🇺🇸 Two recent dynamics (plus the left tail hedging we discussed) point to future events.

1️⃣ The Gold ETF (the one that screws you if it blows out, $GLD) saw the largest outflows in a decade. November 2016 was the Trump Shock: his initial election, dollar spiked, rates spiked, and the “reflation” trade hit gold hard.

This one is probably more about seeking capital from your winners.

2️⃣ Everyone is short the Dollar. You know what that means. IMM non-commercial positioning at -$18.9B is essentially the most extreme short dollar position in this entire 3-year window.

Let a high oil price via this war cause demand destruction, or let us a see that credit turmoil (in the above post) bloom, and you'll see a short squeeze in the Dollar that rips a whole lot of faces off.

I should note that the Shanghai gold price has barely budged.

🪙 I N T E L R U N N E R 💲

🇺🇸 Volatility, baby.

So retail is piled into $SVIX during a war, expecting calm. Trump has trained them to be a bit foolish.

This is a real commitment, and given somebody is buying volatility protection ($VIX 28.7, $VVIX 127, $LTV 18.1, $VIX1D 28.44), they're risking a squeeze against themselves as the buying of VIX futures is mechanically forced.

Looking at (1) volatility in HYG rising another 20.7% today and (2) the high yield spread lagging like nothing's happened, it wouldn't be crazy if we open up at VIX 30 tomorrow (a definite danger zone).

That said, it could also just mean the market expects months of elevated volatility, something like sustained VIX 25.

Watch that spread. That's unlikely to stick. And the oil price just keeps mounting...stay out of growth and stay the hell out of momentum.

Let that VVIX ratio hit 0.25, and you'll regret it doing any differently.

This is not financial advice, sir, this is a Telegram...

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 That was definitely a bottom in wheat.

In fact, it was the first bottom in an exquisite triple bottom. And now wheat's up 22.6% from the first post & even roughly 7% from the second. The gain in the hard was a slight touch better (we'll get to that).

It's now at 9-month highs at 623'4 for hard & 616'6 for soft. This is a technical change of character with some fundamental tailwinds. But that's the easy value money...

The Dollar may (and likely will) make all this stuff correct soon, and if so God bless it. That being strenuously said, the easier play is short & environmental: the world needs hard wheat, the Azov sea is bound up with ice, and Russia can't easily export Argus—long Kansas City, short Black Sea.

The ice breaks up in 3-4 weeks. That doesn't necessarily mean the premium evaporates domestically, but the trade definitely weakens.

The other will require more explanation...

🆎 I N T E L R U N N E R 🆎

🇺🇸 Let's finish up talking about wheat. There's much to hit on this weekend.

Why short Russia's? Only 62% of export potential due to (1) 25cm of ice in Azov and (2) that strong ruble everyone talks about. What's the other play? A little bit more long-term (2-5 months probably) parsing of wheat types. A recent market update stated:

"HRW wheat basis bids were largely steady in the southern U.S. Plains, with protein premiums rising for railcar shipments to Kansas City, signaling flour mill demand. Spot millfeed values steadied after declines due to ample supplies and muted demand amid market uncertainty."

In other words, we're too low on hard, high-protein wheat, and premiums for moving it are rising, but the ratio is about 1.01x (5Y 10th %ile). It tends more toward 1.03-1.05x historically, and it should. You can't bake bread with the soft stuff.

So it's long Kansas City HRW, short Chicago SRW. This sort of thing requires keeping an eye on both winter wheat condition scores & the March 31st USDA prospective plantings.

Neither this nor the last post contain any financial advice whatsoever...

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 Nonfarm Payrolls Numbers From This Week

Well, so much for that. The improvement from January looks like an aberration. February came in at -92K (well under the expected -50K), the third negative print in five months.

Revisions are biting everywhere: December from 65K to -17K, January trimmed to 126K—that's a 69K loss just this year. The preliminary CES benchmark revision for March 2025 total nonfarm employment was -911,000 (-0.6%). Total nonfarm employment growth for 2025 was revised down to +181K from +584K, implying average monthly gains of just 15K, well below the previously reported 49K.

2025 was drastically worse than we were told. Remember that.

Transportation and warehousing down 11K. Construction lost 11K after January’s surge. And Healthcare, which has been the crutch of late, shed 28K amid the Kaiser Permanente strike. But even adjusting for the strike, we're quite negative.

🛠 I N T E L R U N N E R 🛠

🇺🇸 US Newspaper Employment is (Still) Falling

Oh, okay, a close second to the last one. Very positive outcome.

From 265K in 2010 to 82K today. That’s a 69% employment destruction over 15 years, with no recovery, no plateau that holds, just a relentless grind lower punctuated by acceleration events (2020 being the most visible, when PPP loans & public health advertising lifted most boats).

My favorite is the instant Russiagate ends—it's never been worse for them than that. Now you know why they clung to it so. It wasn't just Deep State pressure.

The YoY chart shows the rate never sustainably returned to zero: it oscillated between -3% and -10% for the entire period, with occasional bounces that all failed. That's the trend of a dying industry.

These days, and really since the pandemic, the wealthy have been purchasing newspapers again (Marc Benioff, Emerson Collective, Bezos, MacArthur, Knight, Hewlett, etc.) and their foundations have been issuing grants with strings attached.

This is where all the remaining life in the industry is, and it has altered the nature—and the already handicapped integrity—of the newspaper sector going forward.

📰 I N T E L R U N N E R 📰