If we do ever get those mass layoffs that trigger the reverse of the passive bid. There will be so much carnage. As tax reciepts fall from less people working and less capital gains, deficits skyrocket even more. And with AI maturing, the white collar workers may also be much slower to be hired back after being laid off. This has to mean more money printing. And lots of scary stuff I cannot even fathom.
When it happens the carnage will have a debt contagion effect that will make Greece look like infancy. Trump knows, all of them know and I agree with you lots of scary stuff that is unfathomable.
On a personal note...Oh that Western Sky! Photo simply beautiful.
That sky captured my heart as a 70s teenager hitchhiking through this great land. It pulls me in ways beyond my understanding and has not let go as I enter the winter phase of my life. Godspeed.
Good morning. Always a lovely way to begin the day with a new QTR!
So I keep reading and hearing (on every financial network, every financial publication, lots of the big fintwit accounts on SM) that it’s ‘retail’ that is keeping this market not just afloat, but reaching higher and higher, while the ‘smart money’ is either on the sidelines or getting there.
When that many are on the same side of the boat, parroting the same talking points, retail, retail, retail, the contrarian in me starts looking for a different explanation.
I don’t pretend to know.
But it seems pretty suspect to me, given that retail traders account for (at best) 25% of the daily volume.
And adding to my suspicion, we know that only about 50% of trading volume occurs on the lit exchanges. The rest is in dark pools, off exchange OTC trades and other nefarious ways the big boys manipulate the market.
You take just those two things (and there are many more similarly situated), retail is 25% of total volume, and the total volume visible to retail is only 50%…and they want me to believe it’s all retail driving the market.
Ok then.
Passive bid or not, the retail story doesn’t pass the smell test. IMO.
VIX under 15, market most overvalued ever, perfect time to buy protection when I can afford it instead of when I need it?
Everytime I bought SPY puts in the past, I lost the premium. Everytime I feel bullish and buy calls idem, so I feel the Fear Of Getting Slapped (FOGS). Yet the market is a bubble and protection is cheap.
Ahh, love the doom and gloom from QTR on a Monday morning! Puts the smile on my face and makes my coffee taste even less bitter, I mean better. Meanwhile, one month ago the 50D EPS MA of the S&P 500 was $10.44, now it has risen to $10.48. So long as earnings stay flat or rise, I'll let it ride and continue making call bets, with odds, until the table grows cold.
The only catalyst for a rally in stocks after peace is achieved (?) in Ukraine would be rate cuts. I keep thinking about what Gammon said about gold, that uncertainty fuels gold gains..
This all rings true. One angle worth considering: have you noticed that when the market hits new all-time highs, CNBC anchors never ask their guests what they’re selling? Instead, they ask, “What are you buying?” At the top. Then on a down day, it’s “What are you buying on sale?”
The word “sell” doesn’t seem to exist in mainstream financial media. Retail investors, conditioned by this constant buy-side framing, rarely hear the concept of taking profits or reducing exposure. That omission may help explain the irrational optimism—and some of the emotional dissonance—you’re describing.
Smoking a Fuente y Padrón Legends right now as I follow Jesse Livermore's strategy.....“Money is made by sitting, not trading.” I'm up 65 percent YOY so here I sit all cash. Patiently waiting.....your move Mr. Market.
Our ONLY mistake was in believing that our "leaders" were patriots, misguided and/or misinformed perhaps, but patriots nevertheless who would do the "right thing" financially, socially, politically when the need became apparent. We now understand that from Bush 1 up to 2016 they were, to a man, treasonous snakes who wished only for the destruction of the
American Republic, and, eventually, the deaths of most of us and the enslavement of the remainder in their New World Order (I will grant that it was Hillary to a far greater extent than Bill). Trump's election in 2016 threatened to fully expose the International Conspiracy, hence the Russiagate insanity, mass TDS and, finally, the Covid Scam/Plan/demic and the attempted imposition (somewhat successful, apparently, judging from the number of people who apparently received at least one "Death Jab") of the MRNA genetic manipulations worldwide.
The above was followed by the four years of the "Biden" follies (resulting from the stolen election of 2020). During that period the economic and financial derangement of the previous 30 years reached "peak insanity" and there is now no feasible exit from the von Mises "Crack-Up Boom" that we are experiencing. Count on it - the Deep State will "crash" the financial system and the economy either next Fall (for the Midterms) or in the Fall of '28 (for the Presidential). My guess is 2/3 - 1/3 '26 vs. '28 (because the Rube Goldberg concoction keeping the economy/financial system from blowing up is too flimsy to last another 3 years). And count on the Neocons doing everything that they can to keep the Ukraine fiasco and the "Greater Israel" land grabs running. The above events are clearly where the crisis of this Fourth Turning will be resolved - both domestically and internationally. Prepare accordingly.
Fumes so high that they're releasing new crackhead financial products. I've had so many friends ask me about PLTY which apparently is a fund specializing on selling options on PLTR and paying a crazy dividend. Would love your analysis on this thing
If we do ever get those mass layoffs that trigger the reverse of the passive bid. There will be so much carnage. As tax reciepts fall from less people working and less capital gains, deficits skyrocket even more. And with AI maturing, the white collar workers may also be much slower to be hired back after being laid off. This has to mean more money printing. And lots of scary stuff I cannot even fathom.
