Similarly in TLT, short interest has been building massively in 2012 and shorts have been gaining exposure via futures in long term treasuries, and as TLT put buyers and TBT call buyers continued to pile on when TLT finally “cracked” in early March, this was met by technical support at the 200 day moving average in the ETF. It almost feels like shorts have been getting stopped out of positions on the recent TLT upswing, and this has added fuel to the recent buying pressure in the longer dated treasury bond space.
Several other fixed income ETFs also ranked high on the list of weekly creations, including SPDR Barclays Capital Short Term Corporate Bond (NYSEArca: SCPB) which took in more than $240 million and iShares Barclays 1-3 Year Treasury Bond (NYSEArca: SHY) accumulated about $170 million.
All in all, it was a light week in terms of ETF creations, as we mentioned, TLT was the leader with only $400 million, and in a normal week it is certainly feasible to see one, if not several ETFs pull in more than $1 billion apiece. On the redemptions side of the equation, SPY lost more than $2.5 billion in assets, followed by SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEArca: DIA) (-$580 million), the Nasdaq-100 PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ) (-$550 million), iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSEArca: EEM) (-$550 million) and SPDR High Yield Bond (NYSEArca: JNK) (-360 million).
Going into this week, fundamentals are still top of mind as we wade through earnings season, and the equity markets are flirting with delicate technical levels at the moment so near term activity could be very pivotal in determining if we have another summer that resembled that of 2011.
The Nasdaq-100 ETF lost more than 2% last week.
Nasdaq-100 PowerShares QQQ (Weekly Chart)
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