저자: PeterSchiff · 외국인
요약 보기
나스닥은 빅테크 중심으로 연중 신고가를 이어가지만 다우는 부진하며 시장은 좁은 상승세다. 비트코인은 3월 이후 나스닥과 디커플링되어 횡보 중이며, 금 및 금광주 대비 약세. 슈프는 비트코인이 디지털 금도 위험자산도 아니어서 하락 위험이 있다고 본다. 금 가격은 1월 고점 대비 약 1% 위지만 GDX는 4%, GDXJ는 8% 낮아 투자자들이 금광주를 회피 중이라고 지적. 시장은 연준 금리인상 종료와 1차 금리인하를 선반영하며 빅테크에 자금이 몰린다고 분석. 이는 유동성 기대에 따른 모멘텀이라고 봄. 슈프는 시장이 연준 완화 후 인플레이션이 2%로 복귀할 것이라 믿지만, 이는 잘못된 판단이라고 주장. 연준은 5~5.25% 부근에서 정점 후 금리를 충분히 내리지 못하고 인플레 재상승으로 다시 인상으로 돌아설 것이라 봄. 다음 경기침체는 달러 위기와 소비자물가 재가속의 촉매가 되어 인플레가 상승하는 동시에 경기와 시장은 하락하는 스태그플레이션이 올 것이라 전망. 결론: 빅테크 랠리는 유동성 기대에 기댄 것이며, 금 및 실물자산 선호가 유지되어야 한다는 입장.
다듬은 글
want to start out today's podcast by talking a bit about the markets, because today was yet another day in a string of 52-week highs for the NASDAQ. Not a record high, but a new high for the year, and it seems relentless. It doesn't really matter what happens in the overall market. The Dow is down about 140 points, I think about a third of a percent today, or whatever the percentage was, but the NASDAQ just continues to go up. It's really being led higher by the big tech names: Microsoft, Facebook, Nvidia, Google, or Alphabet rather. These stocks are the leaders making 52-week highs. I'm sure there were a lot of people short these stocks, and after all, they got beaten up pretty hard in 2022. The NASDAQ got crushed, down about 30 percent or whatever it was, led lower by these same stocks. So probably a lot of people were short them, and they're covering, and that's contributing to the buying.
To really put this divergence in perspective: just before I started this podcast, I was looking at the numbers. Going back to January of this year, the NASDAQ is about 20 percent above its January peak right now. You can contrast that with the Dow, which is only about three percent above its January peak. We're not quite halfway through the year, but the Dow has made very little progress while the NASDAQ is up 20 percent. And it's very narrow, because most NASDAQ stocks aren't doing this. It's just the really big companies, and they have some kind of AI theme attached to them. I think that's part of what's driving speculative flows into these names. Even compared to March 17th, the NASDAQ is up another 10 and a half percent since then. But look at less speculative names, like the ARK Innovation ETF. It had been positively correlated to the NASDAQ in a bigger way. If the NASDAQ was up, you might have expected an ETF like that to be up 20 percent too. Instead, it was up just five percent over that same period. So again, this shows that everything is concentrated in big tech.
By the way, Bitcoin is not going along with the tech ride. Since March 17th, when the NASDAQ is up better than 10 percent, Bitcoin is flat. It hasn't gained at all. In fact, it's lagging behind the ARK ETF. There used to be a very strong correlation between Bitcoin and the ARK Innovation ETF, and that has broken down. Bitcoin isn't correlated to tech anymore, because it's just flatlining while all this tech is going up. I know a lot of people in the Bitcoin community are saying that's because it's now correlated with gold, since gold has been flat for the past couple of months. In fact, gold is only about one percent above its January peak. And to show you where sentiment is: the GDX gold miners closed today four percent below their January peak, and the juniors, GDXJ, are eight percent below their January peak. So even though gold is one percent above its January high, the junior gold miners are down eight percent from where they were when gold was one percent lower. That shows you the investor mentality. Investors are selling gold stocks, or they probably don't even own them, so they can't really sell them, maybe they're shorting them, and they're buying tech stocks. But why are they doing this? What's the driving force behind it?
Before I get into that, one point on Bitcoin before I move away from the topic. The fact that Bitcoin is no longer moving up with these speculative names is a bad sign. The idea that it's digital gold and correlated to gold, I don't necessarily think that logic is going to hold. What may actually happen is that when gold finally breaks out of this range and gold stocks break out, Bitcoin may not follow gold either. And if it's not going to follow tech higher and it's not going to follow gold higher, then what's it going to do? It's just going to drop. I don't think it's digital gold. It was reinvented as a highly volatile asset correlated to risk-on sentiment. But if it's no longer correlated to tech, and it's not correlated to gold, it's correlated to nothing, and it's just going to go down because there's no reason to buy it.
Anyway, apart from AI, which is just part of the theme, I think what's driving the move into tech is the belief that the Fed is either done hiking or close enough to done that traders can now see the whites of the eyes of the first rate cut. That's what the markets are doing. They're looking beyond the rate hike, whether we get one in June or not, and whether there's another quarter point after that. Either we've topped out at five to five and a quarter, or the markets think maybe another 50 basis points at most, maybe 25, and then that's it. So we're 90 percent of the way through the tightening, and there's just a little bit left before we get relief, before we get more of the drug in the form of rate cuts or expanded QE. Tech investors are anticipating that the next round of monetary easing will be just as good for tech as QE1, QE2, QE3, or QE4 were. Everybody expects more of the same. One reason is that they expect the inflation rate to come way down, so they expect a return to the same Goldilocks environment that tech stocks have operated under for the past decade or more: an accommodating Fed, cheap money, low interest rates, and inflation perceived to be below two percent. That's the sweet spot these high-multiple stocks need to justify their valuations and keep the flows going that keep them rising. It's not earnings that will power them, and it's not dividends. It's the momentum of money chasing them, which is a byproduct of monetary policy.
I think they're wrong. I think they're right to sense that the Fed is nearing the end of this cycle, but they're wrong in believing the Fed will be able to complete another easing cycle. Even if we peak at five to five and a half, after the Fed starts cutting, it's not getting down to zero, or even to one. It probably won't even get to two, because at some point inflation is going to be running so hot that they'll have to do an about-face and start hiking rates again. That's what the markets are getting wrong, and that's what the bond market is getting wrong. They're right about sensing a recession, but they're wrong to assume that recession means a return to two percent inflation. It doesn't. The next recession is actually going to be a catalyst for a dollar crisis and a resurgence in consumer prices. So inflation, as measured by the CPI, is going to head higher just as the economy and markets are heading lower. That is the outcome nobody is prepared for.
Comments 0