The VP Research Blog
A blog about financial markets and the VP investing framework
The Perfect Storm for Oil is Far From Clearing
Oil prices surged at the end of last week off the back of President Trump’s tweet that signalled production cuts had been agreed with Saudi Arabia and Russia. Despite the +40% move, Brent is still down 50% on the year. Longer-dated futures contracts haven’t reacted to...
Recessions and Shocks [VIDEO]
The coronavirus pandemic is a highly unusual circumstance, and in several ways we are in uncharted waters. Two weeks ago we published a thematic report titled Recessions and Shocks In which we applied our tools, our signals and our outsider approach to: distinguish...
US Consumer Will not be Coming to the Economy’s Rescue
The latest print from the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey has shown a fall of almost 12 points, the largest drop since 2008, and takes us back to 2016 levels. Unlike the last three recessions, which had seen consumer sentiment fall into each one...
Narrative Shift Depends on Virus
Earlier this month, the S&P and gold both collapsed on the same trading day, which is extremely rare. The top-left chart shows that in the past 20 years, the only times gold was down more than 3% while the S&P is down more than 5% was last week and back in...
USD Funding Stresses Rise But This is Not Like 2008
A common question in recent weeks is whether today is like 2008? The price action is certainly reminiscent of the wild intra-day swings in the stock market we saw back then, with the level of the VIX, which closed at 83.6 recently, greater than the previous all-time...
Asia EM is the Likely Eventual Winner from Oil and Yield Plunge
Global recession risks have risen but if recessionary feedback loops fail to materialise, the stimulative effect of lower yields and lower oil prices should eventually give rise to selective V-shaped recoveries. Our Stimulus Index aggregates the standardised changes...
There’s Something About the Term Premium
Historically, investors have required extra yield to hold longer-term bonds instead of short-term securities to compensate them for the added uncertainty. Thus, in a “normal” world, term premium (TP) should not be persistently negative. Yet, since 2016, TP has been...
FX Vol Still Attractive
Since news of coronavirus first spread, markets have struck a decisively risk-off tone with higher yielding currencies selling-off. Commodity currencies and Asian markets have been particularly hard hit. Despite the fresh bout of FX weakness, implied vol has been...
Another Yield Curve Red Herring
After first inverting last year, the 3m10y yield curve recently re-inverted, prompting the usual slew of mechanical recession predictions. However, not all inversions are equal. The top-left chart shows that almost all of the YTD decline in 10y yields is from the fall...
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