Dude, Where is the exit?

There were no surprises from the G20 meetings and markets this morning seem to be celebrating this. “We will continue to implement decisively our necessary financial support measures and expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, consistent with price stability and long-term fiscal sustainability, until recovery is secured”. This is the key reason why lots of economists are calling for “impeccable” timing for the removal of the punchbowl. G20’s response is “we agreed the need for a transparent and credible process for withdrawing our extraordinary fiscal, monetary and financial sector support as recovery becomes firmly secured”. In the meantime though we have seen successive upward revisions to economic growth numbers pretty much everywhere on the planet. Consensus growth rate for next year for the world is now reaching 4%. We do not believe inflation is a big threat in the near term -- although there have been upticks here and there in the recent data -- as we are not convinced that short term liquidity will lead to higher inflation as output gaps persist. However, we do not believe extraordinary QE is now warranted. That said we do not see any central bank governor brave enough to take the risky step of normalizing liquidity until “recover becomes secured” given the intensity of the downturn. Equally we do not know how the markets will react when they realize the party is over. In its recent New York Times article Yale Professor Robert Schiller points out that “a social epidemic is supporting renewed confidence... confidence can grow with contagion... But in an economy which is still unstable stories can morph into different forms, the price feedback can turn downward and the dynamic could turn ugly”. This is what scares the policy makers... As, in the process of nursing the post Nasdaq bubble burst period, Alan Greenspan created the property bubble in the US current mis-allocation of capital and resulting market dislocations are bound to be paving the way for the next bust further down the road. But for now we are convinced that chances of a market overshoot is rising with every official announcement. If we are right about continued strength of equity markets chances are that USD strength will be delayed. Perhaps markets will give us better entry points.