Yoyo continues. Up Wednesday (+0.78%), futures dipping Thursday. Broadcom dropped a $100B AI chip roadmap for 2027. Semis roared. Tariffs landed. Iran wants peace. Markets shrug. The range holds
Yesterday’s Premium Poppers: 4 trades, 3 wins, 1 loss, net positive. SPX banked $20/66.7% and $9/64.3%. RUT took an -$22 loss then recovered with a $30/66.7% winner. The system keeps delivering through chaos
SPX and RUT firmly back in their ranges after attempted breakouts. The 1.5% daily moves aren’t the 2-4% you’d expect during a war – further proof the market is almost ignoring it. If uncertain, step aside and wait for the range to break with conviction
NFP Friday at 58K consensus – less than half last month. ADP beat yesterday. Tariffs just landed at 15%. The Fed is stuck. Trade the charts, not the headlines. PopPop
War on or war off? The markets don’t seem to know. Korea crashed 12% – worst day in history, eclipsing 9/11. Hormuz effectively closed. Five tankers damaged. VIX peaked at 28. But US indices? Still in their ranges
Monday’s gap down went to range lows. Tuesday’s gap down broke out. Subsequent rally put it back in the range – classic break-in setup. #1 and #2 marked on both SPX and RUT charts
I’m not smart enough to figure out the geopolitics. I do know price charts keep showing repeatable patterns that are tradeable. Bear swings cashed. Bullish Poppers bounced. On a hike
Anticipating a narrow ranging day after Tuesday’s huge rejection bar. NFP Friday looms. ADP and ISM Services today. Trade the charts. Read the data. PopPop
∙ Monday’s dead cat bounce evaporated overnight – S&P futures down 2%, Nasdaq -2.5%, Dow losing nearly 1,000 points pre-market
∙ Europe getting demolished: DAX -4.3%, STOXX 600 biggest 2-day drop since April, every single sector red
∙ KOSPI plunged 7.4% in catch-up trade – Asia/Pacific all deep red across the board
∙ Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh with drones – Trump now says operations could last weeks
∙ Amazon AWS data centres in UAE and Bahrain physically hit by Iranian drones – first military strike on major U.S. tech infrastructure ever
∙ QatarEnergy shut LNG production indefinitely after Iranian attacks – European natural gas surged 34%
∙ Oil continues climbing: WTI $76.19 (+7%), Brent $80.49 (+7.2%) – Rabobank sees Hormuz disrupted for weeks to months
∙ Bitcoin erased Monday’s bounce to $70K, back down to $66,300 as risk-off returns with force
∙ U.S. and Israel launched coordinated strikes across Iran including Tehran – Trump called it “major combat operations” under Operation Epic Fury
∙ Iran retaliating with missiles at Israel and U.S. bases across the Gulf – Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan all reporting explosions
∙ IRGC has radioed closure of the Strait of Hormuz – roughly 20% of global oil supply transits this chokepoint
∙ Bitcoin dumped 6% to $63,000 as the only liquid risk asset trading over the weekend – $515M+ in liquidations
∙ JP Morgan estimates full Hormuz blockade could push oil past $120-130/barrel – currently around $70
∙ Stock and bond markets closed until Sunday night futures – Monday’s open is where the real repricing begins
∙ I’ve been warning about the seasonal crash window – this is exactly the kind of catalyst that turns corrections into crashes
13 trades across 3 trading days. Zero losses. 100% win rate. The Premium Poppers delivered through Monday’s carnage, Tuesday’s birthday party, and Thursday’s Nvidia hangover
SPX: 8 trades totalling $158 in index gains with ROC ranging from 55.6% to 69.7%. Breakouts, VWAP pops, counter-trends, Fib levels – the full toolkit
RUT: 5 trades totalling $77 in index gains with ROC from 12.5% to 68.6%. Even a mismanaged exit from a birthday party still banked profit
Wednesday’s missed trades were the only “losses” this week – expensive conversations at the insiders group whilst the community got a nibble. The system served up the setups. I just wasn’t there to press the button
30-day rolling stats holding at 80% total win rate with BREAKOUT status. Bear side running at 92.9%. The systematic edge keeps compounding. PopPop
Nvidia crushed it. $68.1B revenue. $1.62 EPS. Q1 guide at $78B. Supply commitments doubled to $95B. Stock moved half a percent. When perfection barely registers, we’ve reached peak expectations
VIX is back at channel lows at 17.97. Last time it was here, the market rolled over. MACD-v is overextended – same setup as 12 Feb which gave us several days of down moves
RUT stuck in its box near the upper boundary. Line of least resistance is potentially lower. SPX may be overextended too. Expect the week to end softer
I missed two Poppers yesterday – too busy talking at the insiders group. Expensive conversations. The community got a nibble though. PopPop
Down Monday, up Tuesday, should we guess at a down Wednesday? The yoyo continues and theta is decaying regardless of the non-committal directional moves
Three Popper trades done on the mobile whilst out celebrating a 79th birthday. Still sprightly enough to throw shapes without throwing a hip out. Still no losses
SPX and RUT are both a mess. Pop a big box around it, wait for the breakout. SPX below 6,750 or RUT below 2,570 gives the signal. Close to pinch territory
Nvidia reports tonight after close. $65.7B expected. Twelve consecutive quarterly beats. The entire market’s verdict for February lands in one call. PopPop
Dow cratered 822 points Monday as IBM had its worst day in 25 years – Anthropic wrote a blog post about COBOL and erased $31 billion. Welcome to the AI disruption era
Five Popper trades yesterday, zero losses, bearish joy ride to profits-ville. SPX 90% win rate over 30 days. BREAKOUT status. Woop woop
Despite the carnage, daily charts show no new ground. SPX below 6,750 triggers the whole messy zone breakdown. Correction window is open and we’re dressed for it
Bitcoin dead cat bouncing its way back to $63K whilst real gold surges past $5,170. Store of value? Store of pain more like. PopPop
Futures popped ‘n dropped -55, and now we’re sitting 20 in the red. A little racey but nobody’s panicking yet
Trump rewrote the entire trade framework in 48 hours – SCOTUS killed it Friday, he replaced it by Saturday at 15% maximum. Takes effect tomorrow at midnight
Charts are a mess, the market’s doing a fiddler’s elbow, and the only directional edge is theta decay. Premium Poppers are keeping us sane
Feb/Mar correction window just opened. I’m looking for 10% in 10 days instead of last year’s muted 5%. Be the bear. PopPop.
GDP and core PCE at 8:30 AM today – shutdown delays forced simultaneous release – hot inflation validates Fed hawks
Iran strikes possible “as early as Saturday” per CBS – two carrier groups positioned – oil at six-month high $66.58
SPX gamma flip widened BACK to 37 points after nearly converging to 8 yesterday – the crossover didn’t happen
Blue Owl permanently restricts redemptions, sells $1.4B in loans – El-Erian: “canary in the coal mine, similar to August 2007?”