Futures market

Overview of the capital markets as if they were not managed by an evil cabal.

"If you like your broken markets," it would appear you can keep them... but this time in bond futures. June 2015 30Y Futures prices are surging today (up a stunningly fat-finger-esque 7.4% (or 10 points)). This, however, is being traded... there is volume being exchanged... and at 151-19/32, it implies 30Y Bond yields will be below 2.4% by the middle of next year (from 2.99% today).

Confused why one second the market is down 1%, and then moments later, upon returning from the bathroom, one finds it up by the same amount on negligible volume? Simple: there continues to be zero liquidity. Although, not just in equities, but in bonds as well, something this website - and the TBAC and Citi's Matt King - has warned for over year. It is the lack of bond liquidity that led to last week's dramatic surge in bond prices as Bloomberg noticed overnight. So for those curious just how bad bond liquidity is now, here is JPM's Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou with the explanation:

No heavy ideological axe to griind or conspiracy theories to propound, just a simple look at the price action in the capital markets.

With the cash bond market closed today, we get our cues from an admittedly thin Treasury futures market. Prices are up across the board with 10Y yield down 3bps at 2.25%, 30Y back under 3%, and 5Y down 4bps at 1.49%. The rates market, once again is leading stocks lower - not getting as exuberant as stocks out of the gate... The Russell 2000 is at one-year lows (Oct 9th 2013 to be exact)

Just over a week ago, the Japanese stock market participants were stunned when stock orders amounting to a whopping $617 billion (yes Billion with a B) - more than the size of Sweden’s economy - were canceled for reasons still unknown in what was one of the biggest 'fat finger' trading errors of all time. Since then, US equity markets have suddenly become notably more volatile - and fallen significantly, VIX has seen odd intraday 'spikes', S&P futures saw the very odd 'satan signal', and USDJPY has suffered its worst losses in 3 years. This raises the question of whether US market microstructure is any better than Michael Lewis' Flash Boys' book describes.. (as we head into a bond market holiday, dismal liquidity, and a potential Black Monday), “That could absolutely happen here,” Tabb Group's Larry Tabb warns Bloomberg.

The may be secret agreements and a grand conspiracy to manipulate the capital markets and commodities, but they are still largely understandable through rational analysis.  Not being privy to such secret deals, here is one man's view of the near-term technical outlook for the foreign exchange market, bond, commodities and stocks.  

It appears wherever one looks in the markets there are the skidmarks of PIMCO adjusting to life after Bill Gross. First it was MBS (and related derivatives), then CDS indices adjusted as redemption expectations raised risk premia, and now it is the short-end of the Treasury curve. As The FT notes, 3-month Eurodollar futures (instruments enabling traders to bet on the front-end of the yield curve and thus more accurately pinpoint their bets on Fed actions) saw asset managers (cough PIMCO cough) liquidate a record 868,853 contracts in the week to September 30 – the largest one-week change on record (each contract has a notional value of $1m). This dramatic shift suggests both a disagreement with Gross' "new normal" view of rates lower for longer (since liquidation is concentrated around the 2-year maturities) and a need to meet liquidity requirements from redemption requests.

Bitcoin is so last year.  The price of it in dollars made a new low for the year today.  Is the dollar's future as bleak as it looked?

While the 0.001% of the world dine together and plan their next moves, here are the main events in the week ahead.  

Yes the US does not practice laissez faire capitalism.  It never did.  It manipulates sets intersest rates.  The fx market is still understandable and the dollar is moving higher.

Brinkmanship, a failure of diplomacy and increasing militarism appears to have the world on the verge of a serious military conflict. Everybody should own some physical gold as a hedge and a safe haven asset to protect against the significant risks challenging us today which include bail-ins, currency wars, terrorism and war.

There may be one great conspiracy dictating the course of the capital market, but if there is not, what is the near-term outlook for the dollar?  

Because nothing says efficient market and fiduciary duty like waiting for the US equity market to open to send a huge sell order through the silver futures market... Running the entire stack (and this all resting stops), however, silver has immediately bounced back... Gold was relatively unaffected. Copper had also got plugged early on and is now ripping higher.