The Volatility Beast Is Waking Up
On Wednesday, I told everyone who knows what’s good for ‘em to get their helmets on, because it’s about to get very choppy. Well, I hope your choice of protective headgear is comfy and stylish because my prescription hasn’t changed. In fact, if you’ve got two helmets, put ‘em both on. The VIX and all…
Helmets On - Volatility Is Here!
Wow! Yesterday was an absolute snoozefest and today… we just closed out the worst day for stocks since 2022. You awake yet? Good. It had been creeping in around the edges lately, but volatility hit the markets like the Kool-Aid today. We saw the VIX skyrocket more than 22% today to top 18 - it…
Bear Tones Echo Through Markets - Here’s What to Do
Stocks might have caught a break today if it weren’t for a disastrous CrowdStrike snafu that took down systems almost across the world. For the moment, though, the selling is still fairly concentrated in CRWD and a few other names out there. The bears are still making choppy, cyclical moves. The advance/decline line, which looked…
Selling Consumes Big Tech - Here’s What’s Next
That eerie, everywhere-at-once sucking noise you hear when you go outside? That’s the sound of hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap leaving tech stocks. The selling we’ve seen today has been incredibly concentrated in the tech sector… and therein lies the risk. On a point-for-point basis, a drop of 541 on the NASDAQ…
…And the Rally Goes On with Absolutely Manic Rotations
You know, I don’t care if you’re fundamentally bullish about this market or bearish, you have to just take a step back in shock and awe and try and get a grip on the magnificent sell-side activity we got yesterday. And on a day when we saw relatively soft inflation data - pure catnip for…
The Runaway Rally Before Earnings and CPI
The bulls just cannot be beaten right now. It’s another day, another set of all-time highs. As I write this, I’m watching the market hit - bullseye! - the upper edge of its 56.33 expected move. And here’s the thing - tomorrow, we’ll get important CPI inflation data. Even better, we’ll be moving deeper into…
This Market Is a One-Stock Phenom
Holiday markets are usually very sleepy; low volumes and tame price action. Not this one. The holiday trade hanging over from yesterday’s break is packing quite a punch. After an extremely sleepy start this morning, the S&P 500 ended the day red-hot, up 0.54% - I’ll show you what that really looks like in a…
The Tech Sector May Have Lost Its Mojo
Tech stocks (especially a certain $3.1 trillion chip company) have been leading the market to all-time high after all-time high for weeks now. But, as I sit here at the cash close today, I’m watching S&P 500 futures get absolutely rocked with volatility… and <boom> all the action stops and the S&P 500 is massively…
The $5.5 Trillion Option Expiration Could Change Everything
There’s a lot talk about tonight. There are around $5.5 trillion worth of derivatives expiring as I write this - massive positions are coming off the books. That’s bigger than Japan, bigger than France - bigger than all but two world economies. That’s big. The SPX hit its $65 expected move, no sweat, this week.…
The Market Is a Story of “Big Tech vs the S&P 500”
Just a few minutes before the close this afternoon, the SPX was grinding right up against its expected move - a level we called days ago. So, no surprise there. The upside “grind” isn’t really the big story here. The thing that’s got my attention is divergence. It just keeps on widening. Tech is leaving…