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STOCK MARKET TALK
Recorded: March 26, 2025 Duration: 2:30:42Space Recording
Full Transcription
Good afternoon, everyone.
Happy Wednesday, March the 26th.
And there is a lot of red on my screen today.
After a couple days, I guess three days really of green on the screen.
We have...
Broke back down a little bit today.
Pulling back down, we're sitting right in the gap on the daily that we had from Friday into Monday.
A couple notable things here to kick us off just looking around the market.
We are currently down 2% right now on QQ, 1.3% on SPI, 1.3% on IWM.
just half a percent over on the Dow. VIX is up like 10 percent today. And obviously all of our
big names are pretty much red. All the top 10 tech names weighted in the NASDAQ all red right now.
A couple bright spots, I guess, in the market. If you really look around, there's some Dow names,
Honeywell, deer that are up today. Home Depot somehow is green today. But outside of that,
not a whole lot of green to talk about.
And yeah, that's where we're at.
We did hit the 200-day moving average and after hours.
Actually, during the show yesterday on QQQ.
And basically, that topped us out.
We've trailed back overnight and then felled this morning.
We were sitting right in that daily gap.
right now on spy and QQQ both.
So we'll get around to the panel,
get everyone's thoughts.
I know there's a lot of technical perspectives to look at.
There's some news, obviously.
We had some Fed speakers today.
We had some tariff stuff today,
a couple curveballs from the tariffs as well.
Tariff talk up here was busy.
I'm sure today getting all of that stuff going
and just throwing curveballs at the market.
So we appreciate Mr. Tariff talk for
Coming back and doing this to us, I guess.
I don't know.
Let's talk about it.
Options, Mike, you're one of the first ones up here every day.
We always appreciate having you on these spaces.
I'd love to hear some of your initial thoughts around the market.
Hey, Am, a long time.
Yeah.
You know...
You know, we came into an area where we were stuck.
One thing I pointed out yesterday, that yesterday's candle on the spy was the smallest candle we'd seen since back, I think it was Valentine's Day, February 14th, which is a change in character, right?
We've had very much a lot of wide-range candles coming into yesterday.
Yesterday we got a narrow range candle, a very tight candle held the 200-day into the close.
And then today we found our way down here.
You know, we weren't very strong out of the gate.
We were flat just down ever so slightly.
And then we rolled over and then the tariff needs started to break.
And we've really rolled down here as we're waiting for that four o'clock announcement or for sometime after four o'clock announcement on what that's going to be.
And then we're ahead of that big GDP number tomorrow.
We're expecting 2.3% but the GDP model has a negative number next to it.
So some interesting stuff that's going to happen with that and, you know, PC on Friday and Michigan consumer sentiment and inflation expectations on Friday as well.
So there's, you know, a lot coming out of here over the next 10 days in terms of data.
And it kind of feels like the easier move here was down.
But the one thing I would point out that, you know, on there's a lot of volume on individual names, but the indexed itself, the spy is only 30 million shares here with an hour to go.
It's not like we have any kind of massive distribution volume.
The VIX is it up yet, but it's not even to 20 area again.
It's not like it's flying up there.
But any leadership we had coming in today, as we talked about last hour, we lost.
We lost the financials.
We lost the semis.
I mean, Nvidia gap down big and it's just getting killed on that news that all of its, 13% of its China, of its revenue, all of its China revenue may be in.
in jeopardy because of the new power if restraints they're going to put on the data center,
which would be good for Hawaii and the other chip manufacturers inside China, but not good for NVIDIA's AI chips,
which are just, those graphics cards are just incredible power, you know, draw incredible amounts of power.
And that's kind of taking the whole semis down with them.
Apple tried to hold for a bit, but it couldn't.
Tesla is kind of interesting.
I lost money in most places, made it all back short in Tesla today.
But when you look at Tesla here today,
It came down, but it's holding in better than a lot of things in the market.
It's not a pretty candle.
Yesterday, it closed above the 200 and we failed there today and rolled down.
But there's this long-term trend line that we broke down from, and we broke down from it
on the 6th of March, and it recained it and it is trying to hold it here into the close.
That'll be an interesting thing to see there.
And you know, it has some validity as intraday, it's been, you know, for the last, since around
1250, it's been dancing on it for the last two hours, you know, or so.
hour and a half or so just trying to hold it.
So it's trying to find some hold here, some support.
You know, Bitcoin back down, crypto beaten up.
There's not a lot of safe havens out there today.
And, you know, if you came in long like I did, you got, you took your lumps on the open, you know, you had to make a quick decision.
And I decided I was quickly getting out in video and getting out of the way.
And I think, you know, we'll see.
I've been, I was heavy cash coming into this.
I was really very deep in cash before this market started to pull off, pull down here.
And so I've been slowly buying a little bit of back here.
I bought a little bit more NVIDIA and Amazon and I-BIT into this pool.
And we'd look to add heavily if we come down much lower.
You know, really hard to tell whether, you know, where we're going to go.
With all this data ahead of us, the market's going to have something else to focus on.
And then we'll have tariffs obviously next Tuesday.
Maybe we should just do a special show on that on.
Is it Tuesday or I'm sorry, Wednesday, Tariff Day, Liberation Day, I think, is he's calling it.
So yeah, that's it.
You know, I think it's a time again, be careful here.
So, you know, I'm pretty much flat on my options here going into this.
And just see what we get on the reaction to tariffs tonight and the day of tomorrow.
Yeah, we'll definitely be interesting as we come into April 2nd, D-Day, which I'm glad he didn't do it on April's Fool's Day because that would have been really confusing.
But yeah, definitely going to be interesting. Some great points there.
Options, Mike. Let's keep going around the panel up here.
And let's go over to Spartan. Spartan, what's on your mind today?
So, you know, a couple different things.
Now, I came into the market today looking for a bit of a pullback because we had a lot of extensions across the board.
The Q's XLK, most of the thing was extended in the short term.
We had the spy that was extended.
And, you know, we did fill that gap into the end of the day here.
So, you know, a little bit more constructive now that that gap's filled, we can kind of see what will happen in the short term. But yeah, I think it will be data driven like option bike was talking about, you know, the 50 mail on the weekly is at 564 on.
on the spy. So if we do fail to hold any sort of EMA support today, which were below all the
short-term support levels, then that would be probably the area that I would think would be a
magnet for the market going forward. There's a couple different individual names.
MSTR, I thought, would be down a lot more today. Fill that extension gap. It's holding some
short-term EMA support on the daily. I think it looks decent. I'll be keeping an eye on that one.
Tassel has been a lot of chatter around that.
You know, Optimus basically presentation this week.
That's why we had that rally yesterday.
It came off pretty decent today.
So I'll be keeping an eye on that because there still is quite a room back up if we do
see any sort of bullish catalyst on it going forward.
And the daily chart on Tesla is still fine.
I mean, it's holding all EMA support.
It filled that little extension gap.
So from a technical standpoint, I don't see a lot of damage done on some of these individual
names like the Fang, Tesla, Microsoft.
But on the spy, we're at an inflection point.
So I think this is an area where we probably want to wait and see what happens.
This is not an area I would want to position.
It's, you know, we had a really nice rally up.
I'll give a shout out to APP as well.
I thought it would have came off, you know, harder today.
We've been in this thing since 258, I guess, I think it was like the 10th or something like that.
We took it.
It's had a hell of a rally.
But it's helped pretty well.
And that thing's above EMA support.
Just broke the 50 EMA on the daily,
but it's above all short term EMA support.
So I'll be watching that one going forward as well.
So I'm kind of making a little bit of a list of names that I think look okay from a technical standpoint.
on the bullish side so that if we do rally tomorrow, I'm going to know what to go after.
And then, of course, looking at things on the negative side that have broken down, I mean,
Navidia is obviously a standout.
It broke some major support levels, but it's into an inverted head and shoulders.
That is an inflection point, too.
If it breaks that level tomorrow, it can go back to the recent range lows around that 105 area.
So semiconductors are obviously extremely important for this market, Navidia leading that sector.
We've got to keep an eye on that.
going forward. Another thing I would definitely keep an eye on guys, and I use this
all day intradate to trade the SPX is the VX. It's an incredible indicator. It's being leading
on the S for the spy and the SPX every single day. And usually when you see breakouts on the VXX,
the spy and SPX has been following. So it's been a great indication in regards to what to do in the
short term. I think there's a ton of opportunity, a ton of range to trade intraday.
I mean, for instance, on the SPX, we grab these 535 puts this morning and
like they're trading around $40 right now from $5.
So, you know, there is opportunity in today, especially on the downside.
You just kind of get to know what to go after.
And then, you know, it's a good idea in this market as well if you haven't already.
Build a list of the safety names.
You know, drug names, you know, they came off yesterday.
We had some pretty good rallies today.
We've been in PG, which has worked out well.
some of the consumer non-durable names, consumer durable names, I'd be keeping an eye on those as well when the market sells off.
These safe haven names are good to go after. They're cheap on the option sides and you can get some pretty decent moves because the premiums are pretty low on them.
So I think it's a matter of staying on your toes right now. I don't think you want to get long anything and hold it for a long period of time.
And Sam on the short side, I think it's just a matter of.
you know, waiting to see what the market does here.
Trade it day to day, but don't fall in love with anything.
Don't marry anything here at the moment.
So that's kind of what I'm looking at right now.
And the key closed area on the spy from a technical standpoint right now,
I'd be looking at around 569.55, which we are quite a bit below that.
But that would be a reclaim of search on EMA support.
Probably they'll close it up the lows is what I'm thinking.
But that's kind of my two cents right now there, guys.
Yeah, I appreciate those thoughts, Spartan.
It is interesting.
Actually, you mentioned semiconductors.
I pulled up that SMH chart earlier, and it's absolutely disgusting.
It just looks really, really rough over there.
Yeah, that SMA of a key level, to watch, there would be 218, 21 inverted head and shoulders,
a massive level on the daily there.
So deep an eye on that.
Yeah, yeah, I've seen there's like a volume shelf in that area as well.
So it'll be interesting, can it hold in?
And is that the market leader?
I think there's an argument that we don't have a market leader right now.
And I think that maybe that's part of the problem.
If we go back to our previous market leader,
does it hold in and finally find some strengths somewhere?
I don't know.
We'll see what happens.
Appreciate those thoughts from Spartan.
Let's keep going around the panel here.
Mr. Matt Caruso, we've got you up here today.
Great to have you again.
What are your thoughts around the market?
Yeah, thanks for having me back, guys.
Well, I think, you know, this is typical kind of, we're in a tough market.
We've already sold off hard.
I've been using, like I said, 2018 as my playbook where 2018 was that bear market was driven really by Fed policy.
It was the, you know, Chairman Powell, he basically says we're going to be hiking rates, you know, for many, many different meetings.
And the market kind of freaked out.
So I think it's similar with tariffs.
So a lot of this is going to be a choppy market.
And it's one where, like, trying to buy when it looks or feels good is going to be painful.
Like after a couple of days of strength, like then we'll end up walking back into this type of environment.
Because with the level of uncertainty, a lot of it comes down to positioning.
If everyone gets too positioned to the long side, it's just in the short term,
that buying pressure eases, and then after just sellers come in and we kind of hit, we move back down.
So it's really a market that's dominated less by the fundamentals because nobody really knows
what the future is going to hold, right?
Once we finally do get more clarity,
that's what's going to lay the groundwork for, I think,
a bigger move higher.
But we need to know that the tariff negotiation is not going to turn
into a full-blown type of trade war.
I think what's partly is kind of making things worse today,
for sure, is the weakness in tech.
And, you know, tech is really kind of the gift that gave last year and the year before,
and the heavy tech weightings was great for indexes to the upside.
But now we're feeling that to the downside.
So if you look at it from a glass half full, I think the good news is, you know, some of the large names like Nvidia are pulling this market lower.
But you're starting to, I mean, at least a lot of stocks are able to hold off of the recent lows.
So at this point, it still can be a bottoming process that's trying to develop.
So if, for example, we did get.
you know good news from the president or whatever they get some kind of resolution you've already
had many stocks now trying to work off the bottoms like like the the steepest deepest selling is
past we haven't reaccelerated like that yet on most names which is a positive and i think that's what
you we really have to watch for here is it still kind of just a choppy range as trying to build
higher or or are we in much deeper trouble so
It's a little bit difficult when, you know, 70 stocks buy the index is so much, so you really have to kind of dig below and look around.
But I think there are many stocks that are trying to kind of at least build higher.
And again, after three, four, five straight up days, it's normally going to get this backfill.
So let's see how we close here.
Let's see the next few days, how things go with tariffs.
And that's going to tell us a lot.
But we definitely have a foundation that could lead to some good upside, but we need that catalyst.
And I think...
Speaking of positioning, in the short term, it has a big impact.
Like I said, if you're up three, four days in this market, you know, beware.
But on an intermediate or longer term perspective with people being so negative and people having kind of de-risk to such a degree, if we get that, you know, the pain trade, the pain trade would be a move higher, in my opinion right now, because so many people have kind of gotten nervous and moved to the sidelines.
So, yeah.
the asymmetric, the fast move, if there's a resolution,
would be to the upside, but we have to wait and see it.
So I always kind of say in a market like this,
especially in a news-driven market,
and I've traded through many of these in my life,
you have to really just kind of like go back to some humility
and say, hey, look, there really is a massive unknown.
and you have to position around that.
So you can't get too wildly bullish.
I don't think you should be too wildly bearish
and have your list ready for where you would pounce
should the good news come out.
That's how I'm positioned.
Matt, would you say that we're kind of in a just a wait and see type of area?
I mean, the uncertainty around the tariffs, of course,
the uncertainty around everything.
And then just where we're at when I look at it technically as well,
it just seems like,
Okay, we got a little bounce off the lows. Now we've come back. I mentioned earlier, KQQQ got back to its 200 day. Spy reclaimed it for a day and then has lost it since. But, you know, do you wait for the higher low here? Do you look for this gap to fill down a little bit? What's kind of, I mean, is it just wait and see?
Yeah, you know, if you look at, let's say the cues, we're back basically to where things traded down on on March 10th.
So, I mean, we're two weeks and we've gone nowhere.
It's just wild chop day by day.
And I think that's just the uncertainty of the market.
And this is like the kind of environment algos love, right?
Markets are thinner.
There's less volume.
So it's much easier to push things up or down.
If you're an algo and you're, you know, trying to get people to get along by pushing
the stock up, you're not going to hit this big wall of an institution.
So it gets a lot of, that's why volatility spikes.
And it's so painful in the short term if you're offside because the moves are fast.
