It's been almost a year since this many traders were betting against stocks
It's been almost a year since traders were betting against the S&P 500 like this.
According to data from UBS, as of last week, traders continued to add to short positions on S&P 500 E-mini futures, meaning these folks were betting that stock prices would fall.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 made a new all-time high.
UBS attributed the short bets to investors remaining concerned about the Fed, the US economic outlook, and the positive first quarter earnings surprise.
But as we've seen in recent data from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, clearly there is some sort of divergence in the market wherein more and more people grow less and less confident in stocks.
As far as UBS is concerned, however, the best case scenario for stocks would be a "hike-and-wait approach to tightening by the Fed, which would offset the negative impact on equities from higher inflation and lower growth."
