Offshore
Photo
EndGame Macro
The Dollar’s Most Crowded Bet Is the Wrong One
The top half is the broad dollar index. The bottom half is hedge fund positioning in the dollar, a simple read on whether the fast money is leaning long or short. When that lower line sinks deep into negative territory, it means funds are heavily short the dollar. And historically, whenever positioning gets this one sided, the dollar is either sitting near a local bottom or about to turn higher. You can see the rhythm across the past twenty years: every cycle of heavy shorting eventually gives way to a dollar rebound.
What stands out today is that hedge funds are back in that sell everything USD zone while the dollar itself is sitting toward the lower end of its range. That mix is usually a warning sign. It means people aren’t shorting a strong dollar, they’re shorting a weak one. And that combination rarely holds for long because it leaves the market vulnerable to any shift in sentiment or liquidity.
The Bigger Story Behind the Positioning
These extreme shorts don’t appear in a vacuum. When funds pile into anti dollar trades, they’re effectively betting that global conditions will stay calm and liquidity will stay easy. But the broader macro tone doesn’t match that optimism. Growth is slowing, the front end of the Treasury curve is already pricing future Fed cuts, and dollar funding markets have started to tighten around the edges. In that kind of backdrop, you don’t need a crisis for the dollar to move, you just need the world to feel slightly less certain.
This is why positioning matters so much here. When hedge funds crowd into one direction, they leave themselves exposed; any wobble in risk appetite or liquidity can force a quick snap back. And the dollar tends to be the first asset people buy when the mood shifts from everything is fine to “
wait, something feels off.
My View From Here
This setup doesn’t guarantee a major dollar bull run, but it does tell you that the downside is probably limited. When positioning is this stretched, the dollar doesn’t need great news to rise, it only needs reality to fall short of perfection. And right now, with the cycle cooling and markets running on thinner liquidity, that’s a very plausible outcome.
So the heart of the chart is simple: hedge funds are leaning aggressively against the dollar at a moment when the macro environment is becoming less forgiving. That’s usually the kind of moment where the dollar stops drifting lower and starts pushing back.
tweet
The Dollar’s Most Crowded Bet Is the Wrong One
The top half is the broad dollar index. The bottom half is hedge fund positioning in the dollar, a simple read on whether the fast money is leaning long or short. When that lower line sinks deep into negative territory, it means funds are heavily short the dollar. And historically, whenever positioning gets this one sided, the dollar is either sitting near a local bottom or about to turn higher. You can see the rhythm across the past twenty years: every cycle of heavy shorting eventually gives way to a dollar rebound.
What stands out today is that hedge funds are back in that sell everything USD zone while the dollar itself is sitting toward the lower end of its range. That mix is usually a warning sign. It means people aren’t shorting a strong dollar, they’re shorting a weak one. And that combination rarely holds for long because it leaves the market vulnerable to any shift in sentiment or liquidity.
The Bigger Story Behind the Positioning
These extreme shorts don’t appear in a vacuum. When funds pile into anti dollar trades, they’re effectively betting that global conditions will stay calm and liquidity will stay easy. But the broader macro tone doesn’t match that optimism. Growth is slowing, the front end of the Treasury curve is already pricing future Fed cuts, and dollar funding markets have started to tighten around the edges. In that kind of backdrop, you don’t need a crisis for the dollar to move, you just need the world to feel slightly less certain.
This is why positioning matters so much here. When hedge funds crowd into one direction, they leave themselves exposed; any wobble in risk appetite or liquidity can force a quick snap back. And the dollar tends to be the first asset people buy when the mood shifts from everything is fine to “
wait, something feels off.
My View From Here
This setup doesn’t guarantee a major dollar bull run, but it does tell you that the downside is probably limited. When positioning is this stretched, the dollar doesn’t need great news to rise, it only needs reality to fall short of perfection. And right now, with the cycle cooling and markets running on thinner liquidity, that’s a very plausible outcome.
