As of 4:15 p.m.:

Closing Volume 

- NYSE volume 12% above its one-month average

- NASDAQ volume 30% above its one-month average

Breadth S&P 500 ETF Sectors 

S&P Sectors

% Movers 

Nasdaq 100 Heat Map

Large-Cap Advancers Chart 

Large-Cap Decliners Chart

* Markets advanced for the fourth consecutive day.

* The yield curve inverted — with short-dated Treasury yields flat to +2 basis points and the long bond yield -7 basis points.

Breadth was about 2-1 on the Big Board:

At 3:10 p.m. the S&P Index is +3 handles, well off of the day's highs.

Today was a research day, not a trading day.

Here are today's "Things":

* Shorted more  (NVDA)  at $148.62. ( I covered some between $144-$145)

* Covered the balance of my  (AAPL)  short $222.13.

Now that there is a near universal and uber-confident bullish market view and the S&P Short Range Oscillator turned back solidly into overbought, the market might be ripe for a fast correction.

QQQs are $512.73 (-$1.40 on the day) and that would be my focus for a short-term (and short) rental — with the Mag 7 down conspicuously for two days in a row in a sea of green.

Fear & Greed

Timeline Chart

At $222.13 (-$4.82) I am out of my Apple  (AAPL)  short.

I plan to re-short on a rally towards $230.

The Mag 7 has taken on a new role — this time, as a bottom dweller (at least over the last two trading sessions!).

From the Great One, TN:

TechNova

CRYPTO : Today is a day I promised the wife a drive up the coast. (Hence my personal note). So may not be back till market close.

Lots of individual questions already popping up so I thought I would just write one missive and hopefully provide you with enough data to navigate.

During Crypto Summer (LULL) I mentioned to Buy "The Bottom of the Box". That is a period, where like a robot, you can sell the top of the box, and keep buying the bottom of the box.

As we started getting towards the end of Crypto Summer, I mentioned buying the Miners, as a Mid Cycle play. I also mentioned several that had started accumulating BTC into their treasury like MSTR (MARA, RIOT, DEFTF, etc...).

After Crypto Summer comes Crypto Fall. I mentioned you should be fully loaded coming into Crypto Fall, as it marks the beginning of the Banana Zone. During the Banana Zone, things move very very quickly to the upside.

To top that off, I mentioned SPOT ETF Options should be coming online in December, and if Donnie wins, you will have a President who needs DEFI fully deregulated to carry out grift and thievery. All the pieces are now in place.

I mentioned that COIN (when it was trading at $174), was worth $350 without Gensler in charge of the SEC. Trading at $316 right now.... with Gensler still in charge of the SEC (for another month and a half). Things are clearly getting ahead of themselves.

The general Macro is definitely set for the Banana Zone to take hold, but this does not mean you will not see some epic wipes outs on the Futures, causing bag holders who rush in to get creamed on short term time frames.

Sandeep reached out to me about trading his ONLY BTC, and my only recommendation was "DO NOT TOUCH IT". If you only have 1 Coin, you do not sell it unless one of 2 things happen : 1) You really need the money, 2) It is trading at $1M per Coin.

If something happens to me, just remember that mantra and you will be OK.

For those with much larger positions, and more diversified Crypto holdings like myself (Coins, ETFs, Miners, Defi Companies, etc....). You should be using huge runs to trim and harvest Gains. You should just be mindful of 2 things. 1) during the Banana Zone, things move exponentially not linearly 2) You should be ready to re-buy at higher prices than your first Buys. 3) You should never be at ZERO.

BTC can run to $125K in a 2 day run. So NEVER be at ZERO during the Banana Zone.

OK, she's calling.

I know I promised many my Macro Thesis on what comes next. It is getting much longer than imagined. Going to put it in a PDF instead of a post, and see if I can upload it here when it is done. The short of it for now, is that in every transition to an Oligarchy, you have a first phase called "Euphoria". That usually lasts between 2 months to 1 year. This Euphoria is usually driven by a release in what people tend to think is an impediment to their wealth. For us here in the US, the Euphoria is based on everyone now getting a Tax Cut (if you showed up to a Rally, regardless of your age, wealth bracket, occupation, you were promised lower taxes), and complete and total deregulation. (Oil drillers can Drill, Chemical companies can Spill, Finance companies can Shill, etc.....) the Euphoria phase always makes the incorrect assumption that lawlessness leads to profits. When it has always been the opposite. Boring legislative deadlock leads to the largest profits.

Anyway, that is for another day. My current Euphoria estimate is till the end of Q1 2025 - Mid Q2 2025. But I need to look at some more numbers to confirm.

After Euphoria? Just reference that scene in the HangOver Movie where you wake up in a suite in Vegas with your room destroyed, a tiger, and Mike Tyson in his boxers, and cannot remember how you got there.

Volume

- NYSE volume14% above its one-month average

- NASDAQ volume 37% above its one-month average

- VIX: up 2.28% to 15.28

Breadth

S&P 500 Sector ETFs

Nasdaq 100 Heat Map

I'm trading around Nvidia  (NVDA)  short.

Covered some at $145 and plan to re-short on any strength.