It's like kind of like pockets of demand supply.
So I think we really just range by.
I know people always like a very decisive decision.
Like, you know, are we moving higher, moving lower?
To me, this is just a market where you've got to be really on your toes and kind of just roll with the market.
I'm generally like an optimist.
I think we end 2025 very well.
I think we come out of this and we work our way higher.
But in the short term, we're really in a chop market.
We've been here since March 10th.
I think this is just another part of it.
I appreciate those thoughts, Matt. Let's keep going around the panel here.
Erkel, we've got you on stage today. Let's go over your direction, see what you've been watching in this market.
And any thoughts you have around the conversation?
Hey, thanks for having me on again. I agree with basically the panelists before me and some of the suggestions you were making at the beginning of the spaces just in terms of price.
I discussed the 618 fibs on SPY and QQQ when I was on the show two, three weeks ago as an area for the markets to potentially bottom and bounce.
And at that time, we had discussed...
some key demand levels on stocks like Tesla off the 220s, MSTR off the 220s,
Hood we were talking about in the 30s, and with the SPY and QQQBounces,
we did also see momentum carry a lot of individual names higher.
Now, Monday's gap-ups were not constructive in my opinion, and that's always worrisome.
Especially when you're in a long-term downtrend and you gap up in weakness, generally speaking, that's cause for pause and caution.
And a lot of individual stocks did rally to hit some major upside targets like MSTR, for example, rallied from 220 to 340, which is a 50% move to the upside and
Hood rallied from 35, 36, up to $50.
So we did see some significant upside moves.
And if you caught those demand zone dips, if you will,
on individual names with the SPY, QQQQ, and Bitcoin,
all holding demand levels two, three weeks ago,
you could have caught some decent swings to the upside.
But like everybody's suggesting here,
it's still a market where caution is...
should be at the top of your risk management strategy, if you will, and being able to play the key levels.
Something Stock Talk Weekly, who's on the panel talked about last week, too, was the long-term trend and the 200-day moving average.
What you'll often see in downtrends are sharp rallies to the upside,
but what you also want to see is key reclaims of the long-term trends.
So something I talked about last week were the short-term trends within the broader long-term trends.
And as we know, in uptrends, markets will zigzag up,
and in downtrends, markets will zigzag down.
So you can still catch upside and downside.
in both those trend environments, if you will.
So markets are still trying to put a potential bottom in,
and I'm not suggesting that we have one,
and we talked about being cautious last week.
However, with Monday's gap-ups, these dips are very constructive.
And some equities will drive down lower.
The high beta names will always drop sharply.
But I'm not seeing anything worrisome in terms of price action if you've been monitoring the same stocks.
Something, I believe, options Mike brought up with Tesla.
I'm looking at the same trend line right around that $270 level.
That needs to hold in my opinion.
Otherwise, that could set up for a potential short.
And I don't know how the potential auto tariffs after hours may impact the industry or
what impact those might have on Tesla and not knowing the specifics and really not really
my specialty either, to be perfectly honest.
However, I do like Tesla off that $270 area.
I'm watching Hood as well.
Robin Hood at $44.
That could be a potential reversal area.
It's filling the gap from Monday after a rally from 35 to 50.
I think 44 could be a potential bottom here.
That's something I'm monitoring and I've shared with my subscribers and our Discord.
Also watching...
Lost my trail of thought there. Sorry, watching Amazon as well. Amazon off 197 to 200.
After it held a key weekly trend line for three weeks could be a potential reversal spot as well.
It's trying to bounce off 200 right now.
So I do think it's got two, three dollars to play with here and potentially reverse.
It's also back testing some key EMAs.
It does have a gap below though, so if it can't hold that 200 area, I do think it could drop down to 197, but that's a key support.
And after trying to put a basin off the 180s, I am watching this for continuation higher.
And again, those Monday gap ups not constructive, these pullbacks are.
So a lot of stocks to watch here for potential bounces and I'll mention two more at the risk of hogging the mic a little bit here.
Palantir is also another one you want to watch off $90 to $91 after a rally to 98, which was an upside target.
If it can hold 90 there, it's also going to close the gap like hood and hold some key EMAs short term.
So if the markets do bounce back, that could be a really nice reversal play from there.
And I had one more, but I've lost it here.
So I'll stop there. I had one more play.
Oh, MSTR. Sorry.
MSTR was another one I'm watching.
On the weekly time frame, MSTR could break out over the 340s.
But it did have a significant run from 230 to 340, again, up some 50% or so.
And anytime stocks rally into major resistance and are extended, pullbacks are very normal and healthy.
So MSTR, I'm watching off 309 to 320.
That's a major support to hold on a back test.
And if it can and if Bitcoin can reclaim 86.5K, I've posted all these charts on my timeline as well.
Bitcoin's given up 86.5K over the last hour or so, but if it can reclaim that level, then I think MSTR could potentially curl and take another run at that 340 level.
And again, that's a major, major resistance level on a weekly time frame and breaking through could lead to a potential breakout on a larger timeframe.
Okay.
So again, yeah, I didn't like the Monday gap ups, especially in weakness.
We haven't reclaimed long-term trend to the upside, but we did just have a nice two, three weeks, or two weeks anyway, with a decent bounce to the upside.
Now we just got to see where markets may end up holding.
SPY, I'm watching 567 down to 565 for potential reversal.
Okay.
And the queues have almost filled their gaps in 482 is a major support on the cues there.
Sorry, I hog the mic a bit. That was a lot. But hopefully that's helpful.
No, that was fantastic. Orville, we'll appreciate you going through those different names.
And the thoughts there, that was fantastic.
I'm going to continue around the panel. Let's see, Wolfie, we haven't heard from you yet.
Let's go your direction next.
Yeah, so I hear everything everyone's saying about, you know, just the intermediary and short-term trends.
We get these balances.
I think yesterday most of us spoke to basically a wait-and-see kind of day.
I spoke to managing positions and I was selling more than I was doing anything.
I didn't have any buys yesterday just for a point of...
Clarity, I sold more of Tesla on the bell yesterday and then a little bit more this morning.
I have a little bit left, nothing crazy.
The only trade I took today was buying...
uh dollar tree off of uh the earnings uh off their off their earnings just buying it um on the open
basically a little bit after the open um and then just looking for a flip got a little bit of a flip
but outside of that i think um and you know we'll see if i'm we'll see if we're correct here
but we'll see if uh tariff talk resumes at the end of this hour but i think um
one of the things that's kind of spooking, and I'm sorry if you guys covered this, I was in and out with the previous speakers.
But I think one of the main things currently is that Microsoft headline for a potential
revision and spend on data centers. I think that's kind of also adding to some of this
weakness that we're seeing in some of these semiconductor names. And particularly like in
video, there's also a couple of tweets that have been circulating, excuse me, on the back of,
you know, the costs currently that people are seeing on some of these H-100s and some of these
other chips coming down.
Um, in.
in the secondary market
and then despite coming down
you know renting
space on an H100
comes out to still cheaper than
some of these prices that
these price reductions that have
have been circulating on the internet.
So I think that's kind of like eating at it away.
If you didn't listen to Will Financial space prior to this,
it was primarily an earning space,
but there's a lot of clarity in there as well.
I'd recommend people just go back and listen to that.
There's a couple of,
speakers, myself included that covered a lot of stuff that is pertinent to this stuff.
So outside of that, the tariff headline, right?
That's obvious.
Everybody's talking about tariff headline.
But there's like a second, third, fourth order of magnitude for some of these tariff headlines.
First foremost, we don't know.
They seem to be floating, right?
They go from a certain percentage, certain countries to higher percentage, lower percentage,
other countries get involved.
There's an...
opakness,
opakness, excuse me, to reciprocity.
So if we put tariffs on someone,
are they going to respond?
Yesterday, there was headlines from,
and Stockton covered it more than I will hear,
but there was headlines from potential olive branch
tariff reduction from India,
potential olive branch from India
so that they could see their tariffs come down
and there have been other instances of that,
Mexico particularly.
And,
you know,
The inverse can be true, too, though, right?
Like if other countries see that potentially they could have tariffs come down the pike,
they may preemptively issue tariffs, you know, as a show strength.
And I'm not saying that's a good thing to do or a bad thing to do.
But that is a potential thing that could happen.
There's also, you know, other...
orders of magnitude and trust and stability that you can't really map out on a dollar basis
before they happen. So if the U.S. is, if the trust in the United States to hold withstanding
agreements or alliances or something like that seems to be,
erosive in any nature, then other countries might take actions that are, you know, to repatriate their own currency to their own expenditure, excuse me, their own expenditures, to their own businesses, their own infrastructure stuff, their own militarization stuff. They could, you know, look that way. And then outside of that, if you just take a look at like what's,
working today. It's that defense boomer safety trade, right? So yielding stuff,
staples, you know, some of the oil names still long in the tooth, but still going up every
day. I talked about that yesterday. I have an XOM position. I wanted it to go sideways a little
bit so I could add to it. It just goes up every single day. So I'm just kind of like holding on to
that until it stops or hits my target. So
It's just kind of like want to stay defensive in my opinion.
This is the type of market.
You want to see extremes, whether it be an extreme sell off into a level that you want to trade against or you want to see an extreme.
you know, capitulatory event in the VIX or the rate of change on the VIX is more,
more of an indicator, in my opinion. Like, if you see a rate of change on the VIX go above 50,
it usually means, like, short-term move has been capitulatory, and then you want to see some sort of
follow-through. Outside of that, like...
Got to know how fast things can flip.
Options might yesterday push back on a comment saying that, you know,
actually on a short-term basis were overbought on some of these NASDAQ names.
He was correct.
And that's kind of like for me, I bring that up as the last point because if you miss something, you miss something.
You're going to have opportunities in this market, in my opinion.
There is no sustained leadership in some of these.
of favorite names that we like, those names being tech,
the leadership's been more China-centric,
international-centric, and under-the-radar names
that people don't really like,
and some of these boring boomer names.
So outside of that, you're gonna have opportunities
If you miss something, just mark the levels that you want to trade against.
You know, if you're familiar with like, you know, selling for premium,
it's a good opportunity to kind of go through that exercise.
And then outside of that, just staying disciplined on that.
That's pretty much it from just a generalized perspective.
I'll pass it back to you.
If there's anything else, I'll pop back in.
Appreciate those thoughts.
Well, yeah, options, Mike did say that on those short term.
I remember that piece because a lot of people were saying,
well, we're oversold, we're oversold on the daily we were,
and that actually was cooling off a little bit.
And then on some of those short term, you know,
shorter term timeframes, we were actually getting into that overbought territory.
Very great point and great call back there.
I'm sorry, one last one last note on that.
So if you just marry that with...
that logic that he gave with like Tesla, for example, right?
So Tesla yesterday technically closed above its 200-A moving average, right?
So a lot of times people will use the 200-A as a line of demarcation,
like, oh, it reclaimed its 200, so it's safe to go in.
But without the other piece of information that, first of all,
on a short-term basis, the markets, like the tech,
indices themselves short-term overbought and Tesla itself up 26% in three sessions,
you know, you could have found yourself in a situation where you got trapped above that 200 day,
and now you're chasing, you know, should I add to it? Should I wait? What do I do? Right? So I think
that's the like that's the really important.
piece of information to add in this type of tape. You're always going to get another opportunity.
You've got to be patient. Look at the bigger picture. Look at the moves in conjunction with the bigger picture.
Yeah, and I'll even draw a parallel to that.
Spy reclaimed, you know, closed above.
It's 200-day held it all day yesterday.
And then, of course, as soon as it felled it today, you saw things start to fall apart there at the open.
So I'll draw that parallel there.
And then we will continue around our panel here.
Brett, we've got you up on stage.
Good to have you again.
What thoughts are on your mind?
Yeah.
Hey, yeah, thanks for having me, guys.
I think the last couple speakers had a couple really good points.
You know, how Erk was saying he didn't love those gap ups.
I did like those gap ups, but not necessarily because they were technically constructive,
more so just because I think it gave investors an opportunity to make some of those adjustments
that we were talking about a couple weeks ago.
You know, when the market...
The market really unraveled. We had a pretty quick decline. It was, I don't know if it was the fifth fastest or seventh fastest 10% correction, but over the last, you know, 70 years or whatever. So I don't know which one it was, but it doesn't really matter. It highlights either way. It's the fact is things fell apart pretty quick. And we needed that sort of oversold bonds to get investors a chance to,
readjust their portfolios, do some rebalancing,
you know, lock in some hedges,
take some off if they're overexposed in certain areas.
And we had those three, you know,
Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, those nice up moves.
And you saw on the queues, you know, it came right up to its 200 day just below and then,
you know, failed this morning.
I guess the real clue if you were going to try to hold on, you know, was when we lost
yesterday's low pretty quick.
That was, I think, your time to adjust.
If you're, you know, if you're active in...
an active trader and active investor.
Those are your moments to really pay attention to the price action,
pay attention to the highs and the lows and know where some of these key levels are
and these key moving averages.
But that three day little burst, and again, I know Erks making a different point than I am.
I was just kind of playing off what he said with the gap ups, but,
You know, I think that gave at least a good opportunity for investors to adjust.
If they weren't taking anything off, it gave a chance to put on some hedges.
I know I put on some hedges, just given how quickly things did unwind,
I didn't expect to go that far.
And some of my hedges previously were not adequate enough.
Now, it does get tricky.
As we're pulling back here, you know, we're losing, the S&P is losing key moving average of 200 days.
The Q's can never regain it and they're fading from that level now.
You know, now it sort of comes into that question of, you know, do we just, you know, do we pull back, give up half this rally?
you know, sort of fill some of the recent gaps and find our footing or is this somewhere
we're going to retest the low and or break that low. It's going to be a really critical couple
of days, a couple of weeks. Obviously, you know, just getting through quarter end is going
is going to be, you know, we're just going to want to get through that and kind of see how things shake out and see if some new fund flows in the beginning of the month can, you know, sort of hopefully reset some things here.
But I think one important part of this whole development is just the prospect of having,
just trade war sort of de-escalate and unwind a bit,
just even like the whisper and the hint of that happening,
had the market absolutely ripping for a couple of days.
You know, that...
I think that speaks to just how much the market, how much investors right now are craving
some more certainty.
And if you look across the board, it's just we do not have certainty right now.
And that's no, I'm not breaking any news with that.
It's pretty obvious, whether that's the consumer confidence number we got the other day.
It was, you know, the fifth straight miss, fourth straight month of declines, you know,
Business confidence is moving lower.
Obviously, the C-Suits are not feeling all that confident in terms of, you know, placing
aggressive guidance and whatnot.