So the heart of the chart is simple: hedge funds are leaning aggressively against the dollar at a moment when the macro environment is becoming less forgiving. That’s usually the kind of moment where the dollar stops drifting lower and starts pushing back.
Is it time to turn contrarian on the King Dollar?
Hedge funds are holding significant short positions in the DXY, and historically, similar levels have often preceded solid buying opportunities—at least for a short-term rebound.
When a trade becomes too crowded, it’s usually worth considering the opposite side. tweet
Offshore
Photo
EndGame Macro
Breakevens Don’t Drop in a Healthy Economy
The 5 year breakeven is one of the cleanest signals the market gives about where inflation is likely to settle over the next few years. It isn’t reacting to this month’s CPI print, it reflects the deeper mix of growth expectations, policy credibility, and how much risk investors feel they need to be compensated for. When it’s rising, the market is essentially saying inflation will stay stubborn. When it starts drifting lower, it’s usually telling you conditions are cooling under the surface.
Right now we’re sitting near 2.30%, close to the lows of the year, after spending the early part of 2025 closer to 2.6–2.7%. That shift isn’t random. It lines up with the broader pattern we’ve seen: the 2 year rolling below Fed funds, two rate cuts already delivered, QT ending next week, and softer tone across growth data. If the economy were truly heating up, breakevens wouldn’t be slipping, investors would be demanding more inflation protection, not less.
What It Means Going Forward
This move down in breakevens is the market quietly acknowledging that the inflation scare has broken and the real tension is drifting back toward growth. When breakevens slide like this, it’s the market quietly saying inflation isn’t the threat anymore, the slowdown is. Investors only let future inflation pricing sink when they’re convinced the economy doesn’t have enough strength left to generate meaningful price pressure on its own. It’s essentially an admission that demand is cooling, momentum is fading, and the Fed won’t need to lean against overheating because the cycle is already losing steam. Lower breakevens are a sign growth is softening beneath the surface.
So the message here is subtle but important…expectations are normalizing because the cycle is slowing, not because we’re entering some booming new phase. A breakeven sitting just above 2% with a bearish tilt usually belongs to a late cycle environment, a place where inflation risk is no longer the main story and the market is starting to price the possibility that the Fed may need to ease more to keep the slowdown from slipping too far.
It’s a calm surface with a familiar undertow, the kind you see before the conversation shifts from inflation to growth.
tweet
Breakevens Don’t Drop in a Healthy Economy
The 5 year breakeven is one of the cleanest signals the market gives about where inflation is likely to settle over the next few years. It isn’t reacting to this month’s CPI print, it reflects the deeper mix of growth expectations, policy credibility, and how much risk investors feel they need to be compensated for. When it’s rising, the market is essentially saying inflation will stay stubborn. When it starts drifting lower, it’s usually telling you conditions are cooling under the surface.
Right now we’re sitting near 2.30%, close to the lows of the year, after spending the early part of 2025 closer to 2.6–2.7%. That shift isn’t random. It lines up with the broader pattern we’ve seen: the 2 year rolling below Fed funds, two rate cuts already delivered, QT ending next week, and softer tone across growth data. If the economy were truly heating up, breakevens wouldn’t be slipping, investors would be demanding more inflation protection, not less.
What It Means Going Forward
This move down in breakevens is the market quietly acknowledging that the inflation scare has broken and the real tension is drifting back toward growth. When breakevens slide like this, it’s the market quietly saying inflation isn’t the threat anymore, the slowdown is. Investors only let future inflation pricing sink when they’re convinced the economy doesn’t have enough strength left to generate meaningful price pressure on its own. It’s essentially an admission that demand is cooling, momentum is fading, and the Fed won’t need to lean against overheating because the cycle is already losing steam. Lower breakevens are a sign growth is softening beneath the surface.
So the message here is subtle but important…expectations are normalizing because the cycle is slowing, not because we’re entering some booming new phase. A breakeven sitting just above 2% with a bearish tilt usually belongs to a late cycle environment, a place where inflation risk is no longer the main story and the market is starting to price the possibility that the Fed may need to ease more to keep the slowdown from slipping too far.
