (even if it climbed YoY). Another quarterly slide and Italy will be in what's called a 'technical recession', which is precisely that - two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.

While conventional wisdom would suggest that even a few week's worth of these broad-based shutdowns of schools and some public spaces like restaurants and sporting events would have an impact. Should the shutdowns expand to broader sectors of the economy - factories, offices etc. - then of course the backlash would be worse.

As of Tuesday, Italy had confirmed more than 300 cases, with the largest cluster in Lombardy, and 10 deaths. It's now officially home to the worst COVID-19 outbreak in Europe, though it might soon have some competition.

"In summary," the team concludes, "a week ago the downward revision to our forecast for a recession in Italy had looked like a bold call. Not any more. If anything, the risks to our forecasts for Italian growth this year are now tilted firmly to the downside."

But at this point, even the virologists are having a hard time predicting what's going to happen next. So what hope does Wall Street have?

Esistono domande inevitabili.

Ognuno di noi, ognuno di voi lettori ed ogni investitore del Mondo.

In queste settimane ed in questi giorni, sta rispondendo alla domanda che leggete qui sopra.

In un mercato sempre più MONOtematico, con un singolo tema dominante, con un solo tema di investimento, con un solo singolo trend contro tutti gli altri trend, un mercato MONOidea, c’è una sola domanda che conta davvero.

Non c’è via di fuga. Nessuno può scappare. Non esiste modo di sfuggire a questa responsabilità. Non c’è modo di non rispondere. Non si può evitare questo argomento. Siamo e siete tutti costretti a scegliere.

Recce’d ha già risposto alla domanda. Ha già scelto ed agito per i propri Clienti, nei modi e nei tempi che sono più appropriati quando ci si trova di fronte ad una situazione limite. Una situazione eccezionale, mai verificata in precedenza: che avrà nel corso del 2020 quindi sviluppi altrettanto eccezionali, che oggi neppure si immaginano.

E ne riparleremo sicuramente, e con piacere, anche qui nel nostro Blog.

Voi, amici lettori, amici investitori, tutti quanti voi, come anche noi, con ogni scelta che fate oggi, grande o piccola, con ogni scelta che avete deciso di fare, oppure con ogni scelta di non fare, tutti voi, ognuno di voi, date una riposta alla domanda qui sopra. E ai dati della tabella qui sotto: dati che per i nostri Clienti approfondiremo la settimana prossima ogni mattina nel nostro The Morning Brief.

Anche se, diciamola tutti, sono dati che potrebbe comprendere facilmente anche un bimbo di quinta elementare.

Non c’è modo di nascondersi: anche se tanti, tantissimi investitori oggi, con questi mercati, hanno scelto di adottare la politica dello struzzo. Che è quella di mettere la testa sotto la sabbia.

Ma gli struzzi, lo sappiamo bene, sono tutti un po’ … struzzi. Si dice anche “ma sei uno struzzo!” quando si è arrabbiati con qualcuno.

Mentre l’essere umano è una specie superiore. Fino a prova contraria.