Dave Bulger

@blondesnmoney Do we get the most epic squeeze or a complete collapse? Stay tuned to find out!

@citrini Yes I have the same observation. There is always a lot of demand for speculative meme stocks, so it continues to always happen, but more concentrated during these bearish periods.

I have a working theory that when the market gets choppy it concentrates speculative behavior into just a few tickers and causes a kind of paradoxical squeeze in very select memes versus broad memes. For example, back in 2022 while the index was down like 20% YTD, a scam IPO from Hong Kong trading under the ticker HKD went from $200M to having a larger market cap than Exxon Mobil. Started out as low float shenanigans but became the last refuge for meme stock traders searching for anything that would still go up. Anyway, here’s a chart of VCX.

@EricTheUmpire What’s cheaper than free?

Following Ump isn't cheap but it's worth it.

@TheShortBear I am hoping this is the outcome

Asymmetric middle east investment bet? While people panic, I wanted to shift the view over the situation and see what the best scenario would offer the world. If Iran’s current regime were replaced by a secular, globally integrated government, the shock of recent events could transition into a structural boom across the Middle East, particularly in tourism, logistics, and real estate. Pre-1979 Iran was not just an oil exporter, it was the region’s lifestyle and infrastructure hub, a role now fragmented between the Dubai and Riyadh. Historical background: In the 1970s, Iran was the luxury destination of the region. Kish Island was built as a Middle Eastern Monte Carlo, complete with casinos, high-end hotels, and infrastructure designed for global elites. Tourism revenue tripled between 1971 and 1976. Tehran functioned as a cosmopolitan capital attracting global cultural figures and European luxury brands. Between 1960 and 1977, Iran’s GDP expanded at ~10% annually under the “White Revolution” modernization drive. Rail, roads, and industrial capacity scaled at an extraordinary pace. In 1977, Iran’s economy was materially larger than both Turkey and South Korea. Today, South Korea’s economy is multiples of Iran’s, highlighting the magnitude of catch-up potential. Regional bet convexity: Normalization would remove the regional risk premium. Airspace between Europe and Asia would reopen fully. Capital that currently concentrates in Dubai purely for safety could redeploy across a broader “Middle East circuit”, Cairo, Petra, Al Ula, Isfahan, Dubai, expanding the total addressable tourism market rather than forcing a single safe-haven trade. Add to that a 4+ million-strong Iranian diaspora, highly educated, capitalized, and globally embedded, and you have the ingredients for a Dubai-style real estate surge across the Persian plateau. Keep in mind Iran has been destabilizing the entire middle east and not just its country. About 50% of all conflicts are directly tied to Iranian actions. Analysts often describe Iran as a primary driver of proxy-based conflict in: -Lebanon (via Hezbollah) -Yemen (via Houthi support) -Iraq and Syria (via aligned militias) -Hamas in Gaza ... What if we are looking at a new golden age of prosperity and stability? To be clear: This is not a base case prediction. It is a convexity observation. Markets are pricing the shock. They are not pricing the optionality of normalization. If the downside is instability but the upside is regional peace plus catch-up growth, the asymmetry is obvious.

@TheShortBear I just hope this is the thing, and not some other thing that was holding us down the past month.

This futures open tells you all you need to know. Oil retraced 50% already Crypto is up since the operation started Metals barely up Indices barely down 1% I still believe we are likely to experience a 5-10% pullback, simply due to the average retracement such events bring with them but overall far from the WW3 vibes we felt Friday night. Overall the market is reacting as if this was only about Oil and as if it was transitionary.

@ShortSeller @realDonaldTrump Agree with others. Iran doesn’t have nukes, so extending this opportunity to Russia or China is not congruent.

1) I'm not a fan of the shitstain that is @realDonaldTrump (hate the dumocrats as well) *but* If Iran continues to go his way (I think it does) = He has an opportunity to extend the same scenario to Putin (end the war or be exterminated) if successful there China takeover of Taiwan OFF the table = could go down as the greatest president in America's history... open mind

@michaeljburry This is the X drama we need in 2026!

