short position on ZNMy strategy is based on price action with the reading of certain indicators that I like while respecting all the values that define the stock maket
ZN1! trade ideas
SVB: Understanding and Managing Interest Rate Risks CBOT: 10-Year Treasury Futures ( CBOT:ZN1! )
Last Wednesday, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) NASDAQ:SIVB announced that it incurred $1.8 billion loss in the sales of its bond portfolio and sought to issue new shares. Within 48 hours, a bank-run induced by panic customers brought down the legendary bank.
On Friday, US banking regulators seized control of SVB. By Sunday, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and Federal Depository Insurance Corporation (FDIC) jointly announced a rescue plan that would make whole all depositors. However, SVB shareholders are not protected.
Why has happened to the well-respected and once well-capitalized bank?
Opportunity and Risk Go Side-by-Side
Traditional banks seldom extend credit to startups, which are mostly under-collateralized, with little or no profit and big uncertainties about their future survival.
SVB developed a niche competitive edge to provide banking services to companies funded by venture capitals. In the past 40 years, it nurtured many high-profiled tech startups through their entire life cycle, from early-stage to IPO and to Big-Tech giants.
If Sequoia Capital invested in your firm and you apply for a loan from a commercial bank, you can expect the loan officer to ask: “Sequoia Who?” But if you go to SVB, they would say: “$10 million will be in your account tomorrow.”
VCs are exceptionally good at spotting future technological trends, and they follow a rigorous due diligence process to pick investing targets. By working with VCs and startups closely, SVB created an ecosystem that foster technological innovations, and grew to become the 16th largest US bank by deposit.
However, SVB’s concentration in the high-tech sector also make it vulnerable to a boom-and-bust cycle. Last year, bear market hit the industry hard. Publicly traded firms couldn’t raise money with falling share prices. Private companies found the path to IPO got blocked. As startup clients withdrew deposits to keep their companies afloat, SVB is short on capital. It was forced to sell most available-for-sale bonds at a huge loss.
Bad news travelled fast in close-knit tech investing community. VCs urged their portfolio companies to get the hack out of SVB. All told, customers withdrew a staggering $42 billion of deposits on Thursday. By the close of business day, SVB had a negative cash balance of $958 million, according to the filing, and this triggered the government takeover.
A Commercial Bank with a Failing Grade
In fiscal year 2022, SVB earned $4.5 billion in Net Interest Income (NII) and $1.7 billion in non-interest income. When you take away the bells and whistles, SVB is by large a commercial bank. About 73% of its revenue comes from taking in deposits at a low interest rate and making loans at a higher interest rate.
Based on its 2022 10K filing, SVB managed $209.2 billion in total interest-bearing asset and earned $5.7 billion. This represented an effective yield of 2.73%. During the same period, SVB paid out $1.2 billion in funding cost, which equated to 0.57%.
• Therefore, in 2022, its NII = 2.73% - 0.57% = 2.16%
• In comparison, its NII for year 2021 was 2.02% (=2.09% - 0.07%).
• On the surface, SVB was doing well, with NII spread increasing by 14 basis points year-over-year.
What has gone wrong then? Dive deeper into SVB’s balance sheet, we see the long-dated Treasury bonds and illiquid mortgage-backed securities it held got hammered by the rising interest rates. Simply put, SVB got its interest payment back, but the value of its investment principal eroded in a huge way in a rate-hiking environment. All in all, managing interest rate risk is at the core of banking business.
A Naked Bond Portfolio
In its 10K, SVB puts its investment portfolio in Available-For-Sales (AFS), Held-To-Maturity (HTM) and Non-marketable securities categories.
AFS balance was $26.1 billion as of December 31st, including:
• U.S. Treasury securities $ 16,135m (61.9%)
• Agency-issued MBS $6,603m (25.3%)
• Agency-issued CMBS $1,464m (5.6%)
• Foreign government debt securities $1,088m (4.2%)
• Agency-issued CMO—fixed rate $678m (2.6%)
• U.S. agency debentures $101m (0.4%)
• Total AFS securities $26,069m (100%)
Last week, SVB sold $21 billion in the AFS portfolio and incurred a loss of $1.8 billion, or -8.6%. AFS assets are marked to market every quarter. My understanding is that the loss figure was based on selling price vs. year-end fair market value.
