Juggling Dynamite

While November and December have historically been a slow time for trustees in bankruptcy, with business picking up in the New Year, this holiday season Canadian trustees are reporting a boom in new inquiries and filings.

It’s worth noting that this financial strife is showing up even as interest rates remain near the low end of historical averages.  Rather than blaming rate increases over the past 18 months, it is more accurate to blame the long period of ultra low rates, lax lending and destructive financial management that have brought Canadians to their present state of fragility–that, earned this.  The payback and write-down period is going to be painful for many, as well as Canadian lenders and the consumption-driven Canadian economy overall.  See  Business booms for insolvency trustees amid higher Canada rates:

“The tide has turned, and the water’s starting to rise,” Ted Michalos, a licensed insolvency trustee at Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc., said in a phone interview. “Now it’s just a question of how quickly does it rise.”

The effects of higher borrowing costs are beginning to be felt broadly. Vehicle sales, among the sectors most sensitive to rising rates, fell the most since 2009, while growth in residential mortgages decelerated to the slowest pace since 1982, worrying signs for an economy so reliant on consumption.”

Avoiding the pull or even appearance of conflicts of interest is Ethics 101. In a world where abuse of trust has become the dominant business model, legislated bans, zero tolerance and prosecution are essential to restoring trust.  Bills like this are the right idea. The status quo is indefensible.

It’s 100% legal for members of Congress to buy or sell stocks in the businesses they make laws for. Senators Sherrod Brown and Jeff Merkley have introduced a new bill to stop this conflict of interest pic.twitter.com/FLfpgo4vPA

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) December 19, 2018

As gratifying as it is has been to watch the portfolios we are managing gain in 2018 while everything else is dropping, we should also expect strong counter-trend rallies to keep punctuating the downtrend–for days, even weeks at a time.  That is how bear markets typically move, and mental preparedness is critical.

A change to more dovish language in today’s Fed announcement, or a political tweet on trade, could easily prompt animal spirits to run another lap or two.  That said, interim rallies are likely to be fleeting since the global downturn is so deservedly underway; and like never before, central banks, with still negative real rates and bloated balance sheets, have minuscule sticks to throw at it.

There are no quick Houdini-style escapes from what ails debt-heavy, cash-lite individuals, companies and market participants today.  Payback, write-down periods tend to be hard work–arduous and seemingly relentless.

At the same time, price-discovery has been suppressed for so long, and participants have become so reckless and illiquid this cycle, that selling waves are likely to keep coming longer than anyone thinks possible.

Once those who could be seduced into irrational markets have already bought, only pent-up sellers remain.  That is, at least until prices fall deep enough, and sentiment becomes so bleak, that sober capital finds risk worth-taking once more.  We’re not there yet, but the cycle is definitely moving in the right direction.  Best to stay calm and keep measuring.