Spreaders: how are you position after the job's report?

[Martinghoul]

Quote from tradingjournals:
There is a saying that goes like " trees are judged by their fruits".

One year ago when the bond market was at a top, someone (not me) started a thread asking a question "who are the idiots bullish the bonds"? The bonds (hindsight) upmoves were ferocious.

I was bearish.

Two posters on this thread (I believe Martinghoul and Maverick) were ...:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=204939&highlight=who+are+the+idiots

Note that to be a bull at a top ( or bear at a bottom) is an impressive achievement in probs (but less so in results), because the event has the same low prob as one being bearish at a top and bullish at a bottom! A small chance for people to be wrong, but there are people who do not miss that chance. If one picks a top and is right, it could be due to luck. But if one is bullish at a top should one attribute it to luck or to skill given the low probs?

Firstly, what does our discussion from back then have to do with you asking silly questions?

Secondly, I see that not much has changed. You were a total ignoramus then and you still are today... Have you actually looked to check where the bond mkt is these days?

The trade we were discussing in the thread you refer to, the one I said offers poor risk/reward, was short 2y USTs. We looked at it mid-August 2010, when 2y notes were yielding arnd 50bps. Where did it close on Friday, the 7th of July 2011, do you have any idea? The constant maturity 2s closed at 49bps, according to Fed H.15, while the current 2s closed at 39bps. This means that if you went short 2y notes in August and held the position to today, you would have lost 10bps on rolldown and smth like 20bps or more on negative carry. You would have done a bit better if you went short 10s, but even there the negative carry and rolldown would have meant that you have lost money. You go ahead and think about that for a bit, will ya?

So all this is telling me is that you still know nothing about the bond mkt, even though it's been almost 6 months now, during which you could have educated yourself a bit. But what's really amazing is that you're so willing and even eager to repeatedly demonstrate your ignorance to the whole wide world.

 

[Martinghoul]

Quote from tradingjournals:
This is a second part to the above post. A number of posts here on ET raise spreads trading when the question of timing the direction is discussed. One gets the impression that the message in those posts is that spreads are easier to trade than direction. It may be true, or it may not. I do not know, until I see the evidence.

The argument the posts give is something like: it is easier to recognize and trade relative value than to recognize and trade direction.

A purpose of this thread was to get the posters who state such things to come to this thread and give examples of spreads that would demonstrate whether relative value is indeed easier to recognize and trade.

There are posters on this thread whom I understand are spread-trade posters. Until now, we have not heard anything from them on the topic of spreads, yet last Friday's news is significant enough and unexpected, and it therefore should not be difficult for them to show their knowledge/skills in spread trading.

It's not easier to trade spreads than it is direction... Moreover, your initial post is silly without narrowing down what asset class you're talking about. That is the reason so many people, including myself reacted to your post the way they did.