Sell low, cover high, baby!
That's the latest expressed by consensus macro positioning as the S&P 500 hit a new all-time high last week.
"The S&P 500 (index + E-mini) net LONG position ramped another +94,526 contracts last week to +154,009 futures & options contracts. To put that in context, that’s a +2.37x move on a 1-year Z-score (at the lows in February, it was a net SHORT position of -280,000 contracts)," Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough writes this morning.
On a related note, a no confidence vote for the all-time high came by way of total equity market volume which crashed -23% versus its 1-year average on Friday:
Volatility?
The VIX is registering a foreboding level. As Hedgeye U.S. Macro analyst Christian Drake pointed out in Friday's Early Look:
"In the Chart of the Day below we simply show VIX vs S&P500 (S&P500 is inverted on right axis). What you’ll simply notice is how simply effective it is to take down gross exposure and tighten net exposure when VIX goes <13."
#Simple
None of this bodes well for the bulls blindly buying the all-time high.