More Thoughts on US Death Spiral

What troubles me most about today’s environment is the persistent belief that crisis large or small results in a US dollar rally and lower Treasury rates. However, what happens if the US dollar and US Treasury rates are the source of the crisis? Then the US enters a death spiral and the currency, stocks, and bonds suffer simultaneously and equally, and unfortunately there is nowhere in traditional asset allocation to hide.

Recent events are simply a phenomenon begun in 1998 with $4-$5 Trillion Asian Central Bank reserve building and local currency devaluation. There are limits to the monetary and fiscal policies pursued so vigorously since 2000, and I think we have found those limits and will face much more severe consequences.

For more see earlier posts:

New Favorite Test of US Monetary Policy Limits

Nine Lives of the Fed Put

Unsustainable Gift

Death Spiral of a Country

From TimelyPortfolio

From TimelyPortfolio

From TimelyPortfolio

If we look past 1998, the relationship looks much different.

From TimelyPortfolio

From TimelyPortfolio

From TimelyPortfolio

R code (click to download):

require(quantmod)
require(PerformanceAnalytics)   getSymbols("SP500",src="FRED")
getSymbols("DGS10",src="FRED")
getSymbols("DTWEXB",src="FRED")
getSymbols("DTWEXM",src="FRED")   fedData <- na.omit(merge(SP500,DGS10,DTWEXB))
fedData <- merge(ROC(fedData[,1],type="discrete",n=1),
	ROC(fedData[,2]/fedData[,3],type="discrete",n=1))
colnames(fedData) <- c("SP500","US10y/USDBroad")   #jpeg(filename="performance since 2007.jpg",quality=100,
#	width=6.25, height = 6.25,  units="in",res=96)
chart.CumReturns(fedData["2007::"],legend.loc="bottomright",
	main="SP500 and US 10y Rate/Broad Dollar Index")
#dev.off()   #jpeg(filename="correlation.jpg",quality=100,
#	width=6.25, height = 6.25,  units="in",res=96)
chart.Correlation(fedData["2007::"],
	main="SP500 and US 10y Rate/Broad Dollar Index
	Correlation since 2007")
#dev.off()   #jpeg(filename="rolling correlation.jpg",quality=100,
#	width=6.25, height = 6.25,  units="in",res=96)
chart.RollingCorrelation(fedData["2007::",1],fedData["2007::",2],n=250,
	main="SP500 and US 10y Rate/Broad Dollar Index
	Rolling 250 Day Correlation")
#dev.off()   fedData <- na.omit(merge(SP500,DGS10,DTWEXM))
fedData <- merge(ROC(fedData[,1],type="discrete",n=1),
	ROC(fedData[,2]/fedData[,3],type="discrete",n=1))
colnames(fedData) <- c("SP500","US10y/USDMajor")   #jpeg(filename="performance.jpg",quality=100,
#	width=6.25, height = 6.25,  units="in",res=96)
chart.CumReturns(fedData,legend.loc="topleft",
	main="SP500 and US 10y Rate/Broad Dollar Index")
#dev.off()   #jpeg(filename="correlation.jpg",quality=100,
#	width=6.25, height = 6.25,  units="in",res=96)
chart.Correlation(fedData,
	main="SP500 and US 10y Rate/Broad Dollar Index
	Correlation Since 1973")
#dev.off()   #jpeg(filename="rolling correlation.jpg",quality=100,
#	width=6.25, height = 6.25,  units="in",res=96)
chart.TimeSeries(runMean(runCor(fedData[,1],fedData[,2],n=250),n=250),
	main="SP500 and US 10y Rate/Broad Dollar Index
	Rolling 250 Day Average of Rolling 250 Day Correlation")
#dev.off()

Created by Pretty R at inside-R.org