Don’s Trading Desk is the free daily market note from Don Kaufman, TheoTrade co-founder and former thinkorswim Chief Derivatives Instructor. Every trading day Don shares his market read, trade ideas, and volatility notes: what he’s watching, what he’s trading, and what everyone else is missing.

Stop Looking for the Next Sector Rotation. There Isn’t One.

For months, the market’s been playing musical chairs. Tech. Financials. Energy. Repeat. But I’m here to tell you something nobody else is saying: The chairs are disappearing. And the music’s about to stop. I spent this morning staring at the advance/decline line, and it’s telling a story that should scare the hell out of you.

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The Zero DTE Trap That’s About to Explode

Most traders think this range-bound market is boring. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. As I write this, we just smashed through 6850 – the level I’ve been losing my mind over for weeks. The S&P is down 73 points and trading at 6835.  This isn’t theory anymore. The zero DTE explosion I’ve been warning about is

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Why I Won’t Trade the Easiest Setups Right Now

Most traders see a perfect setup and think they have to trade it. That’s exactly backwards. I’m looking at my screen right now, and Goldman Sachs is sitting right on a beautiful technical level. I mean, textbook stuff – we’re about to pierce through recent lows, and if we do, this thing’s got room to

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Ben Affleck was wrong (and it only took 6 weeks)

Most traders woke up this morning worried about NVIDIA’s sideways action since September. They’re staring at P/E ratios and wondering if the AI trade is dead. Meanwhile, something happened this week that’s about to obliterate entire industries – and create massive opportunities for the traders who see it coming. I’m talking about Seedance 2.0. If

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1342% profit on a butterfly (I finally did it)

I paid 35 cents for a butterfly three days ago. This afternoon I closed it for $5.05. That’s 1342% profit on a zero-day-to-expiration SPX butterfly trade. I’ve been chasing four-digit percentage gains for 10 years. Sending out text alerts with triple digits, always wondering what it would feel like to add that extra number. Now

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Flat markets aren’t safe. They’re powder kegs.

The S&P 500 looks dead flat. Has for months. Everyone thinks that’s boring. Safe. Nothing to worry about. They’re sitting on a powder keg and don’t even know it. Right now, we’ve got what I’m calling a “tsunami of gamma risk” building up under this sideways market. And when it finally lets loose, the moves

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The gamma revolution that’s making traders irrelevant

Look, I’m gonna tell you something that’s gonna piss you off.  As of one week ago, you’re living in a completely different trading world. And if you think whatever worked five or 10 years ago is gonna work today, I have news for you. You’re about to become a ghost. Here’s what nobody’s figured out

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The $5 Trillion Market Manipulation Nobody’s Talking About

When you can move a $5 trillion market cap, you can move the entire NASDAQ. It’s pretty easy. NVIDIA just crossed $4.6 trillion in market cap – I round it to $5 trillion because what the hell, we’re going there anyway. But here’s what nobody’s connecting: when one company gets that massive, it becomes the

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This rally is hiding something dangerous

Listen, I know everyone’s celebrating the Dow’s 900-point rally today, but something’s making me genuinely uneasy about this market.  And when I get uneasy, I start looking for ways to profit from what’s coming next. Here’s what I’m seeing that has me concerned — and how I’m actually trading it. The One Thing That Always

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Don Kaufman Don Kaufman

TheoTrade co-founder, former CBOE market maker and thinkorswim Chief Derivatives Instructor.

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