When to Re-align
March 21, 2022 Good morning, In the midst of the Fed turning hawkish and raising rates last week, and with no tangible evidence of progress on resolving the war, the market staged its largest one week gain in a year and a half. The S&P 500 jumped +6.2% on the week, effectively wiping away half […]
Another Triple Witching Day
March 18, 2022 Good morning, It is a light note this morning, It is another quarterly expiration day today, with a panoply of exercises across single-name and index derivatives providing plenty of reasons for hedging flows and erratic price action. As is customary, we don’t assign much weight or draw any conclusions from what we […]
Probably Irreparable Now
March 16, 2022 Good morning, Sorry this is so late – remote digital connectivity while traveling can still be a bumpy road. As a well anticipated Fed day begins, markets are looking at what must appear to be a mirage to traders – an up market for the 2nd day in a row (its been […]
Enduring Volatile Periods
March 14, 2022 Good morning, An eventful evening for markets last night is leading the way into an eventful week. More BS out of the Kremlin around “talks” led to a meaningful retrenchment in crude prices. This apparently led to a rout on bond prices as yields for the entire Treasury complex are at new […]
Skeptical
March 11, 2022 Good morning, Markets are looking up by about one percent this morning. Russian President Putin cited “positive movement” in talks with Ukraine, hours after saying he would bring in fighters from the Middle East. Despite extreme skepticism U.S equity futures jumped along with European stocks after the report of Putin’s comments, while crude […]
Best Not To Watch
March 9, 2022 Good morning, Markets remain highly volatile. The S&P fell 4% in a matter of hours Monday night into Tuesday morning this week on news of the U.S embargo on Russian oil. The S&P rallied over 3% on Biden’s embargo announcement – a common buy-the-news event. However, late afternoon news that at least […]
More To Clear
March 7, 2022 Good morning, Oil prices spiked last night on the prospect of a ban on Russian supplies which sent Futures down almost 2% to their overnight lows. Futures have pared the bulk of those losses, however they now stand just below “unchanged” from Friday’s close as the US markets prepare to open. Funding stress […]
February 2022 Monthly Letter
In the first half of February, investors played Can-You-Top-This, predicting how many rate hikes the Fed would make this year. In the second half of the month Russia erased any question of their intentions toward Ukraine. Two halves to make a pretty rotten whole month for markets. That makes two in a row for ’22. […]
Still Haven’t Cleared
March 4, 2022 Good morning, It’s hard to get up for the last employment data point before this month’s Fed meeting this morning, with Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and news headlines from Ukraine on fire. Besides, it appears as though the policy decision at this month’s Fed meeting is virtually etched in stone already. […]
Time
March 2, 2022 Good morning, I don’t have any new market insight for you this morning, nor have I been able to glean much from the many resources I tap each day. I suspect the reason is because markets are in waiting mode. They are waiting to see any 2nd and 3rd derivatives of last […]
By The:
February 28, 2022 Good morning, By the Hour: More and stiffer sanctions were levied on Russia and Putin over the weekend which brough another spike of uncertainty. Primarily around what the sanctions might mean for the global economy, particularly Europe’s economy. “Recession” led almost every overseas news headline this morning and Futures opened down 3% […]
Deep Sigh
February 25, 2022 Good morning, Following a fairly historic reversal yesterday — the S&P 500, for example, started the day down -2.6%, and then at mid-day rallied +4.2%, to close the session up +1.5% overall — can we assume the invasion is now in the market’s rear-view mirror? I doubt it, but I do think the […]