Tag: MMF – Money Market Flows

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Commentary

Daily Brief For March 24, 2023

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Graphic updated 9:20 AM ET. Sentiment Risk-Off if expected /MES open is below the prior day’s range. /MES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of this letter. Click here for the latest levels. SqueezeMetrics Dark Pool Index (DIX) and Gamma (GEX) with the latter calculated based on where the prior day’s reading falls with respect to the MAX and MIN of all occurrences available. A higher DIX is bullish. The lower the GEX, the more (expected) volatility. Click to learn the implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness. Breadth reflects a reading of the prior day’s NYSE Advance/Decline indicator. The CBOE VIX Volatility Index (INDEX: VVIX) reflects the attractiveness of owning volatility. UMBS prices via MND. Click here for the economic calendar.

Fundamental

Our Daily Brief for 3/23 discussed reactions to the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) interest rate decision being countered by Treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s deposit guarantee comments. Accordingly, doom and gloom are in full bloom prompting Yellen to walk back her toughness and tell lawmakers that regulators would protect the banking system if warranted. However, this did little to assuage markets, hence the neutral-to-risk-off sentiment this morning.

Based on the Fed’s Overnight Reverse Repo (RRP) and Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), as well as money-market flows, strategists believe the deposit flight has not stabilized. To explain, policymakers intervened on the heels of the banking crisis in a way that’s not to be confused with quantitative easing or QE (i.e., flow of capital into markets). The Fed’s balance sheet swelled (from the discount window, the new bank funding facilities, and spillover from the FDIC insurance backstop). The balance sheet has continued to swell while money market funds and the RRP facility see big inflows.

Strategists like Andreas Steno Larsen allege that the maturity of 3-month T-bills and deposit flights partly drives this swell.

Graphic: Retrieved from ZeroHedge.

Rather than being used to boost liquidity (i.e., “lend or to finance trading activities,” as discussed in previous letters, including 9/20), reserves are being sterilized. “The Fed’s actions to stem the banking crisis are beginning to accelerate the effects of [quantitative tightening or] QT, causing money velocity to drop and intensifying the tightening of financial conditions,” Bloomberg’s Simon White reports. “In the coming weeks and months, we are likely to see reserves leaving the high-velocity world of smaller banks, where they were being lent out more, to the effectively zero-velocity black-hole of” money-market funds and RRP.

Graphic: Retrieved from ZeroHedge.

JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) validates this view. They think the Fed’s rate hikes and QT have coincided with funds going to money-market funds and larger banks. They add that the banking crisis has accelerated this movement.

Graphic: Retrieved from Bloomberg.

“Deposit movements could cause banks to be cautious on lending, with mid- and small-size banks playing a large role in US lending,” thus exacerbating recessionary pressures, they note. Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) strategists add that investors should sell equities after the last rate hike to sidestep “the biggest declines.”

Graphic: Retrieved from Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS).

Positioning

Brief positioning update.

As proposed in previous letters, low- or zero-cost call options structures have worked and may continue to work.

Notwithstanding, look for opportunities to play the downside as markets trade higher into a “more combustible” position. Attractive bear put spread trades are showing in the previously depressed Nasdaq 100, where boosts have, in part, been the result of “volatility compression and options decay.” If you’re participating in the Nasdaq, at least you have breadth on your side.

Graphic: Retrieved from ZeroHedge.

Technical

As of 9:20 AM ET, Friday’s regular session (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET) in the S&P 500 will likely open in the lower part of a negatively skewed overnight inventory, outside of the prior day’s range, suggesting a potential for immediate directional opportunity.

The S&P 500 pivot for today is $3,957.25. 

Key levels to the upside include $3,980.75, $3,994.25, and $4,005.00.

Key levels to the downside include $3,937.00, $3,921.25, and $3,891.00.

Disclaimer: Click here to load the updated key levels via the web-based TradingView platform. New links are produced daily. Quoted levels likely hold, barring an exogenous development.

Graphic: 65-minute profile chart of the Micro E-mini S&P 500 Futures.

Definitions

Overnight Rally Highs (Lows): Typically, there is a low historical probability associated with overnight rally-highs (lows) ending the upside (downside) discovery process.

Volume Areas: Markets will build on areas of high-volume (HVNodes). Should the market trend for some time, this will be identified by a low-volume area (LVNodes). The LVNodes denote directional conviction and ought to offer support on any test.

