Business

HYG - the high yield bond ETF - is trading at its richest to NAV in over 4 years after 7 straight days of inflows. This flowgasm seemed to crescendo yesterday where Credit Suisse estimated a very sizeable HY retail fund inflows (total amount hitting ~$1.9bn) which they note beat 5-Nov-2014 as being the largest inflow day ever.

With the ETF at such an extreme in valuation and given the historical performance of the fund after 7 straight days of inflows...

Despite Andy Hall's wish hope forecast guess statement that "the bottom is in," for crude (and oil analysts unicorn-like forecast of $47 by year-end), it seems oil options traders disagree significantly.

The cost of protect against downside risk is the highest it has been in a year, despite underlying oil prices being at 8-week highs

(chart shows implied vol spread between Dec 2016 Crude Puts vs Calls +/-1.5 Sigma)

Just one day after the DOJ unveiled its had indicted Chesapeake Founder and former CEO Aubrey McClendon on federal charges of conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases, moments ago the Oklahoma Police announced that he was found dead in a car accident, when while traveling in a 2013 Chevy Tahoe at a high rate of speed he crashed while driving on a two-lane highway and was engulfed in flames.

In the aftermath of this weekend's disappointing G-20 summit in Shanghai in which the much anticipated "grand Chinese devaluation" was not only not discussed, but any abrupt devaluation was taken off the table (if only for the time being), the market has shifted its attention to the next big policy event, which is the March 10 ECB announcement where much more easing is already priced in.

Via ConvergEx's Nicholas Colas,

With yesterday’s impressive equity rally, every trader is asking the same question: “Can U.S. equities go green on the year?”  The S&P 500 is now down “just” 3.2% in 2016 and there’s nothing like a +2% one-day rally to hold out hope of actual gains before March 31.