How To Trade The ‘Short Of A Lifetime’

 

June 13, 2016, 5:00pm EST

Last week we talked a lot about the German bund yield, the most important market in the world right now.  Today we want to talk about how to trade it.

The best investors in the world love asymmetric bets (limited downside and virtually, if not literally, unlimited upside).  That’s the true recipe to building huge wealth.  And there is no better asymmetric bet in the world right now than the German 10-year bund.

With that in mind, in recent weeks, we’ve revisited Bill Gross’ statement last year, when the 10-year government bond yields in Germany were flirting with zero the first time.  He called it the “short of a lifetime” to be short the price of German bunds – looking for yields to bounce back.  It happened.  And it happened aggressively.  Within two months the German 10 year yield rocketed from 6 basis points to over 100 basis points (over 1%).  But even Gross himself wasn’t on board to the extent he wanted to be.  The bounce was so fast, it left a lot of the visionaries of this trade behind.

But over the past year, it’s all come back.

Is it a second chance?  German yields are hovering just a touch above zero — threatening to break into negative yield territory for one of the world’s most important government bond markets.

As we said on Friday, the zero line on the German 10-year government bond yield is huge psychological marker for perceived value and credibility of the ECB’s QE efforts. And that has huge consequences, not just for Europe, but for the global economy.

Given the importance of this level (regarding ECB credibility), it’s no surprise that the zero line isn’t giving way easily.  This is precisely why Bill Gross called it the “short of a lifetime.” With that, let’s take a look at the incredible risk/reward this represents, and a simple way that one might trade it.

There is a euro bund future (symbol GBL) that tracks the price of the German 10-year bund.  Right now, you can trade 1 contract of the German bund future at a value of 164,770 euros by putting up margin of 3,800 euros (the overnight margin at a leading retail broker).  If you went short the bund future, here are some potential scenarios:

If you break the zero line in yield, the euro bund future would trade up to about 165.50 (it currently trade 164.77).  If you stopped out on a break of zero in yield, you lose 730 euros (about $820 per contract).  If the zero line doesn’t breach, and yields do indeed bounce from here, you make about 1,500 euros for every 10 basis point move higher in the German 10-year bund yield.

For example, on a bounce back to 32 basis points, where we stood on March 15th, the profit on your short position would be about 4,600 euros (or about $5,200).  If German bund yields don’t breach zero and bounce back to 1%, where it traded just a year ago, you would make about 15,000 euros ($16,900) per contract on your initial risk of $820 – a 20 to 1 winner.  Of course, there are margin costs to consider, given the holding period of the trade, but in a zero rate world, it’s relatively small.

If you’re wrong, and the German 10-year yield breaches zero, you’ll know it soon.

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