And understandably so.
It's a tough environment.
But, you know, as an investor, you have to learn how to navigate these types of things.
Yeah.
You know, we have a lot of times we do have a good strong trending market, but other times we don't.
And that's where, you know, you have to, if you're not going to make money in it, you have to be able to protect what you made in the prior rallies and the prior markets.
And, you know, right now a 10% correction in the market is.
dare I say routine, it's at least not abnormal to get a mild correction like this.
It was sharp and it was quick.
So that did drive the emotions higher.
And we saw that kind of reflect itself in the washout.
We saw in some of the sentiment surveys like the AIAI and, you know, some healthy pops in the VIX,
but nothing spiraled too far out of control.
That being said, it is where people get themselves in trouble with, you know, leverage, position size,
using margin things like that a 10% correction can be um you know can blow up your account depending on um
you know how poorly you manage some of those those positions in that leverage but you know it's just
really comes down to knowing how how you are going to navigate this type of tape and unfortunately
it just takes time and experience you usually have to learn the hard way and i know i've learned the hard way
um in in these moments and
You know, when you're trading, for me anyway, when I'm trading, I tend to take on more of a swing trading.
perspective or mentality, it's usually in a good tape, it'll be trades that last for weeks,
if not months. You know, not as good of a tape. It's usually closer to days. Like right now would
be more of a multi-day rather than a multi-week approach. But even then, it's, you know,
for me anyway, it's finding those levels where that risk reward is just really attractive, where
you know something like say like a jp morgan kind of pulls back into that 225 level um it's got
it's 200 day there it's a prior breakout level it's very visually it's very simple but it's very
clean um you know you can buy against that level and if it fails you're out you know um
And if you get a bounce and we happen to get a bounce, you know, you have that level to measure against if you want.
You can trim into the strength.
If you're a longer term guy, you can, you know, try to hold against that level.
I suppose that can be kind of your entry or your basis.
It's about 20% off the high at that level.
But my point being...
You kind of have you really when you're trading you really have to be disciplined and have a plan
But when the tapes are like this you really have to be disciplined and have a plan
And you have to follow it whether you know whether it's taking that stop or taking the loss
You don't want to do it's too bad you have to do it. So I you know that's part of the business part of the game
You know if you have a longer term time horizon you're probably not as worried and
And you use these opportunities, I think, or use these pullbacks as opportunities.
That's how I'm trying to view them in a longer term account.
Some of these names are down 20 to 30%.
Some of them are down even a lot more than that.
And I don't think that the growth story behind them is necessarily broken.
So I'm trying to approach those with the level head knowing that, you know, Amazon
might have fallen 20% from its highs.
I know it can fall 30% from its high.
But I'm trying to approach that and nibble and get some exposure to that, knowing that
longer term, I still think that its business is intact and it should be okay.
So I think it's just, I think this type of environment really reiterates, you know, having a plan,
sticking to that plan and executing it.
And we'll just have to see how this kind of works out.
I'm going to get the unmute button to work.
There it goes.
Trump is speaking at the podium right now.
Just a heads up for anybody out there.
Great thoughts there from Brett, some really good stuff.
Who have we not got to on the panel yet?
Stock sniper, I see you up here.
Let's get any thoughts you have around the market today.
And a swing and a miss on Stock sniper.
Evan, give you a chance to jump in if you're not busy.
I may take strike two right here on Evan.
This is a risky call out.
And that's fine if Evan's busy.
We'll go over to Mr. Tariff Talk.
You were active today with your Tariff Talk.
I am here.
I want to hear what Tariff Talk has to say I'll come after.
All right, Mr. Stock Talk.
You're up to bat.
What's on your mind?
What are you seeing out there today?
Dang, man.
Did you strike out?
Rough scene.
Well, I found it off with Evan, so it's still, there's two strikes.
Yeah, I wouldn't call it.
Yeah, not three strikes.
We're good.
It's been an interesting day in the market for me.
You know, I'm traveling.
We have this Robin Hood event, which I'm excited to see tonight what they have.
So I'm looking forward to that one.
I thought this comments around the Discord IPO.
I know people have been talking about this Corey's IPO, being like 5x over subscribe.
And I don't know.
We'll see how that one ends up going.
But I know there's been a lot of talks about the IPO market.
Maybe opening up, maybe not.
That's one thing that I'm watching over the next couple days and weeks.
Trump says attacks against Tesla have gone down since Pambandhi remarks on after those responsible.
There's a comment out just there, but yeah, I thought the, there was a couple, I want to hear Tarrot talks in this.
There was a couple analysts taking their year-end S&P 500 targets now quite aggressively this morning.
Barclays narrowed theirs down from 6,600 down to 5,900.
You know, I think this says more about these kind of year-end targets than anything else that we really don't know.
Projecting a month forward, let alone, you know, year-end S&B 500 is going to be difficult.
But that's one thing that I was interesting.
So when Stock talks back on here, if there was any commentary in the Barclays and Goldman ones, them downgrading those.
But that was one thing that I was definitely intrigued with this morning.
Also, the Rivian spin-off.
I don't fully understand what's happening there.
I didn't get to double-check the stock.
How did Rivian stock end up doing today?
Looks like not aggressively up.
Actually, can't see.
But I think that was an intriguing story.
I don't really know what to take about it.
I guess we just need more information.
But yeah, Taiwan Semiconductor's move was quite fascinating for me.
Seeing that name down 5% off of that.
I think it's off of that China and video headline
from late last night of the Financial Times.
So interesting stuff going.
The whipsaw is still in effect.
My portfolio is down 2% today.
I believe we're spying cues.
this would be the spying only down point one so not bad yeah evan uh question i know you're
getting ready to head to the lost city of gold do you have any inkling or i don't know thoughts of
what uh what we may get out of robin hood tonight lead the fifth lead the fifth could probably a
good decision there yeah that will be interesting what time is that starting i believe it is 630 p m east
9.30 p.m. Eastern, 6.30 p.m. Pacific is what time the keynote is.
By the way, Evan, I think that's just really not smarter than. They're losing a lot of their East Coast audience.
Why would you do it at 9.30 Eastern time instead of doing it like 3.30 or 4 o'clock when you have more people up and around on the East Coast?
Yeah, we'll see what it is. I don't disagree. Like, if it's,
I'm tired at 9.30. I know I might be in the minority there.
Someone, people my age are like, I'm just, I'm like just getting my day started at 9.30 p.m., but no, I'm tired.
I don't fully disagree. We'll see. I mean, you know, the good thing is is someone can listen to it later.
But I know it's going to be live stream on X. It's going to be live stream on the Robin Hood app too, which is cool.
I don't fully disagree with what you're saying. Maybe you should have done like 530 Pacific and like 8.30 Eastern.
That might be a little bit better.
Or even earlier, I mean, it's just, you know, this should be, if you're going to live stream in advertising, you should try to get the biggest audience you can.
That's just my thought there.
I'm hoping it's good.
I'm looking forward to seeing what they said.
If you get off work at five in San Francisco, it took you an hour probably to get to the event either way.
True.
I don't know.
We'll see.
Evan, is that live streamed?
Yep.
It will be live streamed.
They're going to, I think it's like directly going to be on their X account or Twitter account or whatever we want to call.
So that should be pretty easy for you guys to find.
Awesome. We'll definitely be checking that out later tonight.
I don't know where Stock Talk ran off to.
He may be in an elevator somewhere.
It seems where he hangs out during these spaces most days.
But I do have a question.
It came up on the last space, and we have a great panel up here.
So I do want to ask a couple of our panelists here.
The investing and holding companies that you like while the market's turning down like that.
I want to hear kind of the psychological approach.
I thought this was an interesting conversation piece.
And Brett, you kind of triggered this thought, so I kind of want to throw this back at you first.
But in the investing side of things, you know, maybe people that...
Let's say they're semi-active investors.
Obviously, I know we have a lot of traders and people that are actively managing positions.
But if you are more of just a, let's say, semi-active investor, you're buying companies that you want to hold for a while,
how do you handle the psychology of watching a market come down?
Maybe you do a little bit of technical analysis and you look and say, well,
I don't know.
it looks like it could come lower.
I mean, we hear DCA thrown out there a lot.
How do you kind of get through the psychological battle of that
in the middle aspect of things and being able to buy on these dips?
Yeah, that's a good question.
Because there's no doubt, like,
So much of this is emotional, right?
I like when you're reading books or like watching YouTube videos on investing,
you know,
it's like common for a lot of that to sort of like talk about like raining in your emotions
or like some even will say like eliminating your emotions,
which quite frankly, like I just don't really think is possible.
I think learning to recognize your emotions and try to sort of temper them is really the way that
is really the only way to do it.
You can't really, at least in a healthy way,
you can't really shut it all off
and just be unemotional with investing
and then re-engage with your emotions
once the market closes at 4 p.m.
At least I can't.
I guess I'm only saying that from my perspective,
but in my experience, talking with other people
and working with a lot of investors,
that seems to be the case too.
I think you have to find that sort of balance
where, you know,
Because so many of these stocks are going to move, like if the S&P is down 10%, you know,
a lot of these names are going to be down at least 20, if not 30.
And if they're in the high flyer camp or they're, you know, the exciting stocks with the
exciting growth stories, you know, they're going to be down, they could be down 30 or 40%.
And it's, I don't want to say like nothing.
But, I mean, it happens so quickly.
You know, if those are large positions for you, that's how I've like,
tried to temper sort of the emotional tool it takes on me is they end up making up smaller position sizes in my portfolio
um i just you know going through like the prior cycles it just was the upside was always fun and great
obviously but it's those downside rug pulls where it might seem like
oh, I can get out in time or like, oh, I can protect that profit.
But, you know, sometimes one of these companies reports and it's down 30%.
You know, I mean, and the trade desk is a great example.
I don't know what that fell last month when it reported, but it was probably close to 30% in a day.
And, you know, a month later, it was 60% off its high.
So, you know, it's easy to say it when things are going well and you're riding a strong trend, like, oh, I'll get out in time or I'll, you know, I'll have a trailing stop.
But, you know,
These things can turn on a dime, both good and bad, but I always try to keep that in mind.
I try to keep a reasonable position size on some of these, so they don't dominate too much
my portfolio.
I do like to use ETFs to kind of anchor my portfolio.
Yes, there is a correlation, and yes, when the markets are down, my portfolio is down
overall.
It tends to be at least when I'm talking about my longer term accounts.
I find that the ETFs for me help balance both my account and my emotions. I'd rather have it, you know, sort of act as a buoy and down markets and let my individual positions hopefully outperform in the up markets. So that's kind of how I approach it. Outside of that, in terms of how do I pick the names. Generally speaking, a lot of them are names I've
been involved with for years. I try not to trade in and out of them too much, but, you know,
like your typical Mag 7 names are pretty common throughout my, like Amazon and video. Those
names have been on and off and mostly on over the last, you know, five to 10 years. Something like
a Visa, MasterCard, a JP Morgan. Those are names. Those are quality businesses. Those are
companies that, you know, despite
ongoing and differentiating business cycles,
they're the ones that usually emerge and come out of it,
not only, you know, not broken,
but come out even stronger into the next cycles
whenever those do restart.
So I try to find those consistent businesses
and I never know where the low is.
You know, I try to put some technical analysis
into the longer term stuff, but you never know.
I mean, it wasn't two,
it was a couple years ago where we had, you know,
meta losing three quarters of its value,
Netflix, same thing.
Nvidia down, I think, lost two-thirds of its value.
So, you know, you don't necessarily know where the low is going to be in these situations.
But, you know, when we get healthy corrections, 20, 30%, percent,
I try to nibble some of the companies I think will be there on the other side.
Yeah, really great thoughts there. Brad, I appreciate you going into that. I know everyone talks about the, you know, buying the dip and then they get scared when it comes. The psychological side of things is very tough. So great thoughts there. I'm going to put that same question over to Wolfie. Wolfie, what are your thoughts around that?
So, yeah, that's a good question. I look at it a little bit differently than some people. I think the first thing that,
we have to like recognize is that generally speaking stocks go up on earnings right so whether
whether it be a revenue multiple whether it be a growth multiple whether it be um a profit
multiple whatever whatever the story that the stock goes up on over time
it's an earnings situation, right?
So if there's any instances where you can see those earnings compress,
and let's just focus on revenues for the sake of argument,
let's say if a stock goes up and it's like an earnings revenue story,
it's beat.
Every single time it beats, it raises the stakes even more.
Eventually that story is going to compress or it's going to stall
or it's going to need another driver or something else is going to have to happen, right?
In a situation like we find ourselves in now where we have this like uncertainty,
the, or I call it, I tend to, I tend to side in the camp of confusion versus uncertainty
because we have multiple instances of uncertainty, currently not just one, right?
So in an instance like we find ourselves in today with tariffs specifically, in a generalized
sense, if you have tariffs and reciprocal tariffs, you're going to be
you're going to have compression in terms of like a consumer consumers being able to spend because you only you only spend so much money on so much things and if you also couple that with some of the policy decisions that we have currently you have like government shrinkage of of of spend as well right so if we're in an era where you have basically um um
like a defensive posture for for using capital then anything with like a significant multiple
is going to compress what whether or not they meet whatever mark they're at currently just because
things price for the future so i start there and then i think so i i first started doing this
you know, in the early 2000s, like mid, mid to early 2000s.
Let's say mid 2000s.
And I've, you know, there's guys that have been doing it longer there on this panel and they can tell you more than I can.
But I can tell you from my perspective, I saw Microsoft in a range.
you know if you just look at a chart from your 2000 to year 2012 or 13 it was like basically
in a range so anytime i want to commit some sort of capital on a on a buy the dip instance
the first thing i think you got to do or the first thing i do i'm not going to say what you got to do
first thing i do is i take a look at the environment that we're in
And I consider is this environment that we're in conducive or restrictive to the type of investment that I want to be in?
So in an environment where you're going to have higher rates for longer periods of time,
and a reduction in spend and multiple compression,
it probably doesn't do as well for some of these high flyer names.
In a lower interest, cash flowing environment,
you know, that spec whatever you want, put a multiple on it,
people will bid it, right?
So I start there.
I then go with like,
If I'm in a position and I want to add to it, I take a look at their earnings or their story.
Did anything materially change?
So if I could use that as an example, if I use the current example to that, right?
Like if you own Invidio or Dell or Microsoft or any of these things, the main thing that you kind of want to focus on currently is this AI super cycle that we are in and going through is the,
the CAPEX, and this is not something I'm saying,
it's something I'm echoing that's been said in here multiple times, right?
