Don Kaufman here.  The entire marketplace is now based around one company that isn’t even technically for-profit yet. Microsoft gaps up 3% on partnership news. PayPal rallies on collaboration announcements. Oracle mortgages its entire corporate existence building infrastructure.  Every major tech move revolves around developments from one entity. And that entity literally doesn’t exist as

Don Kaufman here.  And welcome to what might be the most expensive lesson in market psychology you’ll see this week. I just closed out Christmas tree spreads for over 50% gains in less than a month. You’d think I’d be celebrating, right? Instead, I’m getting the hell out. Why?  Because those trades should have made

Don Kaufman here.  S&P’s this morning opened up some 44 handles. There’s a few interesting things going on, and one of them made me do something that’s probably going to make some of you lose your minds. I put on a trade risking 60 cents to make $4 and change. XSP puts. Zero DTE. Low

Don Kaufman here.  I don’t sleep well at night when the S&Ps are at or near highs and volatility refuses to back off. Most traders lose sleep when markets are selling off hard. That makes sense – red everywhere, portfolios bleeding, margin calls incoming.  But here’s what separates experienced traders from the crowd: I get

  I’m still shaking my head as I write this. A few hours ago, I walked off the Schwab TV set after revealing three trades that honestly… one of them made me question my own sanity. Here’s what happened: I’ve been crushing it shorting one particular stock all year. Made a killing every single time.

Don Kaufman here.  Look, I need to tell you about something I’ve been sitting on. For the better part of a decade at thinkorswim and TD Ameritrade, I had access to order flow data that most retail traders never see. Billions in institutional positioning. The real money moves before they hit the headlines. One indicator

Don Kaufman here.  I was looking at the market data this morning and something’s not adding up. VIX just dropped 11% to 18.44 and change – that should be good news for income traders, right? Wrong. Here’s what’s really happening: Even with VIX pulling back today, we’re still seeing the kind of wild intraday swings

Don Kaufman here.  In 20+ years of trading, I’ve never seen volatility futures invert this close to market peaks.  Here’s why that should terrify you. The S&P 500 closed at 6,616 yesterday. All-time high? 6,764. We’re 2% off all-time highs with volatility futures in full backwardation. It’s literally never happened before. What Nobody’s Telling You

Don Kaufman here.  Listen up, because while you were all celebrating that cute little pre-market bounce this morning, I was watching the warning signs that nobody wanted to see. Holy crap, did this afternoon deliver or what?  Zions down 12%. Western Alliance tanking 10%. And then Jamie Dimon drops the hammer with his “one cockroach”

  Don Kaufman here. Look, I don’t care that the S&P bounced. I don’t care that the Nasdaq had a nice little rally today. You want to know what I’m watching? Volatility. VIX refuses to contract. Volatility futures aren’t behaving like they should in a “recovery.” That’s screaming one thing: don’t get out from under