4/30/25 Live Trading Room Market Recap & Trades

UNLOCKED VERSION!

Didn't Fool Me! ;-)

So, this morning GDP print came in at 8:30 AM ET with a negative handle. Market gapped lower on the news.

Before I even realized the -0.3% economic contraction tell was hiding a one-time surge in imports ahead of tariffs which skewed the data to negative (without that it would have otherwise printed +3.0% GDP), I could tell VIX would most likely not be able to hold it's spike higher to 28, would very much come back down by 10AM to break 27 support as further proof market was not ready for a more sustained sell-off. We closed the VIX intraday gap at 24.53 before META & MSFT reported after hours to spike markets higher on their stunning AND EXPECTED beats.

Thank you, Luke!

"Good morning Samantha! MASTERFUL call on not buying this fake dump this morning. Sold my puts at the low and scooped calls and saved what would have otherwise been a horrifying day." CLUB client

Remember, I have been leaning market bullish & posting lower & lower VVIX & VIX levels for weeks now.

Here they are again in case you missed them Monday - pls note the VVIX & VIX levels we have yet to hit:

Bullish Bent Continues…

Last week - every morning live - I did my daily checklist of what I considered ‘tells’ for a bullish-bent in equities on way to SPX 5633.27 (hourly gap fill) for this week:

• Breadth repair from wicked oversold levels - as shown from cumulative 4wk new hi-new lows from intraday & daily timeframe but not wkly. CHECK!

• Nasdaq 100 Advance/Decline bouncing off 200D last Monday (5 bar rule in play). CHECK!

• Cumulative Volume continues to climb into 200D & then into daily trendline resistance at 100D. (Hit today!). CHECK!

• “Era of Blah Blah” (Geoffrey’s term) where headlines by Trump & Bessent are made to keep equity & bond market from falling apart. CHECK!

• USD stabilization in the 100 area - versus falling which is “MONEY GOES HOME” syndrome. CHECK!

• US Yields softening in 4.2% 10Y area versus rising as USD falls which is TREASURY MONEY GOES HOME” ;-) CHECK!

• USDJPY rises - which happened last week but not today. (I still have 139.39 as PT before we really get a test of next inflection point.) CHECK!

• Gold stops going up, digests, and falls - the whole point of my Catching A Gold Top wherein equities would then take the lead higher. ;-) CHECK!

• Fed liquidity advances above yellow line. CHECK!

• Bitcoin bounce with proxies MSTR, HOOD, et al. CHECK! (Big picture I’m bearish BTC but it is still/always a liquidity tell with NDX as two rise/fall together.)

• HYOAS credit spreads come in after 200bp run from when I warned in Feb - April. CHECK!

• Earnings don’t disappoint after expectations have been so strongly lowered during every week in Q1. Also said I still expect MAG7 to beat! CHECK & WORKING!

• Monday/confirmed Tues last week, I called for VIX & VVIX to weaken (with realized volatility), even gave PTs short which would allow SPX to stay bid. I updated again today with “VVIX falls into 93 and VIX 20” - before next bout of real equity weakness has a chance short of a macro event risk. CHECK & WORKING!

Lastly, I repeated that I expect a few days this week to be soggy but not sell off until AFTER FOMC MAY 7TH when POWELL CAPITUATION is yet again postponed until their June meeting.

Also this morning in my trading room I discussed how intraday support for SPY & QQQ would likely hold [see chart below on 2hr], how net selling did not match the gap down, and how VIX gap up did not match up with anything. I think the term I used was "too much too soon"

I also reminded how liquidity was still in the house - meaning Fed Liquidity [see chart below that triggered April 23] - along with my Market Liquidity read, so the gap down on that GDP just didn't pass the mom smell test. ;-)

Anyway, that worked. And this was ALL before the MAG2 of the MAG4 reporting this week of the MAG7 reported after hours, and as expected they both crushed it. I was more bullish on META with its 7% expected move - calling for 578 to hit, base and move higher into 603. So far so good afterhours.

But MSFT would have been the better horse, as it spiked beyond its 4% expected move tagging 430 AH. Like, wow. But... I expect 421 to be heady resistance, so falling below that is a solid short back down to 400. Yes, the market moves both ways.

Bonus Track: SBUX. Client know I have been bearish SBUX, NKE & DIS since their 2021 top. The trio was my top consumer discretionary trades short for 2022.
Recently, SBUX swing short excited again - from a monthly "fake breakout, fast failure" breaking monthly support at $110 with - NO JOKE - $75 PT!!! It tagged 75.50 today on earnings miss.

Bouncing Into Resistance

"Bouncing into Resistance" was title of my recent INTERMARKET ANALYSIS for clients posted Tuesday in my intermarket-tells channel - both slack canvas with charts & video review.Ironically, my long-time friend, Chris Kimble shared this chart with me this morning - as we do intermarket similarly so excited to see his perspective on larger timeframes.

Equal weighted Tech $QQEW at the same price as November of 2021!!! It is kissing the underside of the 11/2021 level this week.

To which I told Chris I expect it to kiss the underside of the weekly trendline by NVDA earnings May 29th.

That means... not only will my stated 5633.27 hrly gap fill... fill... but the 200D is not that far away at 5750. With that, QQQ tagging 487.20 is also in view.

And if we get POLICY INTERVENTION - as detailed in prior posts: PEACE DEALS, TRADE DEALS, TAX CUT/DEBT CEILING DEAL - we can get above 5750, and this is the level that would force lots of those protected puts to be unwound.What are the chances? Well...

S&P flipping long gamma after the close on strong earnings from Microsoft and Meta. First positive reading since February 21.
@GammaLab

Positive gamma is positive. It does NOT mean I think we push above all-time-highs, but I do think we will have yet another chance to position SWING or even TREND short once we get there.

Again, remember: TOPS ARE A PROCESS. Bottoms require POLICY INTERVENTION, and we got that April 9th when Trump DELAYED TARIFFS until 4th of July!
So that's about as long as I expect this bear market rally to last.

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