It’s hard for me to have a conversation about the stock market without bringing up what’s happening in bonds.

Think about it like this, the market cap of all US Stocks is somewhere around $40 Trillion. For the bond market it’s over $120 Trillion.

Volatility in bonds tends to trickle down to other asset classes, especially stocks.

US Stocks really got going in the 4th quarter last year, once the US 10-year Note stopped falling in price.

I don’t believe that was a coincidence.

But at this point, Large Speculators have on their most aggressive short position in bonds ever.

So in other words, what is historically the “dumb money”, particularly at turning points, are betting more aggressively than ever that bond prices are going to fall and rates will now continue higher: [Read more…]