Is the CAPEX going to shrink at all?
Because if it does, it doesn't matter what you own outside of like,
uh, very specific nuance, idiosyncratic things.
Everything's going to get reduced, right?
So as long as these stories don't change,
then you can kind of give yourself all clears.
But the main thing that, that I do when I, when I think of this,
if I'm trying to dollar cost average,
I in environments like this, I don't view it as dollar cost averaging.
I look at it in terms of percentage cost averaging.
I don't like in a in a up trending market or in a healthy market, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Right. So I can buy Tesla, you know, in theory, I could buy Tesla in an uptrend.
every $4 and I'll be fine.
Eventually it'll go up, right?
In an environment like this, I'm a little bit more cautionary with some of these names.
And I like to think of it in terms of percentages.
So if I'm like younger, I might have my percentage be, you know,
5 to 10% if I'm a little bit older and a little bit more
Restricted with my capital might be 10 to 15 if I'm like a boomer or whatever might be 15 to 20 plus right
So I tend to do that I tend to look for levels and I tend to look at whether or not the environment has changed
Whether or not the story itself has changed and whether or not there's any material information that could disrupt my path
Whatever the earnings path may be and then beyond that I just think that
you know for this year i've i've said often that like for me it's a barbell year on one side i want to
have value international and stuff like that on the other side i want to have you know some of these
core names that i believe in and uh the momentum names that um that whatever that flavor of the month
might be and that's just kind of like where i start from there it's um knowing you know on what
side of the barbell is like
in line with the market. So currently the flavor for the market is like value defensive yield
international. So, you know, I tilt that way. And as things change, if the Fed starts cutting
aggressively and we're not pushed into a recession or depression or a war or something like that,
then you might see the market's nature shift the other way and that's where I'll shift the other way.
But I don't think that
It's like a one size fits all unless, you know, you're early in your, in your venture and you're just dollar cost averaging the market itself, in which case, take everything I said throw out the window, you know, give yourself a timeline and commit to a certain amount of capital invested at a consistent pace over your lifetime and you should do okay.
Wow, great round down there. Wolfie. I really appreciate that. And Urkel, I want to ask you that same question. I know you've done a lot of the technical analysis side of things, but what are your thoughts on that as far as DCA, buying the dip and dealing with the psychology side of investing more for the long term?
Yeah, I'm happy to chime in on there.
Most of my kind of specialty is technical analysis.
One thing I do recommend just kind of as a side note is I have a swing trading and day trading account and a long-term investing account and I keep the two separate.
I highly recommend that because a lot of times I will swing or trade stocks that I'm also invested in.
So just for starters, just to be able to psychologically differentiate.
between your short-term trades and your long-term trades.
That's a really good way of just keeping things separate
and keeping your financial separate.
There's a few things in terms of psychology for me.
Like when I do technical trading,
I don't need to know the fundamentals of the business.
Generally speaking, I'll trade a chart or trade the key levels.
I try and stay away, obviously, from, you know, heavy dilutive companies
or penny stocks, pump and dumps, crap like that.
Like, I don't do that.
But one thing we do know in terms of the market in general is that the markets always have made historically new all-time highs.
And the really, really good businesses, whether they're in disruptive sectors or not, generally speaking, trend higher as well.
So if you're a long-term investor, things can get really shaky in short-term volatility and downtrends.
And this is where really conviction
comes into play. And where you get your conviction is from fundamental analysis. So vastly different
than technical analysis. And it's really important to be able to differentiate the two.
Technical analysis, you're looking at charts and levels. Fundamental analysis, you're looking
at the business. And you're probably reviewing your investing strategy in each company every
quarter when the earnings reports come out.
I know somebody just mentioned that earlier too, so you're kind of going, the stock's moving with earnings.
So as a long-term investor, I'm not so concerned about the price action every three months.
I'm really looking at the earnings reports.
Is the company still on track or the growth metrics still on track?
Do I still believe in the story?
You know, the TAM, the price to earnings,
you know, all of that stuff, you can kind of go through the earnings reports and review
and see whether or not it's overextended or below market value.
But I just think with long-term holds, and a lot of people make this mistake,
they buy into companies at highs or they chase them, not knowing fundamentals and not having
a long-term game plan.
So...
For me, again, with my investments, it's all about conviction, and that comes from knowing the companies, the CEOs, the business, the growth story, intuitively.
And for me, that comes from listening to earnings calls, following business-related news and the political environment that may impact the business as well.
And when I think a long-term investment is undervalued at the price given market conditions, that's generally when I like to buy and add to my investments. I don't just kind of willy-nilly buy just because there's a dip.
But you know, like a company like Palantir, for example, or you know, in the earlier days your Tesla's and apples and Netflix and all of that, at some point you believe in the story, you believe in the growth potential.
And that's where you get your conviction.
So, you know, if people get shaky or rocky about their long-term investments, my thing is always go back to the fundamentals.
If the fundamentals still makes sense.
chances are you're probably going to be fine over the long term.
So totally different strategy from technical trading or swing trading, day trading,
which is basically playing off short-term trends, key levels, support levels,
you know, demand and supply levels, things like that.
with long-term investments, just know the company really well because that's where you get your conviction from and that's where you can add a big dip or if, you know, markets are tumbling for tariffs news or COVID, whatever it was that led to a significant downside.
Those big dips or drops are.
provide huge investment opportunities to potentially multiply your dollars down the road.
So just have strong conviction in whatever it is you're trading.
And that's kind of where you get your peace of mind and the ability to hold with relatively low stress through the market volatility, ups and downs and things like that.
That was it.
Yeah, I was trying to get unmuted again.
I keep moving my phone around on the desk here, trying to get comfortable.
And for whatever reason, I moved it over to the side again.
And I was like, where is the unmute button?
But I found it here.
I appreciate that rundown, Erkel.
And that was some great thoughts there all around from the panel here.
I'm not sure where Stock Talk is.
If we get him back at any point, we will definitely throw it over to him.
The market did close there.
Go ahead, Evan.
Yeah, it was a fully red day closing on the market, at least for the magnificent seven.
I know I like to that one, look at that one.
It was interesting because we started the day, like four out of seven of them were
up or down by less than 0.1%.
So there's a lot of right around even, and it kind of turned into a little bit of a trend day here.
I thought it was interesting that Berkshire Hathaway did hit new all-time highs today,
kind of bucking the trend a little bit, even with like a name like Apple, which...
started the day out with some relative outperformance definitely did not end the day with that relative outperformance that is for sure
So I thought that move in Berkshire Hathaway was very interesting and telling today.
So that was one thing that definitely caught my eye that maybe I wasn't fully expecting.
You know, I would expect Berkshire Hathaway to hold up better.
But I don't know a lot of these days, it's also gotten caught up in the red.
I guess maybe today was a little bit different when you look at some of the names outside of just the Mag 7 out of the tech names.
There is, you know, a decent little bit about it agreeing here in other places.
But Mag 7 is definitely...
Actually, when I look at the heat map, consumer defensive.
Yeah, go for it.
GME's, like, getting sold on volume.
I know you guys like the headline names.
GameStop proposed $1.3 billion convertible debt offering.
More of the Sailor Playbook, maybe?
Just the GameStop strategy.
$1.3 billion convertible senior net,
senior convertible debt offerings.
Let's see, is there Bitcoin in here?
GameStop expects to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition
of Bitcoin.
That's kind of what they told us was going to happen.
Sailor 2.0.
So my question is, why didn't they just do this years ago?
Why are you just following 2.0?
Why did you try it with like, I don't know, Ethereum or something?
I don't know.
Is there much there with being too?
I guess maybe their brand will break it through this.
it was a good call at wolfey i appreciate you you cutting me off there but before this was a good thing
to go to i i don't know i actually don't think the the move for them to get into bitcoin was a bad
move for them like what else were they going to do um at least something right but you're right it
should have it should have happened like a year ago years ago yeah that was the only way i would
have maybe like you you waited for a sailor to really come in and take all of the thunder
Now, one thing that's actually kind of funny,
so we've been doing a little bit of work with rec shares for a while.
You guys know them.
They launched the BMAX ETF,
and that is an ETF that holds the...
For companies that have Bitcoin as a treasury and have convertible debt, this ETF goes in and buys that convertible debt.
It's basically all micro strategy debt right now.
So Michael Saylor has been loving it and tweeting out, but they're getting another name in there with some GME debt.
A little bit of here, it does have a 0% coupon.
What is the strike price on the conversion?
Coupin.
Did I say that weird? I might have.
No. I did see last night, Jim Kramer tweeted out GameSoft as finally doing my Bitcoin play,
and Ryan Cohen responded with the no with a bunch of O's behind it. That was probably one of the best things I saw yesterday.
The par value is the strike price. The par value is 0.001. Is that right? What am I?
What?
Will not bear any interest, principal amount of the notes when I accrued.
Notes will mature April 1st, 2030, unless earlier converted, redeemed below.
Upon conversion, GameStop will pay or deliver, as the case may be, blah, blah, blah, and a par value of one cent per sheikh.
No, no.
Point zero one.
Wow.
i was looking through this different advice too go ahead well can i can i give a it's not related to
this guy i just say something quick um i said this in your previous space but there's a new audience so
i think um a lot of people are looking for this you know this um crescendo that could happen in the vix or
some sort of like capitulatory event
But I think that because of how many different
you know, uncertain aspects there are, which is, again, how much confusion there is.
It kind of puts things at a spot where the VIX kind of has to stay elevated.
And I don't know if we're, I don't know if the pain trade actually lines up with having a capitulatory event.
I think the pain trade is this world that we live in with an elevated VIX.
Things grind higher, one step forward, two steps back.
And you don't want to sell everything because you don't want to get caught off sides and have something get unrolled or unwound and then have to buy it back at a higher price.
But you also don't want to buy anything or commit capital, like real capital, because you're not sure what's down the pike.
So I think that's kind of like where we're at right now.
And I think for me, I wanted to say that because I keep that in the back of my mind as a point of perspective for like some of the trades that I'm taking.
or some of like the defensive posturing that I'm in.
And I think once you once we get to some of these extremes,
whether it be to the upside or downside in the market
or in some of these high beta names,
having that in the back of mind,
kind of keeps you on track for like, oh, am I too far position one way or the other?
Is this where I tap the gas?
Or I don't want to short the hole.
I don't want to aggressively buy the breakout.
I want to make sure that things confirm and things of that nature.
I think that's kind of like I wanted to say that because I forgot to say it earlier.
But I don't, you know, we got a quick push up in the VIX, you know, about a couple weeks ago.
Wasn't anything crazy compared to some of these other moves that we've had?
The rate of change on the VIX wasn't crazy compared to some of these moves that we've had.
And it's, you know, kind of just elevated.
If you go back to 2018, 2020, same thing.
Before the COVID stuff started to really get hammered home.
We had...
elevated, you know, an elevated vix during those periods of that Trump uncertainty, especially
with the tariff stuff. So I just kind of wanted to say that and leave it.
Have any of you guys ever gone to GameStop's investor relations website?
I think I did one time for like an earnings call or something.
I think they changed it up. Have you seen it recently?
So archaic.
Yeah, it's, did they change it to like try and do a Buffett thing or whatever?
This is the first time I'm seeing this.
Yeah, it's got major Berkshire vibes.
It looks like the system they fire all the like, where they filed those 10Ks and all that stuff?
What's the system called?
Edgar.
Edgar?
Crazy.
Was there any earnings today and after hours?
I know tomorrow we have Lulu Lemon, which maybe some people will find interesting.
Jeffrey's reported earnings today.
Actually, it's coming out in like five minutes.
Dealcase.
I don't even know this one.
Yeah, I looked at those names.
Like, I just went to the one billion market cap and higher.
And Jeffrey is the only name I really recognized off the top of my head.
We had Dollar Tree this morning.
I heard of H.B. Fuller.
Yeah, I talked about Dollar Tree in the last one, but Dollar Tree is going to sell Family Dollar for a billion.
A new CEO is going to focus on their core business.
If they're able to sell it off and some of these headwind subside, they should get like an increased multiple because their Dollar Tree brand is, you know, not the same as their Family Dollar brand, which is like a...
a subpar tier customer, basically.
So you should see some sort of like multiple expansion
if they can get on some sort of consistent track
with their new CEO and core competency.
Trump did just finish up.
It looks like he's doing his little point
at the crowd thing right now in clapping.
Oh, the fist pump.
There it is. Yeah.
I think Trump is done.
So my new question here with this GameStop thing,
why would someone buy GameStop over micro strategy now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's because it depends on the, yeah, it's the type of consumer, right?
So like if you're someone who looks at a $20 stock and you're like, I want to buy it because it's cheaper, even though, you know, we know it may or may not be cheaper, right?
But it's just because the price tag.
You're saying Michael Shodgy should do a stock split.
I hate stock splits personally.
I don't like one stock split.
I think.
For me, from my experience, you make more money from these names that don't have stock splits.
Because it's, it just creates faster liquidity.
So for me, I prefer stocks not to split.
But if they split, that's one way to get that, that $20 price target person.
Do we have Kevin up here?
Is he even the crowd?
It just joined.
He just joined.
Hey, Kevin.
How you doing?
What's going on?
Did you guys just talk about the GameStop offering?
We're kind of talking through it right now.
Am I looking at a conversion price of 0.001 per share?
Yeah, and there's 0% coupon convertibles.
So, yeah.
I don't you explain to me so I just want to make sure I'm on the same page here so
the notes mature 2030 so between now and 2030 they're paying no interest on it when it
when 2030 comes around if they're called they'll convert at a per share of 0.001 per share will
be their cost basis but what's the the strike on those they will announce the strike at I haven't read the actual
listing, but it should be, I don't know if this is a preliminary, but they'll announce
with whatever the strike prices.
It was preliminary, it was a proposed offering.
Yeah, so when they said it.
There's some room to upsize it as well.
Yeah, so they'll, they'll set the strike price and usually the strike price will be,
it will most likely be above current equity value, like for like micro strategy or whatever
strategy, whatever we would call it.
Um, you know, quote me on this, but usually if their strikes are like 20%, 30%, even higher to the upside.
Um, so they'll, they'll set a strike price.
So let's say like the stock's trading at 28 bucks.
They'll say, hey, takeout price or strike price of these is going to be $45.
So they're basically asking the street for $1.3 billion for you to give them $1.43 billion for a chance of have equity at a certain strike price that will, you know, expire.
Yeah.
I'll let me know what the expiration date.
So it's 2030.
So they want free money in return for equity.
So they believe that this is going to be their turnaround story.
It's a, you know, they're trying the same thing that strategy is doing.
