Mike

This is the most mind blowing documentary work I’ve seen in a long time.

@JC_ParetsX @grok explain. new regulatory chain for e-minis?

This is the first long weekend where S&P500 futures will trade 24/7/365 on a decentralized exchange.

When everyone is using fundamentals, check out the chart. When everyone is using technicals, glance at the #'s. When everyone is using sentiment, take a break.

The Iran war increased the probability the US goes into a recession. If a normal recession occurs and companies begin cutting headcount (for reasons unrelated to AI), you’re gonna have a lot of companies that otherwise would not have adopted AI that do so out of necessity…and a lot of jobs that don’t come back when the recovery is expected.

Everyone thinks they have a variant view before they get punched in the face by everyone else who understood it was a consensus view hitting the eject button. [see graphic at the bottom of this tweet] Most people have a consensus view. A view they read somewhere else and the fact pattern bled into their own psyche. They found it through an unconventional path, or they'd like to believe they did. The trade is well-known. The catalyst is well-known. The spread exists and everyone sees it. Hey Guy...We all see the spread. Spreads don't close because you noticed them or keep calling it out. They close when someone is forced to act. That force has a name. It's an informational edge and/or a hard catalyst. Something the market doesn't have, can't price, and can't ignore when it arrives. A soft catalyst that everyone already sees isn't brute force. (though direction of fundamentals inflecting is a different conversation; pls see prior tweets) And even when you have the right 'soft' catalyst, you still need liquidity. Shares have to change hands. Someone has to be on the other side of your exit. If everyone in the trade saw the same thing and is waiting on the same event, you're just hitting the eject button at the same time as everyone else through the same door. So who's the incremental buyer after your soft catalyst comes to fruition? If you can't answer that, and you're trading alongside everyone else hitting eject at the same time...Do you really have a variant view? Do you see it *Applies across strategies. This is a living framework and will evolve over time

Apollo's Slok: There is a difference between what consumers are saying and what they are doing. Weekly data on consumer spending remain strong, daily data on airline travel remain strong and weekly data on hotel demand remain strong. A full review of all publicly available daily and weekly indicators shows no signs of demand destruction. Markets are overreacting to what will likely be a 4- to 6-week period of volatility, which will ultimately result in 50 years of stability in oil markets, supply chains and geopolitics. The Gulf region will become more stable and even more closely integrated with the global economy. For the Fed, the rise in inflation due to higher oil prices is temporary; once the conflict is over, Fed cuts will be priced in again, and long rates will decline. The bottom line is that the Iran shock is not big enough to offset the strong tailwinds to the US economy from AI spending, the industrial renaissance and the One Big Beautiful Bill.

@FusionptCapital 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ladies and gentleman....The Internet

BREAKING: The United States is no longer fighting this war from the sky alone. Approximately 2,500 Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, accelerated out of San Diego. Roughly 2,000 sailors. Three amphibious assault ships. An infantry battalion with helicopters, F-35s, and armoured vehicles already deploying. And now senior military leaders are actively considering sending a full brigade combat team from the 82nd Airborne Division, approximately 3,000 paratroopers from the Immediate Response Force at Fort Bragg, the unit designed to deploy anywhere on Earth within 18 hours. That is not an air campaign. That is ground force architecture. The 82nd Airborne’s IRF exists for one purpose: to put boots on hostile ground faster than any other unit in the US military. When the IRF deploys, it means someone in the Pentagon has decided that air power alone cannot achieve the objective. The objectives that require ground forces in this theater are specific and limited: Kharg Island seizure to control Iran’s primary oil export terminal, Hormuz mine clearance to physically reopen the strait, hostage rescue operations, and IRGC leadership decapitation. CBS has already confirmed at least a dozen Iranian Maham 3 and Maham 7 naval mines in the strait. You do not send paratroopers to clear mines. You send paratroopers to seize the island that controls the chokepoint while SEALs and mine countermeasure vessels clear the water. The special operations footprint is building in parallel. The 75th Ranger Regiment, Delta Force, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and Navy SEAL teams are either operating or on high alert. These are not defensive units. These are the units that killed Bin Laden, captured Saddam, and neutralised Soleimani. Their presence in theater during a war where Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen for 24 days and Iran’s parliament speaker is the most visible wartime leader tells you exactly what menu of options is on the table. Trump paused power-plant strikes for five days. He did not pause troop deployments. He did not pause the 11th MEU. He did not pause the 82nd Airborne consideration. He did not pause special operations. The pause applies to one category of target: energy infrastructure. Everything else is accelerating. The diplomatic window and the military buildup are running on the same clock. If the talks produce nothing by Saturday, the forces will already be in position. Iran has 140 launchers remaining. Its fire rate has collapsed 89 percent. Its navy is destroyed. Its air force is gone. Its supreme leader is missing. Its internet has been dark for 504 hours. And the unit that can put 3,000 paratroopers on the ground in 18 hours is being considered for deployment. The arithmetic is not subtle. The 5-day clock is not just a diplomatic deadline. It is a staging window. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@LeylaKuni axios.com/newsletters/ax… Uhhhh? You sure?

