#irrationalebullience If you want to understand the nature of this asset bubble and the epic capital mis-allocation at it’s heart, look no further than rates. CB’s only tool to push an uber-levered financial system that is highly interconnected through derivatives
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away from it’s natural convergence path towards collapse is to create opposing forces to push it towards divergence. Meaning: force, through financial repression, market participants to rely on price continuation, in a way that makes it self-fulfilling.
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The tool used is rates as it is the basis off of which all other financial assets are priced. Today any buyer of $UST across the curve up to 30Y is guaranteed a loss given reals are negative throughout. So the only hope of escaping this GUARANTEED loss
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is to angle for capital gains, i.e a continuous move downwards in real rates to push for some capital gains in real terms. The longer the financial repression lasts, the further investors are pushed out the maturity and credit risk curves.
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Here are examples to understand what exactly is happening. If an investors buys a 5 Y UST he is guaranteed to lose almost 2% in real terms, so making that up in capital gains is much harder given the v short duration.
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