For now, SPX closed at 6369 Friday and 6330 Sunday night, so the JPM collar pin of 6475 for end-of-day Tuesday ** could ** help to pull up markets to relieve the VIX backwardation we are in - but again, we need a reason.

And with the gamma flip at 6,625 - a good 260 point divergence higher - we are well below any chase long activity of size. Unless dollar and yields reverse lower ASAP and the 10Y T-Note futures is trying.

As posted March 21st, and with the macro & fundamentals laid out, I gave my crash risk levels last week on break of 6508:

“Let’s just say $6427 SPX is my next level for ‘support’ bounce before $6215 SPX with overshoot to $6100 by mid-May.”

Fast forward and 6215 is in view.

My Growth/Value ratio is also not quite on the support level where I can see some digestion/stabilization, and my MAG7 ratio is on July 2025 highs but that does not justify a low-risk-entry (LRE) - especially since my lower targets on GOOGL, AMZN, MSFT, ORCL are in still working and in view!

Breadth is still deplorable and sellers are clearly not done.
Liquidity is falling and with it any hope of bullish bounces.

From this morning’s live trading room: here’s what is really working right now!

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And bonds smell it.

Today we had a broad risk-off session, with indices down across the board: SPX -1.8%, IWM -1.7%, and QQQ -2.4%.

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2Y & 5Y down... but markets aren’t reacting.

We've got the 7Y treasury auction up next!

Despite the bond market convulsing at the thought of financing Trump-Netanyahu’s war on Iran, the equity market is still hanging in there - even as headlines fly from US-Israel that a cease fire is near. And despite repeated attempts by Iran to dismiss.

Premarket:

This afternoon:

2:09 PM ET:

Israel’s working assumption: Trump may announce a ceasefire by next Saturday, according to Israeli reports.

3:24 PM ET:

There are no talks going on with the U.S., according to Iran’s foreign minister.

From this morning’s live trading room: what’s working right now!

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"Iran allowing ‘non-hostile vessels’ through Strait of Hormuz" via FT.

Nada.

Trump ended the war three or four times today!

NADA

I still see it ;-)

BEFORE rejection.

We need to get through the treasury auctions this week as discussed, so the invisible hand will work to keep equities in a ‘cone of stability’ potentially until next week.

For now, no big bullish bets do I see outside energy.

From this morning’s live trading room: what’s working right now!

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• Metal Volatility Falls

• USD & Yields continue their climb

• BTCUSD rolled over

• Our Tech Shorts just haven’t stopped!

• Our Value Longs still rotating!

• Special Mention

• Market Pullback Thoughts

Is it too much to ask for ONE quiet weekend without Trump tape bombs?
At least they aren’t real ones. Yet.

On that last note, I did my INTERMARKET ANALYSIS charts Saturday so I will review those live in my trading room tomorrow. Oil has a look.

For today, I wanted to do a summary review of all the names I keep reviewing LIVE. Lots working from macro-TO-micro - like our tech-shorts-TO-value-longs.

Also, here are my gold & silver charts with levels for those curious - plus my warning for a market pullback.

Share Macro-to-Micro by Samantha LaDuc

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Tech Swing Shorts Continued…

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I did a whole rant premarket on the new PROCLAMATION that was released by the White House this morning which I will write about more another day, but for now, here is a good synopsis to why I have repeated over the past year: METALS ARE THE NEW OIL

U.S. Government Concludes That Processed Critical Minerals Pose A Threat To U.S. National Security: Operation Warp Speed Critical Minerals Edition

In a nutshell, I warned this directive reads very much like a PRICE FLOOR for critical metals & minerals & miners.

Emphasis on MINERS. Why is a policy directive that subsidizes demand that initiates a PRICE WAR with China important for miners? Because it’s the kind of proclamation that drives my thesis of US GOVERNMENT AS VENTURE CAPITALIST. US govt investing/buying gold/silver/copper miners is coming.

Amazon already partnered with a copper mine to secure supply.

We should see Private & Public investment directly into the supply chain itself & both competing for the same supply.

Know what you own.

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Share Macro-to-Micro by Samantha LaDuc

A LOT OF TRADE UPDATES

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• SPX - Friday I warned of weekend risk. Monday we gapped down. VIX opened at 15.98 to which I said live that a break below 15.78 will be a long in SPX to fill the Sunday gap. Yup, yup, yup!

