[00:01] Uh we're at the end of it and we're at the end of July. No, this month felt like a year. And if you look at the monthly bar, it does not tell the story.
[00:14] Uh the monthly bar is like, you know, just a little line. Basically, the close near the open and a line this way and it seemed dull, boring, nothing happened. We're stuck.
[00:27] And we're we've been stuck for months in the ES range. And uh we're stuck. When there's a war, is it on? Is it off? Changes daily. And this week has [clears throat] also been basically both sides of the picture
[00:42] because we had this glorious plunge Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And Wednesday it stopped. Wednesday at the close, that was it. And we had an enormous bounce yesterday. And a total roller coaster today. It's
[00:58] been really exasperating because we had this explosive move after the which for no particular reason completely collapsed. And then we recovered half of that. And now we're just kind of hanging out.
[01:14] I recounted this morning about how I got stopped out of all kinds of good stuff prices. Um and I got to tell you, after the shell shock of yesterday and today, I'm going into this weekend light.
[01:30] Light, light, light. I'd rather just kind of relax this weekend and not wring you know, another taco or some craziness on Monday and um the market gods probably hear me and will crunch the market on Monday based on this. But I'm
[01:45] sorry, market gods, that's what I'm going to do. I'm I'm I'm ending this week on the very light side. But, having said that, shoot charts to you. So, let's do that and let's kind of catch up with some of
[01:58] this mayhem now that the earning season is behind us. stragglers at this point. Uh here's the ES. It cannot make up its mind. We have been in this for all of May, all of June, and all of July now.
[02:14] And ain't going nowhere. Uh it's just been grinding around with no rhyme or reason. And of course within each of those bars is his own little micro drama. But um yeah, net net, the net change
[02:28] But um yeah, net net, the net change from uh May 14th to right now, zilch. Haven't budged. Uh IWM is kind of the same story, although ever so gently you can just kind of see the slow deterioration.
[02:43] highs over the course of time. Um this trend line, you know, it tried to find support day after day, but the that. So, everything's just kind of in drift mode right now.
[02:56] And we're in the final 42 minutes of the trading month at this going to happen because it's the end of the month. the month. Um but uh it's been a just today alone
[03:08] has been a little bit of a peculiar day. Now, as far as the market, the the one sector that's been everyone's attention is is uh is semiconductor / memory.
[03:22] Many of you have probably read the tale of I'll give you the name right, Leopold Aumüller. I think that's close. Uh a young man, early 20s, [clears throat] from OpenAI, who started a fund and had
[03:36] uh in in very short order billions and billions of dollars to manage. And he was on fire. And I think his returns through the first half of the year were like 435%. Not bad for a 24-year-old.
[03:50] And um apparently it's all fallen to pieces. Um I I'm not saying the guy is roaming the streets broke, but I believe that his fund, on the whole, has been dispatched and sold off because the reason for
[04:04] those sensational returns for the first half of the year were were because of the the AI trade principally in April, May, and June because here we see EWY, South Korea, which is an approximation of the kinds of
[04:18] setting the world on fire. And without any announcement, without any news release, um it peaked on June 18. And since then, as you can see, you can just like draw a line straight down, has
[04:33] been just falling to pieces. Now, from time to time, we do get counter trend rallies here and here and here. And of course, what's happened over the past 72 hours or so. Um but
[04:48] the the downtrend is clear. And it's not the cleanest chart in the universe, but it's not bad. We've got pretty decent resistance right along this level. interesting thing is uh that we basically [clears throat]
[05:03] opened strong and are trading rather weak now. You can see this also reflected domestically, SMH, the semiconductor index. So, we have here Here is the uptrend. It first broke
[05:16] And this line changed from support to resistance, but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll go down. It respected it as resistance all the way to lifetime highs.
[05:28] Um June 22. So, just a little bit after uh South Korea peaked, and down we go. And this pattern is a little more clear. If I give EWY a grade of like B minus,
[05:41] clarity. And I would say that today's high isn't a bad approximation of resistance here. Um there's the top on that.
[05:53] And you know, it's funny because I um I mentioned this morning that I did not nail the entry of this position at all. Uh I started did all around here trying to short and
[06:07] on the whole it just kept failing. And finally, after a couple of weeks of trying, it stopped failing. I stopped getting stopped out cuz the market moved lower. And so, I was uh short
[06:20] SMH by way of puts and also short a bunch of individual items and rode this. bunch of individual items and rode this. And I I began to cover here on Tuesday and I sold my SMH puts. And I was really upset with myself the
[06:35] next day cuz then it fell hard. But you know what? Let's be fair. I missed the bottom by, if we consider trading days, I missed the bottom by a I'm not going to beat myself up that
[06:49] much. It's true there was a lot of gains to be had with those extra few hours, but I missed the bottom by a few hours. And I was really concerned that, you I was like, "Good lord, how long is this thing how far is it going to fall now?"
[07:03] Not so mad anymore. Uh I've looked and if I had just put my day it would have been a pretty ugly loss by now. So, wasn't bad to get out Lighten up Tuesday, lighten up Wednesday.
