On March 4, BZ topped 115 as Russian forces gradually encircled southern cities of Ukraine. Crude oil traders rushed to cancel their short orders. A large number of short sellers have gathered in this price range. The withdrawal of these short orders and upcoming long orders are likely to lead to a further spike in oil prices. The U.S. announced 60 million barrels of crude oil will be released. But it only equals to 3-4 days of US consumption, and wartime is likely to consume more oil. With crude oil inventory data well below market forecasts, crude oil futures logically present a super-backwardation structure. It means that traders have no confidence in the short-term market supply balance. In fact, not only crude oil futures, but also other major commodity futures are starting to exhibit

Yesterday, Russia raided Ukraine. Previously, the market consensus believed that Russia was just bluffing to protect the interests of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.However, the United States has continued to inform the world of the military situation, warning that Russia will launch an all-out attack on Ukraine in the short term.Russia continues to deny it on various occasions, but secretly deploys a large number of military forces. Satellite images show that the main railway line is busy transporting Russian armored forces. Really relentless. However, to a certain extent, the briefing of US military intelligence made the Russian attack lose its chance.Overnight, S&P futures opened down more than 2% to a six-month low before reversing in a V-shape to close the session up more than 1%.

Last night, U.S. inflation beat expectations by a wide margin, surging to 7.5, the highest since 1980. The two-year treasury soared to 1.6, the last time a similar one-day gain was seen in 2009, thirteen years ago.Statistically, this is an 8x variance event that occurs about once every 3 billion years. Earlier, I hinted here that the next few months will witness a series of epic stats.In fact, last Friday, because the European Central Bank was more hawkish than expected, the one-year euro forward swap contract has soared, with a single-day increase of six times the variance event. At the time, German Bunds had a similar one-day gain.The epic price swings in these bond markets have already hinted at the risks facing Treasuries this week. While these multi-billion-year figures are stati

Central Huijin, China’s sovereign fund under the state council, announced to increase stakes in China’s big four banks and its intention to continue to do so in the next six months. Although this round of buying only increased Huijin’s stakes in the big four banks by 0.1% each and only totaled 477mil RMB, its a recognition of very cheap valuation in China’s banking sector. For instance, as I show in chart, $ICBC(01398)$ is trading at close to its all-time-low price, 3.4x P/E and 10% dividend yield. It’s hard to deny the value it has to offer. Historically there had been six other times that Huijin bought to support the market. The buying on September 18, 2008 after Lehman collapse was a resounding success. The Chinese market rebounded 9.5% the ne

Last night, U.S. stocks opened sharply lower. After all, it's time again for the details of the Fed minutes to be released. Traders have to prepare for risk control in advance.Before the market, U.S. inflation continued to exceed expectations by a wide margin, hitting a 40-year high. Meanwhile, core inflation is rising at the same pace as headline inflation. This phenomenon tends to occur when all consumption items are generally rising. The last time something like this happened was during the stagflation period of the 1970s and 1980s.However, although the minutes of the Fed's meeting mentioned the expectation of raising interest rates in March, it did not specify whether the rate of interest rate hikes would be 25 points or 50 points. At the same time, the minutes did not specify when the

$UBS Group AG(UBS)$ will buy $Credit Suisse Group AG(CS)$ for $3.25 billion, essentially a 50% discount to last Friday's closing price. $Credit Suisse Group AG(CS)$ initially refused. After all, $Credit Suisse Group AG(CS)$ is a 167-year-old global systemically important bank with assets of more than US$1 trillion.However, Swiss authorities, eager to broker the deal ahead of the Asian market, told $Credit Suisse Group AG(CS)$ they would consider nationalizing the bank if it did not accept the

The Hang Seng $HSI(HSI)$ bounced off its 850-cycle line again, despite a “weak” GDP target set by the NPC and the imminently hawkish Powell. China’s GDP target is lowballing as its around where China’s potential growth is. Just the low base alone will give 1.5% bump for this years GDP, leaving plenty of room to maneuver.

Central Huijin bought $CSI300(000300.SH)$ just before market close yesterday. While the amount wasn’t disclosed, it’s estimated to be ¥8-10bn from the sudden surge of trading volume in a few of the highly liquid CSI300 ETFs. Two weeks ago when Huijin bought the big four SOE banks, it only spent <¥500m. Yesterday HK market was closed to celebrate the Double Ninth Festival. It’s the day of the most Yang (positive) energy described in Chinese classics Iching. It’s this day a new cycle begins and everything should start to rejuvenate. Foreign selling via the northbound connect channel was blamed for the market plunge. But yesterday HK was closed and onshore market sold off. Many thought the catalyst of the selloff was the option straddles that

#Sentiment towards China is now excessively bearish. $HSI(HSI)$ $HSTECH(HSTECH)$ $FTSE China Bear 3X Shares(YANG)$ $CSI China Internet ETF(KWEB)$ China monthly new loan at more than a decade low. It’s about half of last July, and private sectors including both households and private enterprises continue deleveraging . Seasonality cannot explain this weakness fully. Friday’s on- and off-shore trading in the Chinese markets were beset by all sorts of rumors. There were gossips about some trust funds going bust & trust products could not be redeemed etc. But these rumors have been around for some time and really inten