Today I wanted to provide some depth on how we use VIX products to manage risk in The Vega Fund portfolio. As far as we know, we’re the first fund in Australia to hedge in this particular fashion and hence some clarity is warranted. It’s not the only tool in... Show More
The attached chart from the Macro Technicals report shows average speculative futures positioning across commodities against a popular broad commodities index. The bottom line is commodity net-longs are the most stretched they've been in 12 years. Show More
The latest data shows that Chinese investors traded a record volume of commodity futures last year – another factor reinforcing the view that heavyweight investors have re-entered the commodity scene. Combined aggregate trading volume on the Shanghai Futures Exchange and the Dalian and Zhengzhou Commodity Exchanges jumped by 27% during... Show More
Hedge funds' combined holdings in gold futures increased to the most bullish since January on mounting concern that conflict in the Middle East will boost crude-oil prices, slowing economic growth and stoking inflation. The net-long position rose 3.6 percent to 101,396 futures and options in the week ended Sept. 3,... Show More
The ECB has gone All in, The ECB came out with all dovish guns blazing today to reverse the tightening in money and financial market conditions since June, stoking a rally in euribor futures (lower rates) but causing the EUR to drop nearly 1% vs the USD. The only thing... Show More
Reported by Tony Dreibus at Bloomberg, Chicago wheat futures have reached a one-year low, extending the longest slump since 2005. It's all about signs of record global output and reduced demand for supplies from the U.S., the world's biggest exporter. Wheat prices have come off 16 percent this year alone and... Show More
Short selling of gold futures combined with strong US data, Chinese liquidity squeeze and Fed tapering comments have delivered the worst quarterly price performance on record for Gold. Kitco provides a good wrap of the recent slump in precious metals prices and the major contributing factors http://www.kitco.com/news/2013-06-26/KitcoNews20130626JW_pm.html Show More
SPI futures down hard, After years of cramming liquidity into the markets, creating massive imbalances such as stock markets hitting new highs even as economic fundamentals deteriorated (Germany) or were lackluster (U.S.), junk bonds hitting all-time-record highs, and sovereign bond yields steadily falling even as the macro economics of various... Show More
Aitken's warning of the day Sitting here now the Nikkei is down another -5.67%, Hang Seng down -3% and Shanghai -3.5%. Asia is actually crashing and obviously Australian equities that face Asia are having a bad day. While DOW Futures are only down -60pts and S&P500 futures down -6.8pts, I... Show More