Amsterdam Trader

$SPX is sitting right back where it was the day before the bombs started dropping on Iran Think about what's happened in between: - A 5-week kinetic war involving the world's largest economy - The Strait of Hormuz... through which ~20% of global oil flows... effectively shut and still not reopened - Oil, gas, fertiliser, helium, chemicals... all disrupted simultaneously - Missile and drone strikes on ~30% of the Gulf's petrochemical and oil infrastructure - Iran's Supreme Leader killed, replaced by a successor publicly demanding "revenge" - Crude still 35-40% above pre-war levels - A two-week ceasefire so fragile that Israel was bombing Lebanon on day one of it The equity market's verdict on all of that? Nothing to see here Round-trip. As if none of it ever happened What's going on here? Here's both sides as honestly as I can lay them out. THE BULL CASE (and it isn't stupid): Systematic flows are running the show. CTAs who were max short at the lows are being mechanically force-fed back in as realised vol collapses. Vol-target funds are re-leveraging. Dealer gamma flipped supportive above 6,800. Once that machine starts running, fundamentals become decoration Consensus base case: the ceasefire holds, Hormuz gradually reopens, oil drifts back into the $80s, and the whole episode gets filed away as a transitory hit to Q2 margins. Not a regime change, a minor speed bump Meanwhile the AI capex story keeps printing money. $AMZN up 5% today on Andy Jassy's letter pushing in-house silicon. Meta's new model launch. The whole Mag7 narrative humming along independent of anything happening in the Persian Gulf... and despite the odd data centre getting blown up along the way Yardeni and the bull camp are out today telling clients the bottom is in and trimming recession odds back to 20%. They might be right THE BEAR CASE (and it's the one keeping me awake): Is anybody actually doing the earnings math? A sustained $25-30/bbl crude premium is a tax on every transport, chemical, packaging, retail and consumer-discretionary P&L in the index. None of it is in the numbers yet. Not the margin contraction from rising input costs. Not the working capital getting eaten by tankers rerouting. Not the insurance and freight rates that have repriced violently Today's data quietly screamed stagflation. Jobless claims jumped to 219k (highest in three months). February core PCE sticky at +0.4% m/m. Consumer sentiment still in the toilet The market is paying ~22x forward earnings on a 2026 EPS number that hasn't been honestly marked since late February Meanwhile, Goldman's commodities desk is openly modelling Brent averaging $100+ through 2026 if Hormuz stays jammed another month Vance, Witkoff and Kushner sit down with Iran in Islamabad on Saturday. Iran's 10-point demand list (full Hormuz control, sanctions removal, enrichment rights) is functionally unacceptable to Washington A two-week pause is not a resolution. It's an option that expires The market has decided the geopolitical risk premium is zero. We'll soon know whether that's a decision that ages well.

Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White compares him to Jesus: “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It's a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us…Because of his resurrection, you rose up.”

Updated Unsupervised Tesla Robotaxi geofence(green is the expansion from today)

market rally? bc of the collar oil down? yep, the collar again claude code leaked? collar's fault my local dive bar running out of springfest IPA? fckin' collar, man the beatles breaking up decades ago? yep, collar libor being replaced years ago? u guessed it, collar

“Trump is actually playing 5D chess by knowingly posting fake TACOs that he knows will get faded so that when the real TACO comes people short into it and ensure there’s fuel for the rally” -real sentence someone said to me