zuberman🐬

They are bending me over. Anyone else?

Institutional investors are betting on higher volatility: Net $VIX futures positioning among asset managers is up to +$18 million, the highest since November. This marks a sharp reversal from the net short positioning seen over the last 3 months, with the low reaching -$50 million in January. By comparison, the low over the last 3 years was -$64.1 million in July 2024, right before the VIX exploded +280% during the Yen carry trade unwind. In other words, asset managers are the most hedged against market volatility in months. Is another surge in volatility already priced-in?

Software horror: litellm PyPI supply chain attack. Simple `pip install litellm` was enough to exfiltrate SSH keys, AWS/GCP/Azure creds, Kubernetes configs, git credentials, env vars (all your API keys), shell history, crypto wallets, SSL private keys, CI/CD secrets, database passwords. LiteLLM itself has 97 million downloads per month which is already terrible, but much worse, the contagion spreads to any project that depends on litellm. For example, if you did `pip install dspy` (which depended on litellm>=1.64.0), you'd also be pwnd. Same for any other large project that depended on litellm. Afaict the poisoned version was up for only less than ~1 hour. The attack had a bug which led to its discovery - Callum McMahon was using an MCP plugin inside Cursor that pulled in litellm as a transitive dependency. When litellm 1.82.8 installed, their machine ran out of RAM and crashed. So if the attacker didn't vibe code this attack it could have been undetected for many days or weeks. Supply chain attacks like this are basically the scariest thing imaginable in modern software. Every time you install any depedency you could be pulling in a poisoned package anywhere deep inside its entire depedency tree. This is especially risky with large projects that might have lots and lots of dependencies. The credentials that do get stolen in each attack can then be used to take over more accounts and compromise more packages. Classical software engineering would have you believe that dependencies are good (we're building pyramids from bricks), but imo this has to be re-evaluated, and it's why I've been so growingly averse to them, preferring to use LLMs to "yoink" functionality when it's simple enough and possible.

The West is relatively “protected" from the current energy shock: Oil currently flowing through global shipping routes is down to ~1,430 million barrels, down -270 million over the last 3 weeks. Meanwhile, OECD Europe and Americas commercial crude flows are up to ~960 million barrels, the highest since at least 2024. Since the start of 2026, Western commercial crude flows have risen +50 million barrels, even as global oil in transit collapses. In fact, US oil giants are now set for one of their most profitable years on record. The US is pumping and selling oil like never before.

Investors are pouring money into energy stocks at a record pace: Global energy equity funds have attracted a record +$9.5 billion in inflows over the last 3 weeks. By comparison, the previous peak was +$7 billion at the beginning of 2021. The 2022 spike, when WTI Crude oil surged to $129 per barrel, was +$6 billion. As a result, global energy equity funds have now seen inflows for 5 consecutive weeks, the longest streak since 2017. This all comes after nearly 2 years of consistent outflows. Energy stocks are seeing historic inflows.

Absolutely incredible: The US 20Y Note Yield is now back to 5.00% less than 24 hours after President Trump said peace talks were underway. The threat of 7% mortgages and $4.00 gas prices has become reality. Bond markets say this war is unsustainable.

Bugün 9:55-10:15 arasında piyasaların nasıl davranacağı çok şeyi belirler bence. Eğer alım gelirse büyük oyuncuların bu barış olasılığını hafife almadığını gösterir. Volume düşük olacaktır, ve gün içinde yine düşüş olabilir ama o aradaki hareketin günün diğer kısımlarına göre göreceli hareketi bana çok şey anlatacak. Aynı şekilde son yarım saat (power hour)’ı da dikkatle inceleyeceğim. Bakalım ne göreceğiz. Ama bu başlangıçta dünkğ kadar ümitli değilim kesinlikle.