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Commentary

Daily Brief For November 15, 2022

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Graphic updated 9:00 AM ET. Sentiment Risk-On if expected /ES open is above the prior day’s range. /ES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of this letter. Levels may have changed since initially quoted; 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. At the same time, 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. VIX reflects a current reading of the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX) from 0-100.

Fundamental

S&P Global Inc (NYSE: SPGI) put it really well in a recent update comparing today to the events of the mid-to-late 1630s. Dutch tulip bulbs traded as high as $750,000 per bulb (today’s money) before collapsing to near-zero.

That’s akin to what happened with the non-fungible token (NFT) craze of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Pictures of rocks sold for millions as recently as last year. Those pictures are worthless, now, and this has done a bit to dent the ecosystem’s apparent value, as well.

Graphic: Retrieved from Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) via @LanceRoberts.

What’s going on to cause this:

It’s basically the case that easy money policies enabled market participants to borrow and fund longer-duration bets on ideas with (potential) promise in the future.

Financial asset investments, too, were far more attractive, and that’s why we saw the asset inflation accelerate, followed by goods and services inflation that was bolstered by chokepoints and trends (e.g., deglobalization via supply chain security and geopolitics) and, ultimately, prompted policymakers to pivot.

FTX (CRYPTO: FTT) is among the victims of this pivot. It’s apparent that the events surrounding the collapse of crypto ecosystems months back prompted a so-called “credit crunch,” an insider close to FTX’s leadership explained.

“Many loaners suddenly recalled all of their loans just to see who was still liquid. Alameda lost a lot from giving out loans to firms [that] defaulted. Alameda was now, also, on the hook for money they didn’t have since they had given a lot of the loan money to FTX or had lost it loaning to now bankrupt counterparties. [Founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried] had two choices at this point, let Alameda get liquidated or send user money from FTX to ensure Alameda’s survival.”

Bankman-Fried, a massive risk taker at heart, chose the latter.

The repercussions include the following:

Apart from “strong governance and transparency [to] grow in importance as the cryptocurrency industry attempts to reassure investors and customers, … regulation of cryptocurrency markets, which was already a matter of serious debate, could accelerate,” SPGI explained, noting that some “other areas of the decentralized finance [or DeFi] market may be affected. And lastly, these contagion effects are unlikely to ripple into traditional finance [or TradFi].”

Check out Reuters (FTX bankruptcy filings in, French central bank wants quick regulation) and The Information (Startups should prepare for ‘second order fallout’ from FTX collapse).

Simplify Asset Management’s Michael W. Green (who we quoted in the past for his perspective and belief that we are in “a dot-com type collapse” that’s happened “underneath the surface of the indices which is [a result of] … passive flows supporting the largest stocks within the index, whereas the smaller stocks can be influenced to a greater extent by [] discretionary managers”) said a likely result is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and an “almost certain … change in the monetary system,” echoing what Kai Volatility’s Cem Karsan said a long-time ago: “I don’t see … a clear window where cryptocurrency is not subject to constraints and I think it’s highly likely that we move towards a digital dollar.”

CBDCs are highly controversial per my chats with the likes of Edge & Node’s Tegan Kline. She said they could “be used as a mass surveillance tool. Leaders have done little to invalidate her beliefs given their recent discussions on, for example, using CBDCs to derive “carbon footprint.” 

That means having a read on where people are “traveling, how are they traveling, what are they eating, what are they consuming … This is something we’re working on,” leaders have put forth.

The point of this all is as follows:

As many may know, “there’s no ultimate buyer” in spaces like crypto and DeFi, as ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) emerging market FX and yield trader Seraphim Czecker, who is now heading risk and product management at Euler Labs, said

It’s that and the persistent interest in illiquid products that leave the door open to manipulation. Barring illiquidity, “if there’s a 10 or 15 standard deviation move, the liquidity will allow for … you [to] offload those assets quickly.

However, that’s not the widespread case.

“For example, look at what happened in the UK with the pension funds and margin calls. That is a classic DeFi strategy. You take your bonds and borrow cash against them. Then, you put it back into bonds and loop it a couple of times. That way, you have a leveraged interest rate exposure. That’s the same principle of lending staked Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), borrowing ETH, and doing it a couple of times.”

So, there may be “second order fallout” amid all this tightening. Markets, everywhere, are to de-rate. Ultimately, there’s probably a pivot to happen, in the future, with many leaders and strategists in finance unable to agree whether that (pivot) is the result of a recession.

