TraderBot888

Accepted that I likely closed my shorts near the local top on the headline yesterday. Have reshorted, this time on ES instead at 6582. View it as a continuation of my trade from before with the same bearish technical setup, just missed part of the move in between

Exited the rest here, probably 4450 avg exit. Not the biggest or best move but did a lot of size so was still a nice trade for me. Onto the next

Tp'd another 1/3. Taking my own advice from earlier to just buy capitulations and not be too ambitious with upside targets as we are still generally downtrending. Seems that there is still some room for 2-way risk with Iran not giving Trump a clean TACO. No clue where we go from here but seems like a reasonable spot to reduce risk with a positioning reset on both longs and shorts. Hard to know what's real and what's not so just going to keep an eye on oil as the barometer of "truth"

Longed/levved up on a decent amount of GCM6 (June Gold futures) at 4287 (~4255 on XAU). Think we most likely bottomed a few hours ago and this was the sharp capitulation on positioning I was looking for to get in.

TP'd/closed this for about a 1% gain, looks like he is trying to taco. While I am still bearish for other reasons, no need to stay short the mkt when he is actively trying to pull out. Will look for further chances to reshort

shorted some NQH6 at 24777, approx equal to 24700 on NDX x.com/i/status/20221…

STRC doomposting aside, I still expect BTC to underperform from here. BTC acts as an interesting asset on geopolitical uncertainty by acting as a chaos hedge, but that outperformance is short lived, just like when boomers play a game of chicken on Gold for the same purpose. In order for a real trend to take place, both need ample liquidity in the system. So first you get an initial spike on the shock, but once that shock subsides you are left with the fundamental picture of outlook on rates, liquidity, general risk appetite etc. and right now the fundamental picture looks like $100 oil with the Fed not being able to cut as much as they would like, DAT overhang and midterms coming up with Democrats leading. There are 2 times in the recent past where BTC has traded like this which are the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war and the 2023 banking crisis, both of which ended in underperformance after the initial chaos hedge/optimism spike. When I think about how this situation can get resolved: 1. Fixed quickly, temporary outperformance of BTC retraces compared to other risk assets (like 2023 banking crisis, BTC underperformed NDX until Blackrock filed for BTC ETF in June) 2. Does not get fixed, second order effects start taking place (like 2022 Russia-Ukraine war where we rallied from 34k to 48k, but inflation from higher oil prices contributed to additional Fed hikes and lower liquidity in the system) Decorrelation is mostly a fantasy that never lasts long, and BTC is the most correlated to the system it has ever been with ETFs and DATs

2 weeks since this, BTC is up 3% but very choppy with both bulls and bears getting rekt, NDX is finally rolling over (yay my short is finally paying) but most importantly the oil price is just chilling close to 100 despite the headline attempts to bring it lower, certainly not the quick resolution that initial dip buyers expected. I do have a decent spot Gold position that I have not mentioned on twitter which I am getting rekt on (lesson in there for me, if I am not confident enough to post it online it's probably dogshit lol). Not much more outlook from me, but in terms of trading bear markets just look for quick mean reversion scalps and of course hold shorts for longer swings if you already have them. Small things like multiple index red days in a row with a finale death candle move that is >2SD, just bid for mean reversion and sack the bounce, don't be ambitious with your upside target. No need to overcomplicate or look for a fundamental reason, just trading 101. In fact, I'll probably look for something like this on Gold on Monday if we reach a HTF level as well for confluence. I also find it easier to focus on macro assets during these times to free up mental capacity on thinking about individual stocks - correlations are high and I would rather focus on the most liquid thing that is 24/5 or 24/7. I have a pretty controversial opinion on BTC which is that STRC is a complete ponzi that has a terminal value of 0. The reason why many bear markets end so badly is that rather than everyone collectively admitting that it's over, they look for "yield" because their long asset risk positions stop going up but they still have risk appetite, leading to massive inflows into yield assets with flawed mechanisms (UST in 2022, STRC in 2026) that do not get properly battle tested in bull markets because their OI never reached a critical mass. With STRC, unlike MSTR ATM raises, it causes the debt of MSTR to go up only in $ terms without any way to repay it aside from selling BTC. The bigger STRC gets (currently 3b outstanding from what I can see), the more likely it becomes that MSTR will default on STRC. Since MSTR is always leveraged, at some point one BTC drawdown will be large enough to cause a default on STRC, and the required drawdown on BTC to cause this default becomes lower as STRC is tapped into more. I also see a lot of retail ape-ing into this and recommending others to do so all over social media, not so different from UST being recommended as a "20% savings account" in 2022. In the short term, this is probably bullish for BTC as the STRC OI increase leads directly to BTC buying pressure but it only worsens the fundamentals for later. Still early days though, 3B open interest is not systemic but I will be remaining flat on BTC and keeping an eye on further developments here before changing opinion.

@heavybetalongs Technically you can call it not a default yes but where do you think strc trades if he decides to stop paying the divs/debt? If you're holding strc its strictly for the yield, because upside is capped at 101 with no claim on the mstr or btc underlying.

@TraderBot888 Isn't STRC preferred stock and not a debt instrument? Because that means they can just stop paying the divs, it wouldn't be a default. I mean, the divs are cumulative, but he could just forego paying them without serious consequences, no?

