ORLANDO, Florida, May 8 (Reuters) - TRADING DAY

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By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist

Wot's ... uh the deal?

A wave of trade optimism washed over markets on Thursday as a deal between the United States and Britain, cooling global tensions and a generally less belligerent stance from Washington spurred sharp gains in equities and other risk assets like bitcoin.

In my column today I dig into why the tariff chaos of last month meant macro hedge funds in April suffered one of their worst maulings in years, and why the near-term outlook remains challenging. More on that below, but first, a roundup of the main market moves.

I'd love to hear from you, so please reach out to me with comments at [email protected] , opens new tab. You can also follow me at @ReutersJamie and @reutersjamie.bsky.social.

If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today.

Today's Key Market Moves

Tariff tensions cool, markets sizzle

If this week has felt like markets have been treading water, waiting for investors to take a bullish or bearish view on the next phase of the global trade war, a clear direction seems to be emerging now. And the bulls are in the driving seat.

In the last 24 hours there has been confirmation of high-level U.S.-China talks taking place this weekend, a U.S.-UK trade deal, a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal, and positive soundings from U.S. President Donald Trump that further agreements are close.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are back above their closing levels on April 2, Trump's tariff 'Liberation Day' that sparked a market meltdown, wiped trillions of dollars off the value of U.S. stocks, and forced him to back down days later.

On Thursday, Brazil's stock market rocketed to a record high, bitcoin leaped back above $100,000 and is up 35% from its post-Liberation Day lows, and bond yields shot higher.

Whether this optimism is justified remains to be seen. As Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said repeatedly on Wednesday, there is no clarity at all on what the economic impact of tariffs will eventually be. All we know is uncertainty has rarely been higher, and inflation and unemployment risks are rising.

The U.S. central bank left policy unchanged as expected, resisting calls from Trump to lower interest rates, with Powell insisting the Fed needs more "hard" economic data before deciding its next step.

But other major central banks are more worried about the risks to growth and are cutting rates. They include the European Central Bank, the People's Bank of China and, despite a surprise three-way vote split on Thursday, the Bank of England. Little wonder the dollar is trading at its highest in a month.

The PBOC snapped a run of seven consecutive days fixing the yuan at a stronger level against the dollar, fixing the currency at 7.2073/dollar on Thursday. The yuan also weakened on the onshore and offshore spot markets, and goes into Friday slipping further back from Monday's highs of the year.

Macro hedge funds mauled in April

While many investors survived the market volatility unleashed by U.S. President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" with only a few scratches, macro hedge funds suffered one of their worst maulings in years.

HFR's benchmark composite fund index fell by only 0.5% in April and the equity index actually rose, according to data released on Wednesday, but macro strategists were caught flat-footed by the steep declines in the dollar, oil, and short-dated Treasury yields and whiplashed by a brief, but historic, selloff in long bonds.

Consequently, macro hedge fund strategies lost 2.7% in the month, according to HFR, equaling the losses in March 2023 amid the turmoil caused by the U.S. regional banking crisis. The last time macro strategies had a worse month was February 2018 due to the "Volmaggedon"-fueled market turmoil.

Macro funds suffered, in part, because April marked a sharp shift in correlations between several asset classes – including abrupt reversals in some markets and accelerated moves in others – as well as a surge in margin calls and huge shifts in capital flows as many investors reduced their U.S. allocations.

BIG SHORT

At the start of April, hedge fund managers' positioning in the dollar was roughly flat, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. They had unwound net long dollar positions worth around $35 billion in the prior two months as the greenback fell 4% against a basket of major currencies.

Macro funds started to rebuild their longs in the first week of April, but any hopes of a dollar rebound were obliterated following Trump's tariff announcements on "Liberation Day". The dollar fell 4.5% in April, its steepest fall since November 2022, and the euro sealed its best two-month performance since 2010.

CFTC data also shows that leveraged funds extended their short positions in two-, five- and 10-year Treasury futures. The $1.0+ trillion short position, in aggregate across the three maturities, is now the highest this year, and in the five-year contract it is the biggest on record.

Funds take these positions for many reasons such as hedging and arbitrage plays. But those making a directional bet on rates got burned - yields fell in April, particularly at the short end and the belly of the curve.

'SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY'

Macro funds' hefty losses underscore investors' deep confusion about U.S. policy and, by extension, the outlook for asset classes across the board.

JPMorgan's quant and derivatives strategists say macro fund managers were actually penalized for remaining cautious. They were not prepared for the 'V-shaped' recovery in equities and other risk assets in recent weeks, so the recovery in macro funds and commodity trading advisors (CTAs) has been "modest" with "little sign of a reversal", they wrote on Wednesday.

This contrasts with equity-focused funds who de-risked in February and March and were thus well positioned for the rapid rally seen in the last few weeks, they added.

But trend-following macro fund managers could be forgiven for retaining a "glass half empty" outlook. Trade tensions are stoking inflation and unemployment risks, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday basically admitted that he and his colleagues have no idea what the correct policy response should be because visibility is so low.

"There's so much uncertainty ... there's so much that we don't know," Powell told reporters after the central bank left interest rates unchanged, a message he drove home in many different ways during his 41-minute press conference.

He isn't alone. Consumer sentiment is nose-diving, businesses are scrapping forecasts and investor conviction is running low even as markets have stabilized in the last few weeks. Macro hedge fund managers' confidence may simply be running lower than most.

The 2.7% fall in HFRI's Macro Index last month wiped out all its gains from the first quarter. A sustainable rebound will almost certainly require longer-term trends and correlations to emerge across currencies, rates and commodities. Right now, that looks like a long shot.

What could move markets tomorrow?

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles , opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

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