You hear the term "pain trade" thrown around the financial media sometimes. Here's the Cliff's Notes definition: It's the trade that delivers the most pain to the most investors. As the market rallies nearly 3%, it's time for us to reckon with our pain trade. What's going to cause the greatest amoun
Jerome Powell and the Fed gave us nothing this week - they gave nothing because they know nothing. That left markets with no catalysts; nothing to rally on, nothing to tank on, either. What that looks like is a calm market, but this market isn’t calm… …it’s coiling up. Like a trap. This stagnant S P
The market’s flashing signs of life, and it has been for a few sessions now, but I’m not pushing all my chips in just yet. Yes, the S P 500 gave us a Bollinger band breakout, and sectors like industrials and financials are leading the charge. Financials, as tracked by the Financial Select Sector SPD
Markets feel broken and disconnected - they have for a long time now. Today just put a fine point on it. The Fed came, they saw… they did absolutely nothing. No rate cut, no real direction, just wait and see. Yet despite that, while J-Po was spinning his nothingburger, the S P 500s floated higher wi
The FOMC meeting has started, and tomorrow we’ll get minutes, commentary from the Chairman, and - maybe - some fireworks. But as of today, we’re seeing, essentially, backfilling in stocks. The day began with some selling but, as we approach the closing bell, the bulls have come back into the picture
Let’s say an athlete ties a record that’s stood untested for 20 years. Is the performance a fluke or one-off? Or is it a sign that the record might fall soon, that something bigger is coming down the road? What’s the proper perspective? With the market wracked by uncertainty, that’s the question in
If you’ve been with me for more than two-and-a-half minutes, you’ll know I’m the first one to call BS on a rally I think doesn’t have what it takes, that I’m sure will trap unwary traders and clean ‘em out. This rally happens to be the real thing. After a really long stretch, volatility has
Remember that old line about how the markets “can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent?” Well, here we are, and while savvy traders like us don’t have to worry about staying in the green, the market still feels like a puzzle where none of the pieces fit quite right. Economic signals
The number is in… and it wasn’t great. Today’s economic data dump showed growth shrank by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025 - the first decline since 2022’s kinda-sorta recession-lite. One more quarter of contraction and we’re in a recession. The markets know this, and they’re not crazy about it, an
