End of day stops

(Just before midnight, but logically today.) HG and CL closed out at reasonable profit (trailing stops).

Early morning stops

Z and ESTX50. Some life visible in European bourses. Probably le rebond de la chatte morte.

First Thoughts

UB bouncing around a bit. Not clear in which direction. JPM put out dire predictions of Depression scale collapse in demand, but mind boggling sums being printed by the Fed are being announced every day. UB seems risk (vs 10 year) but my view is that these programmes are easy to start and hard to stop so in the long run we are (surely) going to see inflation win the tug of war.

DX has no clear direction after sudden bounce. I have heard various commentators making the point that there is a scramble for dollars, but I do not entirely see how this translates into a stronger dollar. The Fed is creating a tsunami of dollars, and has unlimited power to create more so how can the strength continue? Anyway, for the moment, I’m holding on for dear life.

SX7P, Euro Banks Index, has steadied. I am a long term bear, but I can see that the announcements of CBs everywhere will support the banks. My only positions now are through options, with no stops, so I am in for the long(ish) term. Most of my SX7P options are 92 days maturity.

Generally, it may be that we’ve hit a support level, if not absolute bottom, in equities and I should let stops and the positive gamma of my long options positions naturally scale back my short equity position. Maint. margin now is a scary $0.75M, even after the overnight stops. I must not extend any of my short positions, no matter how tempted I am!

Sold 1 Fut, ZAR. Emerging markets are going to be hammered when the developed world goes into recession.

12:01: short ZN fut position closed, as recession worries push down long rates. UB is rallying strongly, but stops not triggered. Short govt. bond futures should be negatively correlated with short equity positions, but in these extreme situations, all correlations go to +1.

12:09: well, I held off ramping up until now. I just sold 1 NIY fut, which is pretty chunky. Can’t see equities rallying much today. Total maintenance margin is now $745K.

14:11: Fraud boy, fElon Musk is up to his tricks again. He has promised to build ventilators for the coronavirus outbreak and the algos have pumped the stock. I am eternally amazed at his ability to do this time and time again, even though he never delivers. I was so angered by this I bought 5 more oom puts. The stock is up something like 13%. Dumb algos!

15:14: you dropped by about 1.5%. UB and TSLA biggest contributions. Oddly, ES is down while TSLA is up.

15:26: Closed the trading app. Losses fluctuating, market directionless, rumours abounding. I need to get stuff done!