[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] The S&P 500 just experienced a 2% rally after a risk-off day, with the VIX nearly hitting 25 before reversing. However, gold’s performance, with the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) up 1.4%, outshone most S&P sectors, signaling underlying market unease. Gold’s outperformance suggests a shift away from inflationary assets, as demand for physical gold rises amid supply constraints. The delisting of gold futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX) and the London Bullion Market Association’s (LBMA) struggle to deliver physical gold highlights a growing distrust in financialized systems reliant on debt and monetary inflation. This trend exposes the fragility of over-financialized markets, where unprofitable companies survive on cheap capital and inflated valuations, eroding real value. Gold’s rise reflects a flight to assets that preserve purchasing power (as opposed to generating returns), which challenges the nominal gains of the S&P 500. You

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player]   Volatility is in backwardation… That’s not a horoscope or a fortune cookie, it’s real and it’s happening right now. We’re staring down the barrel of an intense, though possibly short, wave of volatility here. But this is a great market for trading. Earlier this week, while the markets were trading more or less flat, I put an SPX butterfly trade out for my “3TW” subscribers. It was a low-risk, but low-probability trade – put up 45 cents for a shot at a big windfall just in case SPX falls into the butterfly we set up. Earlier this afternoon we closed that out for a two-day, 500% win. That says a lot about how this market’s behaving right now. (You better believe I have more to say about it – hang on.) Judging by the bond market and the heavy

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] In any Economics 101 classroom, they’ll tell you a standard business cycle in the US economy takes around four years to play out, from weakness to strength to weakness. Right now, although hard data and even anecdotal evidence (based on my quick TheoChat room survey yesterday) are mixed, with strength and growth in some places and weakness in others, it’s becoming clear we’ve probably crested the hill and are moving toward the end of the cycle. That has implications for, well, everything… but it has to inform how and where we’re investing for the long-term and trading over the short-term. Yesterday in the TheoChat room, we talked about how copper, of all things, has a weird tendency to move higher even after we see weakness and contraction in the economy and equities soften up. Tonight we’re going to talk some

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] The S&P 500 is down around 1.3% and volatility is up – nearly 9% for the day, in fact. THE CHOP is back, baby! Big-time. And we’re perfectly positioned for it, too. The sell-side activity we’ve seen today came from bigger fish out there, which is one reason why the Nasdaq isn’t doing anywhere near as “well” as the S&P 500 today. It’s bled out more than 2%. Take Nvidia; it’s down more than 5% for the day. Tesla, which has been on the quintessential rip-your-face-off ride for the past few days, is also down more than 5%. The sellers came for these right out of the gate this morning and didn’t stop. Meta, Google – I could go on. What happened when these names got caught up is a domino effect; it started to tip other major sectors. Financials

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] “Can the bulls pull it off?” That’s the question on 162 million minds right now. Tonight we’ll answer it. Stocks started the week off on a strong note, but, as of about 1 PM today, they’re in “catching their breath” mode. Nevertheless it’s way too early to say definitively that the tide has turned back in favor of the bulls, especially from an internal standpoint. By the same token, it’d be premature to make that call on behalf of the bears, although they’ve run the table more often than not this month. We’re still not seeing leadership emerge from the right places, although it’s beyond interesting (and no coincidence) that stocks and crypto are now behaving similarly from a technical standpoint. Of course, all of this ties directly back into current uncertainty about the economy. Some talking heads like to

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] Big market moves often come with big stories, and last week was no exception. It all started on Thursday when some massive “Ghost Print” call option trades hit the Magnificent Seven stocks – Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META). As I said in Friday afternoon’s First Mover Market Advantage, these trades hinted at a potential market rally. The upshot is, on Friday, the S&P 500 faced a critical test – and it passed. This morning, Monday, we saw the biggest opening gap since October 2022, igniting even more excitement. Bitcoin was another market hotspot today; it enjoyed a solid 5% jump on the day. But here’s the twist: it wasn’t just the coin itself. The bullish action spilled over into related stocks like ProShares Bitcoin ETF (BITO) and MARA Holdings (MARA), which surged a whopping

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] The S&P 500 closed today massively unchanged from where it started the week – tame compared to last week’s mayhem. I’m seeing the words “back to normal” and “calm” thrown around a lot out there. The VIX came down below 20 today, which might make it seem like calm is returning, but don’t buy it – literally. (I’ve talked before about the issues with using the VIX as your only volatility gauge, but that’s beside the point.) But listen, that calm is only at the surface; it’s totally superficial. For one thing we did see plenty of volatility and choppy, disjointed trading. That’s not a sign that things are calming down. If you look at what I’m seeing – volatility futures, among other things – you’ll see that there is still a ton of risk out there. Volatility is being

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”560×315″ width=”560″ height=”315″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] “Breakout” is a word you’re going to hear a lot if you spend more than three minutes with me in my daily TheoChat sessions. They’re significant events in the daily life of a stock. For folks who are new at this, it means pretty much what it sounds like. Breakouts are when price plunges through support (on the way down) or smashes past resistance (on the way up) on higher volume. When breakouts happen, there’s a pretty good chance whatever stock, sector, or index you’re tracking will continue in that direction. Now, it can be just as important when breakouts fail – as two biggies just have. Technology and healthcare have both tried for a breakout… and failed, courtesy of massive economic forces rocking the boat. One of these is a bearish setup, and the other is actually bullish. This

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] Mark my words: Once J-Po leaves the stage, there’s nothing left but chop. Volatility is coming back in a big way. Powell is basically saying the administration will drive more uncertainty, and that stagflation is a possibility. The market’s not going to take that well. They’re already not taking it well – we got a big burst of buying as he started talking and by the close about a third of that had been wiped out. Let’s take a look at how this is going to play out, and what we can do about it, on tonight’s charts…

[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”640×360″ width=”640″ height=”360″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”][/video_player] After a torrid two-day short-covering rally which saw stocks gain as much as 3.7%, we’re seeing a fresh round of selling here in the U.S. market. Precious metals and those miners are a bright spot, though there’s a weaker dollar to thank for it. Of course, everyone’s looking forward to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments when the FOMC meeting wraps tomorrow. Depending on what he says, and how traders read those tea leaves, we could get a “Great Reflation.” Personally, I think oil will need to have one more washout to lows before that can start in earnest. This is a market that calls for caution; my sense is the recent rally is in the process of burning a lot of unwary traders today. But there are pockets of strength right now, both here at home and in China, which