This week's Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher speaking with Jim Bianco, president of Bianco research.
Prior to the chat with Bianco, Task and Alpher note that equities continue to march higher (or at least hold their ground) in the face of a batch of disquieting headlines pointing to a renewed surge in COVID-19 infections. Task wonders if the so-called "second wave" and the upcoming election might keep the market in a trading range for a few months.
Jim Bianco wasn't too surprised by the bounce from the March lows, particularly given the Fed's unprecedented efforts to support markets. The size of the equity bounce and the Fed's doubling down on what was already massive action took him by surprise though. And last week, Bianco made news by fully embracing this bull move.
Not making enough news last week, says Bianco, was the fancy legal footwork the Fed had to go through to enable its program to purchase individual corporate bonds. To Bianco, it shows the central bank will stop at nothing to support markets - including the purchase of stocks should the need arise.
As to where this ends, Bianco wonders if it ever will, noting nothing was ever really wound down from the post-global financial crisis interventions. How far have we come? Quantitative easing (QE) was thought of as completely radical when it was announced nearly a decade ago, but today it's considered par for the course, and in use by major central banks across the globe.
Finally, Bianco suggests the result to all this will be rising inflation in 2021 and beyond. Interestingly, this doesn't make him a gold (or crypto) bug. The hope of bulls in both assets - that they're a hedge against monetary disrupt - hasn't played out. Thanks to ETFs, gold (XAUUSD) has been financialized, he says. And thanks to the need to at some point shift crypto to dollars, Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is financialized as well. The result: The fortunes of both are at least somewhat dependent on the financial markets. He reminds that both gold and Bitcoin crumbled alongside stocks in the March meltdown, and both recovered as equities recovered.
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