Worst Trade of the Year?
While going long the stock market has been a great trade so far in 2013, betting that the bond market would suffer as a result could be the worst.This article was written on Tuesday, right before markets got rattled by Fed policy concerns. Stocks and other risk assets got hammered on fears that the Fed is about to reverse course on its very accommodating stance.
True, equities in a broad sense have outperformed their fixed income counterparts.
But the so-called Great Rotation trade that many market professionals had been looking for has failed to show any signs of materializing.
"Redistribution is not the same as rotation," said Kevin Ferry, president of Cronus Futures Management in Chicago and a trader not in the Great Rotation camp.
Ferry's point is not an arcane one - indeed, it goes to the heart of whether the 2013 market will be driven by an accelerated risk-on trade that finally will fulfill all those prophecies that the bond bull market is over, or if the safety play remains viable for investors' portfolios even if the stock market grows.
(Read More: Money Pouring Into Stocks 'Is Usually a Negative Sign')
The rotation play holds that investors will reverse four years of money flowing out of equities and into bonds.
So far, flows show that only half that trend has occurred.
In the first month and a half mutual funds that invest in stocks have taken in a robust $43.8 billion, a post-financial crisis high. If the rotation theme held, it would be likely to see a similar amount come out of fixed income mutual funds.
Instead, bond funds have taken in $37.6 billion - less than equities to be sure, but still a strong allocation and not indicative of a pronounced move out of bonds and into stocks.
So where has the equity side gotten all this money?
Money market funds - the dead pool that became so popular after the crisis - have lost $37 billion so far, helping explain the boon to stocks, and revealing an investor mentality in which the stock market is seen as a much better store of wealth than the zero-yielding alternative.
This has been pretty much the whole idea as the Federal Reserve has rolled through three rounds of bond buying known as quantitative easing designed to force yields down so much that investors will have no other choice but to seek out risk.
"It works until it doesn't," Ferry said. "That's what QE does - it turns the capital markets into an ATM machine. As long as there's not an exogenous event, you're OK."
(Read More: Central Banks Gone Wild: What Can Investors Do?)
If there has been a rotation, in fact, it probably is more from safer fixed-income instruments such as the benchmark 10-year Treasury note into higher-yielding bonds such as corporate junk.
Broadly, bonds as measured by the Barclays Composite Index have returned about 3 percent in 2013, but Treasurys have lost 3.5 percent. Corporate high-yield has returned 1.3 percent, while dividend growth is up nearly 6 percent.
Conversely, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock market index has gained 6.5 percent.
(Read More: Spending Cuts Loom as 'No. 1 Threat' to Market)
Looking purely at fund flows, exchange-traded products have seen about $1.2 billion come into bond funds, but double that for higher-yielding riskier offerings.
Ferry said the bond market actually has performed efficiently this year, with yields rising but in tandem, indicating that the yield curve remains constructive.
Still, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, one of the loudest proponents of the Great Rotation, insists that the trade is only in its early days even if appearances suggest otherwise.
"The Great Rotation theme is risk supportive, but even assuming volatility stays low and the macro remains in a trading range, the best outcome is for equities and other risk assets is to grind higher in coming months," Michael Hartnett, BofA's chief investment strategist, said in a note.
The firm is bullish on high yield, neutral on government bonds in emerging markets, and bearish on government, investment grade and similar traditional safe-haven bets.
Bond dealers have $47.6 billion in short positions on Treasurys, the highest level since before the crisis, according to RBC.
Meanwhile, a BofA sentiment indicator is now more bullish than 99 percent of its readings since 2002, Hartnett said, and the firm itself, despite espousing the Great Rotation theme, believes that bonds are not heading for a crash.
The bearish levels on Treasurys and bullishness on stocks are both approaching contrarian levels, meaning that the unraveling of both trades could be near.
So investors looking to position for the times ahead by betting heavily on stocks in anticipation of money rolling out of bonds may want to hold off.
"The disconnect between weak economic fundamentals, ebullient investor sentiment and elevated stock prices form an unhealthy and potentially toxic cocktail," said Doug Kass, head of Seabreeze Partners. " I am as bearish on stocks as I have been in some time."
Interestingly, bond yields hardly budged on Wednesday. The 10-year Treasury bond is still yielding close to 2% and there was no panic in the bond market. This just tells me that traders used the Fed minutes as an excuse to take profits on stocks. There was also a lot of high-frequency trading nonsense going on as volume was higher than usual.
I've seen these one-day selloffs so many times that they don't phase me in the least. I can assure you that the top funds I track every quarter (see my Q4 activity comment) couldn't care less of the "Fed minutes" and they were busy scooping up stocks as they're still long the reflation trade.
Importantly, financial journalists are too fixated on whether the US great rotation is a fairy tale, and ignoring actions elsewhere like Japan's great rotation. Top hedge funds look at global monetary policy and they've made a killing shorting the yen and going long risk assets.
Another shortcoming of just looking at mutual fund flows is that it ignores pension fund flows. Earlier this month, I discussed how pension assets hit an all-time high. I recently corrected this comment to use the findings of the Towers Watson Global Pension Assets Study 2013, the latest available survey. it clearly shows that at the end of 2012, allocations to equities increased.
I place a lot more weight on pension fund flows than mutual fund flows. And most pensions think the bond party is over and are now shifting assets into stocks and illiquid alternatives, taking on more illiquidity risk.
Still, I will concede that shorting bonds has thus far been the worst trade of the year. To understand why, you have to understand the profound structural forces at play behind the titanic battle over deflation. As I stated in that comment, I'm far from convinced that the bond bull market has ended and see this 'titanic battle over deflation' playing out for several more years, leading to more volatility in the stock market.
Below, Dennis Gartman, founder, editor and publisher of the Gartman Letter, tells CNBC why he thinks the psychology of the markets has changed, and changed dramatically. I tell you, this bull market gets no respect. ignore the noise and doomsday scenarios of "sequestration." Focus on what top funds are doing, not what some strategists and portfolio managers are saying on CNBC and elsewhere.