Will the Fed end the Truman Show?

We have talked before about how the market is sailing with unsurpassed ease towards the inevitable brick wall at the end of the Truman Show. At some stage, we will wake up from the low volatility, lowflation, low rates environment. The tricky part, as ever, is picking the tipping point. So let’s just consider these charts:

1. The last real bout of volatility came at the start of last year, when China was blamed for market turmoil that ended up with a rout about CoCos. Since then, global equities have had a very lovely time thanks, up 40% in almost a straight line (h/t @HayekandKeynes):

2. And as we know volatility has concomitantly collapsed. Here’s another take on that with a look at the 1 month volatility on the Russell 2000, which is in single digits for the first time (h/t @DriehausCapital):

And just a reminder of how mad this is, historically speaking, with @charliebilello flagging up that the last 5 days have been ‘the most peaceful in the history’ of the S&P:

I flagged up before to keep an eye on the AUD, and if it can stay above 0.8000 then that’s a good indicator of euphoria continuing to trend. It’s managing it, but Blondemoney is now concerned about that perennial canary in the coalmine, the South African Rand. That’s fallen almost 5% against the US Dollar in the past two weeks. Now, some of that really is because of issues specific to South Africa (with President Zuma still under a corruption cloud). But we know that when there’s a mad dash for yield, those pesky political issues are pushed aside. The euphoria cannot be all pervasive if the Rand is weakening.

So, it’s over to the Fed. Tonight they have the platform to provide quite a signal of their intentions. It’s Janet’s penultimate FOMC meeting to include a press conference. If her term isn’t renewed, that means it’s her second-to-last chance to make her legacy stick. She was handed the poisoned chalice of removing policy accommodation into a weak and uncertain economy, and she will want to make sure she is considered to have gotten the job done. Equally, she wouldn’t want to leave a trail that could implicate her in whatever the next crisis may be. So, she needs to stick to her guns. They’ve hiked, but not in such a way as to destabilise the markets. Have they done enough to prevent another financial bubble emerging? Or have they done too much, and squeezed out inflation before it got any momentum?

That’s the line she has to walk tonight. USD/JPY overnight straddles are priced around 95 pips, suggesting a big figure move could be on the cards. But with most markets comfortable with no volatility at all, yet a divergence occurring between the high yielders, there is the possibility for a much bigger move. Look out for a higher USD from here.

 

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