But I mean, I mean, I don't want to like hate on it, right?
Like there's people probably in the crowd that they're like, oh yeah, like this is my jam.
But if you kind of like talk it out a bit, it does sound ridiculous.
So that's just like.
Like if you think like I would rather, I mean, if the strike price is going to be higher.
I want to just buy the stock right now.
Like you would just buy, hey, you want my money by this.
I'm not saying for people to do.
Don't.
It's not a recommendation.
I'm just saying if I had convertibles, they were paying me nothing for strike price.
It's going to be a lot higher.
and 2030, and I'm going to get no rate of return on those.
Now, you could trade the convertibles.
That's what happens with micro-strategy as well.
The difference between what micro-strategy is doing and what GameStop is doing is
micro-strategy, and actually this is going to be very interesting.
Because of micro-strategy structure, some international institutions, like in the European Union
or even in the UK, can't actually trade the converts.
So micro strategy has kind of like this, I don't call it like a black hole, but they basically have a very limited market.
So they'll get institutional traders that will actually buy the converts.
And then, you know, micro strategy moves up 10%, 12%, 20% or whatever.
It's such a thin market on the converts that they can flip them really quickly.
Like that's, that's what you've wanted to do if you're an institution.
GME is a little bit different.
it from what I know.
Now that much structure might change because of this Bitcoin exposure on the balance sheet.
I'm not too sure.
Don't quote me on that.
But Micro Strategy has been able to do this situation or scenario too because there's very low availability on these converts.
So you can get somebody that takes 80% of the overall interests or the overall lot.
and push prices as prices go higher, right?
It's a very volatile name.
So that's one way to do it.
So think about it as like its own pseudo equity instrument that they can, that institutions can trade.
I mean, retail traders can also probably buy into this thing too, but once again, if you're trading a thousand bucks, I wouldn't, I would just buy the shares here.
If you're that confident about it, I mean, either way, they're going to go receive capital.
I just find it very acidying when you see some of these term structures by Bitcoin.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
But it is what it is.
It's legal.
So what they're doing is not illegal.
It's just...
There's no real incentive there, unless you are a big institution that can push paper.
Like if you have something that you could say, okay, I can throw $500 million,
I put $700 million into this, control three, four, so the overall supply.
GameStop has one of these short squeezes and goes from $28 bucks up to $50.
And then there's market, there's makers or buyers out there that want to buy the converts.
You could flip the converts, boom, right?
This is another instrument people think.
A long term, I wouldn't, for a long term, in my opinion, personally, if you kind of just think about it and just like talk it out, I'm going to give a company some money that has a very illiquid market just in general, the converts.
I'm not going to get any interest on it.
My strike price is going to be a lot higher than what the current strike value is.
That's what Microstrategy does.
Micro Strategy was able to also get away with that, and they're able to get away with that
because it's very high volatility, right?
One day it could trade, I don't know what it's trading at right now.
One day it could trade at $250.
The next day, not the next day, but next week it could trade at $500.
GameStop, in my opinion, doesn't have that volatility to kind of make it worth it.
So I don't know.
invest at your own risk, I would say.
But if you're optimistic about the company,
I'm looking at it, what's best rate of return for me.
It wouldn't be the converts.
It would just be buy the stock now instead of buying a convert
that has a higher strike price and no interest or dividends.
And be locked up until 2030.
And be locked up until 2030.
That's also something to know.
Yeah.
The other difference is,
with micro strategy or strategy whatever the hell they're called now um the CEO and you know everybody
on board like they're in it that's what they're they're they're behind the bitcoin story in this case
this is just like a lever to try to pull to try to have you know some some movement away from
a failing business model that you know was going to go by the wayside basically
And then you value it on their balance sheet.
So micro strategy is valued on the balance sheet,
not their top line revenue, right?
So even if you buy crypto or you buy Bitcoin
and it's on your balance sheet,
you're not receiving, it's not a line item
of receiving income at all, right?
And we all know this.
You could have whatever you have on your balance sheet.
If I have something, if I have a home on my personal balance
sheet, that's $500,000, and then it's valued at a million,
It could be valued at a million, but I can't realize gains until what you sell, right?
So people haven't cared about that for micro strategy.
They care about their balance sheet, as long as their balance sheet continues to increase.
But in order for them to be able to actually realize those gains, they have to sell.
Which makes it very kind of interesting, like micro strategy.
I mean, I would say the previous administration, and I don't want to say normal.
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah.
One comment on that.
So like.
I've heard some arguments around micro strategy that listen, if you can get to the point where you're holding a million Bitcoin,
out of 21, 22 million of it, and this becomes a big thing and Bitcoin lending and whatever,
there could be some benefits to having, you know, an immense amount of Bitcoin concentrated in one place and maybe not even have to sell it.
Yeah.
No, I don't see the game.
They could, yeah, they, I mean, if they are able to amass that much Bitcoin in order for them to make,
a lending business off of it, for sure, right?
Like, I'm not hating on that because then that would be considered downstream income.
I don't know how the SEC feels about that, right?
That's where it gets really murky because what micro strategy is doing is the same thing
that a JP Morgan is doing with mortgage back securities or with treasuries or anything.
They're buying an instrument on their balance sheet, but that they also can leverage
in certain areas of the business. It's just something that we haven't seen before in this
style, something that's this aggressive and
kind of murky regulatory environment, right?
So yeah, that could be the case.
Other side of that, Evan, if you amass so much of an asset and you want to realize gains,
you need buyers for that asset.
And so if I'm, it's just like a market maker and I don't want to go down like this whole rabbit hole here, right?
But let's say the JP Morgan Collar is a perfect example of this.
I don't know, maybe not for everybody, but if I'm a market maker and I have 70%, I know 70% of this open interest that I'm trading on the other side of somebody, it's just one person, right?
And this one person needs to unload JP Morgan College, why not because that's cash settlement.
And I need somebody to unload.
This person that says, hey, if I'm traded 100 contracts with me of XYZ stock at $50 strike,
and he's the only open interest, I'm making a market on it.
But at the end of the day, especially for Bitcoin, there's no technically designated market makers.
There's no regulatory rules for bid ass spreads.
Imp wants to get out of those bad boys.
Guess who he's got to trade with?
I can control the price.
If micro strategy takes so much inventory and has so much positioning and they wanted to say, hey, let's like lever this off a little bit.
Man, Bitcoin's up to $800 million or whatever.
They get and they say, hey, we want to unload.
They need somebody to buy that.
Right? Because the market value of any asset is dependent on whoever's buying that stuff from you.
So that's where you also kind of say it gets a little bit dicey if you amass so much of an asset.
It doesn't matter what it is.
You're saying it's.
It's time for them to increase lobbying to get that Bitcoin strategic reserve going.
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I'm kind of getting way into it.
I'm just trying to talk about the fundamentals.
Yeah, I'm just trying to talk about the technicals of it.
It just makes it a little different.
The irony in your statement, Kevin, is the, you're saying the price is not the price,
but from the opposite way from what they were saying back when the price was suppressed.
Yeah. Well, yeah. So there's marked price. There's last traded price. There's a marked price. But at the end of the day, like, price is dependent on how much volume you're trading. And I know you know this, but I want to make sure, you know, people probably in the crowd and saying like, what the hell is this dude talking about, right? Let's go back to that example with imp. Imp has 100 contracts. Let's say he traded them for a buck. But, you know, and now wants to sell 80 contracts out.
Maybe I was showing a dollar by a dollar 50, but I was only showing that for one contract.
And if you kind of look at book depth, which is level two, right, and then you look at the next order, maybe I have another order there to be able to bid off of them, but that bids sitting at 50 cents.
And then maybe I have 20 more contracts at 20 cents.
Like if he wants to fill his 80 lot order, he's going to either have he's going to have to fill through that book.
So even though I'm flashing $1.
for a top contract, for maybe 10 contracts or whatever, that's not going to satisfy his needs for 80.
contracts to be filled at a buck. That's the difference between what mark prices, what we're seeing,
and then book depth. And that's what I'm trying to like align with micro strategy. At some point,
if you have so much size, you need to make sure that you have the book depth in the market for
somebody to buy it from you in order to get out at that price. Right? Because we've seen flashes in book depth.
Completely nerd out. Sorry, man. I'll kick it back. It's a scene from what's the 80s movie with
Trading space on the floor. Trading places. Trading places. Yeah, trading places. It's a literal
Yeah, it's that scene when they're on the floor and there. Yeah, it happens in commodities all the time.
Equities, you don't really see it options. You'll see it in very thin markets, but in commodities you'll see that like all right. Like, you know, it's
especially like Natty, right?
Natty might show, hey, last print was $3.80.
But if you kind of look at it, I got to trade 100 lot.
And if I wanted to trade 100 lot on the current book depth right now,
that 100 lot might go down to 375, 370.
You're talking about a 10 cent difference between 380 and 370.
That's a thousand bucks per contract.
You see what I'm saying?
So there's book depth.
It's what you see and what you're marking.
And then there's like actually the technical, can you actually get out if you have so much inventory of whatever product that you're trading.
I'm not hating on micro strategy, right?
People live and die for that stock.
That's cool.
I'm just saying like just the fundamentals of how they're doing it.
You would think that that lending type of business that Evan, you're bringing up would probably be what they would have to have to do.
And they're still going to need to have robust demand, outside demand in order to.
sustain that we get to a whole thing about this is a decentralized product and now we're kind of talking about centralization here and different assets which i find an intriguing one as well um but i i just at this point like i i i don't see the room for a second one doing the exact same thing that's what i'm hung up on too evan is your you're second to market here
And you're going to be considered second best.
I just don't see how they outperform and they're coming in at a time where it still is murky, like Kevin was saying.
So I just, I don't understand the strategy around it, to be 100% honest.
But I see the argument that, hey, at least they're trying to do something, which I guess is maybe a rose-colored lenses version of this.
But yeah, just the second-to-market, second-best kind of option, I just don't see how that really...
sticks in the short term.
And you don't have the volatility to be able to, in my opinion, match the offering on the converts.
Once again, the value of the converts for micro strategy is due to the volatility of the underlying equity.
No one cares about the Bitcoin underlying and yada out of this,
that out of that.
It could be some hoe done company.
If that whole boatload of volatility,
both to the upside or downside that's sustained,
and you're able to offer converts on that as small float,
an institution might say, yeah, I can take a shot on this.
Just because once again, stock could be up 60% in a month,
those converts will be worth something.
Somebody might want to buy them.
I mean, you can kind of unload them that way,
but something that's, I mean, GameStop is volatile,
but not like micro strategy votes, you know,
to make it worth it.
I think it's gonna be a tough sell on the 1.3 billion,
unless they already have somebody wind up
to take the lion's share of that offering.
I think it's gonna be pretty difficult.
Kevin, was there anything else you found interesting today?
Anything else that cut your eye on the market?
Yeah, I mean, obviously we're down today, but we were able to hold the 5,700 level.
You know, if you look at the technical setup for the S&P 500,
yesterday we had a Doge candle, upper end of resistance, and I'll have to post this chart,
because I keep talking about it, but I need people who actually see it.
these two channels there's this middle line in that channel that access support for the primary
downtrend access resistance for the secondary downtrend or the continuation of that downturn
so we got back into that channel on monday the gap up um or basically last week consolidated
had that gap up now we tested the upper end of that channel doji candle yesterday
I call it a bearish engulfing candle.
People are going to be like, dude, technically it's not like, look,
that thing is engulfing Monday's move.
So I think, and then we had a dogy, very small candle dogey yesterday.
I negate that because that shit was a sign of indecision.
So we didn't want, we did not want to stay in this range for too long.
This was kind of what I was bringing up the other day.
Like this is the potential for a short area, getting above that 20, getting above that 200,
pin right at that resistance level.
And if you and I have talked about this offline, this would have been an attractive area too short if you wanted to take a shot.
And I think that you kind of saw a little bit of that today with the aggressive nature of the selloff and the mag seven names.
Okay.
So and you're testing a gap to the downside too.
We did test intradate gap on that too, which we held that up.
But honestly, that closed to me says, like, we probably will test that gap and try to actually fill that downside gap.
one way or another. It doesn't mean we fill it and we have to completely just fall out of bed,
but it seems like the market wants to go back and retest that and rightfully so.
So go ahead. I'm sorry.
The other thing I brought up was the QQQ.
So Spy got back to its 200 day, closed slightly above it, right, then yesterday tried to support on that spot.
Today, you know, a big trigger for me was when I saw that, you know, invalidated.
We lost the previous days low.
You know, we opened up.
opened up where we did and just came straight down through it and did not respect it at all after holding it yesterday.
So broke yesterday's support, immediately turned it to resistance.
And then QQQQQ caught up.
So first QQQ was the first one down to the 200.
Then Spy came down to the 200.
Spy was the first one back to the 200 and then QQQQQ finished that.
I mean, we were on this space yesterday afternoon when that happened.
And sure enough, that was, that marked the high.
I mean, I was short in the Globex last night, and that played out nicely, which
obviously held it much longer.
And then now, how confusing is this, Kevin, from a technical standpoint, we closed right
in the middle of the gap on the daily?
We're right in it.
So playing this, do we maybe gap up overnight a little bit and then just completely finish
it or does it just go straight finish the gap?
Does it leave a gap?
I mean, I would think that this gap gets filled.
And when it does, which on the spy, it's down around 564 or 565 area.
QQQ, same thing.
It's down around the 481.
And when it fills that gap, is that,
Is that the spot to take your lower high?
I mean, I'm sorry, your higher low, your shot back up, or is that just your target for anybody
that just came in short around that 200-day moving average?
Yeah.
And that's going to be the conundrum to work out the next couple days, in my opinion.
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you.
You know, for SPX, one thing that two notes, though, it only closed two points below the 20.
So let's just say that it tried to hold it.
it. If we want to be technical with it, it broke it, but I would say to try to hold it as much as possible. Just given the fact that, uh,
I would have to see what volume was doing.
Seemed like volume was actually increasing here today.
So if we have increasing volume on this down day,
I am of the mind that we do go through
and try to actually test that gap fully to see what the price action is in there.
If not, and we break through that,
we still have that channel, that consolidation range
that we had pretty much all of last week,
looking at the low of 56, let's call it 5610,
give or take, depending on the Wix.
upper end 56 7675 you know you start breaking that channel to the downside that's where you're like all right
might be in a little bit more trouble here and then that's where it comes back to say hey was this actually
the first wave and was this the counter trend which textbook wise this could be that's what i've been
kind of talking about right like it's
We don't know if it's the low yet.
Don't get ahead of yourself one way or another.
