The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of October 27, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Once again, the Fed took a pass. Its decision this week not to raise interest rates was expected. What was not expected was … Continued
Up until Wednesday last week, the hypothetical trade involving a weekly short put on SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, was going pretty well. Then came the 2.8-percent jump in the remaining two sessions, and the trade began to bleed. … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of October 20, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: At the press conference following the ECB meeting on Thursday, when asked by a WSJ reporter as to why the bank is fighting … Continued
Since the August 24th low in U.S. stocks and the subsequent rally, some signs of risk-on are visible, but small-caps are substantially lagging large-caps. In Chart 1, a product of XLV (healthcare), XLU (utilities) and XLP (consumer staples) is divided … Continued
Stocks of major U.S. banks and brokers are behaving in a way that shorts are probably not very happy with. Should they treat this as a signal or noise? The top six have reported September-quarter results, and it is a … Continued
The S&P 500 index rallied 0.9 percent last week – its third consecutive up week. Off the September 29th intra-day low, it is now up 8.7 percent (Chart 1). That is in 14 sessions! This is too fast, and probably … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of October 13, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Central bankers were probably busy scratching their heads this week. Despite trillions in quantitative easing and their valiant effort to push inflation above … Continued
A battle is being fought between optimists and pessimists in the land of gold. Of late, the former is winning hands down. Near-term, the latter might at least get some reprieve. In the latest period (September 30), short interest on … Continued
Semis have come a long way. Through last Thursday, SMH, the Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF, rallied 21 percent since the August 24th low and nearly 11 percent since the September 29th low. The latest rally in particular came in a … Continued
During the September 15-30 reporting period, short interest on SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, dropped 15 percent period-over-period (Chart 1). This was interesting because the ETF shed 2.9 percent during the period, having just tested the August 25th closing … Continued