Europe situation, Euribor, one of the best trades from 2017

Mario Draghi didn’t surprise the market with his speech. He acknowledged a moderation in the pace of the eurozone recovery but he said that it´s early to change the monetary policy. Some analysts believe that the ECB will wait until July to provide forward guidance. I don´t want to speculate but maybe the dovish message was due to the strength of the euro. I would like to remind you that the ECB is buying assets for the value of €30bn a month. The question here is what is going to happen with these markets as soon as the central banks stop these quantitative easing programs.

Euribor Spreads

I will use the Euribor contracts listed in Eurex because I don´t have access to the ones listed on ICE. Sadly these contracts aren´t traded as much as the ones on ICE but they show similar prices. 

     Euribor Jun18-Jun19 spread, source: Barchart

The difference between these contracts is narrowing what indicates a flattening of the Euribor curve. It seems that the current level can act as a support.

     Euribor Jun19-Jun20 spread, source: Barchart

As you can see the curve steepened from September 2017 to March 2018. At the moment is near the support at 0.400. The Jun20-Jun21 spread has the same shape and this is very interesting for me. In the case of the Eurodollar, you can see how the spreads show that the curve is steepening for one period in flattening after 2020. The truth is that the ECB hasn´t changed the policy in the last 8 years and the inflation is still low. Can we see any movement in the outrights?

    Euribor Jun18 futures, source: TradingView

This contract changed the trend one year ago. In my opinion, the European economy looks pretty much the same as 2017.

     Euribor Mar19 futures, source: TradingView

This contract is more volatile but it shows exactly the same movement as the previous one.

Euribor Dec19 futures, source: TradingView

The last 3 charts show how the different futures went up in 2018. What are they discounting? Is the current European economy worse than in 2017? Will we have a global recession in 2020?

One of the best trades

We have briefly seen how the Euribor futures behaved during the last year. As I said the European Central Bank hasn´t changed the economic policy while the Fed has been raising rates for a while. Considering this, the idea was clear: long Euribor futures and short Eurodollar futures.

    Euribor Dec18 – Eurodollar Dec18 Spread, source: TradingView

This trade has been amazing (and I think that it can continue at least for a couple of months) and probably we will read about it in the next “Hedge Fund Market Wizards”.

Sum up

The ECB delivered the words that we expected. Draghi has a difficult job and the protectionism threaten doesn’t help. The Euribor futures are not moving at all, their movements are tied with the European Central Bank forward guidance and the data. The Euribor-Eurodollar spread has been one of the best trades from 2017. It has captured the different economic policy in two economic areas. 

Disclaimer

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions that shouldn't be used as a trading advice. Trading carries considerable risk due to the high leverage involved

Fed Funds vs Eurodollars futures

The interest rate markets offer a lot of possibilities and strategies. You can trade the outright, the intra-product spread (calendar spread or calendar spreads combinations) and you can create your own spread with different futures (inter-product spread) Sometimes I analyze the outrights and certain spreads but today I’m going to introduce a strategy used by some of the biggest market participants. 

      CME Interest Rate Products, source CME

The spread

I’m not going to focus on the back of the curve. The products to make this strategy are Eurodollar futures and Fed Fund futures. Before I explain the strategy lets define these products:

• Eurodollar futures are based on a 3 month LIBOR.
• Fed Funds futures are based on the average daily effective Fed Funds rate and calculated the last business day

Considering the different  value per basis point we need to calculate the spread ratio:

Spread ratio, own elaboration                                                  

In order to get the ratio, we should divide the Eurodollar value per basis point by the Fed Fund value per basis point. In our case, we will trade 10 Eurodollar contracts and 6 Fed Funds contracts. Considering the forward-looking aspect of Eurodollar futures, the Sep contract will cover from September to December. We need to choose 2 different Fed Fund contracts between these maturities, in the example October and November.

