In case you missed it... 30-Year US Mortgage Rate plunges to 6.49%, the lowest level in almost 12 months
Source: Barchart
Institutional investors are the most bullish since the February peak in stocks and no longer see a trade war as the biggest risk.
According to Bank of America’s September fund manager survey (covering $426bn AUM), risk appetite is back at its highest since Feb 2025, when the S&P 500 last hit an intermediate peak : The trade war narrative is fading. Optimism is rising. Risk is back on. source : BofA
Mystery Trader Makes Record Bet On 50bps Rate Cut Today
The trade took place in the October fed funds, for an amount of 84,000 contracts which is equivalent to $3.5 million per basis point in risk. the price and timing of the trade was consistent with a buyer, potentially indicating a hedge against a half-point rate cut at Wednesday’s policy meeting, given a quarter-point cut is now fully baked into the swaps market. The CME confirmed this was the largest ever block trade in Fed Funds Futures... Source. zerohedge
From yesterday's Financial Times article, “EU economy falls behind global rivals due to complacency.”
“One year on, Europe is . . . in a harder place,” Draghi told a news conference on Tuesday. “Our growth model is fading. Vulnerabilities are mounting . . . and we have been reminded, painfully, that inaction threatens not only our competitiveness but our sovereignty itself.” “Too often, excuses are made for this slowness. We say it is simply how the EU is built. Sometimes inertia is even presented as respect for the rule of law,” Draghi added. “That is complacency.” https://lnkd.in/e3facfZk
In the US, searches for "help with mortgage" surpass 2008 housing crisis.
Source: Polymarket @Polymarket
As highlighted by @AndreasSteno on X, the credit impulse is turning positive.
That is not what you normally see in a slowdown...
Quote of the day
by Compounding Quality
From the FT article "Switzerland’s US tech ‘whale’"
>>> https://lnkd.in/e5ctdeTq "Switzerland’s conservative Central Bank has quietly become one of the world’s biggest tech investors, amassing a stock portfolio that is equivalent in value to nearly a fifth of the national economy’s annual output. The Swiss National Bank has US equity holdings amounting to $167bn, spread across more than 2,300 positions, according to US Securities and Exchange Commission filings from June. More than $42bn is invested in just five companies, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia, making it a major Silicon Valley investor. Its stake in Apple alone is worth nearly $10bn and its stake in Nvidia is more than $11bn. Though not a sovereign wealth fund, the SNB’s $855bn balance sheet of assets, including its tech holdings, put it in a similar league as some of the world’s largest state investment vehicles, including those of Singapore and Qatar". Source: FT, IMD
