I don’t know about you, but this guy is super-excited about stocks:
So who’s your best friend investors?
Well, “I will tell you, who the better friend is, and some day, that will be proven out – and ‘bigly’.”
No, but seriously, the Nasdaq hit a new all-time high on Friday and equities managed to come out of August largely unscathed after risk assets passed a trial by fire (and fury) with flying colors.
Notably, the latest CFTC data shows that traders piled into equities, adding 58k E-mini contracts in the week through Tuesday, taking their aggregate position to 200k – the 99th percentile of the last 2 years:
As noted on Friday evening, this comes as the S&P hasn’t had a 3% selloff in 10 months, a streak the likes of which we’ve only seen two other times since World War II:
Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank notes that the post-election rally has been fueled by positioning, defined as aggregate short interest including that in cash equities, ETFs, and asset managers and leveraged funds’ positioning in S&P 500 futures.
As you can see, aggregate shorts have now moved to the bottom of the post-crisis band.
“Aggregate shorts as a proportion of the S&P 500 market cap have been fluctuating within an elevated band of 1.8% to 2.8% since the start of the Great Recession in 2007, compared to an average of 1% earlier,” Deutsche wrote, in a note out yesterday. “Since the election, aggregate short interest has moved from slightly above the band to the bottom, driven initially by a large reduction in shorts in cash equities and ETFs but since by rising long positions in S&P 500 futures.”
What could go wrong? After all, it’s not like the geopolitical backdrop is littered with figurative and literal land mines or anything…
*********************
Nothing can go wrong. We know that. It’s fact. The markets are unconnected to chance, gambling, unforeseen circumstance or unassessable risk. Millions learned this the easy way in 2008 when they invested in homes **knowing** that prices could only go up and by flipping them they could by more of houses and become millionaires. Hell, what could go wrong? I remember the TV ads and online ads literally hawking the line that prices “could only go up,” and enticing investors into he flipping the game or worse to encourage first time homeowners to live in their bubbled overpriced investments. What could go wrong? Ask him: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-mortgage-economy-2006-2008-crash-a6904796.html