Total loss calculated from purchasing price could be much bigger, as these bonds may have been marked down multiple times during previous quarters. Evidence: Since March 2022, CBOT 10-Year Treasury Futures (ZN) price went down from 124 to 109 (-12%) and 30-Year Treasury Bond (ZB) fell from 152 to 118 (-22%).
CBOT Treasury futures market, with its sheer size and liquidity, makes it the marketplace of choice to manage interest risk in times of uncertainties. Each ZN contract has a notional value of $100,000.
• On Monday March 13th, daily trading volume is 3,760,911 lots, which translates into total notional of $376 billion. Open interest (OI) stands at 4,311,338, or $431 billion in notional.
• Volume and OI for ZB are 719,518 and 1,209,881, respectively. Notional value for each is $72 billion and $121 billion, respectively.
What’s Next
On Friday, Signature Bank customers spooked by the SVB collapse withdrew $10 billion. That quickly led to the bank failure. Regulators announced Sunday that Signature was being taken over to protect its depositors and the stability of the U.S. financial system.
Despite government intervention over the weekend, fear ran contagious through the financial industry this Monday. San Francisco’s First Republic Bank, which had $212 billion in assets at the end of 2022, saw its stock price plunge as much as 70% when the market opened Monday morning.
By market close, US stock market stabilized. Investors wonder if a banking crisis could be the final punch to end the year-long Fed rate hikes.
Lessons Learnt
As investors, we usually allocate our financial assets across various instruments, such as stocks, bonds, and derivatives. The 60 (stock) / 40 (bond) portfolio is the most popular advice from Wall Street.
People generally pay more attention to what stocks to buy and hold, but we may not think twice about managing interest risk in a rising rate environment. The SVB fallout shows that even the safest, risk-free Treasury bonds, if not actively managed, could fall prey to interest rate changes and liquidity risk, resulting in loss of market value.
For me, this is a wake-up call and a good time to review my bond holdings. Some may be hidden in a 401K retirement plan. Hedging interest rate risk with CBOT Treasury futures and Micro Yield futures could go a long way to stay solvent.
A View on Interest Rate Trajectory
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the consumer price index rose 0.4% in February and 6% from a year ago, in line with market expectations. This is the most recent data the Fed will consider before it makes interest decision on March 22nd.
Inflation is cooling, but still too high. A bank run shows how damaging rising interest rate is to the economy. Whether the Fed will continue its rate hikes, pause them, or end them altogether, I think all options are open.
In my view, interest rate is in an uncharted territory once again. With investors in panic mode, they will likely overreact to the Fed decision. This may be a good time to place an order of out-of-the-money options on CBOT 10-Year Treasury Futures (ZN).
On March 14th, the June ZN contract is quoted at 113’220. Quoting convention in Treasury market is 100 and 1/64th. The quote reads as (113 + 22.0/64), or $113.34375 on $100 par value.
If the Fed slows or pause the hike, Treasury price will likely go up. Call options would be appropriate in this case.
• The 115-strike call is quoted 0’20 (=20/64). This is converted into $312.5 premium on the $100,000 contract notional for each contract.
If the Fed stays its course on fighting inflation, Treasury price could fall. And put options would be a way to express your view.
• The 112-strike put is quoted 0’14, or $218.75 premium per contract.
Happy Trading.
Disclaimers
*Trade ideas cited above are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management under the market scenarios being discussed. They shall not be construed as investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services.
CME Real-time Market Data help identify trading set-ups and express my market views. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs www.tradingview.com
10Yr Notes Trading The Bearish SequenceIn this update we review the recent price action in the US 10yr Notes and identify the next high probability trading opportunity and price objectives to target
ZN will fall in the next weekwe might see the ZN making a correction. but the overall trend is down. so I would say that the price is falling next week as well.
ZN1: Buy ideaAs you see on the chart we have a buy idea because we have the breakout with force the vwap indicator by a big green candle with a large green volume.Thanks!
