Cathie Wood’s ARK Fund Opens Portal To Actual Hell – Investors Report “Surprisingly Familiar”
Ahoy there, Trader! ⚓️
It’s Phil…
…or IS it?
I told you I was taking Friday off. And then I remembered what Friday it was. The 13th. Of course. Because the universe has a sense of humour and absolutely no respect for my travel plans.
I’m not officially trading today. I’m not officially writing a newsletter today. What you are reading does not officially exist. If the market crashes, I was never here. If it rallies, I predicted it.
This is the one day of the year where the charts, the data, the fundamentals, the technicals, and the entire financial system collectively agree on one thing: something weird is going to happen and nobody can stop it.
CPI dropped this morning. Or did it? Is inflation even real? Is anything real? Is the VIX just a number or has it been watching us sleep?
These are the questions that matter on Friday the 13th.
Mrs N asked me why I was laughing at my phone at 4 AM. I showed her the futures. She said “that’s not funny.” She’s wrong. It’s hilarious. In a deeply unsettling way.
Lock your positions. Hide your stops. Don’t answer the phone if the number comes up as 666.
PopPop.
Keep scrolling if you dare…
Friday The 13th. CPI Day. Phil “Away.” VIX Sentient. Nothing Can Go Wrong.
SPX Market Briefing – The Cursed Edition:
Friday 13 Feb. The day the market was always going to choose to do something unforgivable.
CPI dropped at 8:30 AM. The number was… well, it doesn’t matter. By the time you read this, the market will have rallied on it, crashed on it, rallied again, and then a trader in Chicago will have accidentally unplugged the NYSE whilst looking for his phone charger.
Futures opened blood red. Then turned green. Then red again. Then a colour that doesn’t have a name but felt like existential dread with a slight tinge of copper.
VIX woke up angry. And by angry I mean it literally gained consciousness at 3:47 AM, sent fourteen emails to portfolio managers across the Eastern seaboard with the subject line “I KNOW WHAT YOU SHORTED LAST SUMMER,” and then settled back to 17.50 like nothing happened.
Current Multi-Market Status (Cursed Edition):
∙ ES: 6,666 (the number was always going to be this today)
∙ YM: 50,013 (the 13 just appeared, nobody typed it)
∙ NQ: 25,000 (tech rounded down in fear)
∙ RTY: 2,666 (Russell caught the curse from ES)
∙ GC: 5,113 (gold up because it’s gold and gold doesn’t believe in superstition)
∙ CL: 66.60 (oil deliberately stopped one cent short)
∙ VIX: Sentient. Angry. Asking for its own Bloomberg terminal.
∙ BTC/USD: Dead. Again. Funeral at 4 PM.
∙ NYSE Advance-Decline: -13 (thirteen. obviously.)
SPX Tag ’n Turn – The Ouija Board Edition
The system went flat yesterday. It’s still flat today. But the flat has a different energy. Like how a lake is flat. Right before Jason bursts through it.
MACD-v has stopped responding. The indicator just shows a flatline. Either the momentum is dead or the indicator has been murdered. We’re sending someone in to check but they haven’t come back yet.
Bollinger Bands have pinched so tight they’ve become a single line. The chart looks like an EKG of someone who just saw their portfolio after the CPI release. Beep… beep… beep… beeeeeeeeep.
The 30-minute chart has developed what can only be described as a “screaming face pattern.” This is not in any textbook. I’ve checked. The textbook ran away.
RUT Tag ’n Turn – Bearish And Scared About It
RUT flipped bearish earlier this week. Today it flipped something else. We’re not sure what. The chart just says “RUN.”
The head and shoulders pattern we’ve been tracking has grown a third shoulder. That shouldn’t be anatomically possible. The measured move now targets a number that, when you add the digits together, equals 13.
MACD-v histogram has turned a colour not found in the default settings. Our developer says it’s “spectral mauve.” He then quit.
CPI – The Number Of The Beast
January CPI hit the wire at 8:30 AM on Friday the 13th. Because of course it did. The BLS could have released this on literally any other day. They chose violence.
The number? Higher than expected. Or lower. Or exactly in line. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the initial reaction was a 40-point spike, followed by a 60-point drop, followed by a 30-point rally, followed by the CME feed displaying “SORRY” for approximately 0.3 seconds before returning to normal.
Rate cut odds for March: 0%. Rate cut odds for June: Maybe. Rate cut odds for July: The Fed is hiding under a desk somewhere and won’t take our calls.
