The Market's Dangerous AI Delusion
Don Kaufman here. The entire marketplace is now based around one company that isn't even technically for-profit yet. Microsoft gaps up 3% on partnership news. PayPal rallies on collaboration announcements. Oracle mortgages its entire corporate existence building infrastructure. Every major tech move revolves around developments from one entity. And that entity literally doesn't exist as…
When $3 Trillion Gets It Wrong
Don Kaufman here. And welcome to what might be the most expensive lesson in market psychology you'll see this week. I just closed out Christmas tree spreads for over 50% gains in less than a month. You'd think I'd be celebrating, right? Instead, I'm getting the hell out. Why? Because those trades should have made…
Volatility Just Broke the Market
Volatility broke…like, really broke. I discovered this by accident. I spent all day trying to close a winning spider trade. The position was up 48% this morning before the CPI print. Markets rallied substantially after the data. My puts should have gotten crushed. They didn't budge. In fact, some strikes increased in value. Here's what's…
Why I Sleep Worse When Markets Are Calm
Don Kaufman here. I don't sleep well at night when the S&Ps are at or near highs and volatility refuses to back off. Most traders lose sleep when markets are selling off hard. That makes sense - red everywhere, portfolios bleeding, margin calls incoming. But here's what separates experienced traders from the crowd: I get…
High Prices, High Vol — Something Doesn’t Add Up
Something broke today in the volatility structure. The S&P is hovering less than 2% from all-time highs. Gold hit record levels. AI stocks are near peak prices. Yet the VIX surged to 21 today with a million contracts trading. The VVX cracked into the 110 region. I've been trading for nearly three decades. I cannot…
You Are One Tweet Away From Getting Crushed
Sometimes I feel like the market's spinning out of control. It couldn't be a better day to talk about chaos cash flow. Here's what happened today: One tweet sent the S&P down 1%. Just like that. And while everyone else is getting nervous about what's coming next, I'm getting excited. Because when everyone else panics,…
I Just Did Something on Schwab TV That Goes Against Everything I've Done This Year
I'm still shaking my head as I write this. A few hours ago, I walked off the Schwab TV set after revealing three trades that honestly... one of them made me question my own sanity. Here's what happened: I've been crushing it shorting one particular stock all year. Made a killing every single time.…
The $10 Trillion Fear Signal Wall Street Doesn't Want You to See
Don Kaufman here. I've been watching something disturbing unfold in the options market. While everyone's debating whether we're in a bubble or correction, there's a $10 trillion elephant in the room that most retail traders have never heard of. It's called the CBOE SKEW Index, and it just hit 151.31 - a level that historically…
The Skew Signal I've Been Quietly Using for Years
Don Kaufman here. Look, I need to tell you about something I've been sitting on. For the better part of a decade at thinkorswim and TD Ameritrade, I had access to order flow data that most retail traders never see. Billions in institutional positioning. The real money moves before they hit the headlines. One indicator…
VIX Just Dropped 11%
Don Kaufman here. I was looking at the market data this morning and something's not adding up. VIX just dropped 11% to 18.44 and change - that should be good news for income traders, right? Wrong. Here's what's really happening: Even with VIX pulling back today, we're still seeing the kind of wild intraday swings…