@TheShortBear My biggest concern is that the speculative value was most of the value and that may not come back ever since the big milestones of institutional adoption and US adoption have been reached

It feels like much of the world still views crypto as little more than gambling, memecoins, speculation, and short-term trading. But that perception reflects the crypto cycle of one or two years ago. What’s actually unfolding now is a steady expansion in stablecoins, tokenization, on-chain settlement, privacy infrastructure, and real financial rails. The speculative layer may dominate headlines, yet underneath it, foundational infrastructure is quietly scaling. Ironically, the volatility and “beta” from the more speculative segments have helped pull attention and liquidity into the broader ecosystem. But that same beta also obscures what’s legitimate. When I compare crypto’s beta to traditional software, it feels like consensus still isn’t recognizing how much the playing field has shifted. Across nearly every meaningful metric: stable coin supply, transaction settlement, tokenized assets, developer activity... the Web3 economy is at or near all-time highs. Yet the narrative still compresses everything into one bucket. It increasingly feels like consolidation is occurring around BTC and ETH as the core infrastructure layer of Web3, while networks like Solana, Hyperliquid, and others are primarily optimized for trading velocity and speculation. Payments and transactional activity may flow through those higher-speed venues (and even that $ETH is increasing TPS), but the foundational infrastructure itself appears mispriced relative to its structural importance. In short, the market seems to be valuing the casino more visibly than the settlement layer, while the latter continues compounding underneath. To me funny enough, Crypto is one of the most logical hedges on the AI-Robotics economy that's exponentially scaling into reality. If the transformation takes place, the equivalent infrastructure to the old economy is web3 rails. If AI-Robots need to pay, communicate, authenticate, be transparent, be rules based and alike, there is only one answer. Happy to hear pushback.

@freedom_rpt @JamieMcullough Good reminder Rob, I forgot that it’s the shorts decision.

Longs on COMEX cannot force delivery of physical gold and silver. Those of you hoping for a hard default on this market will be waiting until you are old and grey. Stop believing g the hacks on social media promoting this narrative so they can sell you metals or misinform.

@blondesnmoney @IBKR Ah that explains it

@1ChartMaster I was thinking the same thing yesterday

$SLV "h" pattern breakdown

@dailydirtnap Nat Gas is definitely the absolute worst.

I have two trading rules: 1. Never fuck with silver 2. Never fuck with natural gas

@TheShortBear 100% it’s leverage unwind

The tight correlation between $BTC and $IGV makes me think this risk selloff is leverage-driven rather than fundamentally driven. Most likely some form of carry or funding unwind, potentially tied to the yen carry trade, which over time found its way into risk-on assets, software, crypto, and even private credit in search of yield spreads. When funding conditions tighten or volatility spikes, everything financed the same way ends up getting sold together. If you look at the timing, the broader pressure since the yen carry trade started unwinding about a quarter ago and roughly lines up with the period where risk assets began to lose momentum. Carry unwinds typically don’t resolve instantly either, they tend to play out over quarters and a grace period as leverage gets reduced in waves, followed by retrace periods where positioning stabilizes before the next leg of adjustment. The current move feels consistent with either a late-stage unwind or another stress wave hitting after a temporary stabilization phase. People are still searching for a clean explanation for post 10/10 and this unwind, but the absence of a clear headline or identifiable blow-up makes me think this isn’t market-maker or exchange specific. It feels more like positioning stress somewhere in the system rather than a single failure point. Binance showing the heaviest selling flow also points toward sellers likely being concentrated in the Asian trading sphere, whether crypto-native funds, leveraged traders, or capital pools operating in that timezone and using the US session for liquidity. Overall, this looks less like a fundamentals-driven panic and more like forced selling tied to leverage and funding conditions, with assets that normally trade independently suddenly moving together because they were funded through the same channels. As panic spread, bet moved towards 1 until positions got liquidated. I will add that all long players in Crypto specifically are now liquidated with a ratio of present liquidation showing an imbalance of 20/1+ titled upwards.

@TheStalwart Yes US underperformed all other markets in 2025 and everyone knows why.

US stocks outperforming the rest of the world has been one of the strongest investing themes for years. It peaked in December 2024, right after Trump's win.

@Reformed_Trader That is questionable TA lol

$VIX forgive the chart crime but this looks very concerning *NFA

@EricTheUmpire That explains it

Who needs macro analysis and TA when only one indicator matters?