Blackstone: "Let's do some cringey holiday videos to appeal to retail investors" KKR: "hold my beer"

$CCLFX. $32.5 billion. The largest interval fund in America. In 2021, ZERO borrowers were paying interest in IOUs. By September 2025: 188. And they thought: no losses, no redemptions. Read this. Cliffwater tells investors: "96% first-lien senior secured." "10% distribution yield." "Minimal losses." I parsed every position in their N-CSR filings on SEC EDGAR. All of them. I cross-referenced borrower names across every semi-annual filing. At least 53 borrowers were cash-pay in earlier filings. They used to pay cash interest. Then they couldn't. The loan was amended to PIK to avoid a technical default. Amend and extend. Cliffwater marks most at par. $1.24 billion. Five names that tell you everything: 1. WEALTH ENHANCEMENT GROUP — manages $136B in client assets. Can't service interest on its own subordinated debt. Holds a $23M tranche at 15% PIK — zero cash on that tranche. CW blended mark: 82c. My mark: 42c. The wealth managers can't manage their own leverage. 2. APEX SERVICE PARTNERS — HVAC rollup, 200+ companies, 43 states. Was cash-pay 2021-2024. Now holds 14.25% PIK sub-debt tranches paying zero cash. CW: 90c. My mark: 39c. Your AC repairman's parent company is paying its subordinated lenders in IOUs. 3. CPF DENTAL — dental chain. SOFR + 9.25% plus a 4.25% PIK component. All-in rate: ~18%. Maturity: December 31, 2025. The loan was due three months after the filing date. CW marked it at 99.7 cents. My mark: 64c. 4. PPV INTERMEDIATE HOLDINGS — healthcare. The name is the evidence: "Intermediate Holdings" = structural subordination. Sub debt. 13.75% PIK tranche, zero cash. CW: 97c. My mark: 37c. Behind SBA loans, revolvers, equipment lenders, tax liens, pension obligations, and every operating company creditor. Sixty cents of overstatement on a tranche paying nothing. 5. iCIMS — HR tech/SaaS. Was cash-pay from Mar 2022 through Sep 2024 in every filing. Now 10.07% PIK. The software company can't pay its interest bill. CW: 96c. My mark: 84c. Generous. Very generous. Even with a modest haircut, that's a confirmed credit event they won't recognize. The playbook: Borrower can't pay (SOFR went 0% to 5.3%) --> Amend to PIK (no default recorded) --> Extend maturity --> Mark at par (97% Level 3, no market price, Cliffwater sets its own marks) --> Book PIK as income ($57M of PIK interest in six months ended Sep 2025 alone) --> Collect fees Why they do it — the incentive: Cliffwater charges a 1% annual management fee on net assets. At $32.5B, that's $325 million a year. Every dollar of markdown reduces the fee base. Permanently. The incentive to not mark down is $325M/year. And here's the fund-of-fund layer they don't talk much about: six of their top ten holdings are CLOs, BDCs, and fund vehicles that charge their own fees underneath. Silver Point CLO ($1.4B), Barings Private Credit Corp ($919M), BlackRock Shasta CLO ($600M), Golub Capital, Blue Owl, AGTB. Your grandmother is paying Cliffwater 1% to invest in other funds that charge another 1-2%. Fees on fees on fees. On assets marked by the people collecting the fees. Cliffwater reports a non-accrual rate of 0.42%. I identified at least 53 borrowers that converted from cash-pay to PIK — borrowers that stopped paying cash interest. That is not 0.42%. That is systematic restructuring to avoid classification. Amend the loan before it hits non-accrual, and the number stays low. "First-lien senior secured" — on hundreds of holdco/intermediate/bidco positions, the collateral is equity of the subsidiary. Not the factory. Not the receivables. Not the cash. In liquidation: IRS eats first. Pensions eat. SBA eats. Revolvers eat. Equipment lenders eat. Employee claims eat. MCAs eat. Trade creditors eat. Then maybe the holdco "first lien" gets the scraps. They call that 96% senior secured. 97% of this fund is Level 3 — no observable market price. Cliffwater determines the value. Cliffwater collects the fees. Cliffwater reports the yield. And investors see 10% distributions and think it's safe. Remember that they went after unsophisticated investors. Retirement accounts. Your grandmother's financial advisor put her in this. First out gets the most out due to Cliffwater's bogus marks. Redemption requests just hit 14% in Q1 2026. The fund caps quarterly repurchases at 7%. This is the beginning. Every data point from their own N-CSR filings on EDGAR. CIK 1735964. Verifiable.

