Trade updates
What a trade update is, what sits inside one, how often they arrive, and how to read a positioning-led view without mistaking it for a forecast.
- Cadence
- Weekly
- Horizon
- 0–3 months
- Written by
- Vanda strategists
What a trade update is
A trade update is the point where our data becomes a view. It takes a positioning or flow reading that has moved enough to matter, states what we think it means, and says what would have to happen for us to be wrong.
Everything is written on a 0–3 months tactical horizon by the strategists who watch the datasets daily, market practitioners rather than economists in disguise. That horizon is deliberate: it matches the window in which positioning data has predictive value, and it is short enough that a view can be judged rather than left open indefinitely.
A trade update is not a note about the world in general. If the positioning data has nothing to say about a headline, we would rather say nothing about it.
What sits inside one
The shape varies with the argument, but the same questions are answered every time.
- The view
- What we think, in a sentence, before any of the supporting material. If a reader takes one line away, that is the line.
- The evidence
- The positioning or flow series the view rests on, named and shown, so you can pull the same series up in the platform and disagree with us using our own data.
- The context
- Where this reading sits against its own history, crowded, neutral, or building, and what usually happens from a comparable starting point.
- The expression
- How the view could be held, in terms of the market rather than a specific instruction. We do not give personal recommendations.
- The invalidation
- What would tell us the view is wrong. A positioning argument that cannot be falsified is not an argument.
Cadence
Research is published weekly. That is the cadence the intelligence subscription is built around, and it is the only publication frequency we state, because it is the only one that is committed.
Between publications, the strategist team is reachable directly, that is what Advisory is for. Our strategists answer by email and bloomberg chat across London, New York and Singapore hours, so a reading that changes mid-week does not have to wait for the next publication to be discussed.
How to read one
Positioning data describes what market participants have already done. It is evidence about the starting point of a trade, not a prediction of its outcome, and a trade update should be read as an argument you can interrogate rather than a signal you can follow.
Two habits make the reading better. First, separate direction from crowding: knowing the market is long tells you less than knowing how much room that long position has left. Second, check the horizon of the claim against your own holding period, a tactical read on a stretched position is not a reason to change a strategic allocation.
- The underlying series are in the Data Library, with their construction and history, take the argument apart if you want to.
- Where a published view changes materially, we say so and date the change rather than amending the record quietly.
- Nothing in a trade update is investment advice or a personal recommendation, and none of it takes account of your objectives or constraints.
How it reaches you
Trade updates are part of the Intelligence subscription and are distributed to entitled recipients at your firm; distribution is configured during onboarding. To add a recipient, change the list, or ask what your firm is currently entitled to, write to sales@vanda.com.
Published research is also available in the platform alongside the datasets it draws on, so a view and its evidence sit in the same place.
Read the research
Data and licensing: sales@vanda.com. Research and methodology: research@vanda.com.
Other resources
Platform Guides
How to get from a login to a decision in each of the three data products, the surfaces to start on, the controls that matter, and what the numbers on screen mean.
Resource Library
What is in the library, how it is organized, and the vocabulary you need to find a series or an article without knowing its name in advance.
Data Availability
Coverage, identifiers, history, intervals and delivery, the procurement answers in one place, with the 2024 methodology change stated rather than buried.