Key Levels and Market overview for the Asian session open 28/02A review of the price action from the European session and US session as traders fight back thanks to some bargain hunting from the open. The US gapped upon the open following on from a strong European session. The USD found some sellers and Bond yields fell which provided some support for share markets traders. I look at some key levels to watch and the price action setups I expect to see play out.
Markets covered :-
DOW
Nasdaq
DAX
FTSE
ASX200
Hang Seng
USD Index
Gold
Oil
Copper
Key Levels and Market overview into the Asian session openA look at the price action from the European and US sessions and what that may mean for the Asian market open after some stronger than expected US retail Sales triggered a choppy session. I feel data is still showing 'sticky inflation' which eventually leads to higher interest rates and lower spending which will cap the indexes...although traders are focused on a resilient economy fending off a recession.. I look at some key levels to watch and the price action setups I expect to play out.
Markets covered :-
DOW
Nasdaq
DAX
FTSE
ASX200
Hang Seng
USD Index
Gold
Oil
Copper
Key Levels and Market overview into the Asian session openA look at the price action from the European and US sessions and what that may mean for the Asian session open. I look at some key levels to watch and the price action setups I expect to play out.
Markets covered :-
DOW
Nasdaq
DAX
FTSE
ASX200
Hang Seng
USD Index
Gold
Oil
Copper
Key Levels on Major Indexes for the coming Asian sessionA look at the key areas of interest for major markets and what we could be looking for. Levels and price action analysis for :-
DOW
Nasdaq
DAX
FTSE
ASX200
USD
U Bonds
Sell ideaAs you see on the chart!! Breakout of the vwap and the support line by a big red candle with a large red volume! Thanks!
Retest of of a trendline on the weeklyAlso there's a possible ABC pattern on the weekly chart that could definitely play out realizing that fed isn't going to pivot as fast as people want to believe
$ZN_F: Bonds have bottomedI think we have a low risk trade here, buying bonds until March 17th or so. Weekly trend is up, until said date, and could after that form a new consolidation and new continuation pattern over time if my view here is correct. Definitely a good idea to have some exposure to bonds, I personally opted for buying OTM calls to ride this signal, but you could use futures or ETFs as well (or just buy the actual bonds).
Best of luck!
Cheers,
Ivan Labrie.
Selection & how to operateThe obvious part if you've understood all the previous posts.
It's easier to start with how Not to trade .
Wrong - cherry picking "strong" levels. Every level is a level, not better & not worse than another one. Choosing the supposedly strong levels is a subjective thing that reduces expected value & consistency.
Right - operating at each level on a given resolution, you either expect a level to repel prices or to be consumed, you operate accordingly at every level. The more you operate, better for the market, higher your revenues. If there too many levels for you, instead of cherry picking you just move to a lower resolution. Some levels can be effectively skipped because of risk & sizing consideration, but skipping levels an cherry picking levels are 2 completely different mindsets.
Wrong - stopping operation after N loosing trades.
Right - controlling equity as explained in "Sizing & how to manage risk". If you're making loosing trades in a row, you don't stop, you just hit zero size, then you imagine trades or execute on simulator, when your size comes back to a non-zero value you come back to the real account. More you operate - better for the business.
Wrong - waiting for a "confirmation". If you don't have a firm expectation whether a level will repel prices or will be consumed, you don't know what you're doing, read all the posts and understand how it all works.
Right - knowing in advance what you gonna do at each level & keep reevaluating it in real time.
Wrong - making reentries. The activity around levels, especially how levels get cleared, is very well defined. After the scaling in is complete, you either exit at loss/at breakeven when a level gets cleared / positioned in the unexpected side. Or, you scale out while being in the money.
Right - unless there was a mistake caused by a misclick or smth like dat, reentries is an irrelevant concept.
Wrong - working out insurance after the entry.
Right - a hedge should be bought BEFORE scaling in, same goes about placing the stop-losses.
How to operate
Asset selection
Not many people think about it, but it makes sense not only to provide liquidity when & where there's not much of it, but also to consume excessive liquidity when & where there's too much of it, because both cases are unhealthy for the markets. So, we have 2 types of trading instruments then:
1) overquoted ones, such as GE, ZN, or ES many years ago;
2) underquoted ones, such as CL, NQ;
How to distinguish dem?