[07:18] Um yesterday was no fun even with positions been no fun either because it's been a real um whipsaw. Um as I said, uh got stopped out of some
[07:31] stuff and re-entered some of those items at worse prices as we went into this like inexplicable free pre-fall. And that only took about, you know, 15 minutes from top to bottom. The whole range of the day was just crunch in that
[07:43] little bit of time. A more dramatic way to see all this is KORU. And in this instance, very well-formed top. Down it goes. You've probably read that South Korea had their biggest
[07:57] rally, I think, ever on the on the KOSPI. And like 16, 70% in one day. But looking at this, it's not really sticking.
[08:12] all in all, just to re-emphasize, going to the weekend very light. Although the positions I am still in tend to be in Um SMH and a handful of
[08:28] SMH and a handful of high-tech stuff. So, storage has been um high-tech stuff. So, storage has been um another very similarly behaving sector that's been breaking down. Um I entered a tiny position in San Disk
[08:41] this morning just to just cuz I like the chart so much. But this is STX. San Disk exceptionally well-formed pattern here. And once again, yes, it was very very low on Wednesday. But the ideal time
[08:54] missed, cuz things are moving so fast, would have been the open this morning. Or any of the first 100 seconds or so of quickly. Um so, it looks like a great setup
[09:09] again. WDC. This one not as much. This one is pushed into its pattern. It does not have the clarity that we saw with San Disk. And same with STX. Not as good. So, as far as storage goes, San Disk
[09:23] looks like the real winner there on the short side. And even though earning season is kaput at this point, now that Apple's behind us, the next big one is weeks away.
[09:35] the next big one is weeks away. The 26th of August, Wednesday afternoon. N- Nvidia will announce um there's a billion things that could happen between now and then, but just so
[09:47] as you know, that's the next meaningful earnings event. I do have puts on a few items here and I've you know, I peaked at like 45 I've you know, I peaked at like 45 positions. I've trimmed that way down to
[10:01] Um and among those is a portfolio of just a few of them, just so as you know what I got going there. And these are all, as
[10:13] I keep saying, these are long dated. These are January's and in the case of FXI, March of next year. So, here's Caterpillar looking real good and I mentioned this in the morning program that as
[10:25] exasperated as I was by this morning's activity, the one place I wasn't was my options portfolio just cuz nothing got stopped out cuz I don't put stops on that one. So, that dealt with all all the turmoil just fine cuz it it was just
[10:37] But there's Caterpillar which reports, I think, next Tuesday, next week sometime, I'm pretty sure. Um so, that's shaping up nicely. Carvana, which already reported on um Wednesday evening and this looks just
[10:51] Looks real good on the diamond pattern there. FXI, these are the March ones, giving them tons of time. Um I will get out if we push past this line level because this has been very, very strong and this is my line in the sand. I will
[11:05] not tolerate it past that level. But if we look at the whole history of this, um my view on FXI, that is to say China, the China ETF is that um this is a pretty interesting medium-term
[11:18] opportunity. Uh you can see this giant green bar here, how positive this month green bar here, how positive this month has been for FXI and I am defining that by by getting all these puts. So, that's my March.
[11:34] this is uh doing okay. It's not a beautiful pattern, but it's doing okay. Um cubes we've got a over over overhang as if you will of uh
[11:48] supply above that price bar. And so, I'm I've got cubes uh puts on And so, I'm I've got cubes uh puts on that. Uh Shopify s h o p this one weirdly in spite of the huge rally yesterday and the continuation today has
[12:03] two nice red bars. Um so, that one's going pretty good. I like I like how that's shaping up. One item I've been really ham-handed on, very frustrated with myself, so I've just stopped messing with it is Bitcoin.
[12:16] going slowly but properly. But I just can't get it right these days, it seems. Um here's IBIT down almost 3% today. There's nothing broken about the chart
[12:30] keep blowing it in terms of the short-term moves. Uh I do still have MSTR short and um that's that's doing well, but yeah, on hands up for the time being. BITI, the inverse Bitcoin fund, up almost 3%. Um
[12:47] doing great. I just uh uh my own my own personal performance couple of weeks. Uh I do still have MSTR as I said, um
[12:59] and it's down about 3 and 1/2% and um at least I got some participation in that. I'd also mention Mara, m a r a, is another interesting looking chart for another interesting looking chart for any of you who are bearish um on crypto.
[13:13] There's just really rough idea of the right triangle on that one. Um SpaceX reports Tuesday afternoon. We're at lifetime lows again. The push above the trend line has
[13:25] Uh we could easily be at double digits on Monday. And it's uh I'll just Yeah, I'll say that this is very rare. I want this to go up. I believe it will go down.
[13:40] you've got the risk of the earnings report, you've got the unlock coming in about a week or so. Um and clearly the performance has just stunk up the room during its lifetime. So, yeah, it's probably just going to keep sinking.
[13:54] But um just real quick last items, here's the NQ. reasonable line in the sand for resistance. Uh frustrating as yesterday and today have been, this is a good-looking chart.
[14:07] And I imagine I will be delighted and furious with myself on Monday if if things uh flop because I am, as I said, quite light going in. And the one as- item that not many folks are talking about, but I think demands attention is
[14:21] bonds keep falling. Interest rates keep rising. No matter what Mr. Warsh is doing, they just keep rising. And we have been in a just keep rising. And we have been in a 6 and 1/2 year bear market on bonds.
[14:34] it's going to stop. So, I hope you've had a decent week. Have a good weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday. Goodbye.