It’s a calm surface with a familiar undertow, the kind you see before the conversation shifts from inflation to growth.
Bond mkt now pricing in 5Y inflation rate at 2.30% - near the lows of the 1yr range - having coming down 11bp MTD despite no additional inflation data since 10/24. https://t.co/u4WiRaYQmG tweet
Offshore
Photo
Wasteland Capital
Another killer $BABA report! 耶! Acceleration to +15% like-for-like revenue growth vs +10% last Q. Cloud +34% vs +26% last Q. Quick commerce rev +60% (huge S&M spend, but winning the war?). Massive cloud capex continues (RMB120bn LTM), 9th Q of triple-digit AI-rev growth. 太棒了! https://t.co/rDxgpTPbWK
tweet
Another killer $BABA report! 耶! Acceleration to +15% like-for-like revenue growth vs +10% last Q. Cloud +34% vs +26% last Q. Quick commerce rev +60% (huge S&M spend, but winning the war?). Massive cloud capex continues (RMB120bn LTM), 9th Q of triple-digit AI-rev growth. 太棒了! https://t.co/rDxgpTPbWK
tweet
Offshore
Photo
WealthyReadings
$BABA cloud services continue its growth acceleration and margins expansion.
In brief: more cash generation.
No surprises for me & many $BABA bulls. https://t.co/unPi9uX7SE
tweet
$BABA cloud services continue its growth acceleration and margins expansion.
In brief: more cash generation.
No surprises for me & many $BABA bulls. https://t.co/unPi9uX7SE
tweet
Offshore
Photo
WealthyReadings
$BABA Chinese e-commerce platform continues to accelerate revenues. Chinese consumption is re-accelerating, boosted by governmental policies.
Once again: no surprises for me & many $BABA bulls. https://t.co/1EDIRDhby8
tweet
$BABA Chinese e-commerce platform continues to accelerate revenues. Chinese consumption is re-accelerating, boosted by governmental policies.
Once again: no surprises for me & many $BABA bulls. https://t.co/1EDIRDhby8
tweet
Offshore
Video
EndGame Macro
The Recession Has Already Started And Here’s the Proof No One Wants to Look At
This isn’t a doom thread, it’s the actual sequence a credit driven recession follows, and today’s data fits that playbook almost perfectly. These cycles don’t hit all at once; they fall like dominos. And once the first few tip, the rest usually follow.
Here’s how that chain reaction works, and where current numbers place us.
Subprime Cracks First
Serious auto loan delinquencies are now around 5%, basically back to the 5.3% GFC peak. Student loan delinquencies sit near 9.4%, far above the 6.5% peak in 2009. Multiple subprime auto lenders have failed or stopped originating. That’s always the first break.
Collateral Starts Failing
Office CMBS delinquencies have hit 11.8%, the highest ever recorded. Bank CRE delinquencies remain near 1.5%, but the stress is concentrated in office loans with brutal refinancing math. Auto collateral is weakening. Specialty lenders and suppliers are folding around the edges.
Specialty Finance Blows Up
Tricolor is bankrupt. PrimaLend is gone. Automotive Credit Corp stopped originating. First Brands collapsed with $10B+ liabilities. When these non bank lenders vanish, entire credit channels freeze long before banks make official moves.
Banks Tighten Broadly
This is where credit stress becomes a real economy problem. Banks pull lines, raise standards, cut approvals, and tighten across CRE and consumer credit. Small businesses lose financing. Households can’t qualify. CRE borrowers can’t roll debt. We’re entering this phase now.
Unemployment Turns Up
Labor always lags credit. Announced job cuts have already exceeded 1 million, one of the worst years since 2009. Unemployment has climbed to 4.4%, rising slowly but steadily, exactly how recessions begin before they become official.
Corporate Stress Spreads
Around 655 large corporate bankruptcies have been filed through October, the highest in 15 years. Industrial and consumer discretionary names are getting hit. This is the middle innings of the downturn.
