Ken, what you are looking for is the CFTC's commitment of traders report, which comes out every two weeks and is reproduced in Barron's as well. commitments of traders are divided into three categories (note, futures are a zero-sum game...the amount of shorts is always equal to the amount of longs), small traders, big speculators, and commercial hedgers. what your friend was referring to was the record high short position of the commercial hedgers. they are considered better informed regarding future market direction than the traders (big or small). in fact, a record net long position by big traders two reports in a row is considered intermediate term bearish (they were e.g. caught over 4,000 NDX futures net long the week the NAZ declined 25%). it follows that when the commercials are short, the traders are long. a big net short position by commercials in the spoos has been a rarity in recent years. the last time it occurred in a significant way was in the summer of '98.
options open interest is a different kettle of fish...once again, the 'writers' (i.e. holders of short option positions) are considered to be the smarter segment of participants. thus, when the call open interest on a series of index options is much larger than the put open interest, it is viewed as a negative for the market and vice versa.
regards,
hb |
