Friday seems like a long time ago
January 19, 2026
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–The US honors Martin Luther King today, with most securities markets and banks closed, but CME has an abbreviated morning session.
–It’s a bit surreal that trade tensions have been ratcheted up over Greenland with a new round of Trump tariffs, but that’s where we are, with gold up $75 this morning (GCG6 new high just below $4700). ESH6 is currently down 1.15% (6896) and NQH6 down 1.60% to 25280, -408. Trump is also threatening military intervention, but it’s unclear whether the US has the capability to execute wars on two fronts: Greenland AND Minnesota.
(“We’re not going to Moscow. It’s Czechoslovakia. It’s like going into Wisconsin.” “Well I got the shit kicked out of me in Wisconsin once. Forget it.”)
–USH is currently 114-29, testing lows from early in the month (114-26 on 6-Jan) and potentially revisiting the double bottom of 114-17 in December. Not much in the way of ftq in long treasuries…
–A few notes from Friday: early in the session there was a new buyer of 200k 2QM6 9600p for 3.0. Open interest rose 84k and the put settled 4.0 vs 9650. Technical factors which support a trend are increased volume and open interest, along with a rise in implied vol. Vols did firm and open interest jumped 62k in TU, 61k in FV and a whopping 96k in TY. Given the price action (10y yield rose 6.7 bps Friday to a new recent high 4.227%) one would typically conclude that lower treasury prices are sparking new sellers, whether hedge or spec, confirming the trend. However, a big part of the open interest increase can be attributed to block BUYS: +50k TYH6 111-28 and +20k FVH 108-2675. In any case, settles on both contracts were lower: TYH 111-24 and FVH 108-2325.
–It’s also Blue Monday (third Monday in January). Chicago temps this morning are right around zero fahrenheit to add misery to the Bears overtime loss to the LA Rams. Davos is starting, so we can all hope that world problems can be solved.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with Blue Monday by New [World] Order. Mark Carney’s band…”But I’m quite sure that you’ll tell me, just how I should feel today”.
