Global Macro Trading Journal

Maybe it's the macro environment we currently live in or we aren't looking hard enough but I don't see much opp out there.

Strategic LT plays I see value in being long EMs, tactical ST plays there is action in short bonds and dollar crosses.

My read on the mkt is that we are waiting for something to happen, we should be at all time highs in SPX post Brexit, but Sept changed everything. Bonds/equities are now correlating.

I cut back on risk going into Sept and now have very few risk on positions. My 1 spec bet that I haven't got into yet is I think GOOGL is going for 1K again. I'm not nearly short enough Fed Funds in '17 and actually would like a small shock to hit.

I really do think there is more money in positioning oneself into a developing countries capital market and extracting alpha from whatever means from it.
 
jj90 said:
Maybe it's the macro environment we currently live in or we aren't looking hard enough but I don't see much opp out there.

Strategic LT plays I see value in being long EMs, tactical ST plays there is action in short bonds and dollar crosses.

My read on the mkt is that we are waiting for something to happen, we should be at all time highs in SPX post Brexit, but Sept changed everything. Bonds/equities are now correlating.

I cut back on risk going into Sept and now have very few risk on positions. My 1 spec bet that I haven't got into yet is I think GOOGL is going for 1K again. I'm not nearly short enough Fed Funds in '17 and actually would like a small shock to hit.

I really do think there is more money in positioning oneself into a developing countries capital market and extracting alpha from whatever means from it.
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about these bonds, i tend to agree. I was actually thinking (with my comments on stocks being longs by proxy) that it could be a good idea to hedge a stock portfolio, to be short long-term swiss bonds (or german or japanese). It has been a bad trade for a long-time. But these levels, the risk reward is getting better than ever
 
I mean, if someone is long 50% in stocks, what is the true risk of holding a short in long-term bonds of 20-30%? Probably not much, a loss in that trade is probably offset by a capital gain in the stock side. But if things fall out of bed, that could prove a very good hedge to have on. I just need to figure out how to structure the trade for the best (lowest) annual carrying cost. Effectivelly, I want to remove the long bond component of being long in stocks. Even if might cost me 0.5%-1% (in terms of carry) a year for a year or two. That's a cheap hedge to me
Martinghoul knows about these European weirdness more, maybe he can Chime in
 
One reason I suspect why this is a good trade is how little time we had to put the trade on, those 50y swissies didnt stay negative for very long. I think this was the smart money positioning themselves in that market. Now the yield charts on swiss, german and japanese government bonds are starting to breakout
 
If you consider that long-term expected returns 4-5% of the S&P500 (along with the 2% dividend yield), the 2.3% of 30y UST bonds, shorting long-term negative yielding bonds is a very cheap hedge in a relative basis. The key is to not be upset if they rally, just remember that being long stocks is also a long in duration.
I happen to be long both in stocks and in bonds (BR USD bonds and some 15y USTs for yield in my cash), I actually need bring down my duration risk, those bubble bonds are a way to do that
 
I was able to find 3 IB futures so far to put a trade like this on
GBL (bund futures), GBX (buxl futures) and CONF (Swiss bonds futures). But that Swiss one is only for 8-12 year bonds. The one I like the most is GBX, the problem is that the contract is a bit expensive (180K EUR) which makes position sizing difficult
 
Its no big deal though, I can just buy more US long-term cash bonds (with a lot of duration) and effectively decrease the size of my short in duration. There is the spread risk but come on, US bonds a lot of better value than German bonds trading at ridiculous levels
 
That said, I'm not in love with the idea of shorting a price extreme. GBX is down like 12 points in a few weeks and I doubt central banks will let bonds just keep going down, at some point they will back stop it. So the key here, is to come up with some ideas in how to structure a trade that has a low annual cost as a cheap hedge against future problems in terms of global interest rates. Shorting a price extreme (specially when its being fueled by the whole EU taper thing which I have serious doubts about) is a way to increase these costs because then you get squeezed
I'm open to suggestions in structuring this trade
 
FWIW I only follow a couple of threads in this forum and this journal is one of them, although my trading is quite passive these days and only suffers very modest twists on a monthly basis . Too bad you don't have the same interest in emerging markets I'm invested in as in Brazil.
 
luisHK said:
FWIW I only follow a couple of threads in this forum and this journal is one of them, although my trading is quite passive these days and only suffers very modest twists on a monthly basis . Too bad you don't have the same interest in emerging markets I'm invested in as in Brazil.
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Thank you. Which other emerging markets are you invested in? I considered going long Russia but I figured, I take enough EM risk already due living and being invested in brazilian assets that's probably good enough EM risk in a portfolio
 
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