If you're a bull or if you're a bear,
you got to trade tactically in this market
because at the end of the day,
we don't know until the price action is going to tell us.
Price action over the next two weeks might say,
hey, boom, we break 5,500 and we go lower.
I would say that it probably gives a lot more confidence
for bears to really kind of layer into this
and say, hey, let's actually figure out
and map out this three wave cycle.
to the downside.
Because I mean, you can make the case,
maybe we're in wave two.
I don't think so, but maybe we are.
But we might be looking at wave one.
And unfortunately,
Technically, the waves get worse and worse, the more that you go down, right?
I'm not calling that out.
You know, I do believe that we will over the next, you know, three months, six months.
I think we do go lower, but that's just me personally.
And I know that there's a lot that needs to actually happen in order for that to truly break down in the manner that I think.
But I also look at the weekly charts and the monthly, and the monthly chart for me says, this is just the beginning.
But I might be wrong.
We might actually have this as the bottom low.
This might just be a pullback retest type of scenario here.
You look at the location for Nvidia though,
in the price action day wasn't great.
And so, and that's one of the big stocks that I'm kind of looking at.
If we start flattening out that MACD too, it gets a little bit concerning on SPX.
So I was just say continue to rotate.
The thing that I think is a bright sign though was today was a rotation day, not a sell
everything day.
And those two scenarios are very key on trying to figure out how this market is perceiving
risk in the future, right?
You want to see the rotation.
Down days and rotation means that, hey, money's being put to work in other places.
Down day and everybody's selling everything don't matter if it's a consumer staples.
It don't matter if it's utilities.
It doesn't matter whatever.
And you got yields moving lower.
That means you have generally, you know, risk off.
That's where bears thrive and short sellers thrive.
So interesting kind of location here.
I would personally like to see that gap being tested and filled one way or another.
Show some buyers actually truly stepping in after we close it and or.
Yeah.
resuming the downtrend one or two.
So and I was complete, I thought that we might not even hear any tariff stuff.
I thought the news cycle is going to be so focused on the signal thing that the White House would have to address it so much and we wouldn't hear.
But it seems like the other strategy is like, yo, this is kind of an issue and a black eye.
So like, let's change this narrative.
I this is the direction they're doing they're doing a whole job with it going back to the tariff thing.
So let's see let's see how this all pans out.
I was actually kind of surprised and I'll kick it too after this, but I was kind of surprised about the Tesla price action.
So I understand that they're losing the EV credits in Canada.
And I believe that is a big market for them.
So yeah, that could have a little bit of an impact.
But I was under the impression.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Guys correct me, you Tesla followers, they'd know a hell of a lot more than I do.
I could have swore there was a rumor two weeks ago that Tesla was going to be exempt from
these auto tariffs.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I just read something that was incorrect.
But did anybody hear the same thing that there was potentially an exemption for them?
as in the company? Or am I making that up in my head? Maybe stock talking about it.
I did not see that personally.
Okay. I'll have to look at it. I don't know though. I'm not saying it's not true. I just didn't see it.
Yeah, that might be on me then. I could have swore that there was talks about potentially having them as an exemption.
I thought that was around the same time that the company sent the letter to them to the White House unsigned.
I thought that was the same.
Around the same week, but maybe I'm right.
They were mentioned, I don't know if you're referring to the India tariffs because they were mentioned in that article.
Gotcha.
About India potentially reducing auto tariffs.
Because Trump met with Modi.
What was it?
I mean, not Trump, Elon met with Modi earlier this month or last month.
And then like a week after that meeting.
A report came out that he talked to Modi about the Indian market, and then this weekend
a report came out that Modi and other Indian government officials are considering a phase-out
plan for auto tariffs, where they have, I don't know if they said a three-year or five-year
period, I forgot, but three-year-year period where they reduce tariffs on U.S. auto imports
um incrementally each year and they said there is uh discussions that maybe tesla would be
exempt to indian auto tariffs under that policy so maybe that's what you're referring to um or what
you remember reading but i don't know that's the only thing i i i
Remember seeing that, I guess, fits in the category.
Cool.
I appreciate you clarifying that.
And once again, that was something I thought that I saw.
So sorry for the misinformation there.
I didn't mean any harm.
But I thought that there was like something more under the hood outside of the India thing.
Which I'm glad to see that they're doing the India move.
Like, that's good.
I think we talked about that like a year ago.
Like, it should be, that should be happening regardless there.
But, okay, yeah, so we'll see.
I think that'll be a very interesting reaction.
I don't know if Trump is talking right now or not.
Is he already done or?
Yeah, I think he just finished.
He finished, but he's supposed to be signing some stuff, isn't he?
I did see him talking about.
We haven't had rant Trump yet.
He hasn't ranted yet.
That's where he gets the news.
He was at the podium.
Yeah, he was at the podium earlier, and he was basically just highlighting different people, like talking about different cabinet members and stuff like that.
And he didn't really make any comments around anything else yet.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I think the tricky thing is with all these updates on terrorists is like we get a headline that says like Trump to make terrorist announcement this afternoon or tomorrow or later in the week.
And then we get to that point and it's just like the same stuff he's been saying.
I mean, at least the last three media interactions on this topic have been redundant in my view.
I'm not knocking the administration.
I'm just saying like, let's be realistic here.
They haven't made any new points on this topic in weeks or maybe even over a month.
I get maybe that this sort of messaging is intentional, but I'm starting to sort of get confused.
Like, it feels a lot like, boy, you cried wolf to me, with these updates.
Like, I mean, okay, so April 2nd, the media is saying that these specific tariffs aren't coming.
Trump seems to be softer on that issue and is saying, no, no, no, no, they're coming.
Pharmaceutical tariffs are coming.
Semiconductor tariffs are coming.
Auto tariffs are coming.
But he's not being specific at all.
And like the market seems to just be frankly confused about it.
I know yesterday we talked about this, like with the Deutsche Bank survey that I brought up where they interviewed market and surveyed market, of course, sorry, respondents on their expectations for Trump tariffs.
And there's no consensus view.
You know, there's 20% segments voting on every point of that curve.
You know, when Trump comes out and he's like, yeah, we're going to make a big auto tariff's announcement today.
Like he said nothing new.
So I think that's the hardest part of managing this news cycle is this idea of like,
is something actually going to happen at these decision points or, you know, moments in the news?
Or is it just going to be like mumbo-jumbo talking about it, but, you know, maybe signing a few executive orders,
but not actually making any definitive policy moves.
Because like, have any tariffs even gone into effect on Canada yet?
Yeah.
Um, no.
Nothing.
So it's like, we've been talking about this for two months and there's not even a tariff on Canada yet.
And like, I have cousins in Canada.
Two of them are like, dude, we have a lot of money in U.S. import export.
And they've been like preparing for the apocalypse.
And the tariffs haven't even gone into effect yet.
You know, Cash Carrey said it this morning in the interview that he did.
I tweeted out some of his quotes.
But.
He said this morning, he was asked, he was like, in my view, the biggest risk to the economy is the risk to confidence.
He said that he thinks that could have a bigger impact than the actual tariffs themselves, which is exactly what we've been saying on the space for weeks now, or at least that's my opinion.
So I completely agree with Keshkaria there.
But he said that today as well.
So at what point are we just like, is the market going to say, okay, boy who cried wolf, we've seen zero actual action, like,
Like, hey, this is a new policy.
Signing an executive order is meaningless.
I think a lot of people don't realize that.
People sign executive orders for all sorts of things.
Most of them are just resolutions or, you know, proclamations of some greater goal in a policy standpoint.
But most of them don't actually end up in any sort of law.
And I think people are, I don't remember falling for that, but people are kind of being lulled into the idea of forgetting that, sort of, and just chasing whatever's being set on the EOs rather than what's actually being done in policy.
So it's sort of becoming a headache, frankly.
But, yeah, Kevin, I saw you were going to jump in there.
Oh, yeah, I think so we do have tariffs on Canadian Steel.
in aluminum.
Right.
Those are the ones for sure that I know of.
But, and it's not that, I think what you're saying is, it's not for the lack of knowledge,
right?
Or the ignorance of us to say like, dude, what the hell is being put on?
What's already on?
What's not?
It's that the cycle is, there's so much.
It is starting to blend.
Like a lot of the stuff starting to blend for me, like every single day.
It's like, I don't even know what the hell we're doing anymore.
Do you think that he continues to have these type of events and this rhetoric because it's not working?
Do you think that's the reason why?
And he thinks that like, hey, let me double down on this again real quick.
Because I did you read the leaked messages from the Atlantic?
Yeah, I read that.
Yeah.
I mean, like that, you know, when the quote I brought up where they quoted JD Vance where he's like, hey, we need to work on the messaging.
I still haven't made up my mind yet if this is, you know, we were, you and me were talking about this yesterday.
Is this intentionally misleading and uncertain messaging to create some sort of economic impact?
Or is this just incompetent messaging?
I haven't made up my mind yet.
Because...
I would like to believe, I mean, I guess it would be more comforting in a way to believe that they are intentionally trying to create market turmoil as a mechanism by which to lower yields.
And...
Like, is that effective?
I mean, sort of.
I mean, the dynamics in the bond market and the equity market this year haven't been straightforward.
So we can't say it's been like a one-to-one correlation where, you know, the pressure they're putting on equity markets has led to, you know, one-to-one relief in the bond markets.
It hasn't.
But if that's their intention, I guess it's a little bit more comforting.
I think it's much less comforting if this is just a matter of incompetence because then we have...
four years of head scratching policy ahead of us where no one's going to know what's actually happening.
And that's a little bit different than the first term.
Like, you know, when this term kicked off, a lot of us were calling back to the first Trump term, like, hey, remember how volatile it was?
Remember how fun the headline volatility was?
But in my view, at least as of the first couple months of this year, it's worse than the first term.
The first term is volatile.
Welcome.
Welcome to be an ag trader in the first term.
You guys are all seeing exactly what we experienced as ag traders.
Like, wait, what the hell's going on?
Yeah, that is the case.
Look, I don't know.
I know we talked about this.
I don't want to be labor at, though.
But, you know, another, like, interesting point to this is the copper story this morning from Bloomberg.
right, if they're going to accelerate these copper tariffs and that could actually start by next week.
I mean, the market was expecting that to happen like later this year, like mid third quarter, late fourth quarter.
That's another one that's kind of like throwing even just the commodity market kind of in like a, you know, head scratching mode.
Now, that's been a tail win.
for copper. But once again, that's another thing that it makes it very hard for a lot of these deals to be done, especially if you're trying to build out of the infrastructure project and you just said, hey, I'm committing $500 billion to something. You got to build it from the ground up. Inputs.
It's one of the most important inputs that you have now just kind of goes up 20%.
That, you know, it's a very interesting one as well.
And I think, you know, the market's just, we're just going to have to deal with it.
Unfortunately, this is going to be like the environment.
And I hope, I hope after next week,
It does kind of like die down and they get a little bit more tactical with it.
So it impacts maybe certain industries rather than this broad-based thing because it is making it difficult just to trade.
And here's the thing that makes it also kind of difficult to trade.
You're not seeing it really being priced in of all.
So you're seeing intradate moves.
And I know AJ is up here.
You can talk about it.
signals in the past are kind of going by the wayside like unless you're kind of looking at the flows under the hood like i do or a j or some of you know some of these other people they're doing intraday trading not talk about the swing traders and all that stuff with the intradate trading you if you're just looking at the vix to give you a sense of what the hell is going on good luck to you because we're having more realized vol than implied vol here uh and it makes it a little bit difficult too so
that's also another thing to kind of call out you know at at one point you'll see just massive
structuring into some straight up deep out of the money put options and you're like okay let's
shrug it off and then and then an hour later like mark is getting hit by 100 points and you're like
oh shit like those are that was actually real flow like back in the day i would just discount it
because very low delta very low at that time gamma exposure
Um, but you got to basically what I'm saying is if you're a flows trader,
you got to check the wings out a lot more than what we have in the past because the
wings are really telling you a lot.
And actually, this is not a recommendation.
If you buy the wings and strangle the wings, literally probably for the last three weeks,
four weeks, if you just bought the strangles of the wings, which are actually relatively
cheap, you know, 300 bucks or three bucks.
total for the contract, maybe three and a half, maybe even four bucks.
If you just bought wings, that's a profitable strategy.
And I hate strangles because strangles, you have IV crush and time decay on both sides.
So you have to have a move.
But that's another thing that I've been noticing.
The wings of these trades, they're not pinning.
They're penning, but they're moving to those wings a lot quicker than what we would normally see.
Yeah.
I'll take it back. I want somebody else to kind of, you know, talk about it. I hate hog on the mic.
No, well said, Kevin. Well said. I think from a, from a futures, I wouldn't say future standpoint, but I talked about this a little bit this morning in terms of the VIX term structure of contango versus backwardation, right? So early March, all of February, it was pretty much elevated and showing signs of backwardation, you know, months out. You could see it in the curve. And, um,
You could see that it had kept all of February uncertain, most of March beginning uncertain.
And then last week, and the last week, early this week, literally looking at that curve last night, I saw it had fixed itself, repaired itself, quote unquote.
And going into today, I'm going to be honest, I thought that was a healthy sign because this was like day three of it repairing itself.
But then, you know, today unfolded the way it unfolded.
So, curious to see how that curve readjust.
What do I mean by that?
Like as Kevin's saying, like it's not just about watching stuff on the 30 days.
It's about looking at the forward looking curve.
So April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and seeing the natural pattern of what's developing.
So that's the market trying to price in or unprice due to certainty or lack thereof.
on what it believes it may or may not want to do five, six, seven, eight, nine months down the route, right?
It was looking healthy.
Now, I'm not sure how it adjusts in the next couple days because there was a lot that came out today.
Who knows?
As Doc Talk Weekly says, maybe something happens, maybe something doesn't.
But that's just me observing the structure of that, right?
So as Kevin's pointing out, it's been hard to read even intraday because it says flying all over the place.
But that's why I don't.
necessarily pay too much attention to the VIX on the 30-day time period. I just kind of pay
attention to the to the way the curve is developing and the way the premiums of the options
are being built into the system. Yeah, good point. I mean, the backwardations haven't been,
I would say, outside of the week leading up to OPEX, the backwardations haven't been
that aggressive either, but you can still find the kinks there. So I'm right there with you. You know,
it's just got to.
It's got to do a lot more these days.
It's hard of the trade and you got to have to, you know,
you get in and get out and you're going to miss some upside.
You're also going to miss some downside, right?
And it's kind of,
I've been finding myself at trying to take my profits quicker and I hate that.
