The market looks calm. Look one layer down.
The market looks calm right now, and that is the problem. The VIX, the number everyone watches for fear, is sitting in the mid-teens. By that one gauge, everything is fine and the coast is clear. Most traders glance at it, relax, and move on. They are looking at the wrong number. Look one layer […]
Why Waiting Until 2027 Could Be the Most Dangerous Bet in Tech
The Delay That Should Worry You OpenAI is reportedly pushing its IPO out to 2027. The company has been eyeing an IPO and now looks to be waiting, holding out for a valuation near $1 trillion rather than taking a lower number sooner. After watching SpaceX go public and then slide from above $200 to […]
I Bought the One Stock Nobody Else Would Touch
I stepped into a position the this morning that most traders would not go near with a ten-foot pole. That was the point. The stock is Alibaba, and right now it is about as hated as a chart gets. This week Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company, sent a letter to the White House and to […]
My Kids Get Restless on the Island. So Do Traders.
My kids have been out on the island with me for almost two weeks, and the restlessness has set in. It starts with food. My son announced this morning that the second we get off the island, we are hitting In-N-Out. Then, before he even finished the sentence, “and after In-N-Out, can we get chicken […]
I sold my coffee maker and it taught me how to trade volatility
I sold my coffee maker last week and I am not over it. It had a name. It was basically a person. Now I am drinking iced coffee like some kind of animal, and every morning I think about that machine. I bring this up because the urge I had to go grab it back […]
When Bad News Makes A Stock Go Up, Pay Attention
When genuinely bad news hits a group and that group rallies anyway, pay close attention. That reaction is one of the most useful tells in this business, and almost nobody reads it right. A real, fundamental negative lands on a sector, and instead of selling off, the names go up. Your gut says the market […]
Everyone is watching the wrong man today
The whole market is staring at the wrong thing today. Kevin Warsh makes his debut behind the podium this afternoon, his first press conference as Fed Chair, and everyone is leaning in to parse every word for a signal on rates. I understand the fascination. A new chair is a big deal. But if you […]
They sold you peace for the 524th time
The market does not need a real reason to rally. It just needs an excuse. Monday it got one. Peace, allegedly, for what feels like the 524th time. We have been through this same peace process so many times I have lost count, and the market priced it in, ripped higher, and called it a […]
That little monkey had an $85 move. I still didn’t trade it.
The hardest skill in volatility is doing nothing. Everybody thinks trading a wild market is about nailing the direction. It is not. When the tape is ripping 50 points in a minute and it’s pissed out there, direction is the easy thing to guess and the easy thing to be dead wrong about. The real […]
The market signal everyone reads exactly backwards
A red index can hide a day where most stocks rose. Let me back up, because this is one of the most misread numbers on your screen. It is called the advance-decline line, and all it does is count how many stocks went up today versus how many went down. More advancers than decliners, the […]