“To take the foot off the brake right now and not finish the job, I think it’s the absolute worst mistake that the Fed could possibly make,” Citadel’s Ken Griffin said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. In spite of Citadel seeing a recession averted, Griffin said: “I am finding it a bit hard to believe we are not going to have a recession at that point of time, sometime in the middle to back half of 2023,” adding this year finishes with “modest growth.”

Those in agreement include Stanley Druckenmiller, who once managed George Soros’ funds. “You don’t even need to talk about Black Swans to be worried here. To me, the risk-reward of owning assets doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Druckenmiller said

“When you make a mistake, you got to admit you’re wrong and move on that nine or 10 months, that [policymakers] just sat there and bought $120 billion in bonds,” he added. The “repercussions of that are going to be with us for a long, long time.”

Positioning

From a positioning perspective, much of what we’ve discussed in past notes is still true. Among others, Goldman Sachs Group Inc calculates up to $40 billion in buying over the next weeks with more than $80 billion of buying in an up market.

Graphic: Retrieved from @LanceRoberts. “Goldman calculates a whopping $38 billion to buy over the next week and substantially more (green line) if the market is up big. The chart below shows that the bank expects more than +$79 billion of net buying over the month.”

This is pursuant to our statements on the compression of implied volatility (evidenced by a shift lower in the term structure, particularly at the front end where options are most sensitive) compounding macro-type repositioning, with follow-on support coming from the reach for “Deltas and leverage” to the upside (call options)

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

As Alfonso Peccatiello of The Macro Compass puts it well: “incentive schemes drive people to be much more willing to pay and chase upside.” 

Preferred are “convex structures” that would benefit from rallies. 

However, in traders’ monetization of put protection they owned, as well as reach for upside calls (to not miss out on a potential reversal), skew is at its lows.

Graphic: Retrieved from The Ambrus Group’s Kris Sidial. “2017 is a year that is notorious for extremely low implied and realized vol. It is fascinating to see how insanely low the call-side volatility has been this year. There is low vol and then there is, in the gutter low vol.”

If the assumption is that “further tightening monetary policy and draining liquidity off the market might cause some problems down the road,” per Fabian Wintersberger, downside convexity (bets that trade non-linearly to changes in underlying price and volatility) are attractive.

Graphic: Retrieved from Banco Santander SA (NYSE: SAN).

Trades that may be attractive include collars, as well explained in a recent thread by IPS Strategic Capital’s Pat Hennessy. 

“[T]he combination of historically flat skew [and] the highest rates we’ve seen in 15 years makes longer dated collars an attractive trade for those who are worried about the performance of stocks over the next year but do not want to sell or try timing the market.”

Technical

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

Our S&P 500 pivot for today is $4,000.25. 

Key levels to the upside include $4,069.25, $4,136.75, and $4,231.00. 

Key levels to the downside include $3,965.25, $3,913.00, and $3,871.25.

Click here to load today’s key levels into the web-based TradingView platform. 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.

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.

MCPOCs: POCs are valuable as they denote areas where two-sided trade was most prevalent over numerous day sessions. Participants will respond to future tests of value as they offer favorable entry and exit.

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 journalist.

His works include private discussions with ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, investors Kevin O’Leary and John Chambers, the infamous Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, ex-Bridgewater Associate Andy Constan, Kai Volatility’s Cem Karsan, The Ambrus Group’s Kris Sidial, the Lithuanian Delegation’s Aušrinė Armonaitė, among many others.

Contact

Direct queries to renato@physikinvest.com or Renato Capelj#8625 on Discord.

Disclaimer

Do not construe this newsletter as advice. All content is for informational purposes.

Categories
Commentary

Daily Brief For June 21, 2022

The daily brief is a free glimpse into the prevailing fundamental and technical drivers of U.S. equity market products. Join the 300+ that read this report daily, below!

What Happened

Overnight, the equity index and commodity futures were bid, all the while bonds and the dollar edged lower. This is after a week-long or so de-rate on tougher monetary policies.

Big headlines include the White House’s mulling of a U.S. gas tax suspension, Russia’s status as a top exporter of crude to China, Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s (NYSE: GS) recession warning, Elon Musk’s intent to cut Tesla Inc’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) workforce, and falling Iron ore prices on China’s building downturn.

