“That look you get when you know somethin’ is up, but don’t know what!”
I don’t think I’ve seen markets so slow and unresponsive, quite like what
we’ve seen the last 2 days … it’s unreal. If I didn’t know better, I’d say
traders have gone on strike, sick of the bullshit, overt manipulation by banks
across the board. “Cuz literally folks, nothin’ is moving … GBPJPY hasn’t
moved 5 pips in hours, and the ranges are some of the smallest I’ve seen in a
very long while”.
Contrast what we see today, and go back 7 weeks to Christmas Eve, when the
world was coming to an end in financial markets … since then, the
manipulators and their BFF pals, the scumbag LP banks, have absolutely
killed volatility in the marketplace … it’s not often you see all of the volatile
markets we follow here going lower via their 20 Day Range MA’s at the same
time, but what is truly remarkable is that NADEX continues to see every night
on the open, very high call spread premiums in stock indices, crude oil, and to
some extent FX … somebody has to be paying it, and I can’t figure out why,
cuz premiums should be lower than where they are at currently.
In contrast, before the “December debacle” in stock indices, we had
opportunity after opportunity in the RUT2000 almost every day … “as if
somebody flipped a light switch, aaaaaaand it’s gone”! Premiums have only
come down about 10% - 15% since the peak, not nearly enough for high
probability trades that are going to be profitable.
Oil, for its part, seems to be content sitting in the low 50’s chopping around,
not really going anywhere for weeks, but simply chewing people up and
spitting them out with losses … and like their brethren in the stock indices,
premiums for call spreads here are obscenely high … there just isn’t any way
you can make the case for any trade in here given the nature of the market
today … it’s not moving, it’s simply chop, and it looks like it wants to stay
here for a while.
GBPJPY is in hibernation mode, a state it rarely sees … directly below, in
succession respectively, is today’s daily, the second from October 2016 [right
before Trump’s election], and February 2015, approximately 4 years ago.
click on any chart to enlarge
Aside from the uncertainty of the 2016 election, which undoubtedly put people
on the sidelines, and taking away days around major Holidays, these are the
only times in the last 4 years we’ve seen this kind of lethargic trading action,
in one of the world’s most volatile cross pairs … I’d say, it’s time to break the
mold.
There’s no question, that these last days have been, to put it mildly, a bucket
of shit in terms of volatility … quite frankly, it wouldn’t matter what market
you want to look at, they’re all melting ice cubes sitting on the sidewalk … the
difference with the FX crosses, is that by the nature of the math, meaning the
play between the numerator and denominator, even the tiniest dollar moves
generate moves in the cross … usually, but not the last 5 or 6 days … what
trading history tells us, is that this isn’t gonna last for long.
In the early AM tomorrow, first up sees GBP inflation data, and later U.S.
inflation data … if GBPJPY can’t move tomorrow, with data out of two
countries influencing the cross, and put in some kind of decent range
[up/down makes no difference to us], then it ain’t gonna ever move again
… and while I’m being overly sarcastic, the way anything is moving lately, it
sure seems some days like the fix is in … IMHO, tomorrow breaks that to
pieces. We’ll see what tonight’s open brings for price via the call spreads
… I would generally anticipate a few PIPS higher, and given the news cycle
tonight and tomorrow, we most likely will see an expanded range … question
is, how much? … we’ll see.
And with that, I’m outta here … until tomorrow mi amigos
… Onward & Upward!!
-vegas
WTI CRUDE OIL SIGNALS & “VOLATILITY” STRATEGIES
IN 20 OTHER MARKETS, INCLUDING COMMODITIES, FX,
& STOCK INDICES! … “what on earth are you waiting for”?
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