If participants auction and find acceptance in an area of a prior LVNode, then future discovery ought to be volatile and quick as participants look to the nearest HVNodes for more favorable entry or exit.

POCs: Areas where two-sided trade was most prevalent in a prior day session. Participants will respond to future value tests as they offer favorable entry and exit.

About

The author, Renato Leonard Capelj, spends the bulk of his time at Physik Invest, an entity through which he invests and publishes free daily analyses to thousands of subscribers. The analyses offer him and his subscribers a way to stay on the right side of the market. 

Separately, Capelj is an accredited journalist with past works including interviews with investor Kevin O’Leary, ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Lithuania’s Minister of Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė, former Cisco chairman and CEO John Chambers, and persons at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Connect

Direct queries to renato@physikinvest.com. Find Physik Invest on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Find Capelj on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Only follow the verified profiles.

Calendar

You may view this letter’s content calendar at this link.

Disclaimer

Do not construe this newsletter as advice. All content is for informational purposes. Capelj and Physik Invest manage their own capital and will not solicit others for it.

Categories
Commentary

Daily Brief For September 27, 2022

The daily brief is a free glimpse into the prevailing fundamental and technical drivers of U.S. equity market products. Join the 950+ that read this report daily, below!

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Graphic updated 6:45 AM ET. Sentiment Neutral if expected /ES open is inside of the prior day’s range. /ES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of the following section. Levels may have changed since initially quoted; click here for the latest levels. SqueezeMetrics Dark Pool Index (DIX) and Gamma (GEX) calculations are based on where the prior day’s reading falls with respect to the MAX and MIN of all occurrences available. A higher DIX is bullish. At the same time, the lower the GEX, the more (expected) volatility. Learn the implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness. Breadth reflects a reading of the prior day’s NYSE Advance/Decline indicator. VIX reflects a current reading of the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX) from 0-100.

Fundamental

Top of mind, yesterday, was the drop in Britain’s currency (GBP) and a surge in bond yields on the back of new fiscal plans and pledged tax cuts, alongside a more easy pace of interest rate hikes by the Bank of England (BoE). See the Daily Brief for September 26, 2022, for context.

Graphic: Retrieved from Bloomberg.

Knowing that the fiscal stimulus and an easy-moving BoE would add to inflation that is already high and sticky, traders began pricing emergency rate hikes, all the while conversation around the impacts of the UK’s rising rates on mortgage lending and the “dollar doom loop” surfaced.

In response, the BoE’s Governor Andrew Bailey said they were “monitoring developments in financial markets,” and at the “next scheduled meeting of the impact on demand and inflation from the Government’s announcement, and the fall in sterling, … [t]he MPC [won’t] hesitate to change interest rates by as much as needed to return inflation to the 2% target.”

Per Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C), however, “[m]onetary policy will struggle to save FX when fiscal policy is the culprit.”

Lawrence Henry Summers, a former US Secretary of the Treasury, also commented that he “would not be amazed if British short rates more than triple in the next two years and reach levels above 7 percent.”

That’s “because US rates are now projected to approach 5 percent and Britain, [which] has much more serious inflation, is pursuing more aggressive fiscal expansion and has larger financing challenges.”

Graphic: Retrieved from Bloomberg.

On the topic of rising yields and lenders’ disinterest to issue mortgages, among other things, it is the case that bond buying, via tools such as quantitative easing (QE), left room for confidence to eventually run out and the bond market to revolt.

Read our monetary policy explainers published on September 19 and 20.

Per statements authored by Bloomberg’s John Authers, the “UK appears to be the first case of a true disorderly bond selloff, where the moves are so swift that they affect the functioning of the financial system. It’s been triggered by a combination of inflation and rash fiscal policy.”

Accordingly, the actions by policymakers abroad serve to reinforce the earlier discussed “dollar doom loop”; the rising USD, though reducing the impact of inflation in the US, ultimately hurts most dollar-denominated debt servicing (see Latin America in the 1980s).

Graphic: Retrieved from Bloomberg.

Positioning

Seasonally speaking, the week after September options expiry (OPEX) is one of the worst on record. The weakness often persists into October.

