Business

While VIX futures and options speculators have pulled back (albeit very marginally) from their record short positions in the last week, ETF products betting that volatility will sink lower have never been more popular.

As VIX collapsed to an 8 handle and record low close last week, futures and options specs did pull back very modestly...

But, as Bloomberg reports, investors have continued to give the short-volatility trade their vote of confidence this year.

Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

For a supposedly shrewd guy, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin sometimes astounds me. When he first took over the job, Mnuchin said the “concept of ultra-long bonds made sense for us to explore.”

With interest rates knocking at multi-generational lows, the idea of the government extending duration seemed prudent.

Back in January 2016, Dennis Gartman said that oil would "not hit $44 during my lifetime."

Then, just a few months after oil jumped above $44, yet failed to kill the "world renowned" commodity guru, Gartman made another bold prediction: "oil is not going above $55 for years." Predictably, just over a year later, oil hit $57, the highest price in two and a half years.

Fast forward to today when we have some bad news for equity bulls and some good news for bond bulls.

Electronic Gold: The Deep State’s Corrupt Threat to Human Prosperity and Freedom

Posted with permission and written by Stewart Dougherty, Inferential Analytics

“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.” Final blog entry by Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, renowned Maltese investigative reporter who specialized in exposing state corruption; posted on 16 October 2017, one day before she and her vehicle were blown to bits by a car bomb in Bidnija, Malta

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

If the ownership of bitcoin is as concentrated as some estimate, then the liquidity issue distills down to the actions of the top tier of owners.