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February 1, 2014

Bonds Beat Stocks in Best Start Since 2008 Amid Currency Turmoil

The start of the year in financial markets went as almost no one expected, with fixed-income assets worldwide posting their biggest January returns since 2008 and equity prices falling the most since 2010. Gold, given up for dead in 2013 as prices tumbled 28 percent, rallied. “There’s no question that it has taken people by surprise,” Neil Azous, a founder of Stamford, Connecticut-based macro-strategy research firm Rareview Macro LLC, which advises investors including hedge funds and money managers, said in a Jan. 29 phone interview. “It’s painful.”

January 31, 2014

Emerging Market Shocks Pressure Dormant FX Volatility

“Speculators will not be deterred by a 12 percent interest rate,” Neil Azous, the co-founder of Stamford, Connecticut-based macro strategy advisory firm Rareview Macro LLC, wrote in a Jan. 29 client note. “The monthly cost of funding a short position is marginal relative to the risk-reward of making a profit of multiple percentage points in a day.”

January 30, 2014

Cash-Hoarding Japan CEOs Made Index Pariahs in Abe Plan

“..It is odd when a government gets involved in the construction of a stock index,” Neil Azous, founder of Rareview Macro LLC, the Stamford, Connecticut-based advisory and research firm, said in a Jan. 21 interview. That’s not true in Japan, “where the lines have already been blurred by the co-mingling of monetary and fiscal policy,” he said.

January 24, 2014

Contagion Spreads in Emerging Markets as Crises Grow

“It’s a bad storm,” Neil Azous, the founder of Rareview Macro LLC, the Stamford, Connecticut-based macro strategy advisory and research firm, said in a phone interview yesterday. “Their net foreign-exchange reserves are dwindling pretty fast. They’re definitely in the danger zone. If you’re a money manager, the responsible action is to take some measures to reduce risk.”

January 24, 2014

Contagion spreads for emerging currencies

Of Turkey from Rareview Macro’s Neil Azous: “Their net foreign-exchange reserves are dwindling pretty fast. They’re definitely in the danger zone. If you’re a money manager, the responsible action is to take some measures to reduce risk.”

January 23, 2014

US Corporate Bond Chatter: EM Worries Dampen Risk Appetite

“…Emerging Markets are again driving sentiment in risk assets with a broadening out in credit and currency stress, albeit in varying degrees,” noted Neil Azous, Founder of Rareview Macro LLC, a Stamford, Connecticut-based advisory and research firm.  “The Turkish Lira (TRY) continued to depreciate overnight and despite the first central bank intervention since January 2012, to the tune of over two billion USD, to counteract the weakness the TRY still reached new record lows relative to the US Dollar,” he cited.  While the situation has “not yet” had a large global impact on credit, it has had a meaningful impact on sentiment, and when it comes to emerging markets it is always about the speed and degree of the slope in which credit spreads are widening”, Azous observed.

January 12, 2014

Dollar tumbles as below-forecast payrolls gain trims Fed view

“The employment report turned out to be the largest headwind of the year for the very large short position in yen,” Neil Azous, founder of Rareview Macro LLC, a Stamford, Connecticut-based advisory and research firm, said in an interview referring to bets the yen would decrease in value. “The theme to start the year has been a stronger yen and lower US yields.”

January 11, 2014

Dollar Tumbles as Below-Forecast Payrolls Gain Trims Fed View

“The employment report turned out to be the largest headwind of the year for the very large short position in yen,” Neil Azous, founder of Rareview Macro LLC, the Stamford, Connecticut-based macro strategy advisory and research firm, said in an interview referring to bets the yen would decrease in value. “The theme to start the year has been a stronger yen and lower U.S. yields.”

December 4, 2013

VIX Traders Focus on February as Debt Deadline Looms

“Even though markets have had eight months to prepare for tapering, volatility is always more sensitive to an event that has yet to be physically observed and where the economic cost cannot be measured like GDP,” Azous, founder of the Stamford, Connecticut-based advisory and research firm, said yesterday.

December 1, 2013

China Hedging Costs at 8-Year Low on Economic Reforms: Options

“After years of underperformance the question being asked by real money is whether an asset allocation in favor of Chinese equities is now warranted,” Neil Azous, founder of the Stamford, Connecticut-based advisory and research firm, Rareview Macro, said in a Nov. 25 interview. “The hallmarks for a secular bull market to materialize are now in place if China were to deliver on a reform plan that would ensure a smooth transition to domestic consumption away from fixed asset investment.”