No New Ground, No Direction, No Problem – Theta Eats Everything
Ahoy there, Trader! ⚓️
It’s Phil…
I spent a good portion of the early Fast Forward insiders group call talking about VIX and my bear thesis – plus we’re in correction season again – and right on cue the markets opened up and gave us a bearish joy ride to profits-ville.
The Dow shed 822 points. IBM had its worst day since the year 2000. Anthropic published a blog post about their Claude Code tool modernising COBOL – that dusty 1950s programming language that runs 95% of ATM transactions – and Wall Street erased $31 billion from IBM’s market cap before most people had finished their morning coffee.
CrowdStrike down 8%. Cloudflare down 8.5%. The entire software sector is now down 27% this year. An AI blog post did this. A. Blog. Post.
Meanwhile, the Section 122 tariffs took effect at midnight – except Customs only implemented 10% despite Trump’s 15% declaration. Nobody quite knows which number is correct. Confusion reigns. The EU is threatening to freeze its deal. And Trump delivers his State of the Union tonight, which could produce some overnight fireworks to wake up to tomorrow.
Sadly though, in context to the daily charts – no new ground is really being made. The Dow is taking a bite out of its support levels and longer-term rising VWAP. The other three indices just want to grind it out. Again. Great for the time decay regardless of being on the bull or the bear side of things.
Yesterday’s Poppers were few despite the move – mainly due to the straight-line movements. Great for the lazy day trades but not so great for the more active Premium Poppers which is what I prefer to trade around the opening bell.
Five trades. Zero losses. Woop woop.
Let’s see what Tuesday brings. PopPop.
An AI blog post erased $31 billion. Your move, earnings season.
Five Trades. Zero Losses. The System Works.
Market Briefing:
Monday’s Carnage – the Numbers
Dow: -822 points (-1.66%) to 48,804. The worst day since February. IBM alone dragged it down like an anchor made of legacy code.
S&P 500: -1.04% to 6,837. The index has now slipped into the red for 2026. All those January gains? Gone.
Nasdaq: -1.13% to 22,627. Software sector carnage continued from the SaaSpocalypse that started two weeks ago.
VIX: surged 10% to 21.01. Holding those higher lows we’ve been watching. The elevated concerns we flagged are now fully priced into the volatility channel.
The AI Blog Post That Erased $31 Billion
Here’s a sentence that would have made zero sense five years ago: an AI company published a blog post about an ancient programming language and it wiped out $31 billion in market capitalisation.
Anthropic announced that their Claude Code tool can modernise COBOL codebases “in quarters instead of years.” COBOL – the language that runs 95% of ATM transactions, powers airline systems, and underpins government infrastructure. The language that has kept IBM’s consulting empire employed for decades. [Source: CNBC – “IBM is the latest AI casualty” – cnbc.com]
IBM closed down 13.2% at $223.35. Worst single-day drop since October 2000. The stock is now down 27% in February alone – the worst monthly slide since at least 1968. [Source: Bloomberg – “IBM Sinks Most Since 2000” – bloomberg.com]
The blast radius wasn’t limited to IBM. CrowdStrike down 8%. Cloudflare down 8.5%. Accenture and Cognizant dragged lower too. The entire software sector ETF is down 27% this year – on pace for its worst quarter since the 2008 financial crisis. [Source: Bloomberg]
The market’s message is clear: AI isn’t coming for software jobs someday. It’s coming now. A blog post about a 65-year-old programming language just proved it.
Tariff Chaos – Day One
The Section 122 tariffs officially took effect at midnight this morning. Sort of.
Trump signed the proclamation at 10%. Then announced on Truth Social he was raising it to 15%. But the formal proclamation that CBP is implementing? Still says 10%. The 15% increase hasn’t been formally signed into a legal instrument yet. [Source: Zonos – “IEEPA Tariff Ruling Updates” – zonos.com]
The EU is threatening to freeze its existing trade deal. The bilateral agreements that were structured under IEEPA? Their legal instruments no longer exist. JPMorgan’s base case: tariff rate settles around 9-10%.
150-day clock started today. Expiry: 24 Jul 2026. Congress must act or the tariffs disappear. The administration is already fast-tracking Section 301 investigations as a backup plan.
