TLT trade ideas
Bonds are cheapHello friends.
This chart of the TLT bond ETF adjusted for both dividends and money supply changes has fallen out of it's accepted range and to a new all-time low. We think that this presents an excellent buying opportunity since the market has already hiked interest rates to right around what the federal reserve's terminal rate will be, and since you can collect passive income from the dividends while the Fed continues to hold rates at high levels. After the rates start to ease off in a year or two, the bonds will also rise in value to reflect this, which could present a chance to sell them for a far higher price.
Treasuries accelerating their decline from oversold conditionsTreasuries accelerating their decline today free falling from already historic oversold conditions on multiple time-frames.
Feels pretty broken to me, but that doesn't mean we can't break further.
On watch for a true dislocation/break down/panic on further weakness.
TLT @ MMA200 support; Bond market didn’t trust today’s bounce!TLT still going down despite today’s big bounce in equities. TLT stopped exactly on the monthly mma200 red line after breaking below 100 today Monday.
TLT should hold mma200 this week or else bonds & equities have a lot more to fall.
Not trading advice.
Great Trades are Rarely Crowded: Long TLT and Short Twitter IQEveryone is a good trader in a bull market, but in a bear market, these good traders are reduced to hopium-fueled twitter analysts watching core CPI and interest rates. The former and latter data points serve nothing more as useless, out-of-context generalities for the single-celled Wall Street Bet retail enjoyer. But recent activity across the pond has sparked interest in the bond. These traders are now converting en-masse to self-proclaimed bond market experts with the thesis:
"The bond market is broken"
Except, the bond market is not broken. It is operating as intended, although two lines on a chart may disagree with anyone unfortunate enough to buy at the start of the year. Why is retail sentiment like this?
The simple answer is that the fed is late, but a more-elaborate explanation follows:
Bond yields rise because bond prices fall. It is the acquisition of a bond at a specific market price that determines that bond's yield, as a function of the difference between that bonds underlying rate (which is fixed) and the resale price. When interest rates rise, bond prices fall because newer bonds spawn with the higher base rate. This makes prior bonds, which have a lower fixed rate, less valuable because they output less extra cheddar. People then resell these bonds for a lower price and the yield rises according to market forces (the fed does not directly control this). Shorter duration treasuries follow interests rates very closely, whereas longer dated treasuries are difficult to influence by rate hikes. Either way these are secondary or tertiary market effects. This phenomenon is what results in an inverted yield curve: you can be paid more money to lend money for a shorter duration than a longer one.
But why would something so illogical even happen? The answer is because the treasury market is not just any pig, it's a truffle-sniffing pig. For every brain cell in the equity or corporate credit market, the treasury market has a thousand-fold more. With these one-thousand brain cells, this pig (specifically the longer-dated pig) is rewarded by looking further ahead into the future. What does this pig see when they look that far ahead? An recession that will obliterate the equity market like Exodia. The long dated treasuries have started to price in a recession (very slowly) by pricing in rate cuts. This is why stocks and bonds are still correlated, but the correlation has started showing signs of weakness. The longer tail of the curve is smarter and refuses to sell these bonds like a fire sale.
Recessions imply a fed pause and eventual rate cut, so no more high-interest treasuries. This makes bonds desirable, and this process is only starting now.
I can already feel the credit market enjoyers seething and muttering: SLR relief expired! Reverse Repo! Basil Tea! No, none of these buzzwords matter. It's true that the pandemic has modified the initial conditions of the bond market. The TLT suffered immensely as the federal reserve promised to not raise rates through forward guidance, broke those promises (as is should have), and also allowed SLR Relief exemptions to expire. This made bonds less sexy and glamorous for banks like JP Morgan because the expiry affected treasury exemptions: banks didn't need to hold additional collateral to slurp bond yields, and now they again do. It's much easier now to park money with the fed overnight and get a little more back. The RRP is a much better facility than treasuries as a result, so bond indexes have dropped even harder. SLR relief is a cherry on top, but this truffle has always tasted good without it. It's absence, and whether it is reinstated or not, should not be a determining factor in the recovery of bond prices, because:
No market has currently priced in a recession, and interest rate expectations demonstrate that without a chart, but when that happens, the bond market will get top billing. Bonds will decouple from stocks and TLT will rise from the ashes like a phoenix in the next quarters, incinerating twitter and reddit soys drawing lines on a chart and shorting the index. Nobody saw it coming, they will say, but good trades are never crowded. Smart money extracts the deep value from TLT in the pre-recessionary market by going long (DCA or otherwise). Degenerate smart money is gambling with TLT long calls. Whereas most of the market is still buying stocks, crypto, and chanting that the markets are broken and the fed will come roaring in. These pigs won't find any truffles in this market.
Interest rate expectations are unrealistic and the fed will have to pause sometime early 2023. The recession will destroy demand, taking growth, inflation, and equity market with it, rising bond prices and dropping bond yields. The stock market will crash (I don't consider this current price action a crash yet) and continue burning even as the fed pauses, and dip buyers will be buying a dip that keeps on dipping while you're selling your new truffles on ebay because you lost your job due to mass layoffs across the entire economy.
TLT about top reverseInflation is close to topping imo...we should see TLT reverse in the next 2 weeks...the bottom could actually already be in...but expect a beach ball move on TLT soon. You can therefore anticipate what is about to happen to commodities, and other asset classes...stocks too the moon...new all time highs.
#TLT approaching long-term channel supportStarting to get interested in US bonds here... If you look at this chart since 2023 using fibonacci channels and uptrend support.. we could well start to see a bid in Bonds here. Also note that the weekly RSI is starting to show signs of divergence here which could be warning of a rally to come.. We could still flush down to 103 but i think i would start building a long term position here with a view to add as we move lower
SLR Policy Decisions the root of InflationThis idea is a primer for ideas on how the FEDs decision to suspend the Supplemental Leverage Ratio for COVID and Implement the Overnight Reverse Repo while printing QE has led to the complete collapse of the bond market and began the era of sticky inflation.
If you overlay the 10Y Breakeven Inflation rate with Year over Year then circle the dates when Jerome Powell Eased SLR for covid and when it expired and implemented changes to overnight repo.
You get a clear sense of how the policy decisions around SLR/Overnight Repo while continuing to print dollars is a clear driver for a decline in bonds and equities while also driving up inflation, DXY and Commodities.
TLT has completed a massive multi-year head and shoulders and over a half dozen daily bear flags.
TLT recently broke through 2014 lows and already flagging lower to 2008 levels.
More to come. It's a fascinating time to analyze markets.
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Below are charts and ideas I created with warning signs over the past 2 years (I didn't know what some of them meant at the time) but I do now.
$TLT needs some supportWhat a crash. Coming up on major support here around $97. The break below $100 is hella bearish on real terms and psychologically, but the day is not over, and we could easily still rebound by the end of today although I am not expecting that. We are so deeply below the moving average I am looking for a sign of a reversal. Need to see heavy volume.