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Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou
Cross-Asset Market Strategy
Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou is a Managing Director at JPMorgan, specializing in Global Market Strategy.1 He is based in London and focuses on various aspects of market analysis, including Alternatives and Digital Assets.1
As part of his role, Panigirtzoglou regularly shares insights and analyses on market trends and developments. Some of his recent observations include:
- Commentary on U.S. flow of funds data, which he shared in December 2023.2
- Analysis of divergences between equity and crypto markets, with particular attention to retail investor behavior, which he discussed in August 2020.3
- Insights on the impact of regulatory developments, such as the release of "Hinman documents" in the SEC vs. Ripple case, on the cryptocurrency market, particularly Ethereum, which he shared in June 2023.4
Panigirtzoglou's expertise appears to span a wide range of financial topics, from traditional equity markets to emerging areas like digital assets. His position at JPMorgan and his regular market commentary suggest that he is a respected voice in global market strategy, providing analysis on complex market dynamics and emerging trends in the financial sector.
Highlights
After contracting in April, US liquidity or M2 money supply, i.e. the sum of the stock of US bank deposits and Money Market Funds (MMFs), rebounded in recent months. While this rebound challenges our forecast for a mildly contracting trend until at least year-end, we believe that our forecast is still reasonable and that the recent rebound in US liquidity is likely to prove temporary. In our mind there have been two temporary boosts to US liquidity recently. One temporary boost to US liquidity emanated from the recent decline in the US Treasury General Account (TGA) to below the $850bn level the US Treasury expects for September-end. The second temporary boost emanated from the recent reduction in the Fed’s reverse repo facility to below $300bn in August. With these two temporary boosts likely behind us, the Fed’s ongoing QT and a milder expansion of US bank loans should all combine to create a contracting trajectory for US liquidity or money supply, similar to the liquidity backdrop of 2022. And this would represent a big change from the past year and in particular the 11-month period between the end of April 2023 and the end of March 2024, when US money supply had expanded by $1.3tr, largely as the result of the liquidity injection induced by the $1.8tr reduction in the Fed’s reverse repo facility.
The mean of net long positions in Brent futures by the managed money category appears to have a experienced a structural shift post the pandemic, as the supply of net short positions by the “producer/user” category has been reduced.
After taking this structural break into account, we find that discretionary spec investors had exhibited marked OWs in Brent oil futures in September 2023 and early April 2024, but are significantly UW currently.
For copper futures, our momentum signals were very close to extreme levels around the recent peak on May 21st, suggesting the triggering of mean reversion or profit taking signals by momentum traders such as CTAs likely played a role in the subsequent retracement.
Similar triggering of mean-reversion signals has likely taken place in gold futures on recent local peaks.
Despite the recent retrenchment, both copper and gold futures remain in overbought territory (in contrast to Brent oil futures that look oversold).