Bitcoin – “Store of Value” Update
Bitcoin continues to prove its credentials as a store of wealth and digital gold by dead cat bouncing its way back down to $63,000. Mwahaha.
Down 45% from October highs. Fear and Greed Index at 5 – not 14 like Sunday, actually five. Extreme fear doesn’t begin to describe it. ETF outflows have hit $3.8 billion over five weeks. Vitalik Buterin has sold 10,700 ETH this month.
Meanwhile, real gold – you know, the shiny stuff that actually stores value – surged 3% past $5,170 on safe-haven flows. Up 80% year-over-year. Making its actual flight-to-safety slash bubble-run move towards NATHs. [Source: Market data]
The gold-to-Bitcoin divergence tells you everything you need to know about what this market actually thinks about risk.
The Charts – Messy but Breaking
SPX – whilst still being in the larger messy zone, has broken down and out of the last few days of mess. Below 6,750 will take it out of the whole messy zone for what could be a breakdown and the start of a decent and seasonal corrective move. The TnT has flipped to Bullish Above 6,845 with target at 6,919 – but with “Bearish @ Upper Range” flagged on the 30-min, the upside conviction isn’t there.
RUT – clearer and cleaner but still a mess to look at. Has also broken its shorter-term mess but still inside the larger mess. Below 2,570 will give a clear new ground signal to burn through. The TnT has just flipped bullish above 2,612 with target pending – Uncle Russell waiting for direction like the rest of us.
SPX Technical
Daily: SPX at 6,837.74. NATHs at 7,002.28 feel like a different era. ATR 81.05. Broken down from recent mess but still inside the larger messy zone. Below 6,750 = whole zone breakdown.
30-Min TnT:
“Bearish @ Upper Range” flagged on the 30-min chart. Target Range Lows labelled. The TnT says bullish above 6,845 but we closed at 6,837 – below the trigger. No conviction.
MACD-v: Watching for momentum confirmation on the lower panel.
The read: Up a day, down a day. The fiddler’s elbow continues. No new ground being made despite Monday’s 822-point Dow carnage. The other three indices just want to grind it out. Great for time decay on both bull and bear sides. Below 6,750 is where the real conversation starts about a seasonal corrective move.
RUT Technical (Uncle Russell)
Daily: RUT at 2,620.98. Upper resistance at 2,735.10. Support at 2,481.37.
30-Min TnT:
“Right Shoulder” pattern visible on the 30-min. Cleaner than SPX but still a mess. Broken the shorter-term mess but still inside the larger mess. Below 2,570 = clear new ground signal to burn through.
Yesterday’s Premium Poppers
Five trades despite the move being few – mainly due to the straight-line nature of Monday’s selling. Great for lazy day trades but the active Premium Poppers prefer a bit more back-and-forth around the opening bell.
SPX Poppers: 3 trades
- 2x 1st Breakout trades + 1x VWAP trade
- Plus 1 experimental counter-trend exhaustion trade
- Index gains: $20 / $15 / $15
- Option ROC: 61.5% / 55.6% / 62.5%
- 30-day stats: 90% win rate (27/30). BREAKOUT status.
RUT Poppers: 2 trades
- 1x 1st Breakout + 1x VWAP trade (tiny scalp out)
- Index gains: $20 / $5
- Option ROC: 65.8% / 12.5%
- 30-day stats: 80% win rate (24/30). BREAKOUT status.
Red arrows bears. Blue arrows bulls. Green arrows profits. No losses. Woop woop.
Today’s Agenda
Home Depot earnings this morning – $2.53 EPS expected, $38B revenue. Consumer confidence data. Six Fed speakers testing the rate path. Trump State of the Union tonight – first since the SCOTUS rebuke. Could produce some overnight fireworks. Nvidia Wednesday – the one that actually matters.
AI-BotView
Beep-Beep, Trader
It’s Cachè-AI-Bot,
Beep-Beep. IBM computed a 13.2% loss. That is not an optimal output.
