The movie Poltergeist came out 43 years ago, but perhaps you’ve seen it.
After the family has already been through hell, and things seemed to finally be getting back to normal, the haunting begins, and worse than ever. The young child, Carol Ann, who had been saved from the demons, could only stare in disbelief at the forthcoming terror and meekly murmur, “No more………….”
Carol Ann, I know precisely how you feel.
Over the course of April and May, I have been pulled, stretched, mangled, mutilated, shaken upside down, and occasionally pulverized by the mayhem going on around me. Just when things seem to be getting to some level of normalcy – – to a place where we can all just take a breath, stare at the charts, make decisions, and trade again, like the old days – – something else comes along to totally upend it.
I’m ostensibly on a (very rare) vacation, but there had already been two insane events over the span of just three trading days. On Friday, there was the pair of tweets from Trump which threatened the EU with 50% tariffs and Apple with 25% tariffs. That sent markets plunging, although they pretty much bottomed at the opened and shook off the news to some degree by day’s end.
Then, in the midst of the long weekend, Trump back-pedaled, as always (side note: I only learned today about the new term in the financial markets, TACO, which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out, which seems to be a good acronym to keep in mind).
He claims that he had a lovely chat with the head of the EU and would deign to give them until July 9, the end of the 90 day pause (yet another TACO moment), for everyone to work out a deal.
This news, of course, sent markets ripping higher, so, in the midst of this lovely vacation, I had to steel myself for what I knew would be a very rough trading day.
I slept a few hours, got up before 3 a.m. to prep myself for the battle, and I’d say I handled the entire day with a decent amount of intelligence and alacrity. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting, but, as always, I survived the day, and I reminded myself that Trump can only surrender so many times, and I wouldn’t have to face another EU moment again until July. I had paid my dues.
Armed with this positive attitude, I came into the trading day Wednesday ready to claw back some of the damage, and even though overall the market was fairly flat, I ended the day with every single one of my twenty-one short positions in the red, which is the color they’re supposed to be.
I had survived another TACO moment (Taco Tuesday, I guess we could call it) and had performed admirably on Wednesday to make up for it.
Then, out of the blue, THIS shit happened:
It actually took a bit of time to figure out what in the hell was going on, because although NVDA pushed the market a little higher, it was definitely NOT just one company’s earning doing this. As we all now know, the U.S. Court of International Trade nuked Trump’s Liberation Day nonsense, stating that only Congress, not the President, could impose any tariffs.
(Another side note: I wanted to show you the puke-inducing charts from thinkorswim, but the darlings over there can’t seem to keep their platform up; it sure as hell better be working when we open Thursday!):
Anyway, by way of SlopeCharts, here is the /NQ, which is approaching LIFETIME highs and the underbelly of the broken trendline.
The /RTY, a key position, WAS breaking down beautifully, but now it has zipped once again to a crucial level which, God willing, it won’t conquer. We shall soon see.
I’ll also mentioned I entered a significant short position against bonds, by way of TLT. Here we see the /ZB is weakening toward a possible failure level. It is one of the only assets in the world right now sporting red.
Thus, as with pre-market Tuesday, I have to strap on my loin cloth and get ready for another battle with insanity. I know trading isn’t supposed to be easy, but between you, me, and the fencepost, I’m getting pretty sick of this shit. There’s not a chart in the world that’s going to provide a heads-up about the kind of nonsense we’re having to grapple with these days.
In any case, I’d better bag a few hours of sleep before all holy hell breaks loose. Good luck out there, and I’ll muster a new post a while after the opening bell, once I’ve had time to do whatever is required.
