Hedge funds went bullish into short-term Treasuries at the very wrong before some of the steepest yield hikes in years.
- Leveraged funds accumulated bullish bets on two-year Treasury futures and Eurodollar contracts at the fastest rate on record over the last four weeks.
- The net long positions stood close to the highest start of 2015 last Tuesday and were possibly loss-making considering the two-year yields increased from 0.27% to nearly 0.56% over the four-week period.
- The badly timed bets came amid turbulence in the bond market as investors brought forward bets on global rate hikes only to have central bank officials seek to push them back.
- Sun-Lin Ong, head of Australian economic and fixed strategy at Royal Bank of Canada stated that the sell-off was very futures-based and likely to surge by positioning considering the belly structures were at attractive levels.
Yields swung erratically, more so in the short-end, with high-profile hedge funds suffering from significant losses or having to limit trading.
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Source: Bloomberg.
