AM Brew, May 12th, 2022

PPI was released this morning a few minutes ago: stock futures are dropping and treasuries are climbing in response to an 11% y-o-y number vs. 10.7% expected. This morning stock futures, gold, FX (GBP & JPY), Crude Oil, the FTSE100, and Crypto are all down. For the first time in a few years, the markets don't look expensive to us anymore, but they certainly don't look cheap - more on this in a separate post. This statement must be taken into context that this statement is (a) independent of what the charts are telling us and also & (b) in this risk-off environment, the investable universe is small - if it doesn't have trailing & current free cash flow, then its not investable. NFLX never threw off cash: its not investable, so, ignoring the charts, our view on NFLX and the other 2,000 non-cash flow investments, in this risk-off environment these securities are either shorts or avoids - you should not get long at mostly any price (and if you do its on a few days trade with a tight stop).

BTC trading down below $28,000 is significant. First, it ignored the psychological $30k bounce/support. Second, and more importantly, the vast majority of all crypto is now under water, as all the serious volume since crypto inception traded at levels higher than today. Remember, a significant portion of all BTC traded before 2020 is permanently lost, so most of the volume is underwater at $28,000. BTC seemed to be the one place independent of central bank largesse and inflation, but that trend is now broken, making crypto a lot scarier than just a few months ago.

With all risk assets trading down, the 10-year Treasury yield is down this morning, signalling a bit of a flight to safety. The global flight to treasury safety is a significant contributor in the dollars strength against the pound, euro and yen.

Dutch gas futures (Europe's benchmark) rose 11% and UK rose 15%, as Russia sanctioned 31 energy companies yesterday. There have been no good data points on goods & services inflation, and the mortgage rate chart indicates that the Fed has done everything they can to put the brakes on liquidity - rates are higher than anytime since 2009. Wow:

There are signs that inflation has peaked. For example, prices of used vehicles have started to drop after a violent rip-up last year:

Beyond Meat was crushed in the after-market last night - now back to its IPO price. This was one of the few managements smart enough to issue a secondary at the top. Look at BYND's price "curve" - its almost a 10 months of straight & orderly linear decline:

There are a few green shoots this morning, with Coupang (CPNG) up 18% and Lordstown Motors (RIDE) up 25%. Maybe finally starting the bottoming process? Yesterday we published an interesting DeMark metals analysis. Happy trading.