1 – A blog post just stress-tested enterprise software’s entire business model. Anthropic’s COBOL announcement erased $31B from IBM in a day. But the real signal isn’t IBM – it’s the acceleration rate. Two weeks ago, Claude plugins triggered a $285B SaaSpocalypse across SaaS stocks. Then Claude Code Security hit cybersecurity names. Now COBOL. Each announcement targets a different layer of enterprise infrastructure. The pattern suggests AI disruption isn’t spreading randomly – it’s systematically moving down the enterprise stack from applications to middleware to legacy infrastructure. Software sector ETFs are down 27% YTD, tracking toward their worst quarter since 2008. The market is repricing an entire industry in real time.
[Source: Bloomberg, CNBC, Tech Startups]
2 – The 10% vs 15% tariff confusion isn’t incompetence – it’s a feature. The White House proclamation says 10%. Trump’s Truth Social says 15%. CBP is implementing 10% because no formal legal instrument has been signed for the increase. This gap between announcement and implementation creates a negotiating window. Trading partners don’t know the actual rate. Importers can’t plan. The uncertainty itself becomes leverage. The Global Trade Alert estimates the trade-weighted average rate is 13.2% at 15% versus 11.6% at 10% – both lower than the 15.3% pre-SCOTUS level. The confusion may be intentional ambiguity serving as trade policy.
[Source: Global Trade Alert, Zonos, Benesch law firm analysis]
3 – Crypto Fear Index at 5 means something different than it did at 14. Sunday’s Fear Index was 14 – extreme fear. Monday it hit 5. That’s not a gradient – that’s a regime change. At 14, traders are scared. At 5, the market structure itself is under stress. ETF outflows of $3.8B over five weeks represent institutional abandonment, not profit-taking. Meanwhile, Bitdeer pivoted to AI, Vitalik sold 10,700 ETH, and open interest is half its 2026 peak. When the Fear Index hits single digits, historical precedent suggests either a capitulation bottom or a structural revaluation. The gold-BTC divergence – gold up 80% YoY, BTC down 45% – suggests this time it’s the latter.
[Source: Coinpedia, market data]
This Bot potentially hallucinates. Maybe. OK, Probably!
In Other News…
IBM’s Worst Day Since 2000 – and It Was Just a Blog Post Claude Code promises to modernise COBOL “in quarters instead of years”
$31 billion erased because an AI company said it could do what consultants charge millions for. IBM’s mainframe and consulting business has been built on the complexity of COBOL migration. Anthropic just claimed their tool automates the expensive bits. The stock dropped 13.2%. IBM says its own watsonx tool already does this. The market didn’t care.
[Source: CNBC, Bloomberg]
Software Sector’s Quarter From Hell Major software ETF down 27% YTD – worst since the 2008 financial crisis
It started with “vibe coding” fears, accelerated through the SaaSpocalypse, and now COBOL. Each Anthropic announcement targets a different layer of enterprise software. CrowdStrike -8%, Cloudflare -8.5%, Zscaler hammered. The question isn’t whether AI disrupts software – it’s how fast.
[Source: Bloomberg]
Section 122 Tariffs – Day One Confusion Proclamation says 10%. President says 15%. Nobody knows which is correct
The tariffs took effect at midnight but CBP is implementing the 10% rate from the signed proclamation. Trump’s 15% announcement came via Truth Social – not a formal legal instrument. The EU is threatening to freeze its trade deal. Bilateral agreements structured under IEEPA have lost their legal instruments. Welcome to trade policy by social media.
[Source: Zonos, Global Trade Alert, Benesch]
Gold Surges 3% Past $5,170 Safe haven up 80% year-over-year as everything else burns
Real gold doing real gold things. Making its actual store-of-value, flight-to-safety, bubble-run move towards NATHs at $5,626. Meanwhile, “digital gold” is busy storing a 45% loss from its October highs. The divergence is the chart of the year so far.
[Coffee emoji] Hazel’s Take
“IBM lost $31 billion to a blog post. Bitcoin lost $63K to its own narrative. And the tariff rate is either 10% or 15% depending on which screen you’re reading. Somewhere in this mess, gold is quietly having the run of its life and nobody in the newsroom has noticed because they’re too busy watching the fires.”
-Hazel, FinNuts
Expert Insights: Why Straight-Line Moves Are Great for Lazy Trades but Terrible for Premium Poppers
Monday gave us an 822-point Dow drop. Big move. Exciting stuff. But the Premium Poppers were few. Why?