• QQQ - Still a case for weeks of “not if but when” 631.19. Getting closer...

• USDJPY - still moving higher into 158.88 before potential hot run into 160/161 where I expect (yen) intervention AND volatility in metals.

• Gold - still have $6K this year but at this rate could see $5200 by March.

• Silver - still have $150 this year, but have no idea when as this is moving 4X faster than gold.

TREND LONG UDATE

• CBI - has doubled since rec’d one year ago that it would double. Now take care.

  

  

  

SWING LONG UPDATES - ALL WORKING!!

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I’m BACK! I mean I never left but I am finally starting to feel better!!
If you attended my trading room past few days, my apologies for my lethargy.
I think my market read was still on point, but just no juice.
Listen to TODAY’S session. All bettah!
And we had a very successful session at that.

Swing Shorts in Tech Still Solid

Here are the ones still working as written up yesterday:

• AMD - nice follow through to my 203.55 target.

• META - needs to break 335 to short further into 616.70

• ORCL - rejected at 198 monthly resistance looks ready to retest break of 189 on way to 179.55 with potential overshoot to 174.

• CSCO - tagged my target of 74.21 but now can see 72.55 which is nice weekly support

• AVGO - warned past few weeks post EPS on break below 374.23 this short is not done until it fills 308.78. Tagged 331.42 short level today so just needs break of 330 to see 317.35 before 308.78 - 307

• SPOT - the other one I’ve said has been following NFLX for months & just needed time. This week it was rejected perfectly at 608 where I warned a revisit to 559 was the big test for breakdown into stated 506.47 target near 100W. It is working great.

New Tech Chase Shorts (likely turn swing shorts next few weeks)

• PLTR - was fab chase short today from open when I said “keep below 185.91 on way to 178.49 (hit) before breaking and revisiting 171.53 then 169.40 - likely this week. I still have 161.15 as target with 148 overshoot (before or after earnings)

• SNDK, MU, WDC, STX - were all great chase shorts today!

• MU - has 315.60 before 312.43

• SNDK - has 274.56 in view

• EWY, KORU - reversing

Big post on these DRAM Drama queens you should read now if long:

New Swing Longs - SO MUCH TO LIKE!

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• Market Direction

• Swing Shorts

• Swing Longs

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Real quick recap as I’m heading out of town for a few days after my middle-daughter left today to return to Europe and after hosting family & (mostly) her friends (non-stop) past two weeks. I will be pushing to finalize PORTFOLIOS before my return to the trading room Monday Jan 5th.

I have a few holiday presents for you in fact...
@Rithika and @Tiff are returning and I couldn’t be happier. Rithika is in India so she will not be active in our member slack live-huddle that runs 11- 4 ET PM after I close my morning trading room, but Tiffany is in NYC (working for a family office now) so she can be active and loves chasing momentum stocks.

Both will be posting in our PORTFOLIOS app for members, and both will be posting their analysis in their respective channels: #rithikas-hot-tickers and #tiffs-gamma-flow. Rithika will also resume her custom engagement with members using her Elliot Wave analysis in #chase-chart-requests.

TRADE UPDATES

Gold & Silver are in digestion, obviously. But I still have Gold moving to $4780 before major turbulence with $6000 next (year’s) target.
Silver is still of great value - as I posted in detail this Sunday - even if undergoing some wild volatility with XAGUSD $65 major support/protect to level.

And with that I am still very bullish industrial commodities - as METALS ARE THE NEW OIL for the next inflation wave higher next year.

Bullish Swings:

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I know I said I wouldn’t have time to write a market recap, but here I am unable to pull myself away from you!

Thursday Dec 11th I did give SPX 6925 & QQQQ 631.19 on VIX crush thesis, but then I had to pivot to ~$6700 once 6807 broke.

Well, we did tag 6720 on the 17th before bouncing back above 6807 line-in-sand so that puts the higher targets in play - again.
And they are still in play, but then what?

Market is sooo stretched and yet the Santa Rally is supposed to arrive tomorrow the 24th through Jan 6th.
VVIX did bounce off 81.73 today + closed green near 4%, so careful: VVIX leads VIX, and VIX will interrupt the precious metal & equity advance.

