Tuesday, March 15, 2011

What it takes to bid up a Treasury Bond these days…

Honestly, the news coming out of Japan feels more like a James
Bond subplot. Except we don’t have Mr. Bond, we have Tokyo Electric Power Co. (who by the end of this might be as famous as Mr. Bond if they can fix this mess) as the potential heroes and the heroic work is done in maddening hyperbole by CNN instead of behind the scenes. Another reason for the market to selloff and we have had some great reasons lately. Since they were selling everything, it pays to look at what they were buying.

Using Aqumin’s AlphaVision landscape draws me to where the action is. Normally when I look for topics for TheStreet.com’s syndicated column (18 in a row again for winners) I like to start with a view in the morning to set up what is happening. The view below is in AV Pro and it simply shows change in price and change in Implied Volatility in the 2nd Expiration Month. A big, green building in the corner shows me that the stock was up today, along with the implied volatility.

3-15-2011 4-48-54 PM

For Direxion Daily 30-Yr Treasury Bull 3X Shares (TMF) today was its big day to shine with a gap you don’t see very often. A flight to quality always accompanies destabilizing world events and a James Bond rescue on camera certainly qualifies. There has been a slow rally in Treasuries for the week or so and I can’t help but think this is the last gasp for them. It takes the hint of disaster for the T-Bond to pop and there are only so many of those to go around. Implied Volatility was up just a bit in the TMF to bring the midterm Implied Volatilities in line with recent movement (see the chart in the lower right hand corner) but Implied Volatility is still trading near lows for the past 6 months. Nowhere near a panic. Maybe this is the last gasp for Treasuries for Q1. Let’s see how it ends up.

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