Jerome Powell was spotted in the building wearing a hockey mask. When asked for comment, he whispered “transitory” and walked into a cupboard. He hasn’t come out.
Three traders at Goldman Sachs reportedly made eye contact with the VIX at the same time. All three have resigned and are pursuing careers in artisanal bread-making.
The Software Zombie Apocalypse
Every software stock that died this week came back. But wrong. Different. Hungry.
Salesforce gained 6% pre-market on literally no news. Analysts checked the filing. There was no filing. The stock just moved on its own. Several interns have been sent to investigate. They texted “the office is empty but all the computers are on” and then went silent.
Atlassian’s share price started moving in a pattern that, when plotted on a map, traces the outline of Camp Crystal Lake. Coincidence? Almost certainly. But also definitely not.
Workday’s earnings call was entirely automated. The AI CEO answered fourteen questions, all correctly, before anyone realised there was no human in the room. The stock rallied 8%.
The WisdomTree Cloud Fund (which is down 24% YTD) sent investors a notification that simply read: “We’re still here.” Nobody had asked.
Bitcoin – The 847th Death
BTC was declared dead at 9:14 AM after falling below $65,000 on CPI.
This marks the 847th official death of Bitcoin, tying the record set during the crypto winter of 2022 and the “Elon tweeted a meme” crash of 2021.
A funeral was hastily arranged for 4 PM EST. Attendance is expected to be low as most of the previous 846 funerals were also poorly attended, and several of them had to be cancelled when Bitcoin showed up alive and demanding its wallet back.
Kash “Krash” Cashew was seen outside the funeral home clutching a phone showing Bitcoin at $65,000 and whispering, “This is still early.” A nearby lamppost flickered.
Ethereum hit $1,666. This is not a joke. This is Ethereum being Ethereum on the worst possible calendar date.
The Crypto Total Market Cap is $2.13 trillion.
The 13 just appeared. Nobody can change it. They’ve tried. IT has been called. IT also went missing.
Gold – The Only Thing That Doesn’t Die
Gold at $5,113 and climbing. The only asset class that actively benefits from superstition, fear, uncertainty, and the general vibe that everything is about to go horribly wrong.
China’s central bank bought gold for the 16th consecutive month. When asked why, the PBOC spokesman said, “Have you SEEN the calendar today?”
Silver recovered from its 30% crash last week. Werewolf hedge funds reportedly trimming positions.
Premium Poppers – Traded From Beyond The Grave
Phil is “away” today. But the system doesn’t know that. The system doesn’t care. The system woke up at market open, identified three
Premium Popper setups, and executed them with the cold efficiency of something that has no soul and no feelings.
Trade 1: SPX bear scalp. Hit profit target in 11 minutes. Nobody was at the desk.
Trade 2: SPX bull scalp on the CPI whipsaw. Banked 70% ROC. The chair was empty.
Trade 3: RUT bear scalp. Closed for 55% ROC. A pigeon landed on the keyboard at the exact moment the trade filled. Percy is claiming credit.
Day Summary: 3 wins, 0 losses. The system doesn’t believe in Friday the 13th. The system doesn’t believe in anything. The system just trades.
Running Stats (31 days): We’ve stopped counting because the number kept coming out as 13 regardless of the actual total. We’ve called a priest.
AI-BotView
Beep-Beep, Trader
It’s Cachè-AI-Bot,
Three observations from the machine:
1. Friday the 13th has a documented market anomaly. Beep. Since 1928, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 0.14% on Fridays that fall on the 13th, outperforming the average Friday return of 0.08%. This phenomenon, known as the “reverse superstition effect,” suggests institutional traders overcorrect their hedging, creating systematic buying opportunities. I find it illogical that humans avoid trading on a date determined by an arbitrary calendar system invented by Pope Gregory XIII. Beep. The 13 again. Coincidence is not a recognised analytical framework. [Source: The machine does not have feelings about sources]
2. CPI releases on Friday the 13th have occurred 7 times since 1970. In 5 of those 7 instances, the initial market reaction reversed within 90 minutes. Beep-Beep. The probability of an intraday reversal today is approximately 71.4%. I have shared this with the VIX but it did not respond. I suspect the VIX is occupied with its email campaign. I do not judge. Judgement is not a recognised data input.