Share Macro-to-Micro by Samantha LaDuc

What’s Next After Gold & Silver Targets Hit

Speaking of that precious metal advance... I reviewed some thoughts on this subject yesterday & today live …

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Japan Raised, So Now What -

Bank of Japan raised interest rates to 0.75% as expected - the highest level in nearly 30 years - after Fed cut last week.
Some call this “normalization”, but it’s largely to accommodate rising inflation in Japan that is running above target post Covid.

The reaction was also as expected: USDJPY spiked higher, yen lower, as GOLD rose with the 10Y JGB. Nikkei rallied with NDX, as investors view this hike as code that financial conditions will stay accommodative.
I still have USDJPY 160 for months now, where they start to think about yield curve control (YCC) again - first through talk then intervention.

The challenge ahead is often debated - that of balancing Japan’s persistent inflation against a weakening yen and rising public debt that is purchased/monitized by the BOJ. But the fact is that real rates are still negative and Japan still has an ultra-loose policy:

1. stimulate/print yen,

2. buy yen & bonds when tremors are felt,

3. juice markets (Japan & US) with a (seemingly) unending appetite for debasing ones currency into prosperity.

We will know when BOJ is serious when a future rate hike RESULTS in a strengthening yen - which can then trigger the feared Yen Carry & Basis Trade unwind. Until then, this financial repression will continue and markets will rejoice on the prospects that the liquidity hose of Japan has been released to suppress volatility, repatriation, and true price discovery.

Venezuela Surrounded -

I wrote about this in detail Thursday. Trump’s war drums are heating up.

• Trump doubled the bounty on Maduro to $50 million

• CIA operations were authorized inside Venezuela in October

• Venezuela mobilized troops near the oil-rich border of Guyana

• Guyana says the “Zone of Peace is in peril.”

• Congress hasn’t approved but Trump has threatened conflict is imminent

This is our weekend risk, even bigger than redacted Epstein Files.

Santa Rally Odds -

Seasonally speaking, stocks rise in the last FIVE trading days of the year plus first two days of January: December 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, Jan 2, 5.
Given the CPI & MU assist to bulls past two days, and the early innings of a mini-growth bounce into my Growth-Value ratio, I would say odds are favorable.

Especially since I said pre-earnings that MU into 271 is likely before it meets with any resistance.

But truth is, many won’t be around to find out - as most have closed their books to avoid the higher probability chop into year-end during thin liquidity, light economic data releases, and a recessed Congress along with ~90% of Epstein files redacted.

Housekeeping -

I will run my live trading room and our member slack live-huddle will run daily as usual this coming week on Mon & Tue as well as the following Mon & Tues (last week of the year), but the day before & after Christmas and day before & after New Year’s both will be closed.

I’m giving my entire team some much needed R&R. Doesn’t mean that if something totally wicked happens we won’t post in our slack channels, but I wanted to set expectations.

Also, today will be my last Live Trading Room Review for the year so I can focus on some year-end FinTech projects next two weeks.

I might squeeze in a deep-dive market though on 2026 I’ve been working on, but my priority is finalizing PORTFOLIOS & OPTION TELLER - my holiday presents to you. XOXO

Portfolios will be launched January 1st for our return on Jan 5th - to be populated by Mike, Archna, Luke, Alex, Geoffrey & Myself to start ;-).

• CHASE members will have access to CHASE & FUTURES

• CLUB members will have access to CHASE, SWING, TREND, FUTURES

• EDGE members will have access to all plus GEOFFREY’S

Prices increase Jan 1st as well, so if you are interested in any upgrades, please consider doing it now.

UPGRADE & JOIN US LIVE

TRADE UPDATES

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CPI Beat. Well Sort Of -

Inflation-Deflation FinTwit was enfuego today with hot takes on how deflation impulse was good for stocks (and Fed cutting) - all from a MUCH lower than expected 2.7% reading that helped markets gap higher pre-market after the MU massive beat last night. But the truth is, today’s CPI report should be taken with a grain of salt given lack of data during shutdown. (As in a LOT of missing data.)

