INTERNATIONAL TRADE: Taking Stock Of Eurozone Surplus Drivers & Vulnerabilities

We've just published our latest Europe Pi bond futures positioning update - Full Document Here

Long positioning appears have exhausted itself as of mid-February, and has started to retrace slightly as we near the Eurex futures roll. Vs 1 structural short and 4 longs in our last biweekly update, there are now 2 shorts and 3 longs.

• Trade in the latest week was mixed.
• Note that Eurex last trade/first notice is on Mar 6, with the Gilt roll already underway.

US President Donald Trump has concluded a White House event for 'Angel Families' without taking questions from reporters. The president has no other public events in his schedule today. Two Oval Office policy meetings will take place behind closed doors.

• The president gave a short preview of tomorrow's 'State of the Union' address to Congress during his remarks, “It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”
• Trump has been relatively quiet on tariffs today. He has issued two short statements on Truth Social. One downplaying the need to seek Congressional approval to ratify tariffs and a second warning countries that 'play games with the supreme court decision,' will be "met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to."
• Bloomberg confirmed a short time ago that US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will travel to Geneva this week for a third round of indirect nuclear talks with Iran. The meeting could be the last chance to find a diplomatic offramp to prevent US military action in the coming days.
• According to Axios, there may be scope for a deal, despite the seemingly incomparable negotiating positions. A senior US official told the outlet over the weekend that the Trump administration is prepared to consider a proposal that allows Iran "token" nuclear enrichment if it leaves no possible path to a bomb.

Italy has announced it will be looking to sell the following at its auction this Thursday, February 26:

• E2.25-2.75bln of the 2.85% Feb-31 BTP (ISIN: IT0005671273)
• E3.25-3.75bln of the 3.45% Feb-36 BTP (ISIN: IT0005676504)
• E2.0-2.5bln of the 0.80% Apr-35 CCTeu (ISIN: IT0005680753)