One way is to take a look at volumes on highest resolution cluster/footprint chart, and compare em with the actual number of bid/asks in the DOM. ZN for example is hugely overquoted, you'll notice that: it has aprox 1000 contract at every bid/ask price, but when these limit orders start to get consumed at one price, the rest orders at the same price just gets cancelled, and you see lesser values on your footprint/cluster chart. The opposite happens on underquoted instruments, they need liquidity.
Why it matters?
You operate the same way on both under and overquoted vehicles, but:
1) on underquoted vehicles you mainly use limit orders, you provide liquidity;
2) on overquoted vehicles you mainly use market orders, you remove liquidity;
Exits at loss vs attempting to get out around breakeven
Both are legit, the latter gives more freedom, but implies not using stop-losses so you have to know 4 sure what's happening and what you're doing.
That's how you trade with stoplosses.
1) In case of trading pops from positioned levels, you simply exit when the support/resistance gets cleared, in case of clearing by price it means you'll have an L, no big deal tho;
2) In case of trading pushes through positioned levels (aka trading clearings aka trading consumptions), same, you're getting an L if you hit the invalidation point. The invalidation point for these trades is the opposite border of the positioning sequence. This border is found the same ways as the front level, just at the opposite side;
3) Trading during a positioning itself. Makes least sense to trade with stop-losses, but in theory: taking an L at the next level past the level you expect to be positioned this or that way. If there is no level past you current level, you try to make a projection, smth like its shown on ZN chart of this post, imagine you were trading positioning of 112'19.
Without stops it's almost the same, it's just instead of taking an immediate loss after an invalidation event, you exit at breakeven when price comes back to the entry zone (in most cases it does). If prices don't go back and hit another level, you simply continue trading there, if that new level you're working with now is supposed to act in the opposite direction from the previous one, you simply reverse your position. If that new level is supposed to work in the same direction as the previous one, you're holding your position further.
This kind of operation assumes very high win rate, low RR ratio and very rare but significant losses. However, if the unexpected happens 2 times in row, chances are the problem is on your side xD
Finally
1) Monitor non-market data in order not to be caught against the momentum surges (eg unless you're a DMM, trading at Jobless Claims release is a BAD IDEA);
2) Pick your main resolution that way you'll be satisfied with the frequency of your operations;
3) Work with all the levels there;
4) Never approach the next level while having a full position, always offload risk on the way, unless you expect the next level to be cleared/positioned in the same direction;
5) Always control risks;
6) Understand that it's all about doing the right thing, and it's totally possible to understand what is right by gaining all the info from all the data.
You should end up trading 100% of positioned levels, trading 50% of positioning processes demselves, and rofl never try to trade smth that looks like "a new level is forming now".
Q&As: non-market dataThere's some curious personalities that trade (at least claim to trade) based on news, fundamental metrics, alt data n stuff. I don't mean invest, I mean trade. Well that looks like a skill to be proud off, superstimuli always feels cool aye? Good thing tho there no real reason in doing it all.
The most precise term to explain non-market data is, well, everything that ain't have a direct involvement with what happens inside the order matching servers of a given exchange.
So open interest is in fact a great example of non-market data.
The one & only real purpose for using all this data is to know (not to guess/predict/forecast, not to even anticipate), but to understand when the ACTION is going to happen. If you think deeper, ultimately it's all about asset selection to satisfy whatever purpose you got. if you ever got caught yourself feeling fooled when media release a bad info but prices go up, or media release a good info but prices go down, it's ok. It doesn't work that way, direction of prices can't be affected this way. Direction of prices is the result of how buyers meet sellers which is based on +inf number of factors, where a non-market data is simply just one of these +inf factors. It exclusively provokes action, meat, hype, momentum, volatility, whatever you call it. What's happening is that things start to happen very fast. Without a trigger event, the trading activity would've been the same, it just would've take longer to unwind. News don't change the structure, they make it all happen faster, that's it.
