Everyone knows fixed income is having one of its worst years on record. And, from the looks of it, we’ll all be dragging our Christmas trees to the curb before US Treasuries stage a miraculous comeback.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe these safe haven assets will dig in and catch higher – eventually. There’s just no sign of it happening any time soon.
Instead of focusing on the disappointing performance of bonds, let’s turn our attention to its relative trends against other major asset classes – stocks and commodities.
Here’s the commodities versus bonds ratio using the CRB Commodity Index and the 30-year Treasury bond futures:
The concept of “Tilt” is often discussed when things have gone awry. It’s usually associated with poor risk management and sloppy trading that has led to larger-than-expected losses.
You can no doubt find endless stories of traders in every timeframe who have gone on tilt and proceeded to wreck their month, their capital, and sometimes even their careers.
We’ve all experienced some degree of this in our own trading. It comes with the territory. It takes a rare human who possesses the mental fortitude to stay completely focused no matter what’s happening to their portfolio. Those people are out there – but they’re hard to find.
The downsides of going on tilt when our trades or strategies aren’t working out are fairly obvious.
But we rarely talk about when we go on tilt with a winning position!
This All Star Charts PLUS Monthly Playbook breaks down the investment universe into a series of binary decisions, tactical calls and asset allocation models.
The Fed announced another 75 basis point rate hike yesterday. The upper range of the Fed Funds rate began the year at 0.25% and is now 4.00%, the highest level since early 2008. In his post-FOMC press conference, Fed Chair Powell made clear that the Fed is not finished raising rates.
Yesterday we were treated to the latest interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve and a speech and Q&A with Fed Chairman Powell that apparently wasn't well received by the market as stocks slid furiously into the closing bell and continued the selloff into this morning.
Where we go from here is anyone's guess. Still, I'd like to take the opportunity to continue taking advantage of consistently elevated options premiums and put on a delta-neutral credit spread in an area of the market where I think some sideways rangebound action may be setting up into the end of the year.
This is that time again where we try to see through the fog of short-term moves and identify the long-term structure of the market. Every month, this process helps have a clear vision going into the new month. So let's dive in and look at some of these charts!