This is a shameful moment in Western history, leaders standing like frightened cowards before the Islamist jihadist rats ruling Iran. Starmer in Britain. The German Chancellor. They want the oil. The gas. The markets. But when it comes to defending it? Silence. Cowardice. Excuses. At the same time they rush to talk with the Islamic regime in Iran. So let’s be clear: Zero friendship. Zero loyalty. Zero respect for their own interests or for the civilization they claim to defend. Do not speak to us again about friendship. Do not lecture the world about freedom. We watched you stand against your closest ally, America, while hoping the Islamist regime in Iran wins this confrontation.

AOC voted against U.S. support for Iron Dome and literally cried in Congress when the vote passed. The Iron Dome has saved thousands of innocent Israeli lives since October 7, 2023. AOC voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act in 2024. AOC supported the pro-Hamas student activists at Columbia University after October 7, and said during her visit to the students illegally harassing Jews that she spported only "good Jews." @AOC campaigned on behalf of Jamaal Bowman on 2024, who denies rapes occurred on October 7 and invoked antisemitic tropes in campaign events for Bowman. When Bowman lost his primary, he blamed a Jewish conspiracy against him for his loss. AOC has been so blatantly antisemitic in her attacks on Israel that infamous KKK leader David Duke praised her in 2024 on X What are going to believe: A CYA tweet 2 days ago or AOC's consistent actions and statements since October 7 that she is a leading antisemitic member of the woke left.

Pull a Singapore Deport everyone with a standing deportation order & criminals. Use national guard to control crime in lawless areas like Chicago or New Orleans Keep in place current border controls Pull out of Iran Create an AI based unit to combat tax fraud, immigration fraud, and SSI fraud Cut trash food from from food stamps Flip tax credit to reward families instead of single moms Bring the military home, have them build things here and focus on domestic security and focus on cartel Freeze SSI, no more inflation adjustments in an effort to reduce deficit to 1% of GDP in 5 y Negotiate drug prices with pharma expanding on TrumpRX Free national BASIC healthcare (antibiotics, etc). Ration end of life and chronic care benefits End capital gains rate over $1m in annual income New national infrastructure projects to mirror intestate plan. Same with energy, but focused on nuclear and gas.

Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel, has a $10 plaque behind his desk that reads: "If we're all going to eat, someone has to sell." Of all the things this man could surround himself with, he chose a cheap plaque with a blunt truth about business. "You're always selling. You're selling to candidates. You're selling to vendors, you're selling to counterparties, you're selling to customers." And if you're always selling, you know what you're going to hear a lot of? "No." Griffin doesn't sugarcoat it. He tells two stories that illustrate just how brutal rejection can be. 1994 was a rough year, with Citadel losing ~4% of its capital. Griffin flew to Switzerland for a crucial lunch meeting, sat down, and his guest arrived only to say: "Oh, I thought you were John Griffin from Fen Church. I got to go." His lunch date got up and left the table. Later that afternoon, a Swiss banker spent 45 minutes with him in a beautiful office, smoking a cigar, before closing with: "Such a pity that such a bright young man picked the wrong career." Two rejections in one day for the founder of one of the most successful hedge funds in history — and his takeaway was simply this: "You just have to tolerate. You're going to hear no a lot, but you need to become accustomed to having to market your ideas and market what you represent and what you stand for." Absorbing rejection and continuing anyway is the actual skill, whether you're hiring, raising capital, or winning customers. Most people avoid selling because they're afraid of no. The ones who build great things have learned to expect it.

@JC_ParetsX DOW LYB MRNA

What's the best chart of the month so far?

