“What’s the pain trade, Brandon?” I can hear you ask. Well, it’s the trade that delivers the most amount of punishment to as many investors as possible. Get familiar with it. The market is grinding higher, satisfying pretty much nobody. The bulls are left wanting more, whereas the bears who were sho
“Let’s make a move…” “OK, you go first…” “No, you go first!” “No, you!” No one wants to be first. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say no trader out there wants to be the first one to… do something. Anything. The players here are scared #% less. The market has spent the better part
Today’s CPI report came in a little higher than expected, which was enough to spook the bulls - and remind everyone that inflation is still a force for traders to reckon with. We’ll be reckoning with it again tomorrow morning when PPI is released ahead of the cash open. So long as inflation is runni
The market’s been sticking traders with a weird, and, sure, let’s call it frustrating, conundrum for the better part of three weeks now. It goes something like this… Stocks are bouncing around in a tight 100-point(ish) range… but volatility has been really high, with the VIX pegged above 20 most of
Investors seem to be in the grips of fear, uncertainty, and doubt right now, and we’d be foolish to ignore the very real concerning events around the world. And yet… When I look “inside” the market, at its internals, just about everything points to a continuation of the bull trend. There are opportu
The S P 500 has been drifting for a few weeks in a 100-point range that has yet to be broken. Even today, S P 500 futures (ES) finished down 0.90%... on light volume. The market as a whole has held up, but interest-rate-sensitive parts of the market are starting to break. Utilities, for instance, we
The S P 500 moved higher today… to finish out the week basically unchanged! It’s stuck right now, but not for long. I talked this morning about a buildup in gamma risk that raises serious questions about how to get in position for the weekend - more on that in a second. The S P is stuck,
We need to get real about inflationary pressures; they haven’t gone away. This economy offers us high prices and pinched supply chains that are likely to push prices even higher. The trend in oil and gas is no exception - prices are rising, creating a new uptrend that could see them push higher by 2
The S P 500 has been practically asleep, but I’m looking for volatility to pick up in a big way - starting with everyone’s favorite retail stocks. This is what you need to know