Funding Markets Send Warnings
The 2 year (3.5%) is now below Fed funds (3.75–4%), a clear sign policy is too tight. The curve has shifted into a pre recession bull steepener. Five year breakevens are 2.3%, near the bottom of their post COVID range. Crude is under $60, down almost 20% YTD. These are early tremors in the plumbing.
The Fed Gets Forced to Move
If unemployment heads toward 6% next year, which this setup typically produces the Fed’s gentle drift to 3% over years collapses. With rising joblessness, slowing inflation, and swelling deficits, real rates can’t stay tight. A 200–300 bp cut cycle is the realistic path. If funding stress or deflation bites, cuts closer to zero aren’t dramatic, they’re math.
Housing and Markets
Mortgage rates drifting from the low 6s into the mid 5s over the next year is likely, with high 4s possible if unemployment rises. But lower rates won’t stop prices from falling. A 10–20% national decline over a couple of years is reasonable, deeper in the most levered metros.
Markets follow three acts: denial then earnings reality and then policy panic. Historically that delivers a 20–30% drawdown before liquidity ignites the rebound.
The Bottom Line
Combine GFC style delinquencies, record office stress, 650+ bankruptcies, 1M+ layoffs, rising unemployment, a bull steepening curve, falling breakevens, and sub $60 oil and you don’t get a soft landing. You get a recession already moving.
The real question now whether we get a deep but manageable downturn, or a sharper deflation scare before policymakers finally step in.
tweet
The Recession Has Already Started And Here’s the Proof No One Wants to Look At
This isn’t a doom thread, it’s the actual sequence a credit driven recession follows, and today’s data fits that playbook almost perfectly. These cycles don’t hit all at once; they fall like dominos. And once the first few tip, the rest usually follow.
Here’s how that chain reaction works, and where current numbers place us.
Subprime Cracks First
Serious auto loan delinquencies are now around 5%, basically back to the 5.3% GFC peak. Student loan delinquencies sit near 9.4%, far above the 6.5% peak in 2009. Multiple subprime auto lenders have failed or stopped originating. That’s always the first break.
Collateral Starts Failing
Office CMBS delinquencies have hit 11.8%, the highest ever recorded. Bank CRE delinquencies remain near 1.5%, but the stress is concentrated in office loans with brutal refinancing math. Auto collateral is weakening. Specialty lenders and suppliers are folding around the edges.
Specialty Finance Blows Up
Tricolor is bankrupt. PrimaLend is gone. Automotive Credit Corp stopped originating. First Brands collapsed with $10B+ liabilities. When these non bank lenders vanish, entire credit channels freeze long before banks make official moves.
Banks Tighten Broadly
This is where credit stress becomes a real economy problem. Banks pull lines, raise standards, cut approvals, and tighten across CRE and consumer credit. Small businesses lose financing. Households can’t qualify. CRE borrowers can’t roll debt. We’re entering this phase now.
Unemployment Turns Up
Labor always lags credit. Announced job cuts have already exceeded 1 million, one of the worst years since 2009. Unemployment has climbed to 4.4%, rising slowly but steadily, exactly how recessions begin before they become official.
Corporate Stress Spreads
Around 655 large corporate bankruptcies have been filed through October, the highest in 15 years. Industrial and consumer discretionary names are getting hit. This is the middle innings of the downturn.
Funding Markets Send Warnings
The 2 year (3.5%) is now below Fed funds (3.75–4%), a clear sign policy is too tight. The curve has shifted into a pre recession bull steepener. Five year breakevens are 2.3%, near the bottom of their post COVID range. Crude is under $60, down almost 20% YTD. These are early tremors in the plumbing.
The Fed Gets Forced to Move
If unemployment heads toward 6% next year, which this setup typically produces the Fed’s gentle drift to 3% over years collapses. With rising joblessness, slowing inflation, and swelling deficits, real rates can’t stay tight. A 200–300 bp cut cycle is the realistic path. If funding stress or deflation bites, cuts closer to zero aren’t dramatic, they’re math.