But you have to do it because I've been, you know, getting burned.
Getting burned with a traditional like two, you know, two to one risk ratio.
I'm like going more like one to one.
Yeah, and I think it's also been very entertaining for me.
Like I do trade intraday, but I also like to swing a little bit.
But I'm not talking about like six months when you're out, but a couple weeks, right?
And that's been abysmal, not just because of overnight moves or day-to-day headlines,
but because of the whole structure being so elevated, right?
I'm literally paying more and more money than I used to to even buy myself more time and any little drop
on a one day or 10-day time period of 5, 10% crushes you on that swing, even if you get the
move right, right? So I've like stopped doing that months ago. I'm like, it's just, right? So even like,
for example, like you want to look at like May contracts now, you're still paying more than you
would have, right? And any little weekly crush you get on that whole structure and you're already
down 10, 20, 25% on that, possibly, depending on how it's structured.
even if the move works in your favor.
And so, like, you know, Tesla was an example.
Tesla moved $20 in a day a couple days ago, right?
And there were some people that had like one month out contracts.
They made like 4% or 5% on it.
They burned out the IV so fast.
So it's been a little harder to swing trade.
Yeah, I know there's a lot of, we've been talking a lot, I guess, about the bad stuff the last couple weeks.
And I know everyone's kind of been, been bearish or neutral or, you know, at least not very, very positive over the last few weeks, at least on our panel.
But what I can say for those that are trying to be optimistic what this market is, is,
you can get constructive on any market at any time.
You know, I shared a little excerpt, I don't know,
a week and a half ago about 2022 where, you know,
if you look peak to trough or you look start to finish,
either way you look at that year, it was a bad year for equities, right?
S&B500 peak to trough, I think, was down 26%.
And from beginning to end of the year was down 20%.
You look at that year and you map it and there was a lot of this stuff.
You know, there was a big, big opening sweep move down in Q1, caught a lot of people off guard.
And, you know, the bounces from there were aggressive.
You were talking about minus 10 to 12% pullbacks, followed by 9 to 10% rebounds to the upside.
Now, in most of those cases, we failed to make new highs, which in hindsight, looking back at that market, you can say, oh, okay, that's a good indication.
But in the moment, that's really hard to know.
Like, you know, if you look at the reversal in the indexes in the last couple of days,
yeah, I mean, there's going to be people who said it was a dead cat bounce.
I'm not knocking the people who called that out.
But I'm saying dead cat bounces aren't dead cat bounces until they're dead cats, right?
While a rebound is happening in markets, you can't look at the rebound in markets and be like,
oh, this one's not going to, it's not going to keep going.
You know, it retook the 200 day, but it's going to fake this out now.
Like.
Okay, I mean, yeah, that could happen, but you can't take that mentality on the indexes on recoveries because if you do, you'll get run over 90% of the time. If you look at the last correction, August 2024, if you took that mentality on the recovery, that it was a dead cat bounce, you got absolutely flattened.
Because the market not only ripped in new all-time eyes, but just kept going violently after the August 2024 correction.
Same thing in October 2023.
If you were short during that correction, you know, shorted the hole at the lows, then thought the rebound was a dead cat in November 2023 and trying to short that, you got destroyed.
And so...
Saying like, oh, okay, it worked this time,
there's a dead get balance.
Yeah, great.
If you nailed it, fantastic.
I'm not taking anything away for anyone.
That's a nailed this correction.
But what I am saying is that it's really hard to know
you know, until you get past these periods of where the signals were or where the technical indications were, where the footprints were.
Because now you look back at 2022 and you're like, oh, yeah, dude, like from the outset of the year, we should have known it was a bear market and should have faded the counter trend rallies.
But it's hard to fade countertread rallies like that.
Like, let's not kid anyone.
If you're short, the market and the market goes up 10%.
Like...
you know that's a big move against you right and especially if you're short individual equities
i mean that'll destroy you because that could be a 60 70% move up in individual equities if
you're short the common stock rest in peace so
I think that there's a way to approach it from a short side, but I think broadly speaking, your expectations have to be, you know, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?
Because that's broadly how markets operate.
Yeah, we've had dead loss decades in the market.
We've had periods of flat performance for three to five years several times.
I'm not saying those periods don't happen.
They do happen.
Maybe we could be headed for one.
I'm not going to remove the possibility of it.
But broadly, on a probability standpoint, most corrections within the next three to six months find themselves in recovery territory at the very least, if not at new all-time highs in the markets.
And so if you want that to happen, I think you lean on what Kashkari said today, which is that, hey, look, it is concerning.
that confidence is cratering from an event that hasn't transpired yet.
That is concerning.
Because if it gets ahead of itself and this news cycle really gets out of control
into the summer where nothing improves from a clarity standpoint
and we just get more and more noise starting the equation,
that could lead to a further deterioration in confidence in the summer
and thereby a further deterioration in the real economy.
Alternatively, you do get clarity on this issue, and we've talked about that several times the last couple weeks.
The idea that maybe by April 2nd, the base case for this scenario will be much softer than it anticipated.
And in that case, markets can rally, I think.
But that's a hard catalyst to bet the house on because...
This administration has not yet given us, in my view, any evidence that they're going to be clear on messaging.
And I don't think they've given us, frankly, any evidence that they want to be clear on messaging outside of the JD-Vant's statement that was leaked by the Atlantic.
So...
Yeah, that's kind of my view.
And I think you can get positive once we start seeing a little bit of declouding of the narrative that got us here in the first place.
And I don't think we're there yet.
Maybe we'll be there in a few weeks.
Maybe we'll be there in a few months.
But losing the 200 day to day was now what Bulls wanted to see, in my view.
I was actually fine with the cell in the morning.
You know, I thought if we could hold that 572 spot on spy into the clothes, I thought, hey, look, you know, no...
No harm, no foul. But the fact that we punched through the daily 21 EMA and then punch through the 200 on spy both in the same session after literally recovering them two days ago, that's not a great sign.
So remains a very tricky market. You know, stay by your wits. Try not to let the macro influence your decision making too much if you're an individual stock picker.
But, you know, do pay attention to it because it does matter.
And, you know, it's going to be easy to feel lost in an environment like this.
Because even us up here who are like looking at this stuff all day and do this full time, we're even confused, frankly.
I mean, at least I am.
I don't know, you know, what the new trade world will look like on April 2nd.
I don't think the changes will be dramatic, but the market seems to think so.
And you have to defer to the market in moments like this.
If I'm going to defer to the market, defer to the price action, until somebody can clear those things up for me.
And I'm not hopeful that somebody will.
So we'll see.
Logical.
And then, AJ, go for it.
Yeah.
You know, I agree.
Like, I was feeling a little bit better after we, you know, rallied after FMC into this week.
The gap on Monday...
Left me a little uneasy, but you know everyone says that's okay. You know that doesn't have to fail at least not immediately
Maybe a little uneasy, but I was definitely way too long going into today and it definitely hurt
That's the tough part about try to be cute in this market is it works so well and then one day can absolutely just set you back
Several days and you know, I think what I'm starting to realize
You know, as we go through this choppy market is I
It's, uh, I don't, I'm not really too concerned about this tariff stuff.
I'm not concerned about April 2nd.
I don't know if that'll be famous last words.
I think there's, you know, the market has just, has been looking for reasons to sell this market.
And, you know, the action since February has been disgusting.
It's been straight degrossing.
You know, I stock talk mentions this a lot.
It's like, it's really tough for the market to get going if,
You know, the leaders are, you know, which are really heavy market cap wise, which are, you know, if they're not able to hold up, then how do you hold up the S&P? How do you hold up the Q's? You just can't. It's mathematically a very, it's a formula that's working against you.
That said, I'm still long in this market, but what I'm realizing is I don't think it's wise at this very moment to be 100% long without any hedges or without, you know what I mean?
Like I think if you wanted to have extra cash while the market figures it out and you don't have to like bang your head against the wall every other day.
I think it's probably okay to be in more cash, wait for clarity, wait for certainty, wait for the technicals to shape up, wait for us to put in a little bit more of one direction or the other.
And then in the meantime, you can kind of like for now, um,
I have about 80% long exposure, but 20% short exposure, which puts my net at around 60%.
I can live with that.
I feel like that's a pretty healthy amount to just be in for right now until I get a little bit more direction here.
And if it means that I have to buy my favorite stocks 10% higher,
then whatever it is what it is so that's kind of what i'm settling on is like dude this chop is
driving us all nuts and um if i was to you know look at really the price action it's really not
reassuring much um can we you know go higher from here yes but like
The rally so far has been pretty low volume and it didn't take much volume to set us back in terms of price a few days back.
And if you look at the last three days candles on Spy, for example, if I saw this in the other way, I would be like, oh, dude, that is a bullish reversal.
Because you have like this really ugly, almost like bearish engulfing candle today.
But it's like this three candlestick pattern.
that you just don't want to see.
And obviously these things are changing day to day,
but if I saw this the opposite way,
which was like, you know, a red candle down,
kind of a hammer,
and then you get this green candle that's really big,
long, long candle to the upside,
I'd be like, okay, I feel like that's probably a reversal to the upside.
We got the exact opposite today.
So it makes me feel a little uneasy.
The price action is not great.
And yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say is whatever allocation you have, be comfortable, be okay with it.
Being 100% more than 100% long, just it definitely will, it'll kill you.
If not, like, financially, it'll kill your stress levels, all that stuff.
So I think right now, if prioritizing your mental health is probably better than trying to trade this chop.
Just, you know, keep a level head throughout this whole thing.
Anyways, that's all.
I'm sorry.
Can I just, I want to just add something just real, real quick here.
You would rather, I hear you, you would rather technically fill that gap now than fill that gap three months or now.
Right. I like that's that's that's that's I agree with that I'd rather fill it now and get it over with and
Revisit it three months from now and then that's where you get even more
Selling pressure so that's I I fully agree with you and that's exactly what I was thinking to like I I tweeted yesterday
Like I had to retweet it today because I basically just shared like the Amazon and spy chart and I was like well I don't I really don't like that gap and
And you know some people were basically commenting saying well that could be bullish we don't have to fill that you know now or anytime soon
I'm like yeah, but it's still there. So it just makes me a little uneasy today we clearly turned
You know maybe we fill that gap and it's not much lower and maybe then I'll think about you know
Maybe doing a little bit of slight adjustments, but I
Man, this day-to-day adjustments is just, you know, it's a lot to manage for sure.
So I'd rather, even if we fill that gap, like, just see how we perform from there, you know?
Agreed. That was it. I know H's got his hand out.
Uh, well thinking, because I got distracted about my puppy running in a circle.
Which gap we talking about?
Because I got, I don't know, I got so many different gaps below.
SPX.
Well, for me, SPX gap that we had Friday to Monday.
Like 560, 450 or something.
Oh, that one.
The Friday to Monday gap.
Okay.
Now, then I'm in a different boat.
I want the, I mean, I can be a little aggressive.
I want the gaps below 5500 to be filled.
So then that's not saying it happened, but just been staring at those stuff for so long in my chart.
Which one are you talking about?
I don't see it from recently.
It's like way back in August
from the Yankeri trade recovery.
Yeah, yeah.
We're talking, we're talking like mid-summer 24,
early 24, August time frame,
all those down there that never got filled
and all that cell side liquidity
that just got blown out the water.
down there.
That would be pretty crazy.
You heard of the friend of me.
Yeah, right.
That's what I said.
You hit the nail of the head.
I mean, I don't want to reiterate comment you've already said, but I'm kind of in
the camp.
Like, I'd rather be a quarter late or an inning late, however you want to call the
sports analogy.
But, you know, in this case, maybe it's a quarter late to me to join the
trade and try to time it early.
So I've been super defensive as well.
But something that Stock Talk has said.
So I'm not going to reiterate his point.
But there's always a bull market to be found somewhere.
So if you're good at stock picking, as he would say, just look around you and see where you can identify the catalyst.
Because, you know, right now I'm starting to look at the India market personally because that ETFs, all those have been down a lot.
But I do believe there's a good long-term trade there to happen.
So...
I'm looking at that personally instead of always just hyper-focused on the U.S. market right now at this time.
Yeah, somebody just made a comment.
The thing about the gap is that if we fill it, we are testing the bare flag sort of structure on the daily.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I think, so Iman, thanks for the comment.
The reason why I'm saying, and maybe these are others,
I would love for us to fill the gaps.
If we fill the gap, get a base,
get some buyers a step in and reverse and try to make,
go higher.
sentiment wise, it gives you a little bit of more confidence.
If you fill the gap and we completely continue to go lower, then that gives you one confidence
that the downtrend is still going to be in effect.
That's when you don't, if you're a long trader, that's when you're like, okay, I'm not
going to put any capital to work right now, right?
Like this trend is still going.
So I think what we're, why we're saying, we want to, why I'm saying I want to see
a fill because it's like.
Okay, are we back testing, filling, and then pushing higher, getting some buyers to step in,
or is this whole trend continuing to the downside?
Because the trading strategy is going to be completely different depending on how we react to that gap.
If you wait three months and you come back and react and we do fill that gap,
I can tell you, I'm not going to say I can guarantee you, but I can tell you,
I would short the hell out of this market.
If we went up and then three months later came right back to test it, I would,
that would be a really big warning signal for equities just in general.
So we're, we're, I'm basically saying let's rip the band-aid off now and let's see.
Do we have committed buyers?
fill the gap, got buyer stepping in, boom, let's go.
I would be more in the correction camp, or if we have a complete failure on that flag,
then I'm in the bear camp and say, okay, we've got more room to go.
And once again, I looked at things in waves.
I'm a wave theory.
I'm an Elliott wave guy, right?
If that's going to be the case, then we got a lot more downside to go.
And I will, the last thing I will say, too, if for whatever reason, now I did make a bold call.
Bold call is only because of the monthly chart and what we've seen in the past and I've only seen one instance relevant
instance where we did not do this we're given the monthly chart set up right now
It looks like we're gonna hit the 50 month moving average now eventually that moving average is going to continue to move up
Right now it's sitting in the four with a forehandle on it
I don't know what forehandle it could be
4995 right but I believe
that we will touch that within this cycle just based on the past technical trends.
Now, in order for that to happen, you need more news events like we've been talking about.
Stock Talk has been talking about you would need to have continued uncertainty for a very long time.
Monthly charts take forever.
It's not another week.
It's not a month from now.
It's going to take a long, you know, three months, four months, five months from now.
But I think that that is going to be the case.
If it is, there could be actually very strong by support of 5,000, the 5,000 level, which once again, really close that forehandle.
