Where’s what going?
Time? Hm.
Money? Well. Yes.
It abounds and yet it doesn’t go far. Why that’s the case is another story (I can explain if you like but it usually clears a room at a cocktail party).
First, if you were spammed last week with the MSM, apologies! It was inadvertently set on full-auto. And one other note, our sister company Market Structure EDGE is up for several Benzinga Fintech Awards. As in American politics, you may vote early and often (just kidding!). No, you can vote daily though till about Oct 22, 2021. We hope you’ll help! Click here, and turn it into a daily calendar reminder.
Today we’re asking where the money gushing at US stocks and bonds like a ruptured fire hydrant is going. Morningstar says it’s $800 billion into US securities the last twelve months through July.
That’s minus a $300 billion drop in actively managed equity assets. Stock-pickers are getting pounded like a beach in a hurricane. Public companies, you realize it?
That’s not the point of this piece. But investor-relations professionals, realize the money you talk to isn’t buying. It’s selling. There are exceptions and you should know them. But don’t build your IR program around “targeting more investors.” Build it on the inflows (your characteristics), not the outflows. If you want to know more, ask us.
So where did the $800 billion go?
About $300 billion went to taxable bond funds. Not for income. Appreciation. Bonds keep going up (yields down, prices up). They’re behaving like equities – buy appreciation, not income.
The rest, about $500 billion, went to US equities. We’re going to look at that.
$500 billion seems like a lot. Ross Perot thought a billion here, billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money. For you who are too young to know it, Google that.
But today $500 billion ain’t what it was. And frankly, five hundred billion deutschemarks wasn’t much in the Weimar Republic either. The problem wasn’t inflation. The problem was what causes inflation: too much money.
Ah, but Weimar didn’t have derivatives. Silly fools.
For perspective, more than $500 billion of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are created and redeemed in US equities every month. Stocks trade more than $500 billion daily in the US stock market.
And the money supply as measured by the Federal Reserve’s “M2” metric reflecting the total volume of money held by the public, increased by $5 trillion from Feb 2020 to July 2021. That’s a 32% increase. About like stocks (SPY up 33% TTM).
Wait. The stock market is up the same as the money supply?
Yup.
Did everybody sell stocks at higher prices?
No. Everybody bought stocks at higher prices.
Okay, so where did the stock come from to buy, if nobody sold?
Maybe enough holders sold stocks to people paying 33% more to account for the difference. Good luck with that math. You can root it out if you want.
But it’s not necessary. We already know the answer. The money went into derivatives.
The word “derivative” sounds fancy and opaque and mysterious. It’s not. It’s a substitute for an asset. You can buy a Renoir painting. You can buy a Renoir print for a lot less. You can buy a stock. You can buy an option on that stock for a lot less.
Suppose you want to buy the stocks in the S&P 500 but you don’t want the trouble and expense of buying 500 of them (a Renoir). You can buy a swap (a print, No. 347 of 3,900), pay a bank to give you the returns on the index (minus the fee).
Or you can buy SPY, the S&P 500 ETF. You think you’re getting a Renoir. All those stocks. No, you’re getting a print somebody ran on an inkjet printer. It looks the same but it’s not, and it’s not worth the stocks beneath it.
Image courtesy ModernIR, Aug 25, 2021.
See this image? There is demand. There is supply. The former greatly exceeds the latter like we’ve seen the last year during a Covid Pandemic (chew on that one for a bit), so excess demand shunts off to a SUBSTITUTE. Derivatives. ETFs, options, futures.
That’s what’s going on. That’s where the money went. Look at GME and AMC yesterday. Explosive gains on no news. Why? Banks squared derivatives books yesterday after the August expirations period. Demand for prints (options), not paintings (stock), vastly exceeded supply.
So banks bought the underlying paintings called GME and AMC – and sold traders ten times as many prints. Options. Derivatives. It’s implied demand. The stocks shot up.
Bad? Well, not good. The point isn’t doom. The point is understanding where the money is going. Every trader, investor, public company, should understand it.
It’s all measurable if you stop thinking about the market like it’s 1995. It’s just math. About 18% of the market is in derivatives. But about 75% of prices are transient things with no substance. Prints, not paintings.
Public companies, know what part of your market is Renoir, what part is just a print. Traders, do the same.
We have that data. Everybody should always know where the money is going.