We have some very exciting things planned for the Fall that we cannot wait to share with you. Until then, we'll be channeling our inner John Oliver and spending the rest of the summer researching and recharging. Oh, and structuring our imminent ICO in a way that (i) circumvents the SEC's recent decision noting that ICOs are securities offerings and (ii) gives all current PETITION subscribers a first look at participation. Don't know what we're talking about? For a crash course, read this, this, and this. The ICO stuff is BANANAS and, yes, we're TOTALLY KIDDING about doing one. We are not kidding, however, about our planned Summer break. We'll be back in September with the a$$-kicking curated weekly commentary you've come to know and love. In the meantime, please regularly check out our website petition11.com, our LinkedIn account, and our Twitter feed (@petition) for new content throughout August.
But before we ride off to the Lake, a few thoughts (and a longer PETITION than usual)...
There has been a marked drop-off in meaningful bankruptcy filings the last several weeks and people are gettin' antsy. Where is the next wave going to come from? A few weeks ago, Bloomberg noted that there was a dearth of restructuring deal flow and a lot of (restructuring) mouths to feed. Bloomberg also reported that, given where bond prices/yields are, bank traders are so bored that they're filling their days by Tindering and video-gaming like bosses rather than...uh...trading. (You're not going to want to thumb-wrestle millennials.) These trends haven't stopped the likes of Ankura Consulting from announcing - seemingly on a daily basis - a new Managing Director or Senior Managing Director hire (misplaced optimism? Or a leading indicator?). No surprise, then, that financial advisors and bankers are whipping themselves into a frenzy in an attempt to complement Paul Weiss as advisors to a potential ad hoc group in Guitar Center Inc. (yes, people do buy guitars online on Amazon and, yes, $1.1b of debt is a lot given declining trends in guitar playing). Even the media is getting desperate: now the Financial Times is pontificating on the "short retail" trade (firewall; good charts within) that others have been discussing for a year or so. The internet is impacting shopping malls (firewall)? YOU DON"T SAY! Commercial mortgage delinquencies are rising (firewall)? NO WAY! We've gotten to the point that in addition to having nothing to do, no one actually has anything original to say.
That is, almost no one. After all, there is always Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management, who, once again, demonstrates how much fun he must be at parties. Damn this was good. Looooong, but good. And you have to read it. Boiled down to its simplest form he's asking this very poignant question: what the f&*K is going on? Why? Well, because:
(i) we now see some of the highest equity valuations in history;
(ii) the VIX index is at an all-time low;
(iii) the trajectory of can't-lose stocks is staggering, see, e.g., FAANG (though, granted, Amazon ($AMZN) and Alphabet ($GOOGL) both got taken down a notch this week);
(iv) more than $1 trillion has moved into value-agnostic investing;
(v) we're seeing the lowest yields in history on low-rated bonds/loans (and cov lite is rampant again);
(vi) we're seeing even lower yields on emerging market debt;
(vii) there's gangbusters PE fundraising (PETITION NOTE: we'd add purchase price multiple expansion and, albeit on a much smaller scale, gangbusters VC fundraising);
(viii) there is the rise of the biggest fund of all time raised for levered tech investing (Softbank); and
(ix) bringing this full circle to where we started above, there are now "billions in digital currencies whose value has multiplied dramatically" - even taking into account a small pullback.
Maybe we really should consider an ICO after all.
And then there's also Professor Scott Galloway. He, admittedly, looks at "softer metrics" and highlights various signals that show "we're about to get rocked" in this piece, a sample of which follows (read the whole thing: it's worth it...also the links):