Spread calculation in basis points, own elaboration                 

In the example, the spread in basis points has been calculated as (Fed Funds average price – Eurodollar price) *100

    Eurodollar-Fed Funds spread, source TradingView

What and why are we trading on this spread? Basically, we are betting that the spread between these 2 products will narrow or wide in the future. Having in mind that the eurodollar is based in 3-month commercial loans will be more volatile (for the duration and the credit risk) than the Fed Funds (1-month loan between banks insideUnited States)

We can use this spread to bet that the interest rate curve will change. Let’s say that if there was a high probability of an interest rate hike, I would position myself short Eurodollars and long Fed Funds.

          Fed Funds Rate, source TradingEconomics

If you compare this chart with the previous one, you can see why you need to be right and always taking the direction of the market with the Eurodollar contracts.

Sum up

I hope you like this brief introduction. This spread will allow you to diversify the strategies. There are 2 main risks: taking the wrong side of the position and the execution risk. The second one is obvious because there are 2 different products on this strategy.  It´s easier to make a calendar spread because you can find them listed on the exchange. 

Have a good trading!!

Disclaimer

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions that shouldn't be used as a trading advice. Trading carries considerable risk due to the high leverage involved

US Bond and Interest Rate Futures Spreads, US Interest Rate curve inversion

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been busy but I will try to write more frequently. Today, I’m going to talk about US interest rates and bonds. In one hand the US economy is performing pretty well, at least for now. The GDP is good but not as the government promised. The employment is strong but the figures show that it’s been driven by part-time jobs and this doesn’t help in the long term. The bank earnings usually reflect the economic performance, and they have reported better than expected profits. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve is tightening. The debt hasn’t been reduced. The protectionism won’t help. This is not new and I believe that you have already read about this.

Fed’s Williams warned earlier this week that the yield curve inversion can be seen as a warning signal. An inverted curve has always been a recession signal.

How can we understand if the curve is flattening or steepening?

Basically, if we simplify the process and we only do the yield difference between 2 different products or the same product with different maturities. If the difference grows over the time, the curve is in a steepening process. If the difference decreases, we will see the curve flattening. Once we understand this we can have a look at different markets:

US Bond Spreads

    5Yr T-Note  - 2Yr T-Note futures spread, Barchart 

In this case, I’ve chosen the price difference between the 5 Yr T-Note and 2Yr T-Note futures. It’s not as intuitive as if I had taken the yields but it’s easy to understand. Obviously, an investor would look for a higher return on a long duration investment than in a short duration investment. If I have 2 assets with a different duration that offer the same return, I will choose the short duration asset. The reason behind this is that I would be able to compound the returns. When there are good news and the economy is doing well, the traders sell the bond futures and considering that the longer duration is more volatile the spread between them will increase. In our case, we can see that the 5Yr-2Yr spread is decreasing.

    10Yr T-Note  - 2Yr T-Note futures spread, Barchart 

The 10-2Yr spread is decreasing and it’s very close to the 8 year low (12.71)

3 month Eurodollar futures

     Eurodollar Sep18-Jun19  spread , Barchart 

This is a 6-month spread in which is going up. You can think that the traders are discounting more interest rate hikes during 2018.

    Eurodollar Jun19-Jun20  spread , Barchart 

This is a bigger spread that covers 12 months. It’s more volatile than the previous one and it´s testing an important support. The most interesting thing is that shows how the interest rate curve is flattening between 2019 and 2020. 

   Eurodollar Jun20-Jun21 spread , Barchart 

If you were surprised with the last chart, take a look at this. Basically, the curve is flat between 2020 and 2021 and probably it will be inverted in the coming weeks or months.

Eurodollar quotes 

     Eurodollar futures quotes, CME

I would like to recommend this short article that offers a different perspective with the same conclusion:

https://www.ft.com/content/f24fbc80-431c-11e8-803a-295c97e6fd0b

Highlights and future questions

All the experts are warning about a possible recession between 2020 and 2022 and as we have seen the curve is inverting at this point. How will the central banks react? Will the Fed choose between fighting inflation or the job market? How will the governments try to reduce the debt? What will happen with the private debt? 

Disclaimer

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions that shouldn't be used as a trading advice. Trading carries considerable risk due to the high leverage involved