I remain bullish on an intermediate term basis. The SPX may be undergoing a melt-up in the manner of late 2017. It is unusual to see the index remain above its weekly BB for more than a week, which it did two weeks ago. The melt-up of late 2017 also saw similar episodes of upper weekly BB rides, punctuated by brief pauses marked by “good overbought” conditions on the weekly stochastic. The technical conditions appear similar today, and I am therefore giving the intermediate term bull case the benefit of the doubt.The melt-up of 2017/18 ended in late January, 2018. Will history repeat itself? As a reminder, here is the latest cover from Barron's.
The U.S. will run out of people to join the workforce. Indeed, this bright cyclical picture for the labor market is on a collision course with a dimming demographic outlook. While jobs are growing faster than expected, population is growing more slowly. In July of last year, the U.S. population stood at 327 million, 2.1 million fewer than the Census Bureau predicted in 2014 and 7.8 million fewer than it predicted in 2008. (Figures for 2019 will be released at the end of the month.)
The U.S. has had two longstanding demographic advantages over other countries: higher fertility and immigration. Both are eroding. Since 2008, the U.S. fertility rate has gone from well above to roughly in line with the average for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group 36 mostly developed economies...Indeed, the FRED Blog recently highlighted the difference between prime age population growth in the US and Canada and hinted that the widening spread may be explained by differences in immigration policy:
Meanwhile, the inflow of foreign migrants to the U.S. has been trending flat to lower, while trending flat to higher in other countries. Last year, the foreign-born population expanded by a historically low 200,000, according to the Census Bureau. The exact reasons are unclear. The illegal immigrant population had stopped growing before President Trump took office. Legal immigration remained above 1 million through 2018.
While fertility rates have declined a little, immigration has helped sustain population growth. Immigrants are typically of working age, so immigration can increase the working-age population specifically.
They were doctors, engineers and Ph.D. students. The Canadians who lost their lives in the plane crash in Iran were mainly highly educated professionals and students, a reflection of the country’s push to attract skilled workers in the face of an aging population.If labor force growth is being hampered by population growth, what does that mean for the rest of the world, and the world's long-term economic growth potential?
As governments around the world grapple with how to make immigration work without fanning political flames, Canada has taken a different tack, welcoming newcomers last year at the fastest pace in decades. About 12% of Canada’s post-secondary school population is made up international students, according to the country’s data agency...
“It’s really difficult to train someone on that level, integrate them and absorb them as high talent,” Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based research firm, said by phone. “Doctors and dentists for example, to be able to obtain the degree that they are able to work in Canada. It takes time. It is really sad for both countries, losing those brains,” she said.
Mahboubi is Iranian-Canadian and has lived in Canada for more than 13 years.
Last year, Canada added a net 437,000 people from abroad, despite being only a tenth the size of the U.S., helping to drive its fastest population increase in decades, even with declines in fertility.
“Immigration has been a driver of Canada’s economic and cultural development. And with natural population’s slow growth, immigration contribution to growth in the labor force and even the tax base has been becoming more important,” Mahboubi said.
Actually, if there’s anyone for the bears to blame, it’s themselves.Macro concerns have been resolved bullishly, one by one. The reduction of macro risk has compressed risk premiums, and conversely, boosted P/E ratios.
Economic data in the U.S., China and Eurozone are beating expectations by the biggest gap since early 2018 and on the longest win-streak since mid-2017, according to the sum of Citi’s economic surprise indices I compiled using Bloomberg. Geopolitical risk between the U.S. and China is fading, Brexit is on some path toward completion, a dropping dollar is providing relief to emerging economies, and the global banking system is still intact despite an unnerving foray into the land of negative interest rates. So stocks are rallying as things improve. It’s as simple as that.
Investors are snapping up Chinese financial assets, encouraged by progress on trade and signs that the world’s second-largest economy may be stabilizing.Indeed, the offshore yuan has been steadily strengthening as news that a Chinese delegation is expected to visit Washington January 13-15 to sign the trade deal.
Improving confidence helped stoke a 0.5% rally in the yuan Tuesday, pushing it to its strongest level since early August. The currency punched past the key 6.95-per-dollar level, and traded on the strong side of its 200-day moving average for the first time since May. The CSI 300 Index of stocks closed at an almost two-year high as volume jumped.
The return of risk appetite in China comes amid growing optimism that Beijing and Washington may sign an initial deal on trade as soon as next week. Momentum is also improving in China’s economy, with recent data showing a recovery in the nation’s manufacturing sector continued in December.
“Risk sentiment is strong onshore,” said Tommy Xie, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. “There are signs of bottoming out in the economy and a more flexible monetary policy.”
I interpret these conditions as the short-term bias to be still bullish. Our base case scenario is the melt-up is not over. The geopolitical shock represents a welcome test for both the bulls and the bears. Watch for a minor pause in the market, followed by further gains marked by negative divergences and an inverting VIX term structure. Those will be the signals for traders to sell. Assuming our bullish thesis is intact, the market is sufficiently oversold levels for prices to bounce.My base case scenario seems to be playing out as expected.
″[A] 10% to 20% [correction] would be quite possible if this market gets to 3,500 well ahead of my schedule,” he said.What should traders and investors do? If we were to use the late 2017 and early 2018 episode as a template, there are definite indications that the market has overrun its rising trend line and a soaring net new highs to lows, which are signs of a melt-up. By comparison, the advance in the summer of 2018 was far more orderly. From a technical perspective, there are not the same warnings of an imminent market top that we saw in early 2018. In January 2018, the market broke down without any negative RSI divergences, but did see a negative NYSI divergence. Today, there are neither RSI nor NYSI negative divergences, which could mean that this rally has more room to run.