To quote Kai Volatility’s Cem Karsan:

So, “less support from Vanna and Charm, less support through QT, and less buyback,” presents a “fragile moment” with the next week representing the most “dangerous period” on record.

Graphic: Retrieved from SpotGamma. “SPX prices X-axis. Option delta Y-axis. When the factors of implied volatility (Vanna) and time change (Charm), hedging ratios change. The graphic is for illustrational purposes, only.”

For context, it is the impacts of quantitative tightening (QT) which is manifesting itself as “$4.5 billion less in demand for assets per day,” as well as the blackout period for buybacks (which were consistently “supporting the market”) and options repositioning bolstering the weakness.

Graphic: Via Physik Invest. Data compiled by @jkonopas623. Fed Balance Sheet data, here. Treasury General Account Data, here. Reverse Repo data, here. NL = BS – TGA – RRP.

Separately, a hot topic concerns the money that is piling into money funds where “the vast bulk now earns upwards of 2%, with pockets paying 3%, 4% or more.”

Graphic: Retrieved from Bloomberg. “Money funds, banks, and others are so flush with cash these days that they’re shoveling record amounts into the Fed’s overnight reverse repurchase agreement facility, a short-term instrument that, following the central bank’s 75 basis point hike last week, now pays a rate of 3.05%.”

The theory is as follows: if “cash is yielding 4%, why not just sit in cash while the macro environment clarifies a little bit?”

With traditional 60/40 upended, and the gap “between what banks are paying on deposits and what money-market funds are offering” widening, “money funds are likely to attract more inflows going forward as a result, pushing [the] usage of the RRP facility even higher.” 

Graphic: Retrieved from Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS).

This is all, however, money that is waiting to be deployed, “should market sentiment improve, or asset prices tumble to levels too attractive to pass up.”

Should you, too, desire to pursue guaranteed rates of return, last week Box Spreads were put forth as a solution. These trades “allow market participants to create a loan structure similar to a Treasury bill.” Upon maturity, the Box Spread earns a competitive interest rate.

Price some trades at boxtrades.com.

Graphic: Retrieved from boxtrades.com.

Technical

As of 6:30 AM ET, Tuesday’s regular session (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET), in the S&P 500, is likely to open in the middle part of a positively skewed overnight inventory, inside of prior-range and -value, suggesting a limited potential for immediate directional opportunity.

In the best case, the S&P 500 trades higher.

Any activity above the $3,688.75 HVNode puts into play the $3,722.50 LVNode. Initiative trade beyond the LVNode could reach as high as the $3,771.25 and $3,826.25 HVNode, or higher.

In the worst case, the S&P 500 trades lower.

Any activity below the $3,688.75 HVNode puts into play the $3,638.25 LVNode. Initiative trade beyond the LVNode could reach as low as the $3,610.75 and $3,554.75 HVNode, or lower.

Click here to load today’s key levels into the web-based TradingView charting platform. Note that all levels are derived using the 65-minute timeframe. New links are produced, daily.
Graphic: 65-minute profile chart of the Micro E-mini S&P 500 Futures.

Definitions

Volume Areas: A structurally sound market will build on areas of high volume (HVNodes). Should the market trend for long periods of time, it will lack sound structure, identified as low volume areas (LVNodes). LVNodes denote directional conviction and ought to offer support on any test. 

If participants were to auction and find acceptance into areas of prior low volume (LVNodes), then future discovery ought to be volatile and quick as participants look to HVNodes for favorable entry or exit.

Vanna: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to volatility.

Charm: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to time.

About

After years of self-education, strategy development, mentorship, and trial-and-error, Renato Leonard Capelj began trading full-time and founded Physik Invest to detail his methods, research, and performance in the markets.

Capelj also develops insights around impactful options market dynamics at SpotGamma and is a Benzinga reporter.

Some of his works include conversations with ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, investors Kevin O’Leary and John Chambers, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, ex-Bridgewater Associate Andy Constan, Kai Volatility’s Cem Karsan, The Ambrus Group’s Kris Sidial, among many others.

Disclaimer

In no way should the materials herein be construed as advice. Derivatives carry a substantial risk of loss. All content is for informational purposes only.

Categories
Commentary

Daily Brief For February 14, 2022

Editor’s Note: The Daily Brief is a free glimpse into the prevailing fundamental and technical drivers of U.S. equity market products. Join the 200+ that read this report daily, below!

