Is The Greatest Bull Market Ever Finally Ending?
by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 10/18/2018
The key here is the gains generated by owning US-denominated assets as the USD appreciates.
Is the Greatest Bull Market Ever finally ending? One straightforward approach to is to follow the money, i.e. global capital flows: assets that attract positive global capital flows will continue rising if demand for the assets exceeds supply, and assets that are being liquidated as capital flees the asset class (i.e. negative capital flows) will decline in price.
Global capital flows are difficult to track for a number of reasons. A significant percentage of global mobile capital is held in secretive offshore tax havens and “shadow banking,” and tracking global corporate capital flows is not easy. Capital held in precious metals may not be reported, and assets such as enterprises and collectible art may be grossly undervalued for tax purposes.
Toss in shadow holding companies, LLCs with obscure trails of ownership, etc. and a definitive account of global capital flows is ultimately a guesstimate.
Despite the limitations of tracking global wealth, Credit Suisse Research Institute’s (CSRI) issued Global Wealth Report 2017 gives us some clues about where capital is flowing in and where it’s leaving for safer, higher-yield climes.
The first step in measuring global capital flows is to note that conventional capital is denominated in currencies which fluctuate in relative value. Of the roughly $300 trillion in global assets (Credit Suisse pegs the total in 2017 at $280 trillion, but other estimates range well above $300 trillion), about $8 trillion or so is in precious metals, and a tiny sliver is in cryptocurrencies. (Bitcoin’s total market capitalization is currently around $112 billion and Ethereum’s market cap is around $21 billion–signal noise in the $300 trillion sloshing around the world seeking safety, low/zero taxes, capital gains and high yields.)
Foreign exchange matters. Say a money manager moves $1 billion out of U.S. Treasuries (denominated in the US dollar, USD) into bonds paying a hefty 15% in annual yield denominated in an emerging market currency.
If that currency loses 20% of its value vis a vis the USD annually, the capital loses 5% of its value / purchasing power despite the hefty yield.
The trick is to arbitrage yields and currencies so borrow in cheap currencies that are declining and buy higher-yielding assets denominated in currencies that are rising in value. For example, if a manager moved $1 billion out of a bond paying 4% in a currency that subsequently lost 30% of its value vis a vis the USD into a US high-yield bond paying 6%, the manager picked up 30% gains in FX and 2% in yield for a total gain of 32%.
The Rest…HERE