@plur_daddy Can confirm, I am an equity bear on the brink of insanity. Appreciate your thoughts as always Mr. Plur Daddy

Equity bears are at the brink of insanity given resilience in the indices, but odds of a breakdown are increasing now. Equities top slowly as passive flows and rotational dynamics can hold up indices for a long time. There are many structural forces rigged to push them higher, and thus it takes a lot to make them go down. Over the course of an equity bull market, buy-the-dip behavior continually gets reinforced, and the majority of capital will be controlled by adherents to this mantra. In theory, the longer prices remain coiled, the larger the move once they exit the range. This nuke in gold suggests there are liquidity issues brewing under the surface. It feels like a preview of what is going to happen to crowded trades. My theory is the Middle East is selling gold to shore up capital, as they have lost their revenue, and have many expenses around defence. They will also need to rebuild lost energy infra, and eventually, new pipelines to reroute around Hormuz. The buyback window is starting to close, and the sugar rush of higher-than-usual tax refunds is starting to fade. Retail has been a key marginal buyer of equities in these past weeks, and the fading of the tax refund tailwind is critical. The market is gradually coming to terms with the fact that this conflict may last for a long time. On a conventional level, the US and Israel have completely dominated Iran, but Iran has an asymmetric edge when it comes to controlling world oil prices through Hormuz. Trump can still end it, but the issue is that the US cannot simply leave, a ceasefire with Iran must be struck in order to guarantee that Hormuz is reopened. In order to strike a ceasefire, Iran wants to see a guarantee that the US and Israel won't attack them again (at a bare minimum), and it will be difficult for the US to get Israel to agree to that. Trump is used to being able to quickly maneuver according to his whims, as he did with tariffs, but the complex interlocking physical realities of war are different. Oil shocks often contribute to the end of bull markets, since they constrain consumer spending, hit manufacturing, and lower the ability of central banks to offer support. Indeed, the Fed came out slightly hawkish yesterday, and Powell also hinted that he may stay in his Governor seat post his role as Chair ending, which would constrain Trump's plans to unleash liquidity. We have a stronger dollar and long duration bond yields are going up over the world, which tightens liquidity. The Middle East is tight on money now and they were the marginal bidder in many assets. In particular, they were a key funder for AI capex through their investments in the frontier labs. They've been 40-50% of recent big rounds. Remember other deep pockets like Softbank are close to being tapped out. Any dollar that goes into these rounds will have to come out of something else, like liquid stocks (look at my pinned post for this broader thesis). And if we have any signs of risk to AI capex expectations, this will be a major shift that the market needs to contemplate. I've said this before, but puts are a difficult way to express bearish equity views because timing is so uncertain. Equities can hold on for a long time, because they are structurally rigged to go higher. Easier expressions are simply being in cash, or gradually shorting cash stocks over time, which helps avoid getting chopped. This is a very difficult market, stay safe out there.

yep no news and oil gaps up 18%. Gonna be an interesting week gl everyone

There have been trading opportunities over the week and I wont pretend to have caught them. BTC dip being bought up and making new highs despite geopolitics, Korea nuking 23% from the highs in 3 days... But the thing is that fading tail events at -22% from the highs is completely different from fading at -5% from the highs, and even more different from betting on bullish breakout continuation on BTC during max uncertainty

Still have not taken a single significant trade since this, which I am still in and scratching on. Won't pretend to understand how this war is going to resolve but I counted at least 3 positive headlines during the week to try to calm the oil market including: Iran defense guys saying they wanted to negotiate on nuclear after Khamenei died 4 days ago, China trying to calm the market by saying no disruption to Hormuz Strait 3 days ago, and finally this US gov using oil futures market headline from yesterday. Each headline managed to calm oil momentarily but within half a day all I see is oil making new highs. Meanwhile, equities are being dip bought basically every US session at within 5% of the ATHs, basically calling bluff on the oil market and betting that everything will be resolved despite oil going parabolic as I type this. Not recommending any shorts here but just saying that if you are trying to knife catch longs or expecting some kind of BTC breakout/trend you are basically calling bluff on the oil move. The current market mode we are in is that no news = bad, as oil will likely continue grinding higher if there is no resolution. Just ask yourself if the r/r is worth it to be adding long risk here. You are basically betting on positive headlines over the weekend. I cannot recommend being flat enough.

@thiccyth0t ibkr and other pro-tail/investing platforms > hood, dkng, flut long term for this reason imo

@ryzzqq good to see you back

likely retraces over the next 24hrs

@Wild_Randomness Brother i feel like im supposed to be making more money but somehow im barely making on my nasdaq short of 3 weeks 😂 x.com/i/status/20223…

Can’t stop, won’t stop

@Wild_Randomness got my entry lets ride

I’m kidding, but that genuinely was the first time in 300 days the Qs dipped below the 50 level and didn’t immediately melt back through once it inflected back up Yes— this is the level of autistic pattern recognition you need if you are going to compete with Kenny G in LTFs…

$QQQ $NDX It was right at that 50-RSI rejection where China successfully replicated $700B of US investment in AI in just four weeks…