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What Happened

Overnight, equity index futures auctioned sideways to lower, extending the sell-off that began with the release of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data.

The Federal Reserve will convene, today, at 11:30 AM ET for an unscheduled meeting of the Board of Governors to discuss “the advance and discount rates to be charged by the Federal Reserve banks.”

Scheduled is an interview with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard (8:30 AM ET).

Graphic updated 6:50 AM ET. Sentiment Risk-Off if expected /ES open is below the prior day’s range. /ES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of the following section. Levels may have changed since initially quoted; click here for the latest levels. SqueezeMetrics Dark Pool Index (DIX) and Gamma (GEX) calculations are based on where the prior day’s reading falls with respect to the MAX and MIN of all occurrences available. A higher DIX is bullish. At the same time, the lower the GEX, the more (expected) volatility. Learn the implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness. SHIFT data used for S&P 500 (INDEX: SPX) options activity. Note that options flow is sorted by the call premium spent; if more positive, then more was spent on call options. Breadth reflects a reading of the prior day’s NYSE Advance/Decline indicator. VIX reflects a current reading of the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX) from 0-100.

What To Expect

Fundamental: Markets are catching up to divergences in breadth, trading down in the face of narratives around the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) response to heightened inflation, a challenging economic growth outlook, and geopolitical tensions.

Graphic: NYSE A-D Line versus the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Taken from Tom McClellan.

Pursuant to these narratives, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) lowered its targets for the S&P 500 from $5,100.00 to $4,900.00. 

“The macro backdrop this year is considerably more challenging than in 2021. However, we continue to expect that equity prices will rise alongside earnings and reach a new all-time high in 2022,” strategists said on earnings growth in light of the impact of higher rates on valuations.

“During the last 50 years, a ‘goldilocks’ environment of accelerating GDP  growth and stable real yields has typically been associated with a 12-month S&P 500 return of +16%. However, when growth is decelerating and real yields are rising, 12-month S&P 500 returns have averaged +8%.”

Graphic: Via Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS). Taken from The Market Ear. 

At the same time, participants are withdrawing their cash and assets held in money market funds in size.

Graphic: Via Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC).

Based on flows into equities, participants appear to be opportunistically buying the dip.

Graphic: Via EPFR. Retrieved from The Market Ear.

Looking back, when the yield curve – e.g., spread between 10- and 2-year – is between 75 and 25 basis points, stocks actually perform well. 

According to The Market Ear, “[S]imilar periods of time have typically coincided with the middle of prior cycles when economic expansion was broad-based. Worth highlighting the mid-90s, mid-00s, and late-10s.”

“Both short and long-term SPX performance following similar instances were well above typical return profiles. Average 6M performance is over 9% and average 12M performance is over 17%. Almost more notably, SPX performance was positive 90%+ of the time.”

Graphic: Via Jefferies Financial Group Inc (NYSE: JEF). Retrieved from The Market Ear.

To end this section, we point to the so-called unscheduled Fed meeting, today, and the potential for surprise rate increases, despite some policymakers, like Kansas City Fed President Esther George, attempting to cool expectations.

The historical reaction, months out, is not what participants expect would happen by default.

Graphic: Via SentimenTrader.

Positioning: As stated, Friday, Thursday’s post-CPI trade disrupted the balance of trade.

Lower prices and demand for protection, in the face of lower levels of “on-screen liquidity,” solicited dealer selling to hedge increased exposure to the positive delta from demanded short-dated, highly convex options.

Graphic: SpotGamma’s Hedging Impact of Real-Time Options (HIRO) indicator; “customers bought put options (a negative delta trade) leaving dealers short (a positive delta trade).” 

Lower prices and higher volatility compound macro flows, exacerbating weakness.

To note, much of the demand for protection is concentrated in shorter-dated options that are more sensitive to changes in implied volatility and direction. The demand is well visualized by the VIX term structure which shifted markedly at the front-end, Friday.

Graphic: VIX term structure shifts higher (dramatically at the front-end).

Going forward, there is a large monthly options expiration (OPEX) this week. OPEX is a sort-of reset; options roll-off, as do the counterparties’ hedges.

According to data compiled and analyzed by Pat Hennessy a while back, “OPEX week returns peaked in 2016 and have trended lower since.”

