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QEII Announced: Now what ?

Much awaited QEII announced by Fed under which Fed is planning to buy $600 Billion worth of short-term treasuries. While this is definitely essential to support recovery and overall economic, immediate impact was sudden rise in 10-year treasury yield. These yields have jumped from low of 2.33% to 2.96%. That's HUGH jump within 2 weeks. I am not surprised with this rise. What I was surprised was sudden rise.

Let's understand potential impact of QEII in next 6 months and how one can position to make investment gains:

Possible impact of QEII:

  • It should achieve its intended result which is to support economy. It should grow between 2 to 3% in Q4VY2010 and closer to 3% in first half of 2011
  • Unemployment should start inching downwards but not by too much. I still see it hovering between 8-9% for most of next year which is not good for US. But Fed can do only so much about it
  • Housing prices should stabilize at current levels. May start to see rise of less than 1% in prices in some markets
  • Stock markets should maintain their upward bias and slowly inch towards 11500-12000 for DOW
  • 10-year treasury yields would start inching above 3% but not by too much. It may come down around 2.6-2.7% in short term. After May when all of QEII $600 billion buying is over, 10-year yield would be above 3% for good (unless economy slides back to recession which is unlikely)
  • Emerging markets (both stock and bond) should continue to do well due to cheap US $$ and China / India demand 
  • Commodities would hold up to current levels and may go up by another 10% or so. Oil would remain between $70-100 and Gold at $1300-1500.
Possible investment ideas as play on QEII:
(caution - following investment ideas are extremely risky due to 3x exposure and should be tried only if you are comfortable with such risk profile)
  • DRN at around $45: Betting on recovery of REIT sector
  • EDC at around $35: Betting on emerging markets
  • ERX at around $42: Betting on commodity (to be specific on energy sector)
  • TMV at around $36: This is slightly long-term bet that yields would eventually rise. This is inverse bet. This has direct co-relation to 10-year treasury yields (or SBND at around $22 which has direct co-relation to 25-year treasury yield)
All above investment ideas are ETFs which are most suitable if one can correctly predict macro-economic trends.  Let's see how these macro-trends turn out to be in 2011.

Looks like Irish would be thankful to EU and IMF for bailing out their nation and banks next week.

Happy Thanksgiving !

/Shyam

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