Welcome Back to the Volatility Box
What a day… We had about $2.7 trillion worth of monthly options expire today - they’re off the books. For all that, we’re back in the box. We’re down around 1.7% on the S&P 500, which isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things… because we’re still in the box. We got to…
Here’s Why Capital Flows Are Shifting
There are seismic shifts taking place in the market right now. 2025 has pretty much started off as expected with stocks making new all-time highs in the U.S. Our reading of sector flows kept us on the right side of the market year-to-date. But the biggest developments have been going on abroad, and I want…
The Data Says We Should Trade Right Here
It doesn’t grab the same headline space as inflation or jobs, but manufacturing’s still a really important economic indicator with the juice to move stocks over the medium- and long-term. Some of the most important data we get from this sector comes from players in the New York and Philadelphia regions - they’re still American…
Microsoft’s “Majorana” Breakthrough Is Moving Quantum Stocks
Microsoft Corp (MSFT) announced a breakthrough in quantum computing with its new Majorana 1 chip. As you might expect, this breakthrough is leading option traders to quantum stocks. This in turn begs the question: Is a breakout imminent? Well, here's the summary “upshot” of the discovery - from Microsoft’s own Copilot AI, no less… "Microsoft…
Our Chinese Stocks Idea Is Taking Off Like a Shot
U.S. indexes are having a relatively quiet start to this holiday-shortened trading week. We see them spinning their wheels near all-time highs. Bearish sentiment remains elevated, delivering a ready-made “wall of worry” for the bull market to climb. But, while the action (or lack thereof) here in the United States seems sleepy and subdued, events…
Prepare for a Massive Gamma Squeeze (It’s Coming)
Right out of the gate today we hit the upper edge of the SPX 97-point expected move… and stopped. The VIX is sloshing around on the floor, below 15 and falling. For the week, we’re “massively unchanged” on very low volume. For weeks on end we’ve been trading in more or less a 200-point range,…
Inflation Is Back - Here’s How to Play It
The market reaction was fairly muted, but the data’s there to see: According to CPI and PPI, inflation’s heating back up. Fed Chairman Powell’s relatively hawkish Congressional testimony this week indicated the central bank is still concerned with it. But hey, even if you don’t trust the data - or Powell, for that matter -…
The Big Vulnerability in This "Invincible" Market
Headline risk… geopolitical chaos… a shakeup of the international order… trade war… radical surgery for the federal government… inflation… There’s a lot going on right now, but the markets have barely budged. As of today, we’re still well inside the weekly expected move - more on that in a few. That’s led a lot of…
Stocks Are Still Spinning Near All-Time Highs - Here's What's Next
Traders flipped the script for the big indices, and we saw a nice bid take shape under stocks coming out of the weekend. The past two weeks have been a kind of slow-motion Groundhog Day for stocks - selling on Monday, rallying Tuesday to Thursday, and selling on Friday. We’ll see if we can break…
There’s a New Ballgame in Gold and Materials Stocks
The mainstream media is having a freakout about the tariffs. We usually hear volumes about the potentially inflationary impact of the policy. Breathless, panicked headlines abound. One of my biggest takeaways here at the outset of the Trump administration is that the playbook has changed. The debt-based economy that we've become so accustomed to has…