With risks on the rise and the markets stretched and long, we ponder if the catalysts are sufficient to generate a meaningful pullback. We are seeing cracks in the reflation trade which the market has now fully embraced.

Stargazer Asset Management – Weekly Jan272020

 

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Thoughts From the Divide: The (Golden) Path

BY JON WEBB
While the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it appears that the “golden path” to a soft landing (which by way of reminder is a “triumph of hope over experience”, if you ask Mr. Summers) is paved with rate cuts. In an interview earlier this week, the Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee cast another vote in favor of “adjustment cuts”, saying that “You risk the golden path if you are going to be as restrictive as we are now”. Meanwhile, Jerome Powell was quick to assure the audience during his latest interview that “today I am not going to be sending any signals, one way or the other on any particular meeting” as far as rate cuts are concerned. However, that did not prevent the Chair from referring to ol’ reliable of monetary policy, “long and variable lags”, to explain why, “if you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you’ve probably waited too long”. Read more →

Oh My! Trump Tariffs, State of the Union, ISM Services Data

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What will Fed Chair Powell say on Friday? Read more →

USDJPY and Gamma Trading (29th July 2024)

BY JON WEBB
In our piece in February (Turning Japanese, Feb 2024) we discussed how carry trades in currencies have a predisposition to trade an “escalator / liftshaft” pattern. The Japanese Yen, as the principal funding currency, is particularly vulnerable to violent reversals to what has been a remarkably steady and successful carry trade. In the last couple of weeks, as analysts started to consider the possibility of a BoJ rate hike at their meeting on 31st July, JPY crosses exhibited a bout of significant strength. USDJPY fell around 10 big figures from ~162 to 152. Is that enough to have cleared the decks? Simply put, it is not possible to clear out two years of accumulated positions in a couple of weeks. The fact that CFTC commitment of trader positioning was showing JPY shorts at their most extended since 2007 (pre GFC) before last week’s sharpish position reduction, suggests this is merely a shot across the bows, so far. Japanese retail traders (Mrs Watanabe) have slowed accumulation to a stand still but wholesale flight is far from evident. Read more →
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