10-year treasuries: 2nd straight week net long, increased by 25k contracts. Bearish re: economy and equity fundamentals. Bullish for equities in terms of sentiment toward interest rates.

Nasdaq: 13th straight week net short, slightly more so week-on-week. Bearish sentiment toward tech/growth.

Russell 2000: 8th straight week net short, tanking by 9k contracts week-on-week. Very bearish on smallcaps, and prospects for reopening oomph.

VIX: Net short since January 2019. Although the overall net position has been trending less short since February; currently lowest net short number June 2020. While still bullish for stocks, notably less-so of late.

Gold: Net long since 11/2018, trending higher over the past few weeks. Speaks to general anxiety over prospects for inflation, etc. But, more so, speaks to the prospects for the Fed keeping a lid on interest rates amid an arguably inflationary setup (i.e., real yields lower).

Silver: Net long since June 2019, slightly less so week-on-week. Speaks to bullishness on prospects for the economy, inflation and infrastructure spending going forward.

Copper: Net long since June 2020, but notably less so for 2nd straight week. Still speaks to overall bullishness on the economy, inflation and infrastructure, but also reflects profit taking after a huge runup in price, as well as evidence that China is working to cool the price of industrial metals going forward.

Lumber: Net short for first time since June 2020. Reflects the utterly epic runup in price over the past year, and evidence that some builders are halting construction as the price has become prohibitive, and, in some instances (so I’m hearing), supply simply doesn’t exist (counterintuitive in terms of recent negative price action). Also speaks to a growing angst that the euphoria around reopening has maybe gotten ahead of itself.

Yen: Net short since March, notable spike lower week-on-week. Speaks to general angst over global conditions — despite growing machine tool orders, etc.

Euro: Net long since March 2020, more so for 3rd straight week. Speaks to optimism over vaccine uptake in Europe and prospects for strong reopening economic bounce in the months to come. Bullish for Eurozone equities.

Aussie: Net long for 3rd straight week. Speaks to optimism over commodities’ outlook, flies in the face of strife with China.

Swiss Franc: Net short for 2nd straight week, with notable week-on-week increase. This is clearly due to the SNB president commenting yesterday that he sees no need to tighten anytime soon; in fact, he sees room to add to their bond buying program if necessary.

Canadian dollar: Net long since last December. Notable spike higher past 3 weeks. Bullish signal for commodities, although the strong rally in CAD (best performing G-10 currency to date) makes it, in my view, ripe for a correction. Particularly in light of recent weakness in the commodities space, and despite sovereign bonds’ relatively attractive yields.