The Day Hurricane Katrina Made Me Turn Off CNBC Forever
Fifteen years ago, Hurricane Katrina taught me everything I needed to know about markets and news. Haven't watched financial television since. Not because I'm stubborn. Because that storm cost me money and showed me how the game really works. The "Smart" Hurricane Trade Back then, I was trading with Tom Sosnoff. We're looking at weather…
Sunday Night's Crash Was a Trap
Sunday night futures opened down big and retested the late November lows. Gianni just flagged that move as a false breakdown, and the implications are massive. The dip got bought. The S&P 500 is up around half a percent on the day, and the NASDAQ bounced hard off support after briefly taking out its…
24 Hours Later: What Yesterday's VIX Spike Actually Meant
Yesterday VIX hit 35 on a 5% pullback from yearly highs. Today it's back to 23. Most traders see that as "crisis averted." I see it as proof this market is completely broken. When Volatility Goes Insane Look, I've been trading for over 25 years. I stood on the floor when real crashes happened. I've…
The Market Signal Everyone Missed This Morning
Here's what I noticed this morning that everyone else missed. While traders were panicking about oil hitting $120 and overnight futures looking like death warmed over, I was watching something completely different. Something that told me this wasn't the apocalypse – it was compression about to snap. See, most people look at a morning…
S&P 500 Hanging on by a Thread
BlackRock just limited redemptions on a private credit fund. If you had a million dollars parked there, you can't get it back. That's a $150 billion company telling investors the door is closed. Blackstone is in a similar position, now down 30% on the year. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is only 4% off its all-time…
Wall Street PhDs missed by 151,000 jobs (and your 401k paid for it)
You know what happened to me this morning? I'm sitting here, coffee in hand, waiting for the jobs number like every other trader on the planet. And these geniuses - and I mean GENIUSES with PhDs from fancy schools - these guys are forecasting 59,000 new jobs. Fifty-nine thousand. They put that number out there…
Oil Broke Above $80 and I'm Still Not Impressed
Oil just broke above $80 per barrel for the first time since January 2025. Everyone's acting like this validates the war premium. Like we've finally seen the market "wake up" to geopolitical risk. I'm sitting here thinking the exact opposite. Oil breaking above $80 during the most serious military conflict we've seen in decades? I've…
Nobody's Buying This Rally
The S&P 500 rallied 70 handles today. The expected move priced in exactly $69. The market called it to the penny. That precision should comfort you. It doesn't comfort me. Despite a 160 point bounce off Tuesday's lows, the volatility futures have not normalized. They are not even close. The term structure from April through…
3 Trade Ideas That Go Against Today's "Everything's Fine" Rally
I just wrapped my the Big 3 segment on Schwab and had to share some contrarian thinking with viewers: Everyone's buying this bounce. Here are three trade ideas going the other direction. When markets gap up after geopolitical chaos and everyone breathes a sigh of relief... when "defensive" plays start rolling over just as volatility…
Why Your Timing Sucks (And It's Not Your Fault)
You know how you beat yourself up when your entries are garbage? When you buy the high, sell the low, and feel like you couldn't time a traffic light correctly? I figured out the real problem. Your timing doesn't suck because you're bad at trading. Your timing sucks because you're trying to trade in volatility.…