I wanted to share for any input. I’ve been watching what is going on in markets and my conclusion was that Risk Parity has blown up and Citadel and Millennium are in deep trouble. I just received a call from an old GS friend who now runs a large part of a Japanese bank balance sheet in the US and he was highly agitated...
 
His observation is that Bridgewater has faced massive redemptions from Saudi and others and that is what is caused some of the more dramatic moves last week (gold, bonds, equities and FX). He thinks AQR and 2 Sigma are in the same boat. There is massive forced liquidation of risk parity. All of them run leverage in the strategy, sometimes significant. Sovereign wealth, he thinks, is running for the hills as are others.
 
As you all know, I think Bridgewater goes under for reason not involving this but the exposure of massive fraud but this will force it.
 
My friend explained that due to the Volker rules, now that vol has risen, we has to cut risk limits by 80% in many areas – to put it in perspective his Dollar Mex position limit has gone from 200m to 12m. Thus, just when he was supposed to prove liquidity, he has to reduce it. His hands are tied. Even worse, he has to hedge counterparty risk with corp borrowers and that is adding to the tail spin of selling. There is no liquidity from the banks.
 
The same VAR issue, he claims, is hitting Citadel and Millennium but with a twist. He, along with all the banks, is jacking up lending rates to counterparties from Libor +35 to Libor +90 and he has a $1.5trn balance sheet. The funding stress is forcing banks to reduce lending risk. The issue is that the funding stress is coming from Citadel and Millennium it seems. They rely on repo but via the banks but the transmission mechanism is broken (regulation). It appears that Bernanke probably called Powell and asked him to flood with liquidity at repo but instead of $500bn being drawn, only $78 was drawn. The banks don’t need the cash and don’t want to lend to counterparties. And there in lies the problem – a full credit crunch.
 
With rates going up, all the relative value trades have blown up. Nothing works any more as they were making 12bps in illiquid stuff on massive leverage (off the runs, etc). As funding goes up they instantly go wildly unprofitable and are stuck either begging for repo funding or having to unwind and realize massive losses. There is no funding. This is big trouble.
 
These guys are short vol (VAR),  short liquidity and short rates. The perfect fucking storm.
 
Then on top of that, my friend who was almost yelling to me about it, says he cannot take any risk and therefore cannot provide liquidity. His hands are tied.
 
COVID makes it even worse and liquidity is going to massively dry up next week and for the next few weeks. You see under Series 24 of FINRA, a trader cannot make markets from home. It is illegal. So everyone is getting sent home but the traders. The problem is the traders are now falling ill – JPM and CS are the two I’ve heard thus far. They will have to go home and each day more do, or decide they want to, the lower liquidity gets. No one can make markets.
 
Also, in the corp credit markets things are equally fucked up. Credit, due to the liquidity issues, has stopped trading. That is causing IG etc to blow out. When banks lend to corps, a separate desk (CVA or CPM desk) shorts the stock or buys the CDS etc as a hedge (regulations again) and if the loan is still on the books (they are not allowed to own the bonds but can lend to counterparties, bizarrely) they continues to do that as stocks fall or CDS widens. Essentially, they are short gamma, creating a lob sided market. Everyone is a seller and no one is a buyer. The banks have made money on the hedges while the debt markets get worse.
 
This is causing the equity value of many firms such as Haliburton, to fall below the debt levels. Whether these borrowers have cash on balance sheet or not is irrelevant because of the falling equity value in this market and from the CVA hedging. That is causing spreads to blow out and it will cause downgrades, thus creating a doom loop.
 
So, we have a total shit storm if vol stays here for any period of time. I do not see vol falling yet and that is going to cause a really big issue with Citadel, Millennium, all the risk parity unwinds, all the risker credit that is being shorted for hedging and the repo that no one wants in the banks but their counterparties desperately needs. Every day this situation continues, the more dangerous it is going to get....
 
We have a big fucking margin call under way.
 
In my friends opinion, the only way to stop this is to remove the Volker rule under the emergency powers act ( to allow banks to provide liquidity), the Fed to cut to zero and for them to buy corporate bonds. All the banks have been talking to FINRA and they have said go to the government. Problem is Jamie Dimon is in bed. They need him to run the US Treasury as he is the only person who understands all of this and can navigate it through the politics.
 
This is likely the fix that needs to happen. What happens to Citadel, Millennium, Bridgewater, AQR, 2 Sigma and the corp bond market until they pull that trigger, I have no idea.I thought you’d all be interested.