4/22/25 Live Trading Room Market Recap & Trades
Catching A Gold Top
Last few weeks as gold got more and more parabolic I reminded clients of one of my mantras about shorting before we had a reason to:
"Don't short all-time-highs or buy all-time-lows"
I said the same thing publicly last Wednesday at our Macro-To-Micro Options Power Hour:
I also have detailed for over a year now the macro reasons for staying Trend long gold, silver & miners. Among them:
China hoarding gold & settling trade outside of USD & petrol-dollar in gold.
Hedge on inflation & rising US fiscal spending; sovereign bond default insurance.
Then most recently on Trump’s Tariff Terrors:
Capital flows out of USD into Gold as MONEY GOES HOME
Capital flows out of MAG7 into Gold as MONEY GOES HOME
Capital flows out of US Treasuries into Gold as MONEY GOES HOME
So many reasons why gold should be bid as USD is devalued.
So many good reasons to stay long miners as well:
When miners are the best sector rotation on devaluation and rising underlying and falling energy costs… When equities freeze from fear of recession and tariff terrors… When bonds fall from counterparty risk & lack of liquidity.
In a nutshell, there are many reasons to stay Trend long until the US budget gets balanced.
But timing the turns is also my job, so last Friday I showed the ONE chart I was spying for a local top on gold - after it had run 30% YTD while SPX fell -21%.
My GOLD:SPX intermarket ratio triggered on cue. I showed it to clients Monday live in my trading room and again today:
I added in this color: Most crowded trade isn’t MAG7. It’s gold.
I also highlighted how far MAG7 stocks had fallen considerably just as we enter earnings season…
Where I expect the bar has been lowered enough for them to jump over.
So all we needed were some positive macro headlines to help a rotation out of gold and back into equities.
Macro Moving Headlines
PEACE headlines started to roll in this afternoon around 1PM ET.
"Putin offers to halt the war in Ukraine to reach peace deal"
"US peace proposal to end Russia-Ukraine war includes lifting sanctions on Russia under a future agreement."
It doesn’t matter if it’s true, PEACE headlines are bond bullish & gold bearish.
Then right before TSLA earnings after hours, and Musk confirming he would be stepping back from DOGE - which was already expected - Trump said he has "no intention" of firing Powell and “never intended to dismiss Powell”.
"We think that it's a perfect time to lower the rate, and we'd like to see our chairman be early or on time, as opposed to late."
Then he softened his rhetoric on China:
“ultimate China tariffs won't be close to 145%”
The combination helped the dollar to climb 1% (against the yen) immediately after he spoke. Higher USDJPY helped equities rise after hours as gold slumped.
Archna literally caught the top at $3499 today from my live trading room as we discussed the potential rotation.
I also discussed the gold & oil rotation as well: