It is May now and the famous ”Sell in May & Go Away!” mantra always resonate in financial markets.  The question this time is a challenging, what to really sell?

The top 10 & bottom 10 performers in global equity indices are shown here.  You will notice that the top performers are really those marginal frontier markets mostly that nobody really invest in a big way. While the bottom performers are some of the bigger markets that have sold down substantially already like Nikkei 225 (Japan) and Hang Seng (Hong Kong).

Similarly in currencies below, besides NZD (New Zealand dollar) & Gold that have gained more than 5% against USD, the best spot returns are from relatively illiquid currencies that nobody owns much of; while major currencies like EUR, GBP, CHF are only 1% up for the year which is almost a rounding error.

If there is something that I want really want to sell or short in May, I guess I am now looking at cheap downside bets in NZD, Gold and IDR.  Asianmacro never like the frothy levels of milk anyway and prefers soy latte rather than regular milk latte coupled with an exuberant Kiwi banking sector holding up the economy http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/05/06/new-zealand-banks-arent-playing-ball-with-rbnz/ .  For Gold, I can find more things that glitters like LED lights & the safe haven bid due to the Russian / Ukraine fears are overplayed.  Lastly in the case of IDR, well the Jokowi feel good effect in Indonesia is all but played out.  The follow on Presidential elections will take on a more complex Javanese shadow puppet play that will mean more uncertainty http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/05/05/prabowo-desperately-seeking-partners-jokowi-flexes-muscles.html that the markets will not like soon.