How do traders want to be positioned for year-end?

Outlook

The stock and bond markets close at noon and it would be silly to imagine any major move today. Markets are open again on Friday and then there are three days before month-end next week.

How do traders want to be positioned for year-end?

We already know they want to be long equities and precious metals and short the dollar and crypto. The interpretation of that combination is lack of confidence or outright loss of confidence in institutions, especially governments. Consider how weird it is that the US reported GDP up 4.3%, implying the Fed will not be cutting rates again anytime soon, and the dollar did not gain on that outlook. On the scale of attractiveness, Trump was heavier than the economy.

Forecast

Markets are displaying a lack of confidence in government institutions, hence the flood into metals, and really like the whole re-regulation story that favors private institutions (think companies and stock markets). What can stop these sentiments and deliver a pullback is fear of the moves having gotten overdone. In other words, positioning rather than news stories or data. This is tricky because various things have been overbought for some weeks or months without delivering a “normal” pullback.

That doesn’t mean a pullback is not in the cards but only a lily-livered are selling ahead of evidence, having gotten burned at various points all year.

So, it looks like we can expect a lower dollar and higher gold/silver/platinum/copper well into the new year. Then watch out, but remember, we are among the lily-livered.

Tidbit: We have a peculiar dichotomy between what people say they feel about the economy—it’s awful—and what they do—spend like drunken sailors.

A Gallup poll “…finds 24% of Americans satisfied and 74% dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, which is unchanged from November but more negative than all other readings since January. As recently as May, 38% of U.S. adults were satisfied. Satisfaction levels remain slightly higher than at the end of the Biden administration.

“Declining satisfaction has coincided with worsening views of the economy in recent months. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index currently sits at -33, which is down 10 points from October and 19 points from June, and is the lowest it has been since registering -35 in July 2024. The index summarizes Americans’ evaluations of current economic conditions and their perceptions of whether the economy is getting better or getting worse. It has a theoretical range of -100 to +100.”

We know not to trust polls but golly. Dems think this means the midterm elections belong to them next November.