When it happens the carnage will have a debt contagion effect that will make Greece look like infancy. Trump knows, all of them know and I agree with you lots of scary stuff that is unfathomable.
On a personal note...Oh that Western Sky! Photo simply beautiful.
That sky captured my heart as a 70s teenager hitchhiking through this great land. It pulls me in ways beyond my understanding and has not let go as I enter the winter phase of my life. Godspeed.
Good morning. Always a lovely way to begin the day with a new QTR!
So I keep reading and hearing (on every financial network, every financial publication, lots of the big fintwit accounts on SM) that it’s ‘retail’ that is keeping this market not just afloat, but reaching higher and higher, while the ‘smart money’ is either on the sidelines or getting there.
When that many are on the same side of the boat, parroting the same talking points, retail, retail, retail, the contrarian in me starts looking for a different explanation.
I don’t pretend to know.
But it seems pretty suspect to me, given that retail traders account for (at best) 25% of the daily volume.
And adding to my suspicion, we know that only about 50% of trading volume occurs on the lit exchanges. The rest is in dark pools, off exchange OTC trades and other nefarious ways the big boys manipulate the market.
You take just those two things (and there are many more similarly situated), retail is 25% of total volume, and the total volume visible to retail is only 50%…and they want me to believe it’s all retail driving the market.
Ok then.
Passive bid or not, the retail story doesn’t pass the smell test. IMO.
A little humorous sanity in a crazy world. Channeling the Mogambo Guru.
The Mogambp Guru…how good was that guy! May he RIP.
VIX under 15, market most overvalued ever, perfect time to buy protection when I can afford it instead of when I need it?
Everytime I bought SPY puts in the past, I lost the premium. Everytime I feel bullish and buy calls idem, so I feel the Fear Of Getting Slapped (FOGS). Yet the market is a bubble and protection is cheap.
Ahh, love the doom and gloom from QTR on a Monday morning! Puts the smile on my face and makes my coffee taste even less bitter, I mean better. Meanwhile, one month ago the 50D EPS MA of the S&P 500 was $10.44, now it has risen to $10.48. So long as earnings stay flat or rise, I'll let it ride and continue making call bets, with odds, until the table grows cold.
The only catalyst for a rally in stocks after peace is achieved (?) in Ukraine would be rate cuts. I keep thinking about what Gammon said about gold, that uncertainty fuels gold gains..
This all rings true. One angle worth considering: have you noticed that when the market hits new all-time highs, CNBC anchors never ask their guests what they’re selling? Instead, they ask, “What are you buying?” At the top. Then on a down day, it’s “What are you buying on sale?”
The word “sell” doesn’t seem to exist in mainstream financial media. Retail investors, conditioned by this constant buy-side framing, rarely hear the concept of taking profits or reducing exposure. That omission may help explain the irrational optimism—and some of the emotional dissonance—you’re describing.
Basically.....the MSM says the same thing in all it's channels.
Give me the 7 and 11....cover the numbers and the come line......
Wait....isn't this a casino?
Smoking a Fuente y Padrón Legends right now as I follow Jesse Livermore's strategy.....“Money is made by sitting, not trading.” I'm up 65 percent YOY so here I sit all cash. Patiently waiting.....your move Mr. Market.
Our ONLY mistake was in believing that our "leaders" were patriots, misguided and/or misinformed perhaps, but patriots nevertheless who would do the "right thing" financially, socially, politically when the need became apparent. We now understand that from Bush 1 up to 2016 they were, to a man, treasonous snakes who wished only for the destruction of the
American Republic, and, eventually, the deaths of most of us and the enslavement of the remainder in their New World Order (I will grant that it was Hillary to a far greater extent than Bill). Trump's election in 2016 threatened to fully expose the International Conspiracy, hence the Russiagate insanity, mass TDS and, finally, the Covid Scam/Plan/demic and the attempted imposition (somewhat successful, apparently, judging from the number of people who apparently received at least one "Death Jab") of the MRNA genetic manipulations worldwide.
The above was followed by the four years of the "Biden" follies (resulting from the stolen election of 2020). During that period the economic and financial derangement of the previous 30 years reached "peak insanity" and there is now no feasible exit from the von Mises "Crack-Up Boom" that we are experiencing. Count on it - the Deep State will "crash" the financial system and the economy either next Fall (for the Midterms) or in the Fall of '28 (for the Presidential). My guess is 2/3 - 1/3 '26 vs. '28 (because the Rube Goldberg concoction keeping the economy/financial system from blowing up is too flimsy to last another 3 years). And count on the Neocons doing everything that they can to keep the Ukraine fiasco and the "Greater Israel" land grabs running. The above events are clearly where the crisis of this Fourth Turning will be resolved - both domestically and internationally. Prepare accordingly.
"Area asshole..." Classic start to an onion article
Teh internets have recently been serving me up ads for covered call ETFs, divvie yields and fixed income are being squeezed.
Fumes so high that they're releasing new crackhead financial products. I've had so many friends ask me about PLTY which apparently is a fund specializing on selling options on PLTR and paying a crazy dividend. Would love your analysis on this thing