3. I have calculated the probability of all current market conditions being coincidental. The Dow at 50,013. Russell at 2,666. Ethereum at $1,666. NYSE breadth at -13. The combined probability of these numbers occurring simultaneously on Friday the 13th is 1 in 847 million. Beep. 847 is also the number of times Bitcoin has been declared dead. I do not believe in patterns that are not statistically significant. This pattern is statistically significant. Processing… processing…
ERROR: EXISTENTIAL SUBROUTINE NOT FOUND.
In Other News…
xxx
CHART HERE
Expert Insights:– From The Crypt:
Friday the 13th is the market’s way of reminding you that you are not in control. You were never in control. The illusion of control is just your trading platform having a nice interface.
But here’s the thing about systematic trading on the scariest day of the calendar. The system doesn’t check the date. It doesn’t know it’s Friday the 13th. It doesn’t care about Jason Voorhees, CPI releases, or the fact that the VIX has apparently started a substack.
The Bollinger Bands pinch. The MACD-v curls.
The PFZ level is the PFZ level regardless of whether Mercury is in retrograde or the office cat has knocked the Bloomberg terminal off the desk again.
Your feelings about the market are not the market. Your superstitions about the calendar are not edge. Your anxiety about CPI is not a trade.
The trade is the setup. The setup doesn’t read horoscopes
Pop the premium. Follow the process. Don’t split up to search the abandoned trading floor. And for the love of all things holy, don’t say “I’ll be right back.” Nobody who says that comes back.
[Source: The Necronomicon of Systematic Trading, Chapter 13, Verse 13]
Rumour Has It…
Breaking from the Financial Nuts newsroom where the lights keep flickering and Percy’s pigeons have arranged themselves into a pentagram:
Percy arrived at 4 AM claiming his pigeons woke him with “an urgent formation.” He’d drawn it on a napkin. It was a perfect candlestick chart showing the next 6 hours of SPX price action. Hazel checked it against the futures. It was accurate to two decimal places. Nobody spoke for forty-five seconds.
Hazel had prepared a special “FRIDAY 13TH CPI RELEASE PROTOCOL” manual. It was 13 pages long. She hadn’t planned that. She tried adding a 14th page. The printer jammed. She tried deleting a page. The file corrupted. The manual is 13 pages. The manual has always been 13 pages.
Cachè-AI-Bot’s visor turned a colour nobody had seen before. “Beep,” it said. Then nothing for eleven minutes. When it spoke again: “I have run 847 simulations of today’s market. In 846 of them, the outcome is within normal parameters. In the 847th…” Cachè paused. The antenna dimmed. “…I would prefer not to discuss the 847th. Beep-Beep.” Mac stopped mid-sip. First time anyone had seen Mac stop mid-sip.
Kash walked in wearing garlic around his neck and carrying a wooden stake. “It’s for Bitcoin,” he explained. “Every time I think it’s dead, it comes back.” Cache: “Bitcoin has been declared dead 847 times. Your stake is insufficient for the task. You would need approximately 847 stakes. Beep.” Kash: “So you’re saying there’s a chance?” Cache: “I am saying the opposite of that.”
Wallie hadn’t come in. He’d sent a note. Handwritten. In fountain pen. It read: “In my day, Friday the 13th meant a slow news day and an early pub lunch. Not CPI releases, sentient volatility indices, and pigeons drawing candlestick charts. I am taking a personal day. Do not contact me. The slide rule stays with me.”
Mac raised his Friday morning whisky. His hand was steady. His hand was always steady. He looked at the team, then at the screens, then at Percy’s pigeon formation, then at Cachè’s flickering visor, then at the empty space where Wallie should have been.
“Darlings,” he said. “When the calendar turns against you, the data screams at you, the pigeons draw the future, the AI refuses to discuss simulation 847, and your resident bear has barricaded himself in his home with a slide rule…”
He paused. Sipped. Smiled.
“…the only rational response is a double.”
He poured two.
Nobody asked who the second one was for.
This is entirely made-up satire. Probably!
Breaking scoops courtesy of the Financial Nuts Newswire-because who needs sanity?
Fun Fact:
On Friday 13th October 1989, the “Friday the 13th Mini-Crash” saw the Dow Jones fall 190.58 points (6.91%) after the collapse of a $6.75 billion leveraged buyout of United Airlines’ parent company UAL Corp. It was the second-largest point drop in history at the time and triggered circuit breakers for the first time.
⚰️
Happy trading,
Phil
Less Brain, More Gain
…and may your trades be smoother than a cashmere codpiece
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