Business

BofA's HY credit strategist Michael Contopoulos, whose work we have recently presented on several occasions, has been rather dour over the past year on the future of HY debt, as the junk bond market first descended into purgatory, and then right into the 9th circle of hell, courtesy of a collapse in the energy sector unlike anything seen in history...

... a collapse which virtually everyone admits will spread into all other sectors and products: it's just a matter of time.

"We are either already in a recession or rapidly moving towards one," warns billionaire investors Sam Zell. A stunned Maria Bartiromo is shocked to hear from Zell that world trade has slowed dramatically and currency wars and election uncertainties have contributed to this. Most shocking of all to the Keynesian pump-primers (and oil bulls) is Zell's remarks that "when I look around the world for prospective demand, it's not there...

Submitted by Eric Bush via Gavekal Capital blog,

Stock prices and oil prices have been moving in a more positive correlated fashion recently than at any point since 1980. The 65-day correlation between Brent Crude Oil and MSCI World Index peaked at 52% on 11/13/2015 and has since fallen back a bit to 41%. The 200-day moving average is also at 41% and continues to climb higher. The current correlation of 41% is the highest correlation between stocks and oil prices ever over the history we have for both series.

With 5 of their Top 6 trades for 2016 already stopped out, and their recent heavy losses from swing-trading Gold, one might question the demand for an ETF that tracks Goldman Sachs' hedge fund research tips, but, as Bloomberg reports,  David Kostin's "Hedge Fund Trend Monitor" report - tracking the 50 companies that matter most to hedge funds - is about to be launched.

Having warned - correctly - of the impending collapse of the US credit markets last year, it just seems ironic that Carl Icahn's firm has been downgraded to "watch negative" from stable by S&P, implying a cut to junk may be imminent. Just as we detailed earlier, activist investors have suffered greatly in the oil rout, and S&P cites declining investment values in the firm's portfolio, which have smashed the loan-to-value ratio up to 45% (a crucial threshold for the ratings agency).