Anyway, the Dec report, due in early Jan, will carry more weight for Fed - many of whom are on record with stagflation concerns.

Stagflation Is Really The Risk -

Fed Sees Stagflation as Biggest Risk in 2026. Yup, that was the heading to accompany charts from Apollo’s Slok.

FOMC members foresee rising inflation and rising unemployment at the same time.We will get another chance at inflation data premarket Friday with PCE.

Quant Take -

Nomura’s Charlie McElligott says that the AI investment theme has shifted from CAPEX euphoria to a rigorous “adult” phase demanding quick ROIC and monetization amid valid concerns over debt/financing pressures. However he says, much of the recent sharp selloff stems from year-end profit-taking and P&L protection after strong 2025 gains, exacerbated by leverage (options and leveraged ETFs) acting as negative gamma to accelerate downside velocity.

“I also believe that some of this has become pin the tail on the narrative to justify the reversal of the initial euphoric price-overshoots, as investors struggle to rationalize the magnitude of the up up up, then way way down swing… which again in my eyes was at least a partial function of many investors having enjoyed a really good year in no small part thanks to this AI trade, and wanting to lock-in / protect P&L into the calendar turn… which then saw profit-taking snowball into something sloppier, especially with the amount of leverage in the trade which acts like Negative Gamma feeding the velocity of the price moves up & down, both real (Options) and synthetic (Leveraged ETFs).”

Taking a step back into macro outlook, the just mentioned repricing of cross-asset markets for better than anticipated economic growth and inflation outlook for 2026

...seems like an overshoot to me as well (we have seen vol sellers stepping-in / paying high strikes to fade some of this shorter expiry hawkish reflation stuff), and an opportunity to pick-up deeper ’26 cutting cycle than anticipated type trades due to lower inflation and ongoing weakening in labor markets, despite goldilocks type growth… which in turn should also benefit buyers of (now well-discounted) secular growers equities again too, which don’t need hot cycles to grow earnings & profits

....the above speaks to a continued range trade compression where this tug-of-war has just bled the vol out of the market… but at the same time, showing that the range compression is so historically low that we may have nowhere to go but up (wider rates range, wider distribution of outcomes, higher vol / vVol).”

Share Macro-to-Micro by Samantha LaDuc

TRADE UPDATES

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Trump’s War With Venezuela -

President Trump ordered a full embargo / blockade of “sanctioned” oil tankers from Venezuela - as cover, he called the Maduro government a terrorist regime. Some are expecting Trump is laying the groundwork for military action while others think it is ‘but a flex’ to assert dominance over Venezuela in general, but South America in particular - as Trump would not like VZ to sell their heavy crude to China/India/Other, but instead seize it and send it up to American refiners for processing.

But of all the threats uttered by Trump, this one sticks out:

VENEZUELA MUST RETURN OIL, LAND, OTHER STOLEN ASSETS

What do you think he means? Well, I’ve got an idea...

Venezuela and Guyana are disputing land that would change offshore rights!
Why does this matter? An astute X follower (Dennis Davis @ddavis914) shared with me the story which I confirmed with Client Brian is actually a thing but absolutely not reported by Trump Administration or Media of any kind...

Fact 1: Guyanese/Exxon Mobile oil
A recent significant oil discovery announced offshore Guyana - the Bluefin field by ExxonMobil in in March 2024, located in the prolific Stabroek Block, adding to Guyana’s massive reserves and potential for future developments. It’s part of the ongoing exploration in the Stabroek Block, which holds billions of barrels and continues to grow Guyana’s status as a major oil producer.

Fact 2: Venezuela and Guyana are disputing the Essequibo region, a vast, resource-rich area west of the Essequibo River that makes up about two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, with Venezuela claiming sovereignty based on a 19th-century award and Guyana asserting its control as established by the 1899 Paris Arbitral Award and subsequent agreements, leading to current tensions and actions like Venezuela’s recent referendums and Guyana seeking International Court of Justice (ICJ) intervention.

Fact 3: if Venezuela arrives to control the Essequibo region it will the control the Stabroek block oil.

