Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Updated-Equities: Hedge Funds Selling Treasuries, Commodities, Buying Stock.

Update I: Equities: Big Banks Selling Treasuries, Commodities, Buying Stock.
Original post:
I'm Not Much Help Here
What you need is Truman's "One Handed Economist".
Instead you got me.

The up move last week, five consecutive up days totaling 5.5% is reminiscent of, although smaller in magnitude than, the start of the Big Bull 1982-2000:
The market bottomed at 776.92 on Thursday August 12th, 1982 and started moving fast:

Aug. 13 788.05
Aug. 16 792.43
Aug. 17 831.24
Aug. 18 829.43
Aug. 19 838.57
Aug. 20 869.29
Aug. 23 891.17

Just like that, 14.70% in seven trading days.
It is also reminiscent of the current run off the Monday March 9, 2009 bottom of 6,547.05.
Four consecutive up days ending at 7,223.98 for a 10.33% pop.

The problem is, I don't believe the picture the tape is telling.

Here's part of the puzzle, from MarketBeat:
Hedge Funds Getting Back Into The Stock Market?
Hedge funds appear to be buying into stocks again.
Schaeffer’s Investment Research senior VP Todd Salamone said one way he measures hedge fund positioning is the 20-day, buy-to-open put/call volume ratio on broad-market ETFs. The higher the ratio, the more invested hedge funds are, as they tend to buy puts on those ETFs to hedge long equity positions....MORE
The rotation out of commods and govvies is conjecture on my part, I'll have more in a bit.