Friday, September 8, 2017

Short Squeeze in Bonds and Gold

Yesterday, you had heavy volume as bonds and gold both squeezed higher, after the ECB decided to postpone the taper.  This was what most expected, but you still had a significant minority that thought Draghi might provide more details of their future tapering plans.  He didn't give the bears an inch, and provided the usual dovish spiel, while throwing the euro bears a bone by saying that he is keeping an eye on the euro and its strength.  Draghi definitely likes to bring out the "whatever it takes" line on various topics, this time, it was on getting to 2% inflation.  He sure talks like a determined dove, but he can't solve the scarcity of German government bond supply problem when it comes to following the capital key guidelines for QE.

You basically had a perfect storm in the form of ECB can kicking, and of course North Korea and Hurricane Irma over the weekend.  That was just too much for bond and gold shorts to deal with and they finally capitulated and bought in a panic. We got remnants of that buying wave this morning, but with the current price action, it seems like most of the weak hands have been taken out. All this while the S&P trades in a sleepy range from 2350 to 2370 this week. 

I expect their to be a little relief buying in stocks on Monday, after the weekend event risk is behind us, but it should be a small pop because the market just hasn't gone down much ahead of these uncertainties.  It is clear that the US stock market has gotten smarter, as the market is very reluctant to provide a good buying opportunity even in the face of bad news.  If we had similar news flow 5 years ago, the market would have pullbacked a lot more, and then subsequently rebounded a lot more.  Now, its short and small pullbacks on bad news, and short and small rebounds after the V bottoms.  After seeing the volatility on Tuesday, I was expecting much more this week.  But it's been a dud for S&P traders. Just a dreadful S&P trading market.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

TrendRambo on Twitter: Feels like NOKO holding the market hostage. Would be a huge relief if NOKO was dealt with over the weekend.Hopefully with precision strike and not with nuclear weapons - I feel bad for the pandas and bunnies... Other factors like the Rotchilds going underground from the FED ( Stanley) to inflict further damage to American people ...will be replaced with growth friendly Americans.

Market Owl said...

Agree on Rothschilds pulling the levers on the Fed dummies behind the scenes. They are behind the easy money policies ever since Greenspan took over in 1987. Don't agree on N. Korea holding market hostage. We are within a whisker of all time highs, the US markets are ignoring the sabre rattling because they know its all talk, no action, like usual.