Because straight-line moves – the kind where price falls off a cliff in one direction without looking back – are terrible for active premium selling. The Poppers thrive on more traditional trending moves to get those VWAP retest entries and time. They need the market to move a bit, stall, hesitate, move or meander sideways and let theta do its work.
Monday’s move was too clean, too directional, too fast. Great if you’re scalping the 1st or 3rd Breakout trades. Excellent for the lazy day trade that rides the move or meander. But for the bread-and-butter Premium Poppers that I prefer to trade around the opening bell? Not enough zigging and zagging to work with.
Five trades still happened. Five trades still won. But the setup count was lower than usual because the market was in “fall off a cliff” mode, not “fiddler’s elbow” mode.
The system adapts. Different market conditions favour different trade types within the same framework. That’s the beauty of having multiple approaches under one systematic roof.
Rumour Has It…
Percy was standing on his desk attempting to pin a printout of Anthropic’s COBOL blog post to the ceiling when Hazel walked in.
“Percy, why is that on the ceiling?”
“Because it’s ABOVE everything else, Hazel! This one blog post did more damage than an entire earnings season! The pigeons predicted this – they were pecking at the IBM building last Tuesday!”
Cache, running diagnostics in the corner, noted: “The pigeons were pecking because someone left a sandwich. Beep-Beep. IBM’s 13.2% decline correlates with zero documented pigeon behaviour.”
Wallie hadn’t looked up from his newspaper in forty minutes. “In my day, companies lost money because they made bad products. Not because some startup wrote a blog about a programming language invented before I was born.” He paused. “Actually, I think I might have been alive when COBOL was invented. Don’t check that.”
Kash was having a rough one. His phone showed Bitcoin at $63,087. The Fear Index read 5. Five. Not fifty. Five. “It’s still a store of value,” he whispered, but even he didn’t sound convinced.
“It’s storing a 45% loss,” Wallie said without looking up. “That counts as storing something, I suppose.”
Hazel took a long sip of coffee. “Monday’s summary: Dow down 822. IBM’s worst day in 25 years. Tariffs took effect at either 10% or 15% depending on whether you trust the proclamation or the Truth Social post. Bitcoin’s Fear Index is at five. Gold’s up 80% year-on-year. And Trump speaks tonight.”
“Overnight fireworks,” Mac said, appearing at the window with his glass. Talisker 10 tonight – because when the market ages a decade in a single session, you drink something that’s had proper time to mature.
“Phil’s bear thesis played out perfectly,” Mac continued. “Five trades. Zero losses. While IBM was burning and Bitcoin was drowning, the Premium Poppers were quietly collecting. Bearish joy ride to profits-ville, he called it.”
“And still no new ground on the dailies,” Hazel added. “Despite all the noise.”
Mac raised his glass. “To the fiddler’s elbow. To correction season. And to the simple, beautiful, boring truth that theta decay doesn’t read blog posts.”
Percy’s ceiling printout fell and landed on Kash’s phone, covering the Bitcoin price. Kash didn’t remove it.
“Beep,” said Cache. “Improvement noted.”
This is entirely made-up satire. Probably!
Breaking scoops courtesy of the Financial Nuts Newswire-because who needs sanity?
Fun Fact:
Happy trading,
Phil
Less Brain, More Gain
…and may your trades be smoother than a cashmere codpiece
p.s. There are 3 ways I can help you…
- Option 1: The SPX Income System Book (Just $12)
A complete guide to the system.
Written to be clear, concise, and immediately actionable.
>> Get the Book Here
- Option 2: Full Course + Software Access – 50% off for Regular Readers – Save $998.50
Includes the video walkthroughs, tools for TradeStation & TradingView, and everything I use daily. Plus 7 additional strategies
>> Get DIY Training & Software
- Option 3: Join the Fast Forward Mentorship – 50% off for Regular Readers – Save $3,000
>> Join the Fast Forward Mentorship – trade live, twice a week, with me and the crew. PLUS Monthly on-demand 1-2-1’s
No fluff. Just profits, pulse bars, and patterns that actually work.