Graphic: @pat_hennessy breaks down returns for the S&P 500, categorized by the week relative to OPEX. 

Post-OPEX, though, according to SpotGamma, “In an environment characterized by negative gamma (wherein an options delta falls with stock price rises and rises when stock prices fall), options expiries ought to make gamma less negative.”

“Therefore, a reset that may make gamma exposures less negative, there will be a removal of [counterparties’] linear short (-delta) hedges which may further bolster attempts higher.”

So, the dip lower and demand for protection could serve to prime the market for upside (when volatility starts to compress again and counterparties unwind hedges to put-heavy exposures). 

Commitment to higher prices would likely coincide with increased interest in options at higher strike prices. We have yet to see this occur.

Technical: As of 6:30 AM ET, Monday’s regular session (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET), in the S&P 500, will likely open in the lower part of a negatively skewed overnight inventory, outside of prior-range and -value, suggesting a potential for immediate directional opportunity.

Balance-Break + Gap Scenarios: A change in the market (i.e., the transition from two-time frame trade, or balance, to one-time frame trade, or trend) occurred.

Acceptance (i.e., more than 1-hour of trade) outside of the balance area has been established.

Leaving value behind on a gap-fill or failing to fill a gap (i.e., remaining outside of the prior session’s range) is a go-with indicator (i.e., nothing has changed since Friday).

Rejection (i.e., return inside of balance) portends a move to the opposite end of the balance.

In the best case, the S&P 500 trades higher; activity above the $4,365.00 point of control (POC) puts in play the $4,393.75 high volume area (HVNode). Initiative trade beyond the HVNode could reach as high as the $4,438.00 key response area and $4,499.00 POC, or higher.

In the worst case, the S&P 500 trades lower; activity below the $4,365.00 POC puts in play the $4,332.25 HVNode. Initiative trade beyond the HVNode could reach as low as the $4,266.25 Weak Low and $4,212.50 regular trade low (RTH Low), or lower.

Click here to load today’s key levels into the web-based TradingView charting platform. Note that all levels are derived using the 65-minute timeframe. New links are produced, daily.
Graphic: 65-minute profile chart of the Micro E-mini S&P 500 Futures.

What People Are Saying

Definitions

Overnight Rally Highs (Lows): Typically, there is a low historical probability associated with overnight rally-highs (lows) ending the upside (downside) discovery process.

Volume Areas: A structurally sound market will build on areas of high volume (HVNodes). Should the market trend for long periods of time, it will lack sound structure, identified as low volume areas (LVNodes). LVNodes denote directional conviction and ought to offer support on any test. 

If participants were to auction and find acceptance into areas of prior low volume (LVNodes), then future discovery ought to be volatile and quick as participants look to HVNodes for favorable entry or exit.

Gamma: Gamma is the sensitivity of an option to changes in the underlying price. Dealers that take the other side of options trades hedge their exposure to risk by buying and selling the underlying. When dealers are short-gamma, they hedge by buying into strength and selling into weakness. When dealers are long-gamma, they hedge by selling into strength and buying into weakness. The former exacerbates volatility. The latter calms volatility.

Vanna: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to volatility.

Charm: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to time.

POCs: POCs are valuable as they denote areas where two-sided trade was most prevalent in a prior day session. Participants will respond to future tests of value as they offer favorable entry and exit.

Options Expiration (OPEX): Traditionally, option expiries mark an end to pinning (i.e, the theory that market makers and institutions short options move stocks to the point where the greatest dollar value of contracts will expire) and the reduction dealer gamma exposure.

Volume-Weighted Average Prices (VWAPs): A metric highly regarded by chief investment officers, among other participants, for quality of trade. Additionally, liquidity algorithms are benchmarked and programmed to buy and sell around VWAPs.

About

After years of self-education, strategy development, mentorship, and trial-and-error, Renato Leonard Capelj began trading full-time and founded Physik Invest to detail his methods, research, and performance in the markets.

Capelj is also a Benzinga finance and technology reporter interviewing the likes of Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, JC2 Ventures’ John Chambers, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, as well as a SpotGamma contributor developing insights around impactful options market dynamics.

Disclaimer

Physik Invest does not carry the right to provide advice.

In no way should the materials herein be construed as advice. Derivatives carry a substantial risk of loss. All content is for informational purposes only.