Housing and Markets
Mortgage rates drifting from the low 6s into the mid 5s over the next year is likely, with high 4s possible if unemployment rises. But lower rates won’t stop prices from falling. A 10–20% national decline over a couple of years is reasonable, deeper in the most levered metros.
Markets follow three acts: denial then earnings reality and then policy panic. Historically that delivers a 20–30% drawdown before liquidity ignites the rebound.
The Bottom Line
Combine GFC style delinquencies, record office stress, 650+ bankruptcies, 1M+ layoffs, rising unemployment, a bull steepening curve, falling breakevens, and sub $60 oil and you don’t get a soft landing. You get a recession already moving.
The real question now whether we get a deep but manageable downturn, or a sharper deflation scare before policymakers finally step in.
tweet
AkhenOsiris
$GENI
Genius Sports today announced a global partnership with Publicis Sports to reshape the future of fan engagement through FANHub, Genius Sports’ proprietary sports advertising platform.
Through FANHub, Publicis Sports clients will gain access to the most advanced sports advertising technologies available. This AI-driven platform enables brands to connect with specific, verified fans at peak moments of passion and attention, delivering messaging that aligns seamlessly with in-game action. By leveraging Genius Sports’ proprietary data signals, Publicis Sports further strengthens its rich data sets, enabling teams to activate real-time campaigns that move in sync with the game-turning key moments of drama, triumph, and surprise into powerful opportunities for brand engagement and emotional connection.
tweet
$GENI
Genius Sports today announced a global partnership with Publicis Sports to reshape the future of fan engagement through FANHub, Genius Sports’ proprietary sports advertising platform.
Through FANHub, Publicis Sports clients will gain access to the most advanced sports advertising technologies available. This AI-driven platform enables brands to connect with specific, verified fans at peak moments of passion and attention, delivering messaging that aligns seamlessly with in-game action. By leveraging Genius Sports’ proprietary data signals, Publicis Sports further strengthens its rich data sets, enabling teams to activate real-time campaigns that move in sync with the game-turning key moments of drama, triumph, and surprise into powerful opportunities for brand engagement and emotional connection.
tweet
EndGame Macro
The ADP Pulse Just Flashed Its First Real Warning
The latest ADP Pulse number is an important shift in the labor story. For the four weeks ending November 8th, private employers net cut about 13,500 jobs per week, which means the job market has slipped from merely cooling to actually contracting at the margins. ADP’s data runs on real time payrolls, so it often picks up turns before the official reports do. When hiring freezes quietly become small, steady job losses, it’s usually a sign that businesses are feeling real pressure, not in a headline grabbing way, but in the decisions they make inside budgeting meetings, headcount conversations, and department level planning.
Put alongside with over a million layoffs this year, unemployment drifting into the mid 4s, rising delinquencies, and an uptick in large corporate bankruptcies and this reading is part of the same broader turn. It signals a labor market that’s losing resilience and no longer absorbing the strain from tighter credit and weaker demand. If this continues, it typically shows up next as softer payroll prints, more caution from businesses, and consumers pulling back. This raises the odds that the slowdown is already underway and that policy will have to respond sooner than the current narrative admits.
tweet
The ADP Pulse Just Flashed Its First Real Warning
The latest ADP Pulse number is an important shift in the labor story. For the four weeks ending November 8th, private employers net cut about 13,500 jobs per week, which means the job market has slipped from merely cooling to actually contracting at the margins. ADP’s data runs on real time payrolls, so it often picks up turns before the official reports do. When hiring freezes quietly become small, steady job losses, it’s usually a sign that businesses are feeling real pressure, not in a headline grabbing way, but in the decisions they make inside budgeting meetings, headcount conversations, and department level planning.