Impulse trades aren’t about opportunity. They’re about relief. The dopamine-emotion loop says: Click the button → change how you feel. But your process often won’t give you relief. Sometimes even a win feels like it’s not enough. This is why discipline is hard. You’re not fighting the market. You’re fighting your brain.

Wouldn't that be something.

An aphorism from I don’t know who/when: “When people are worried about the future, they buy gold. When people are worried about the present, they sell gold.” Will be interesting to see if that plays out.

@Ozard_OfWiz Thanks OfW — love your stuff.

@MikeWick__ correct, 643 it is

🛑ماذا يريد الرئيس ترمب؟ (أدناه بناء على تصريحاته) 🔰يريد أن يعيد صناعة الرقائق الإلكترونية وأشباه الموصلات للولايات المتحدة بدلا من إنتاجها في آسيا 🔰 يريد أن يبيع منتجات زراعية أميركية للهند، وهم أمر رفضه الهنود تمام. 🔰 يريد أن تقوم الشركات الآسيوية بتوقيع عقود غاز مسال طويلة المدة مع الشركات الأميركية وشراء المزيد من الغاز المسال الأميركي. 🔰يريد أن تقوم الدول الآسيوية بشراء المزيد من النفط الأميركي. (أدناه بناء على استراتيجة الأمن القومي التي نشرت في شهر نوفمبر الماضي) 🔰الهيمنة على العالم تتم عبر الذكاء الاصطناعي ووفرة إمدادات الطاقة، (ولكن لاذكاء صناعي بدون طاقة) 🔰الهيمنة على العالم تتطلب أن تكون الطاقة رخيصة لشركات الذكاء الاصطناعي الأميركية ومرتفعة على الدول المنافسة. 🔸ماسبق يتطلب السيطرة على كل المضائق المائية. تمت السيطرة على قناة بنما، والبحر الأحمر بطرفيه، والآن مضيق هرمز للتحكم بتدفق وتكاليف مصادر الطاقة للدول المنافسة. والمتبقي الممر الشمالي القريب من القطب، وهذا يتطلب السيطرة على جرينلاند. هل حقق ترمب الأهداف أعلاه؟ حققها كلها: 🪶وقف تصدير "الهليوم" من الخليج ضرب صناعة الشرائح الإلكترونية وأشباه الموصلات الآسيوية. الولايات المتحدة هي أكبر منتج للهليوم في العالم! 🪶وقف تصدير "الأسمدة" للهند، يضرب القطاع الزارعي في الهند. ولكن الأمر أكبر: صناعة الأسمدة داخل الهند تعتمد على الغاز والغازات السائلة من الخليج. هذه ضربت أيضا. هذا سيعطي ترمب فرصة لتحقيق هدف إجبار الهند على شراء المنتجات الزراعية الأميركية. 🪶وقف صادرات "الميثانول" من الخليج ضرب عددا من الصناعات في الصين وكوريا الجنوبية واليابان. 🪶اتضح الآن لكل الشركات الآسيوية ان المخاطرة على الاعتماد على "النفط والغاز المسال" من الخليج عالية، ومن ثم فإن التنويع يتطلب زيادة الاعتماد على النفط والغاز المسال الأميركيين. الولايات المتحدة هي أكبر منتج للنفط والغاز المسال في العالم. 🪶الآن اتضح أن ماحصل في فنزويلا وتكديس النفط الفنزويلي في المواني الأميركية كان للتعويض عن النفط العراقي الذي لن يأتي للولايات المتحدة بسبب إغلاق مضيق هرمز! كنت غبيا عندما اعتقدت أن ترمب وبيوت التجارة العالمية التي باعها النفط الفنزويلي يجدون صعوبة في تسويقه. إضافة إلى ذلك، هذه الشركات تبيعه الآن بضعف سعر الشراء! 🪶من خلال تقديم التأمين للسفن ومرافقة البحرية الأميركية لها في المضيق، هذا يعني أن ترمب أحتل المضيق بشكل غير مباشر وأصبح يتحكم بتدفق الطاقة للصين وغيرها، وتكاليف التأمين والحماية سترفع تكاليف النفط والغاز المسال المصدرين من الخليج. بعبارة أخرى، الهدف هو رفع التكلفة. باختصار، ترمب حقق كل أهدافه باستخدام إيران كحجة، لهذا فإنه يتوقع أن تنتهي الحرب مع بقاء النظام الإيراني!