Jorma

I don't link to ZH, old prejudices, but anyway they said Dudley mentioned maybe more hikes this year, and next. Who knows, My story is that Trump humiliated them at the end of the year when they were forced to do an about face right after he called Powell out, because things were starting to fall apart. Well that's over and now it might be time for a little payback. Well it's a fun story.

For the same reason it's open market operations since forever were not called QE. QE implies, although most people don't know it, buying coupons, long dated paper. Well no matter, it's just semantics. Then again with the Fed every single word is chiseled to have a specific meaning. Admittedly I don't know if their repo activity amounts to squat.

I have a crazy thought that I will just throw out in the interest of avoiding possible surprises. Suppose, and sure it's wacky, just suppose the Fed jumped back into the short end, T Bills. That's where the problem is after all. Now how they could justify it who knows since they have spent a decade defending the make believe Fed Funds market. On the other hand since all serious people believe absolutely in the fairy tale FF market I don't think a new fairy tale would be a hard sell. I'm just saying someday, maybe next emergency they may get back into the short end. One advantage would be they would not have to call it QE.

Not that it needs noting but TNX is flirting with the Dec low and almost every stock market in the world is or was up today. In the face of the $54bn coupon settlement.

What progress? Black is white. The Trump Xi meeting has been pushed back to, maybe, mid April. Late this month had been the well advertised target. We are going to cave on things like verification and declare victory. It borders on the astounding Trump didn't tell them to wrap it up now. He must be seething.

Looks like I may have been wrong the other day when I said VIX wasn't going to hit an 11 handle. Well we aren't there yet. 13.08 now.

Nah. I think it's pegged through the close tomorrow.

That Boeing stock is a thing to behold.

Apparently every single put purchased in the quarter is going to expire worthless. Has this ever happened?

I think we will look back and call this the Boeing market.

They have been selling bullish oil stories for weeks. Saudi cuts. Inventory declines, etc. etc. The oil SPX correlation is by naked eye about as close to 1 to 1 as it can get.

Looks like they are going for it. New highs into opex in the face of the massive Treasury supply.

I don't think we can get down to that 11 handle on the VIX. Not on this round unless there is one giant rush down this week. Which leaves what? The Fall?

Today's action. Sell Boeing and buy something. Anything. Wheat, hogs, silver, Treasuries, corn, copper. Anything. I don't suppose reducing ones leverage is under consideration.

It looks like they are determined to crush ever single put buyer into opex. It looks.