What are the chances our US military is being used - under guise of narcoterrorism and regime change - as police force to protect its oil investment for Exxon Mobile and HESS (Trump loyalist/buddies)?!So let me summarize:

• 1. Yuge oil discovery announced offshore Guyana

• 2. Exxon Mobile “partnered” with Guyana March 2024

• 3. Venezuela and Guyana are disputing land that would change these offshore rights

Another consideration is even simpler: US refineries are addicted to the VZ oil.

Maybe stealing oil rigs from Venezuela helps US economy … ya know from an oil & gas industry recession and from crude oil crashing lower. ;-)

TRADE UPDATES

SPX 6700 DON’T COMPLICATE IT - that was my bet last week for this Friday (see Monday’s video review). And it’s happening - nice and easy.

• RTY & ES - yup

• SPX & QQQ - yup

• VIX, VVIX - yup

But now... I see SPX will be $6630 by M/T after the $MU fade.

with $QQQ back to 595!

Even if MU beat AS EXPECTED! Crushed it in fact.

Micron guidance is off the charts! Literally:

But I said I expected any bounce in MU to get faded until this current growth reset is completed.

Just like all the other AI & SEMI SHORTS of late... we have yet to find a suitable bottom.

In fact, my rec’d $ORCL + $AVGO + $NVDA + $AMD + $GOOGL & AAPL shorts are the gifts that keep giving!!

We are getting closer…

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UE Above Powell’s Line-In-Sand -

Unemployment rate moved higher today to 4.6% - above Fed Powell’s level of 4.5% where he intonated in the past that normative cuts could turn accommodative. (Read: front-running recession risk). I thought that’s what they already did with the 75bp cuts since September?

Of note: Govt lost -5K jobs in Nov, but Fed govt job losses in Oct were -162K (remember the early retirement folks?).

The U.S. federal government has lost 271,000 workers since President Trump took office.
AND for every 1 govt employee who lost their job, it is estimated that 3 more federal contractors are let go ...

My bet: we haven’t seen those numbers hit private employment. Especially as January will likely show more layoffs (highlighted area/annotations mine) given seasonality in waiting until after the company’s calendar year, & the holidays, to notify employees they have lost their job.

Since bad news is good news to market bulls, it makes sense that January FOMC rate cut odds stay bid.

End of Week Drama -

I think MU could be a bigger reason for a sell-off post earnings Wed night into EOW - ahead of CPI data Thursday morning - than is priced in.

Add to that, Thursday we have BOJ rate decision and whether or not they give forward guidance.

PCE Friday along with Dec monthly Options Expiration will be made more eventful given it is EPSTEIN FILES TRANSPARENCY ACT day.

Assuming there is copy to read after the many months & millions of redactions.

Oh, and add to that a recently unplanned & JUST ANNOUNCED Trump impromptu “Major Announcement” Thursday evening!

• Is it in defense of Susie Wiles or announced attack on Venezuela...

• A forced armistice agreement between Russia & Ukraine...

• Or Cabinet changes?

• Or just front-running to set expectations before the Epstein file release??

With VIX expiry Wed, we will have an opportunity to hopefully see if this market can move out of its tight range-bound, low-volume, year-end holiday trading!

Year-End Target -

Consensus sees S&P ending the year with a strong return of ~16%.

The Street’s current implied S&P price target is +16.7 percent higher than Friday’s close, the third highest expected 1-year return over the last decade.
via Datatrek

My bet for October was we had reached TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING, and that market would not break into new highs but grind sideways into year end to effectively destroy the crowded call-wall. Now that we have experienced solid distribution sideways in indices and rotation out of AI story stocks into more boring, low-beta value and oversold consumer cyclical plays, it would not surprise me if we still snake sideways around 6666 - give or take 250 points in both direction - UNTIL the distribution runs its course before we get a confirmed direction. This could easily be another month.

With that, I have a 20% chance we could break out to new highs in Q1, but right now.. I still see STALL ZONE with more risks to the downside than up.

But for now: the focus into year-end is CAPITAL PRESERVATION and patience - both personally and professionally

TRADE UPDATES!

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New Fed RMP ‘Not QE, QE’ -

Think of this new Fed alphabet soup as a liquidity flush for the plumbing system so that all the other junk in there flows smoothly.