@Tradestl I feel you 1000%

Not going to lie silver was a very tough trade for me. I traded it maybe 6 times with 3 wins and 3 losses. Each time I was ahead I would hold too long, and have to cover for minimal profits or a loss. When the monster drop came on Friday I was not fully prepared and minimized the day. (Yes I was green but not nearly what I wanted or expected for such a move) if this move would have happened on Tuesday for instance I could have profited huge. Overall this trade was a huge cost of mental capital on myself. From the initial parabolic in late December I was eyeing this trade almost daily for month and I’m truly glad to be done with this trade. It’s easy in hindsight to see that a particular trade was just not worth it to begin with. But again, I knew monster potential that this setup would eventually offer and that is what continuously sucked me in. Lesson learned here, I never want to say “I will not trade commodities again”. I have traded gold, natural gas, oil and silver many times before with success, but I will try to never be ultra focused on commodities as they trade different then stocks and the same rules do not always apply to them. If the market was “easy” everyone would be rich. It’s important after each trade to take something away and continuously learn from your mistakes. Never forget the most important rule of all CUT YOUR LOSSES FAST!!!!

@biancoresearch @Chickendaddy5 For anyone reading this the NAV is struck midday and the creation/redemptions are done then also. NAV does not need to be be struck at eod

SLV's NAV was $95 on Friday. The closing price was $75 (the record 19% discount). Silver can be unchanged on Monday (NAV stays at $95), and the price can be up $20 (or 27%) to close this premium/discount. My guess is we SHOULD see massive degen/retail buying right on the open Sunday night, trying to take advantage of the massive discount. If that does not happen, or the immediate bound fades into Monday, I would interpret that as a forced liquidation steamrolling the degens/retail. Forced liquidation is the result of a troubled firm being forced to sell due to margin calls and other immediate creditor demands, in a desperate attempt to stay solvent. If the bounce holds, however, this market is "righting" itself, the premium/discount is closing, and everyone lives to die another day.

Yesterday's 19% discount to NAV broke the record set on 10/10/2008, the day the TARP was introduced during the Global Financial Crisis. Before Friday's collapse, SLV had about $60 billion in assets. The chart above shows that the silver market is now broken, meaning there is a high risk that a financial firm heavily involved in this market is either bankrupt (causing the large discount above) or in serious trouble (due to the large discount above). It doesn't mean we will automatically see a firm fail, but the silver market needs to correct itself quickly; otherwise, it probably will. Quickly correct itself = Monday or Tuesday.

@EricTheUmpire Yes

MSTR going higher next week right?

@TheShortBear Ahh this makes more sense than my run it into Shanghai overnight close at 1:30pm EST, though both can be applicable. Today Shanghai looks like they went limit lock down at 11:40 EST.

$SLV $AGQ $SILVER The morning opened with a clear regime shift. Trump nominated Kevin Warsh for Fed Chair. Warsh is widely viewed as a hard-money hawk. At the same time, a U.S. government shutdown was averted at the last minute. Gold and silver had effectively been propping each other up over the past week. Silver looked vulnerable, but gold’s parabolic move prevented a breakdown, resulting instead in a double-top structure. This setup has historical precedent, most notably in 2006 and 2011. Quietly behind the scenes topping macro news added up: Greenland resolution, Tariff step back, FED chair hawk(ish)... As the macro narrative flipped, the “chaos premium” and “debasement trade” evaporated almost instantly. This came on top of rising margin requirements and billions of dollars in call options being offered throughout the week. With today being Friday, those call positions became trapped. Market makers were then able to delta-hedge back toward neutral by selling underlying shares. That’s when the dominoes began to accelerate. As silver broke below key whole-number levels, where the largest call strikes were concentrated, selling pressure increased exponentially. Billions of dollars in call options rapidly went to zero. The selloff intensified into the 1:30 PM window, driven in part by the $AGQ rebalancing mechanism. As a 2x leveraged ETF, AGQ must rebalance daily to maintain its leverage ratio. A 10% drop in silver leaves the fund over-leveraged, forcing it to sell futures into weakness. The “Kill Zone” (1:00–1:25 PM ET) is where the mechanics turned brutal: 1:00 PM: Order cut-off 1:25 PM: NAV calculation HFTs and authorized participants knew AGQ would be forced to unload significant volume. They front-ran the 1:25 PM window, stripping remaining liquidity. Silver didn’t merely decline, it gapped through multiple support levels. Selling pressure peaked precisely at the 1:25 PM NAV print. Once the mechanical rebalancing was complete, price finally found a floor.