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Author: Doug Noland

Doug Noland’s Credit Bubble Bulletin: Well, That’s Some Weird… Stuff

Monday’s Pfizer announcement followed pivotal elections by only a few trading sessions – an election I have posited as the most hedged individual event ever. Markets were already in a state of acute instability prior to the news, having been spurred sharply higher by the unwind of hedges and short positions.

Those positioned bearishly had suffered only deeper impairment, while derivatives markets were moving toward dislocation. Holders of puts were in liquidation mode, while those that had written out-of-the-money call options (and similar derivatives) were facing rapidly escalating exposure. In the leveraged speculating community, the more sophisticated strategies were performing poorly. In particular, long/short strategy performance was suffering the effects of a brutal short squeeze along with violent rotations. A marketplace consumed with momentum was all Crowded together in the favored technology and “stay-at-home” stocks.

The Pfizer news showered gasoline upon the bonfire. It was a melt-up dislocation and short squeeze as intense as I’ve witnessed over recent decades. Segments of the market traded as if some hedge fund and sophisticated derivatives strategies were “blowing up”. As for long/short strategies, things went from bad to cataclysmic. From Bloomberg: “…Market winners and laggards switched positions at the fastest rate on record Monday.” Attacked savagely, the persecuted bears were hit with a fateful blow. A “bear” ETF lost 11% of its value in a chaotic Monday trading session.

Sure enough, such a market outcome “statistically never could happen.” In reality, such a freakish backdrop created a high likelihood of just this kind of mayhem and market dislocation (either up or down).

Doug Noland’s Credit Bubble Bulletin: Critical Juncture

The prospect of a divided Washington would seem to take some pressure off the vulnerable Treasury market – and, through lower Treasury yields, corporate Credit more generally. And I appreciate that divided government has in the past worked to the advantage of the bull market status quo. But are we to believe in today’s crisis backdrop an irreconcilably split and hostile Washington will somehow function to the benefit of the markets and our nation?

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