Dead Cat Bounce?

The markets are making wildly different interpretations of the news and economic prospects. Record low T-bill prices and a sudden fall in commodities suggests that a serious slowdown and deleveraging pose major risks, yet equities had a strong showing, with the Dow up over 260 points. What gives?

We’ve had repeated head-fake rallies in this bear market, and with prospects for housing poor for more than the usual anticipatory horizon for stocks (six months), the foundation for optimism seems questionable. More specifics come from John Authers at the Financial Times and Roger Ehrenberg.

First from Authers:

Can the stock market now indulge in a brief bear market rally?

Yesterday’s Merrill Lynch survey of fund managers made clear that the preconditions are in place.

More global fund managers are overweight in cash, compared to their benchmarks, than at any time since the survey started in 1998. Fund managers also believe that equities are undervalued by the biggest margin since the bear market bottomed in 2003, and that bonds are overvalued.

So, there is a lot of cash on the sidelines, in the hands of managers who believe stocks are cheap, and the end of the quarter is close. Many may want to use that cash to buy stocks before the quarter is up.

There is another reason to expect a rally: the bounce from Monday’s panic levels, as traders realised that Wall Street’s banks were not about to collapse one after another, has led to a rash of predictions that the bottom has been hit.

There are also hopes that the authorities have at last found a “silver bullet” to end the crisis. False hopes have been invested in several other putative silver bullets, but the news that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the powerful US mortgage agencies, will be allowed to buy more mortgage-backed securities is as good a candidate as any.

History’s biggest bear markets have all had several big rallies when investors thought the worst was overDoes a bear market rally need a catalyst? Not necessarily. Tuesday’s surge was triggered by terrible results from two investment banks. Given how negative sentiment had become, the mere fact that they were not epochally disastrous was enough to trigger a rally.

In the short term, the mere absence of bad news (which is not a given) might allow the markets to enjoy a bounce.

Now Ehrenberg:

What we saw today is yet another example of the “dead cat bounce.” And I believe this baby is going to be bouncing for a little while, after which in all likelihood the rally will cease, fear will return and the market will continue its march downward in the face of massive de-leveraging. There is no choice; it is the case of the irresistible force (investors hoping and wishing for the bad times to be over, courtesy of the Fed) meeting the immovable object (the disastrous fiscal and financial market realities facing the U.S.). The Fed can lower rates to 0% – but that in and of itself doesn’t create jobs, make banks more willing to lend and stimulate economic activity. What it will do, of course, is cause a massive capital flight out of the U.S. and its debased currency, fueling a downward spiral of economic activity in tandem with upward pressure on prices that will hit with devastating effect. Not a scenario I am looking forward to.

The rally in the dollar would seem to argue against Ehrenbergs’ point about debasing the currency, but that looks to be triggered by the Fed merely debasing it more slowly than anticipated. Hardly a cause for long-term optimism.

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9 comments

  1. Anonymous

    Of great note today:

    The number of stocks today making 52-week lows is swamping those making 52-week highs

    LET THE BUYER BEWARE!!!!

  2. eTrader

    The volume was really light today which suggests serious traders were gone to prepare Easter Eggs. We’ll see different stories next week.

    Happy Easter!

  3. Yves Smith

    etrader,

    The rest of the Christian world (save the Eastern Orthodox) makes a bigger deal out of Good Friday than Easter. I was in London once on a Good Friday and pretty much everything was shut tight as a drum. And in Australia, Good Friday is one of only two days a year that pubs and bottle shops are required to close (the other is Christmas).

  4. Jojo

    Here’s a bouncing cat for your pleasure :)
    http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/ihaveamac/106134

    Re: market’s closed for Good Friday
    ———————–
    From NY Times:
    Stock and commodity markets in the United States and Canada will be closed today in observance of Good Friday.

    New York banks, the Post Office and all Federal, New York State and New York City offices will be open. Many banks in New Jersey and Connecticut will be closed, as will European currency markets. American currency markets will be open only in the morning.
    ———————-

    I fail to understand why the stock and commodity markets (and some banks) are closed for a religious holiday in this day and age in the USA.

    I have never worked at a company where Good Friday was a holiday. If you were Catholic, you could take a personal or vacation day, same as other religions have to do with their holiday’s.

    IMO, it sets a bad example and encourages religious division when secular organizations declare a religious day, such as Good Friday, as a general holiday and shut their doors for the day.

  5. a

    “I fail to understand why the stock and commodity markets (and some banks) are closed for a religious holiday in this day and age in the USA. “

    Ah c’mon, it’s one of the few holidays (outside of Christmas and New Years) where the Western equity markets are in agreement to close. Otherwise I’d be working today.

  6. Yves Smith

    Americans work too hard, and we seem unable to adopt holidays other countries have, like Japan’s Golden Week or Girls’ Day, so we default to tradition.

  7. eh

    We’ve had repeated head-fake rallies in this bear market,…

    Why do you say it’s a bear market? Not that you are alone in that. With such frequent rallies, can it really be a bear market? Or is a bear market something that can be recognized only after the fact?

    To me it just does not have the ‘look and feel’ of a bear market. Not really.

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