As cities continue to burn
The stock market bears never learn
Depression’s priced in
And to bears’ chagrin
Investors have shown no concern

Once again risk is on fire this morning as every piece of bad news is seen as ancient history, riots across the US are seen as irrelevant and the future is deemed fantastic based on ongoing (permanent?) government economic support and the continued belief that Covid-19 has had its day in the sun and will soon retreat to the back pages. And while the optimistic views on government largesse and the virus’s retreat may be well founded, the evidence still appears to point to an extremely long and slow recovery to the global economy. Just yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office, released a report indicating it will take nearly ten years before GDP in the US will return to its previous trend growth levels. That hardly sounds like they type of economy that warrants ever increasing multiples in the stock market. But hey, I’m just an FX guy.

A look around the world allows us to highlight what seem to be the driving forces in different regions. There are two key assumptions underpinning European asset performance these days; the fact that the EU has finally agreed to joint financing of a budget and mutualized debt issuance and the virtual certainty that the ECB is going to increase the PEPP in their step tomorrow. The flaws in these theories are manifest, although, in fairness, despite themselves the Europeans have generally found a way to get to the goal. However, the EU financing program requires unanimous approval of all 27 members, something that will require a great deal of negotiation given the expressed adamancy of the frugal four (Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark) who are not yet convinced that they should be paying for the spendthrift habits of their southern neighbors. And the problem with this is the amount of time it will take to finally agree. Given the urgent need for funding now, a delay may be nearly as bad as no support at all.

At the same time, the ECB, despite having spent only €250 billion of the original €750 billion PEPP monies are now assumed to be ready to announce a significant increase to the size of the program. Not surprisingly, members of the governing council who hail from the frugal four have expressed reluctance on this matter as well. However, after Madame Lagarde’s gaffe in March, when she declared it wasn’t the ECB’s job to protect peripheral nation bond markets (that’s their only job!) I expect that she will steamroll any objections and look for a €500 billion increase.

Clearly, traders and investors are on the same page here as the euro continues to rally, trading higher by 0.3% this morning (+4.2% since mid-May) and back above 1.12 for the first time since March. European equity markets are rocking as well, with the DAX once again leading the way, up 2.4%, despite a breakdown in talks between Chancellor Merkel’s CDU and its coalition partner SPD over the nature of the mooted €100 billion German support program. But the rest of Europe is flying as well, with the CAC up 2.0% and both Italy’s and Spain’s main indices higher by about 2.0%. European government bonds are sliding as haven assets are simply no longer required, at least so it seems.

Meanwhile, in Asia, we have seen substantial gains across most markets with China actually the laggard, essentially flat on the day. But, for example, Indonesia’s rupiah has rallied another 2.2% this morning after a record amount of bidding for a government bond auction showed that investors are clearly comfortable heading back to the EMG bloc again. The stock market there jumped 2.0% as well, and a quick look shows the rupiah has regained almost the entirety of the 22% it lost during the crisis and is now down just 1.6% on the year. What a reversal. But it is not just Indonesia that is seeing gains. KRW (+0.7%, -5.0% YTD), PHP (+0.5%, +1.1% YTD) and MYR (+0.35%, -4.0% YTD) are all gaining today as are their stock markets. And while both KRW and MYR remain lower on the year, each has recouped more than half of the losses seen at the height of the crisis.

So, the story seems great here as well, but can these nations continue to support their economies to help offset the destruction of the shutdowns? That seems to vary depending on the nation. South Korea is well prepared as they announced yet another extra budget to add stimulus, and given the country’s underlying finances, they can afford to do so. But the Philippines is a different story, with far less resources to support themselves, although they have availed themselves of IMF support. And Indonesia? Well, clearly, they have no problem selling bonds to investors, so for the short term, things are great. The risk to all this is that the timeline to recovery is extended far longer than currently perceived, and all of that support needs to be repaid before economic activity is back.

The point of all this is that while there is clearly a bullish story to be made for these markets, there are also numerous risks that the bullish case will not come to fruition, even with the best of intentions.

And what about the US? Looking at the stock market one would think that the economy is going gangbusters and things are great. But reading the news, with every headline focused on the ongoing riots across the nation and the destruction of property and businesses, it is hard to see how the latter will help the economy return to a strong pace of growth in the short run. If anything, it promises to delay the reopening of many small businesses and restaurants, which will only exacerbate the current economic malaise.

The other thing that seems out of step with the politics is the underlying belief that there will be another stimulus bill passed by Congress soon. While the House passed a bill several weeks ago, there has been no action in the Senate, nor does there seem to be appetite in the White House for such a bill at this time with both seeming to believe that enough has been done and ending the lockdowns and reopening businesses will be sufficient. But if there are riots in the streets, will ordinary folks really be willing to resume normal activities like shopping and eating out? That seems a hard case to make. While the cause of the riots was a tragedy, the riots themselves have created their own type of tragedy as well, the delay and destruction of an economic rebound. And that will not help anybody.

So, on a day where the dollar is under pressure across the board, along with all haven assets, we have a bit of data to absorb starting with the ADP Employment number (exp -9.0M) and then ISM Non-Manufacturing (44.4) and Factory Orders (-13.4%). The Services and Composite PMI data from Europe that was released earlier showed still awful levels but marginally better results than the preliminary reports. However, it is hard to look at Eurozone PMI at 31.9 and feel like the economy there is set to rebound sharply. Those levels still imply a deep, deep recession.

However, today is clearly all about adding risk to the portfolio, and that means that equities seem likely to continue their rally while the dollar is set to continue to decline. For receivables hedgers, I think we are getting to pretty interesting levels. If nothing else, leave some orders a bit above the market to take advantage.

Good luck
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