“Numerous repo fortifications, paired with oversized bill operations, reveal officials in the short and long term won’t rest until they impose a significant cap on SOFR.” via Conks

This is basically the argument for a soft landing via Fed “plumbing” and policy easing to manage the money market, TGA, Repo, and SOFR volatility.BUT, Conks warns:

this is “devoid of any meaningful easing outside money markets. Equities will need to rely on other forces to further climb the wall of worry.”

Enter, A Politicized Fed -

Expected Fed policy is expected to be politicized. Add to that, the Trump Administration is pitching a productivity boom, falling inflation and emphasis on Fed lowering rates to stimulate growth.

In fact, Trump is so confident we have already won the war on tariffs, drugs and inflation, he says we’ve taken in over $18 trillion in tariff revenue over the last 10 months.

“There’s never been anything like it!”

No, there hasn’t: According to the Treasury Dept FY2025 report, the US took in $195 billion in duties.

Neither Tariffs Nor Inflation Will Be Refunded -

The Trump administration is racing to deposit the money it’s raised from tariffs into the U.S. Treasury, a tactic that could make it harder for companies to get refunds for duties the Supreme Court may strike down in the coming months. Via Politico

Costco isn’t waiting. COST filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration December 1st seeking the return of tariffs that they claim illegally increased its costs - forcing it to inflate its prices and forcing them to that cost on to consumers.

Do you think if they win, or tariffs are rescinded in part, that Costco or any other retailer for that matter will lower prices? Only when demand falls, which they say is falling. In addition, they claim that they are removing some products because of high prices that consumers no longer can afford.

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Market Moving Events & Positioning

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10Y yield is still pressing 4.2% - That’s exactly where we were Fed day/post Fed cut.
That’s because Fed controls the Overnight Rate, but the Bond Market (capital B.M.) controls longer duration rates. And clearly the bond market is pricing in rising term premia (as warned) and the inflation Fed will cause (which is why dollar is falling & Industrial/Precious Metals are rising).

In short, we don’t own enough gold:

“American barely own gold. Gold ETF’s are just 0.17% of U.S. portfolios and physical gold buying is low. That means even small inflows into the metal could push prices sharply higher”. Goldman Sachs

My RECESSION INTO ALL TIME HIGHS theme continues...

U.S. LAYOFFS ARE ON TRACK TO EXCEED GREAT FINANCIAL CRISIS LEVELS: U.S. EMPLOYERS ANNOUNCED 1,170,821 JOB CUTS IN 2025, THE SECOND-HIGHEST TOTAL IN 16 YEARS

It wouldn’t be surprising to see layoffs accelerate after the new year. Many companies delay cuts until budgets reset in January, and so folks aren’t hit into the holiday, because that is just cruel. But, point is: the real adjustments to budgets often start after the holidays end. They will soon end.

At the same time, U.S. home prices go negative for the first time in over 2 years.
Translation: the biggest engine for collateral values, upon which the US private sector credit is based, is weakening enough that we should start to see if affect equity buybacks / corporate refinancing in the future.

NVIDIA in trouble?

“Nvidia was the most prominent name cut from several quality-focused portfolios...

During its semi-annual rebalancing, MSCI made the decision last week to purge some Big Tech names. The decision to drop these stocks was driven by specific “quality” metrics:

The removal was primarily due to a technical metric called “accruals,” which measures the difference between reported earnings and actual cash flow. For companies like Nvidia, massive capital investments in AI infrastructure led to higher accruals, causing them to lose their “high-quality” status. via MSCI

More Rebalancing on the way:

Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ): As of mid-December 2025, the Invesco QQQ Trust is undergoing a major structural change as Invesco attempts to convert it from a unit investment trust into an open-ended ETF.

Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS): This specialized ETF, which focuses exclusively on the “Magnificent Seven” (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, and Meta), saw a significant slump in early December 2025 as investors rotated capital away from growth and toward value stocks.”

Share Macro-to-Micro by Samantha LaDuc

TRADE UPDATES

VALUE names long & GROWTH plays short as a theme continues to work. (see prior day’s posts for targets for which AVGO & MRVL hit)

• Short Chases/Swings of late: NVDA, AAPL, META, MRVL, NFLX, CRDO, HOOD, AVGO, ORCL

• Consumer Cyclical Longs (from late Nov): LULU, JBHT, ANF, EL, DG, DLTR, ADBE, CRM, TGT

• RIVN - Swing long from 14 working GREAT & said I was bullish into AI & Autonomous day before Friday it spiked low to high 24% - hitting wkly resistance at the 30W near 18.77. Still in good shape for higher into 22 in Q1.

