Monday, June 1, 2020

Fund manager warns investors could get hit with two crashes by end of the year

Michael Gayed called for a double-digit drop on the S&P 500. He followed that timely prediction in March with a forecast for a melt-up in stocks at the end of the month. He backed up that outlook in an interview with Bloomberg radio.

Clearly, he’s had his finger on the pulse of this volatile market since the coronavirus began spreading in the United States — just look at the 34% rally in his ATAC Rotation Fund ATACX, -1.10% for proof that his methods, in this climate at least, are paying off nicely.

If he’s got it right again, the pain is far from over for investors.

“Risk-off is about to return in two waves — first bonds, then stocks. Two crashes,” Gayed, who also publishes the Lead-Lag Report, told MarketWatch over the weekend.

He explained that he sees a “significant risk” that the yield curve steepens in a way that will shock markets and trigger a crash in Treasurys TMUBMUSD10Y, 0.678% .


“Reflation bets are increasing everywhere, and oil printing a negative price in the face of that suggests there is a very real feeling that global central banks and governments will stop at nothing to counter the deflationary forces of staying at home,” Gayed said. “Factually, inflation expectations have been rising alongside food prices due to supply-chain issues. Combined with unlimited QE, which in the past has caused yields to rise, it looks like bonds collapse first before stocks.”


He also touched on a theme that has many investors, especially the mom-and-pop types, scratching their heads. How can stocks continue to rally against what’s shaping up to be a depression in the economy? “The greatest disconnect in history,” as Gayed describes it.

Here he is talking about that “disconnect” last week with famed bear Marc Faber:


Ultimately, Gayed expects to see yields spike as they did prior to the 1987 crash.

“Should that occur, as I think is likely,” he said, “the conditions then would set up for another stock market crash afterwards as the overreaction to the reflation narrative comes to grips with the facts on the ground that life, at least for now, is going to look and feel very different for some time.”

- Source, Market Watch