And once we get to the forehandle, I'm like, okay, when I mean 4,000, I mean 4,000 and then some odd number after that for the S&P 500.
If that were to happen, though, that would be absolutely ridiculous because there is a straddle that has been sitting at the 5,000 strike for the last three years.
Somebody continues to keep rolling.
And I don't know why they're doing it.
They continue to keep rolling that straddle.
Yeah.
You see it every quarter.
And it's like, oh, okay, here's home boy.
Yeah.
Somebody's doing the, somebody's doing 4,500 now.
Have you been seeing that show up on your flows?
4,500, right?
I saw it for the, uh,
I saw it for the June and July, August, September, even December already hit for some reason now.
Yeah.
That's an institutional position.
I don't know what they're collared.
Right.
and that's where it's kind of interesting for me.
And we could say, oh, you know, 5,000, that's a long way from here.
It is true.
But we were sitting at 5,500 just, what, two weeks ago?
A couple days ago.
So the biggest short-term risk to me right now is losing that 55-65 collar before March end with speed.
Now, we like, hey, we test 5550 and bounce.
But I mean, like, you get like an 80-point slice through it before the end of this month.
you're going, you're going 54 and change.
Yeah.
And 54.
Like there's nothing stopping that brain.
There's nothing.
There's nothing stopping that train.
That's my biggest concern now.
Now as the time approaches, right, every day that we trade, the closer it gets to that and the closer we go down, the more impact that that slice is going to have.
Right.
So you have a day like today and you're slicing through 65.
Right.
Guys, just keep that in mind.
Just write this level down, 5,56, 5 SPX.
I know Empty doors of future traders.
He can convert that to ES, add 50 points or 48 because the role always confuses the shit
out of me.
That is a huge level now to watch before end of March, right?
Because there's a big institution position sitting there that has already been hedged
in the market.
Now, going through that from above, through that down,
Not like five or ten points.
I mean, you're talking 30, 40, 50 lower.
That's a very bad sign that you have like no chance of a V-Shade before 331, right?
Holding that is great.
That's constructive.
Go down, fill the gap.
Like Kevin's saying, find the buyers.
Roll that off the table.
I wouldn't call it V-shaped bounce, but I call it great bounce off that.
But if I'm staring at the market and it's like day before March expiration and we're sitting like sub-fives.
I'm not even going to think about going to their direction.
I'm going to close the house and walk away.
And just just you're going you're going sub force.
Yeah, and you're saying March quarterlies into March quarter of these into months.
Correct.
And then once that, yeah, and once that rolls off them, they'll also reset because they reset based on whatever current value is.
Well, uh, current value is.
Yeah.
I bet you they're going to reset down to 51 because they've been, they've been rolling that reset down now.
I think they have a, I think they have a 5% ban.
both upside downside.
I'm not,
or not 5% pan.
I got to look what the band is.
There's actually a,
there's actually a structured band that they buy.
They don't pick it outright based on market conditions.
They actually have a percent ban from whatever at the money is that day.
Yeah,
you find that out.
Let me know because I'm,
yeah,
well,
I think it might be 10%.
Okay.
It is 12%.
Now,
you know what?
Now I'm thinking about it.
I think it probably is either 12%
10% is probably 10% up and down of whatever at the money is on that Friday.
I mean, if we're near there, if we're near there and it's 10%, give or take,
I'm willing to bet that the next one will have something like a 52, 5250 somewhere floating.
I do want to make sure we get to the hands that are up here.
Erple set his hand up for a little bit.
I want you to jump in and we'll go back to logical.
Yeah, just got two quick points to make, just one in terms of technicals on SPY and QQQ.
So like I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, they both mounts clean off the 618 fib retracement levels.
Now, they did pull back today after gapping up Monday,
but we weren't expecting a V-shaped recovery
without red days along the way too.
So as long as the 618 fib levels hold on SPY and QQQ,
even if we drop further from where we landed today,
I think we might be in decent shape for a potential reversal.
So on SPY, that sits right around 550.
And on QQQ, that sits right around 468.
So as much as the red day today could be discouraging,
as long as that holds generally in an uptrend,
that is a reversal spot for potential continuation higher.
To Stock Talk Weekly's point earlier, it doesn't all just happen in a day.
So in a volatile market, trying to gauge price based on short-term moving averages or even longer-term moving averages, like holding the 200 yesterday and giving it up today, in volatility, that's not really going to be all that important.
important in the very, very short term, what you want to see is demand levels in the markets hold.
So those are the levels I'm watching.
And the second point I'm going to make, this is my tinfoil hat point I'm going to make.
Generally, I like to go off facts, technicals, things like that.
But this for me, I think, is just something I'm keeping in mind for people that are worried about the long-term health of the market.
If you know Trump and Trump's ego and Trump's need to win,
There is no way in hell he's leaving office three and a half years from now without the markets having at least attempted to make a new all-time high.
There's no way he's going to leave the market, in my opinion.
And again, this is my tin foil hat theory, but he's going to want the markets at or near all-time highs or making new highs at some point during his administration and office by any means necessary.
And I say that, you know, lightheartedly.
But.
You know, I just, again, I get it and certainly the markets can go lower.
There's a lot of downside room.
However, based on technicals and trend, and absent of moving averages and absent of today's red day.
The markets did hold and show demand exactly where we wanted to see two to three weeks ago.
So until the 618 levels break down to actually confirm and establish a long-term downtrend,
I'm still looking for chop sideways and then potentially continuation higher from here.
So that's just all I wanted to throw out there. Thank you.
I like those points.
I'll have the same stuff charted on my chart.
And I do want to make a quick point.
I'll go to logical.
This is going to be very quick.
But Erkel just said something that I think is important as well.
Everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people get into this mindset of looking for the bounce
or looking for the continuation down and forget that markets do consolidate a lot.
And markets can just go sideways.
I think that doesn't get mentioned enough, especially on the spaces.
Is there volume behind this Kava moving after hours?
The 5% candles.
It's just like a no volume candle.
Hold on.
I'm sorry.
Do you guys see that Trump, 25% tariff on auto is not manufactured in the United States?
There's some headlines coming out.
Sorry.
I'm not seeing a whole lot of volume on my chart behind that move, Evan.
Cool.
Thank you.
I just saw that and I was like, what's happening here.
But yeah, that 25% tariff on auto is maybe the hummus is coming in not as good.
No, I'm kidding.
But, I don't know.
Evan brought the jokes today.
That wasn't a good one.
That really wasn't a good one.
But yeah, I wanted to make that quick point, just that, you know, there's a lot of talk about market going out, market going down, but sideways and consolidation is also a big part of the market, right?
Especially after a large move.
Yeah, sometimes you get a relief bounce.
Sometimes you do just consolidate and go sideways.
And we've seen this before.
When there was uncertainty around the debt ceiling, I think it was like in Aprilish or so of 2023, maybe.
Yeah.
Back in that range, I remember going sideways in the market for over a month and not really going anywhere for a very, very long time.
Yeah, April of 2023, there was a bunch of debt selling stuff going on.
And we literally went sideways and chopped in a range for almost two months total.
So just to bring that up real fast, too, it's like it doesn't have to bounce and continue bouncing up.
It doesn't have to foul bounce up and continue going down.
It can just consolidate and go sideways as well.
Logical.
Yeah, um, sorry, now you guys had some good combo there, so I blanked out a little bit.
I forgot what I was going to say.
Man, just come back to me because I literally forgot.
Trump did just officially announce 25% tariffs on all cars not made in the United States.
Reiterates April 2nd as Liberation Day.
What are stocks like Ford doing?
Minus 1.3%.
Yeah, that's a downward move. GM.
Good morning, good morning.
GM just tanked another 3% after being down 3.
Are they moving up?
I mean, isn't it like if you add tariffs to these very low margin businesses like autos?
I mean, doesn't that absolutely just crush them?
They're going to see consolidation.
You're going to see a consolidation.
Stalantis, Ford, or GM, we're going to have to.
They're going to have to consolidate.
I'm going to find that direct quote.
He said it would be devastating.
Yeah, they're going to have to consolidate.
And actually, that's something that, I mean, I don't know if you guys remember,
but like, what, two years ago there talks about a consolidation between the three?
With, there are two of the three potentially merge.
I would say they're going to have to do that.
And then you'll probably see them roll off models, you know, and some of that kind of makes sense, right?
Like, I don't know if you guys are truck people, but like you have a, you know, the Chevy and GM,
same thing company, right?
But they have the same model vehicles and interchangeable parts,
but two different brands of vehicles.
But 90% of it looks kind of like the same.
So like you could probably see some consolidation there as well.
But yeah, I would say they would have to merge
either with each other or with another company out there.
I know Nissan's not doing too great as well.
You know, there's just a lot.
So I feel like you would have some consolidation if they don't.
figure this out is not only just the tariffs on autos, but then you're also looking at input costs of steel aluminum in those metals as well.
They did mention today, it came out a couple times, and he's kind of reiterating it right now, that if it's constructed in the United States, so like auto parts were actually exempted from what I heard earlier today, which who knows if that stays, right?
That's a different conversation.
But from what I'm saying, it's since the assembly piece is what he wants in the U.S. based on these directives.
Yeah.
logical did you get your thought back yeah man i did okay now i remember it sorry i'm doing some work
stuff on the side but uh so uh like i know we keep getting these thoughts about you know 2022
price action similar but man it's such a different scenario than 2020 right now like everyone
wants to bring up that example and maybe the price action fits uh you know maybe you could find
price action that fits from a lot of arrows but
you got to think about where we were in 2022 we were at essentially going into you know going
into 2020 we were at zero percent interest rates
We had SPACs going public with price to innovation multiples.
We had, yeah, it was just crazy.
We had like 100 times sales was the norm.
When you have 0% interest rates, it just breaks everyone's DCF models.
Like, you could basically pay any price you want.
There's so much liquidity going around, M1 was super high.
And then you went into basically the fastest rate hike cycle, basically in history.
So you got to just think and also inflation was about to be at 9%.
So when we think about where we are today, like inflation is at 3%,
and maybe that's the new norm and maybe that's still sticky and that's not great, but it's not 9%.
You have, you know, what are we at, four and a quarter on the Fed fund rate.
That means that we still have room to the downside.
It's just not as bad.
And I don't necessarily think that means that, oh, the Fed can pivot immediately as soon as the, you know, the stock market sees some downside there.
The Fed puts going to be there.
I'm not saying that.
But like, we're clearly not on the edge of a cliff.
I don't think so.
Yeah.
I don't think it makes sense for a lot of these things to just, you know, go straight down.
I, you know, we had a two-year bull run.
And can we see a consolidation year?
Can we see, you know, can we even see spies down 20%?
Yes.
And then I would imagine that it recovers, you know, within a little while after that.
Like, I don't really see this prolonged bear market coming out of this because what would be the thing that takes us there?
Yeah.
I guess you could say it's liquidity in the system, which by the way, it could increase potentially.
I just, I think the toughest spot is that the largest companies, which are heavily weighted in the market cap weighted indexes,
are you know three trillion dollars plus market cap and those become very difficult to support with today's liquidity
i would say that that is a reasonable concern here i would say that you know it's really tough for cues
which have been the leading you know tech has been a leading sector it's really tough when uh it looks
like the semis are about to fall off a cliff into like you know a stage four drawdown which i i totally see that um so
I can more so see like potential bifurcation under the hood of like things that are going to start falling off, maybe semis and then other things that are ending up doing okay.
And overall, the index might be down.
But I don't necessarily see a 20, 21, 2020, situation where everything just gets hammered.
I'm not really in the view that.
We're going to have an Amazon minus 56% here.
I don't really see a meta down, you know, I just don't see that level of downside from here.
I don't know if those are famous last words.
Obviously, manage your risk appropriately.
I would say that, you know, the problem with these tariffs on the autos is that, let's say the autos are a big advertising, they're big advertisers, right?
Then they start pulling back their spend. Then that affects other parts of the market.
So, yeah, I mean, we could have an economic slowdown. I think that's basically been the base case, but.
um you know severe recession maybe i don't know maybe the wealth effect of uh you know spy coming down
a lot of people have the negative wealth effect that starts weighing on the consumer you know these
things can happen it can spiral i would just say that we're probably not at the the extremes
that we were at headed into 2022 where
We're about to hike rates like crazy.
Liquidity was just about to stop.
We're about to start QT.
You know, we're not at that place.
We actually basically just stopped QT more or less.
So it's just not as scary where we're headed.
I would think maybe more of like a 2018 scenario where it was policy driven.
And, you know, maybe there is more downside.
But I don't see it as a full-on market meltdown.
And it's clearly something so far that has been caused by policy change.
That's what it feels like.
I think that the market just wanted a reason to sell at this point.
And it got it.
And now a lot of these stocks are down 40, 50%.
I'm not talking about, you know, that S&P.
I'm talking about specific companies.
I guess the really thing that the thing you have to be very careful with is
if the true drawdown the max drawdown of some of these stocks is going to be 70
which again feels extreme for the type of type of environment we're in then if you're buying
something down 50 percent and the max drawdown is 70 then you're going to be down 40 percent
which is really bad um so just being very cognizant of how the math works is really important
but i don't i don't foresee anything like a 22 sort of situation here but
You never know. And the best thing you can do is we're all guessing and you just got to manage your risk along the way and that's it.
Yeah, you know, Logico, I've asked this question a few times.
And I just think other than the terrorists being the new kind of wildcard, but the overall narrative, I don't think has really changed.
I like what you said there, that the market was needing a reason to sell and it got it, right?
It got the uncertainty and, you know, people taking profits out and it just kind of cascaded on itself a little bit.
But the conditions are much different than 2022.
There's a lot of people trying to draw parallels to that.
i think it is important to point out you know the the variables and the the constants there
and say okay well some of these things are the same but a lot of these things are very different
at the same time trump did mention going to be doing tariffs on pharmaceuticals he reiterated that
and he said he's going to allow deducting car interest payments for american manufactured cars that was the
last thing that
Just came out over there. I am currently watching that. I know Evan just had to drop off. I think we're at a good spot to wrap this up and close it out for the day. Erkel, appreciate you being up here, logical, hanging out with us. Kevin was up here in the second hour. And then, of course, she had a lot of great speakers, as always, in that first hour. Appreciate everyone tuning in today. Hope everyone has a great rest of their Wednesday evening.
TBD, we will see what happens tomorrow.
We'll talk about it tomorrow, same time, same place right here on Stocks on Spaces.
As soon as we see Power Hour on our charts, we will be open over here for the conversation.
Thanks everyone for joining.
Hope you have a great, great rest of your night.
