The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of September 6, 2016. 10-year note: Is the ECB reaching the end of the stimulus rope? This is not a consensus thinking, but the bank may very well be trying to … Continued
At first glance, major U.S. equity indices are at/near all-time highs, with suppressed volatility. Amid this tranquility, the cost of protection is on the rise, and hedge funds’ net shorts in VIX futures are taking an increasing share of open … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 30, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Prior to this week, after hawkish comments from several FOMC members, it looked like the August jobs report was the sole make-or-break data … Continued
Of late, there is a spring in small-caps’ step. Can it be sustained? In August, the Russell 2000 small cap index (1239.91) jumped 1.6 percent, even as the S&P 500 large cap index inched down 0.1 percent and the Dow … Continued
At first glance, Charts 1 and 2 look identical. With a slight difference. The red line is represented by the S&P 500 large cap index in both. The green bars are different. In Chart 2, these bars represent non-commercials’ weekly … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 23, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: In the Greenspan era, traders did not have to deal with the kind of mixed messages they do today. Back then, the message … Continued
That the green line in Chart 1 is increasingly taking the form of a coiled spring is non-debatable. That the longer it stays compressed in oversold territory, the higher the odds of a spike higher is non-debatable. What is debatable … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 16, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: One more prominent central banker this week seemed to throw his hands up in the air. John Williams, San Francisco Fed president, in … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 9, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Are we beginning to see a chink in central bankers’ armor? Major central banks responded to the financial crisis by aggressively deploying both … Continued
Back in 2013, by August 20th, non-commercials had built 116,317 contracts in net shorts in VIX futures. In the next 10 weeks (by October 29th), net shorts dropped to 39,673 (Chart 1). Intra-day, spot VIX jumped from 11.83 on August … Continued