Interesting reads from over the weekend include Dr. Pippa Malmgren’s letter on the market’s “nosedive” which is likely to be “followed by a newfound understanding of what is possible,” and how that plays into economic strength and military superiority. 

Adding, timely was a Sohn 2022 conversation with Stanley Druckenmiller on his experiences and the current market environment. 

Ahead is data on the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (8:30 AM ET), existing-home sales (10:00 AM ET), as well as Fed-speak by Loretta Mester (12:00 PM ET) and Tom Barkin (3:30 PM ET).

Graphic updated 6:30 AM ET. Sentiment Risk-On if expected /ES open is above 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: Keeping this letter brief, today.

The sale of both bonds and equities worsened in part due to the implications of inflation and the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) response to that inflation.

Graphic: Via Nordea Bank’s (OTC: NRDBY) research. “We suspect that the real economy will be less sensitive to a rise in interest rates this time, which means that the Fed could have to move rates more-than-expected before policy gets restrictive. The strongest argument is that the household balance sheets are in a much better shape to sustain their level of spending as the massive injections of money and credit through both monetary and fiscal stimulus have changed household balance sheets dramatically.”

We talked about this in the weeks prior. 

Essentially, as Joseph Wang, who was a trader at the Fed, puts it, “[b]onds are not acting as a hedge and appear to be becoming less ‘money’ like due persistent declines in price and elevated rate vol.”

“Investors in both bonds and stocks are reaching for cash by selling their assets, driving further asset price declines. For non-bank investors, ‘cash’ means bank deposits.” 

Graphic: Via Bloomberg.

Ultimately, an increase in the RRP (reverse repo) and QT (which is a direct flow of capital to capital markets) “would drain the pool of bank deposits by ~$1t by year-end,” and this may prompt investors to “continue to lower their selling prices to compete for the cash they want.” 

Graphic: Via CrossBorder Capital.

Positioning: Detailed was Friday, June 17’s commentary that honed in on some of the implications of pre- and post-Federal Reserve meeting positioning. 

Essentially, with the June monthly options expiration (OPEX), there was a roll-off of a large amount of customer negative delta exposure (via put options they owned). 

Graphic: Via SpotGamma’s S&P 500 Index (INDEX: SPX) Gamma Model. Updated June 17, 2022.

With expiration, liquidity providers (who were short these put options, as well as underlying to hedge) re-hedged (bought back some of their static short-delta), and this removes pressure.

“The SPX index quarterly option notional is higher than usual, but the market is below the concentration of risk given the recent selloff,” said Tanvir Sandhu, chief global derivatives strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, who we quoted last week.

“Price action will reflect the economic context, but flows from expiring in-the-money hedges may support the market.”

Accordingly, markets are off their lows. However, in the above text, we made little mention of participants’ rolling forward of their options bets to lower strikes, further out in time, as well as the impact of customers still maintaining a “sizable short put position,” a dynamic we’ve talked about before.

Graphic: Via SpotGamma. “Options flow, last week, was unsurprisingly dominated by index puts (red lines). Most interesting was index puts bought to cover (third chart) indicating there was a fairly sizable short put position heading into last week.”

Taken together, coupled with what SpotGamma observes is “anemic” call buying (viewed as the blue line in the top chart above), participants are hedged and volatility remains well-supplied. 

Graphic: Via Nomura Holdings Inc (NYSE: NMR). Taken from The Market Ear. “The ‘muted’ VIX narrative goes on. The VIX vs SPX gap remains rather wide here. The second chart shows just how ‘depressed’ VIX remains vs the underlying px action. Most people have been stopped out/de-grossed risk, so there isn’t much demand to hedge exposure.”

Despite being stretched from a technical perspective, positioning-wise, lower prices are sticky and the context for a far-reaching bounce, all else equal, is not there.

We shall provide updates to this, later in the week. Read the Daily Brief for June 17, 2022, for more on how to position in light of the above information.

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

In the best case, the S&P 500 trades higher; activity above the $3,735.75 HVNode puts in play the $3,749.00 ONH. Initiative trade beyond the ONH could reach as high as the $3,773.25 HVNode and $3,821.50 LVNode, or higher.

In the worst case, the S&P 500 trades lower; activity below the $3,735.75 HVNode puts in play the $3,722.50 LVNode. Initiative trade beyond the $3,722.50 LVNode could reach as low as the $3,690.25 HVNode and $3,639.00 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.

Definitions

Volume Areas: 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.

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

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, 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.