Examples of non-market data that can be used to expect action:
1) Trading schedule, eg the US, EU opening times;
2) Economic releases;
3) Commitment of traders reports;
4) Significant news;
5) Changes in yield curves;
6) "Fundamental" stock data;
7) Open interest;
8) etc etc etc
One really important thing to add is that, just like trading activity is understood in context (other resolutions), sizing also includes context (equity control, market impact), the same way every non-market data event lives in the context (previous releases, other releases, overall economy). You're interesting not in a new per se, but rather in what does it mean in the world. For example, inflation reports don't mean much when the rates are low, but when the rates are high, they trigger significant activity.
That's the area where statistical learning, automated learning, "machine" learning, 'Really' starts to make sense business-wise. The ultimate goal is to create a system that will process every kind of data you have (NLP and TDA should help) and output the tickers with raising/already risen levels of interest.
10 Year T-Note Trade EvelopesCurrently long this morning from 114'05.0 looking to sell in sell envelope as T notes have confirmed short bias this week based on my analysis. Just currently long until my trigger is confirmed in sell envelope.
Weak USD, But Be Aware Of Pullbacks- Elliott WaveTechnically speaking, we see 10 year US notes coming higher, but seen in a fifth wave of a bullish reversal while DXY is falling back to the lows most likely hunting stops that were placed after NFP. But focus should be Powell words from last Wednesday, when he was not that hawkish anymore, so even good jobs data may not change his decisions.
ZN1! IDEA HELLO GUYS THIS MY IDEA 💡ABOUT ZN1! is nice to see strong volume area....
Where is lot of contract accumulated..
I thing that the sellers from this area will be defend this SHORT position..
and when the price come back to this area, strong sellers will be push down the market again..
DOWNTREND + SUPPORT from the past + Strong volume area is my mainly reason for this short trade..
IF you like my work please like and follow thanks
Coding StyleWhen a coder creates something new, mostly that is with his/her own style. This makes them artists in a way I believe :)
While it is nice to develop a specific style, writing things on a certain way can be very important to understand better what is written.
This example shows a style, while it is possibly nice to see, is very hard to decipher...
Here is the same code, written in a different way, making it easier to read.
indicator("ConeCode-Linefill,educational", max_lines_count=500, overlay=true)
color1 = input.color(color.new(color.blue , 35), 'color 1')
color2 = input.color(color.new(color.lime , 35), 'color 2')
color3 = input.color(color.new(color.red , 35), 'color 3')
iFill = input.bool (true,'fill')
s1 = ta.sma (close, 1000)
s2 = ta.sma (close, 200)
l1 = plot (s1 , 'l1')
l2 = plot (s2 , 'l2')
topVal = s1 > s2 ? math.min(s1, s2) : math.max(s1, s2)
botVal = s1 > s2 ? math.max(s1, s2) : math.min(s1, s2)
topCl = iFill ? s1 > s2 ? color3 : color1 : na
botCl = iFill ? s1 > s2 ? color1 : color2 : na
fill(l1, l2, topVal, botVal, topCl, botCl)
█ More information:
Coding style: Pine Script™ v5 User Manual/Writing scripts/Style guide
Script description: How PineCoders Write and Format Script Descriptions
Bond Market Rallies After Inflation DataBonds have soared after yields collapsed due to CPI coming in slightly better than expected. This follows months of consistently high readings fueling a hawkish Fed. With this reading, the markets will likely start to anticipate a pivot to a less hawkish stance. ZN broke through our target of 110'27, and moved a full handle above that to 111'26. It is currently meeting resistance at 111'29 or so, where a red triangle on the KRI is confirming resistance. Watch for ZN to equilibrate as the news gets priced in. If we can keep going then 113'12 is the next target, otherwise, 110'27 should give support.
Bonds Retrace from our LevelBonds hit resistance at 111'26, dipping back to support at 110'27. We anticipated this in our reports yesterday. It is likely we will continue the sideways correction from here, bound between these two levels. If ZN can break out, then 113'12 is the next target. We expect 110'05 to be a floor for now.
T-NOTES FUTURES MY WEEKLY ANALYSISHello everyone, beyond my weekly technical analysis of ZN1 10 years T-NOTES FUTURES, I see a bearish trend with a high probability in the next few weeks.
QUICK ZN SELLHI GUYS, there is an 80% chance of a big sell-off on ZN, the market is bearish on the day, even on the weekly, so there is this possibility, before the market goes into a correction.