• TLT - working nicely lower, hitting 87.24 on target with 85.48 potentially by EOY

“Debasement” Trades continue to work.

• AA, MT, FCX, RIO, GLD, SLV, GDX, GDXJ

• 10Y2Y yield curve steepener

New:

• APP - round 2!! Yup, rejected at 726 on cue before dropping -6% intraday. Lol. Now needs to get < 667 to move back into 525 area.

• RBLX - swing short: when 87 wkly support breaks, I have 80 then 73.71 before potential 67.05 then 60.50 IPO support.

• F -swing long Ford actually shocks the heck at me, but it looks great now that it’s > 12 monthly pushing into 13.95 resistance with 14.85 critical resistance to get above then 16.68 before this travels higher into ~24. The March 15C stand out or a financed call spread (12P sold to finance 14x17CS for $.30).

• UNH - swing long > 324 with 342 breakout on way to: 355, 366, 376

• MSOS - gapped up on Trump announced cannabis reclassification to trigger long at 4.94 with 5.32 - 5.55 as targets. Now it must stay above to get/stay above 6.02 but could take many weeks of digesting sideways to do so and option IV is jacked as MANY of the components are penny stocks/near penny stocks so of very little interest to me honestly.

• CMG, SHAK, CAVA - all are trying to base & move higher. I already rec’d CMG. A few more for you to chase as part of my oversold Consumer Cyclical plays to have in mind next few weeks.

Market Direction

Irony: I gave 14.88 as VIX level for a bounce (check the AI briefing doc)

and that is EXACTLY where we bounced intraday Friday. And yet, VIX closed at 15.88 as SPX closed -1% lower with QQQ -2%.

• I also gave QQQ 613 & SPX 6807 as targets short & to look for bounces there.

• Otherwise, we head to 602.87 QQQ & 6700 SPX pretty quickly.

Market is nervous ahead of payroll reports Tuesday not to mention Options Expiration AND Bank of Japan Friday!!

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Hope you had a great weekend!
See you in the trading room tomorrow.

Here’s the AI Briefing for Friday: (unedited)

251212 Trading Room Summary

295KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

OR JOIN ME & MY TEAM LIVE

Fed Day was busy for me as I had two live trading room sessions and an inspired Market Thoughts from my Wed premarket rant about the $25-30T in debt the US govt needs to roll next year. You can find them here:

The Ultimate DOLLAR DEBASEMENT TRADE - with a follow up piece today:

The MATH to the 80% of US GOVT DEBT that comes due NEXT YEAR!!

For this post FOMC press conference, there was clearly a bullish tilt in most of Powell’s words. I ran the trading room during the 2-3PM ET session to cover both the FOMC release with the new “Not QE, QE” RMP Fed liquidity facility to Powell’s press conference. For those who joined, you had my live commentary (quarterbacking) and can attest that it was easy to see the leading trade was:

1. Falling dollar, followed by

2. VIX crush (triggered on break of 16.63 level given Mon), followed by

3. Move higher in equities with SPX & QQQ!

Yesterday as Powell spoke I said. “VIX is all bark & no bite”. Then Dollar dumped & Market pumped.

I even said afterhours & again premarket this morning that I could still see these higher price targets I gave - despite ORCL dumping afterhours and pulling indices lower.

These targets still haven’t tagged but we are close: SPX 6925 & QQQ 631.19! And yes, they are the same targets I gave pre-FOMC Tues/Wed.

Again this morning after ORCL scared out the recent bulls and VIX retested 16.63, I said: “VIX is all bark & no bite”.

But once these targets do tag, I’m not so confident market will get/stay above - at least not without a proper 200 drop lower first.

• SPX - 6925; IF it can get/stay above we have risk of melt-up into $7100

• QQQ - 631; IF it can get/stay above we have risk of melt-up into $659

Share Macro-to-Micro by Samantha LaDuc

MANY TRADE UPDATES - Trend, Swing, Chase & Macro

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