Put alongside with over a million layoffs this year, unemployment drifting into the mid 4s, rising delinquencies, and an uptick in large corporate bankruptcies and this reading is part of the same broader turn. It signals a labor market that’s losing resilience and no longer absorbing the strain from tighter credit and weaker demand. If this continues, it typically shows up next as softer payroll prints, more caution from businesses, and consumers pulling back. This raises the odds that the slowdown is already underway and that policy will have to respond sooner than the current narrative admits.
tweet
X (formerly Twitter)
EndGame Macro (@onechancefreedm) on X
The ADP Pulse Just Flashed Its First Real Warning
The latest ADP Pulse number is an important shift in the labor story. For the four weeks ending November 8th, private employers net cut about 13,500 jobs per week, which means the job market has slipped from…
The latest ADP Pulse number is an important shift in the labor story. For the four weeks ending November 8th, private employers net cut about 13,500 jobs per week, which means the job market has slipped from…
Offshore
Photo
EndGame Macro
David Levenson Explains the Hidden Mechanics Behind the GFC Housing Shock And Why Homeowners Won
This diagram is basically a map of how the housing finance system looked during the Great Financial Crisis and who supplied the mortgage money, where the payments flowed back, and why homeowners who survived the bust ended up in a far stronger position than the banks that lent to them.
On the left you’ve got the main sources of mortgage credit. Fannie and Freddie made up roughly half the market. Big banks like JPMorgan, Wells, Bank of America, and Citi added about a quarter. Regionals contributed another chunk, and the smaller lenders filled in the rest. All of that money funneled into the homes, and on the way back you see the cash flows: monthly payments, refinancing waves, and then the moment when lenders started trying to slow down prepayments because falling rates were hammering their returns.
The Real Story: Rates Collapsed, and Homeowners Benefited
The red 10% → 0% arrow is the heart of the story. As the crisis unfolded, interest rates didn’t just fall…they cratered. When rates drop like that, the entire math of homeownership shifts. Inflation cooled, disposable income sagged a bit, but the real cost of carrying a mortgage fell much faster. Anyone who kept their house was suddenly able to refinance into dramatically cheaper debt.
And that’s why, on the right, you see the note that real home prices rose 77% coming out of the crisis. Despite the pain of 2008–2010, the combination of ultra low rates and stable incomes created a huge tailwind for homeowners. Meanwhile, lenders took losses, got paid back early on higher yield loans, and were forced to reinvest at much lower returns.
So the quiet message in this chart is that the GFC didn’t just break banks, it shifted wealth toward households who stayed in their homes. When rates go from painfully high to basically zero, the balance of power tilts toward the borrower, not the lender. This is the plumbing behind that outcome.
tweet
David Levenson Explains the Hidden Mechanics Behind the GFC Housing Shock And Why Homeowners Won
This diagram is basically a map of how the housing finance system looked during the Great Financial Crisis and who supplied the mortgage money, where the payments flowed back, and why homeowners who survived the bust ended up in a far stronger position than the banks that lent to them.
On the left you’ve got the main sources of mortgage credit. Fannie and Freddie made up roughly half the market. Big banks like JPMorgan, Wells, Bank of America, and Citi added about a quarter. Regionals contributed another chunk, and the smaller lenders filled in the rest. All of that money funneled into the homes, and on the way back you see the cash flows: monthly payments, refinancing waves, and then the moment when lenders started trying to slow down prepayments because falling rates were hammering their returns.
The Real Story: Rates Collapsed, and Homeowners Benefited
The red 10% → 0% arrow is the heart of the story. As the crisis unfolded, interest rates didn’t just fall…they cratered. When rates drop like that, the entire math of homeownership shifts. Inflation cooled, disposable income sagged a bit, but the real cost of carrying a mortgage fell much faster. Anyone who kept their house was suddenly able to refinance into dramatically cheaper debt.
And that’s why, on the right, you see the note that real home prices rose 77% coming out of the crisis. Despite the pain of 2008–2010, the combination of ultra low rates and stable incomes created a huge tailwind for homeowners. Meanwhile, lenders took losses, got paid back early on higher yield loans, and were forced to reinvest at much lower returns.
So the quiet message in this chart is that the GFC didn’t just break banks, it shifted wealth toward households who stayed in their homes. When rates go from painfully high to basically zero, the balance of power tilts toward the borrower, not the lender. This is the plumbing behind that outcome.
https://t.co/FJxKHGCRND tweet