Daily Data: March 15, 2026
Getting close, but not there yet...
A lot going on this week across equities, commodities, currencies.
Equities Options
HYG Options
Big jump in Put Volume for HYG. A lot of traders are buying downside protection on high yield bonds, which often trade like equities:
IWM Options
The past 2 weeks saw a big jump in IWM Put Volume as well:
Gamma Exposure (from Squeeze Metrics)
Gamma Exposure is quite low:
COT Report
S&P 500 Asset Managers’ Net Position
Asset Managers remain long S&P 500 futures, but are starting to back off from their long positions:
This was the largest 1 week decrease in Asset Managers’ Net Position (dollar value) since the COVID crash:
VIX Asset Managers
A key concern that I highlighted in December was the extreme positioning from Asset Managers towards vol. Asset Managers were extremely net-short VIX, in a way that resembled the August 2024 VIX blowup.
VIX spiked on Monday, but the spike did not match that of August 2024.
Volume (Lack of)
While some signs point to a market bottom, overall, we’re not quite there yet.
Meaningful bottoms tend to get a spike in SPY volume. There’s been no spike this time, implying that the selling has been orderly, and there’s been no fear yet.
Sentiment (from Trade-Futures)
S&P 500
S&P 500 DSI is coming down:
NASDAQ
NASDAQ DSI is coming down
VIX
VIX DSI increased along with VIX:
Financials vs Energy
Financial stocks suffered in recent weeks while energy rallied.
With a new Fed chair incoming, investors were expecting the Fed to cut interest rates. Lower interest rates would have been a boon to financial stocks. The war + higher energy prices are driving up inflation expectations, which hurts the odds of rate cuts.
XLF Fund Flows: large outflows
XLE Fund Flows: large inflows
Crude Oil Daily Sentiment Index:
China
Chinese tech stocks have been trending down for months. KWEB became extremely oversold, and the dollar value of KWEB Calls-Puts fell to the lowest level in years:
India
Indian equities have been hurt significantly by the Iran war. INDA has seen record outflows in the last 2 weeks.
Zooming in, INDA is at support:
SENSEX breadth oversold:
Nifty 50 breadth oversold:
Korea
Korean equities spiked along with the Memory stocks rally. Now in pullback mode. Despite the pullback, EWY is still seeing inflows!
Dollar
The Euro is starting to reverse down and the U.S. Dollar Index is starting to reverse up.
Euro Commercials: extreme positioning being unwound:
Euro Large Speculators: extreme positioning being unwound.
USD Daily Sentiment Index:
Key question: is the U.S. Dollar Index starting to breakout?
The U.S. Dollar is acting as a hedge right now against the Iran war. S&P 500 down = U.S. Dollar up. If the U.S. Dollar breaks out, would that push the S&P 500 down even lower?