Upside:

-RSLS +29% (receives NIH Supplementary Grant for ~$241K with the University of Southern California’s Center for Autonomic Nerve Recording and Stimulation Systems)

-RDNT +20% (earnings, guidance; collaborates with GE Healthcare to Transform Imaging Systems and Accelerate AI Adoption)

-MARA +15% (adds 372MW of Capacity in Ohio, with 152MW Operational and 220MW in Development; broad crypto strength with continued momentum following US elections)

-COIN +14% (broad crypto strength with continued momentum following US elections)

-LINC +10% (earnings, guidance)

-BCLI +9.2% (partners with Pluri to support NurOwn Phase 3b Trial Manufacturing)

-NVAX +9.0% (US FDA removes clinical hold on COVID-19-Influenza combination and stand-alone influenza phase 3 trial)

-MSTR +8.7% (announces BTC and ATM Activity; broad crypto strength with continued momentum following US elections)

-CI +7.9% (affirms guidance, confirms not pursuing combination with Humana)

-DJT +7.6% (strength following US election, President-Elect Trump claim he has no intention of selling shares)

-SOUN +7.1% (discloses $120M common share equity distribution agreement)

-HOOD +6.8% (broad crypto strength with continued momentum following US elections; Morgan Stanley issues positive forecast)

-AEMD +6.7% (enrolls first patient in Australian safety, feasibility and dose-finding clinical trial of Hemopurifier)

-TSLA +6.4% (momentum following US elections)

-PBI +5.5% (guidance)

-ARMK +4.3% (earnings, guidance)

-VRNT +3.5% (telecom-sector customer reports $10.5M annual savings from Verint AI-Powered Voice Self-Service)

-VLY +3.3% (JPMorgan Chase and Co Raised VLY to Overweight from Neutral, price target: $11)

Downside:

-RAPT -45% (terminating zelnecirnon (RPT193) program following Clinical Hold due to Single SAE of Severe Liver Injury)

-SPNS -21% (earnings, guidance)

-MPWR -14% (reportedly Blackwell allocation at risk)

-MNDY -13% (earnings, guidance)

-ABBV -12% (EMPOWER-1 and EMPOWER-2 Phase 2 clinical trials did not meet their primary endpoint)

-HUM -6.2% (Cigna confirms not pursuing combination with Humana)

-TEM -3.4% (Stifel Nicolaus Cuts TEM to Hold from Buy, price target: $65)

-NEM -2.6% (guidance)

Chegg  (CHGG)  was put on my "Best Ideas List" (short) in September, 2023 at $9.50/share.

Now is trading at $1.72.

The Wall Street Journal reports, in "How ChatGPT Brought Down an Online Education Giant" that Chegg is suffering from the rise of artificial intelligence, which is changing the way many companies do business.

This is a subject I have been discussing for well over a year.

The WSJ goes on to say that Chegg is trying to avoid becoming the first major victim of this shift -- as the online education company was a source for students who wanted help with their homework or a potential tool for plagiarism, with the company experiencing subscription record highs during the pandemic. Now, ChatGPT is a free alternative to the answers Chegg has spent years developing with thousands of contractors in India.

Charts from 8:19 a.m.:

Chart from 8:37 a.m.:

Today is a big research day for me so I will not likely be doing much trading.

Thus far, my only trade was to short an odd lot of  (NVDA)  at $148.62.

I have a 9:30-10:00 a.m. research call followed by a board meeting for about an hour starting at 10:15 a.m.

Radio silence.

From Peter Boockvar:

Powell does not want you to recapture lost purchasing power/Tax, regulatory and tariff expectations/A few earnings comments

Jay Powell reminded us again last week that once purchasing power is lost, it is lost forever. In response to a question at the press conference about the Fed's pre Covid policy shift to inflation symmetry where they would allow a period of above 2% inflation to make up for a period of below 2%, and that instead blew up spectacularly in their face, Powell said they will not tolerate now a period of below trend inflation in order to catch up to the very high level over the past few years. That would of course give relief to consumers if they did. He however just wants the inflation rate of change to stop at 2% and reinforces the inherent persistent inflation bias of the Fed where the rate of change of the inflation increase is the only question.

With respect to the policies of the incoming administration, to state again, on the tax side I'm guessing at best the corporate rate stays the same after the dramatic and needed cut in order to make us competitive and encourage businesses to be here, in 2017. The income tax cuts will get extended with tweaks here and there as there has to be another round of pay for's for a bunch of it. So at least on the tax side, not much will change as the long hanging tax fruit was already pulled in Trump's first administration. The real incremental benefit will come on the regulatory side, most notably the particular industries like financials that ripped higher last week as we know but the flow thru to earnings is not easily quantifiable. Also, M&A bankers are partying it up in anticipation of the deal flow that is to come and that is much more quantifiable.

That leaves of course tariffs. A targeted, pinpointed batch of them I think can be tolerated by the economy and markets but a scattershot approach will not be. Also, if the goal is to encourage bringing production back to the US, they better be sure because if a tariff on a particular item that is produced in China and imported here is just reshored to Vietnam for example, what is the point of the tariff. We also await the retaliation on both a tariff response to us and many countries that get hit by our tariffs will try to weaken their currencies in order to mitigate it.

One thing unfortunately that is not being done is a reflection on the 2018 tariffs that sent US manufacturing into a recession and we just saw the 2nd largest US goods trade deficit on record and China is printing record $80b ish trade surpluses with the world each month. Can anyone tell me what the benefits were?

The thing I have to push back on are those that argue tariffs aren't inflationary saying it is just a one time price adjustment, therefore nothing sustainable. Maybe, but it still is a rise in the cost of things on top of the big inflation we've just digested. To use as an example, if the price of gasoline jumps to $4 per gallon from $3 in a one time adjustment, should consumers feel ok about that just because it may not be repeated the following year?

From Bloomin' Brands, the owner of Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Fleming's:

US comps fell 150 bps "and traffic was negative 440 bps, which was in line with the casual dining industry...Average check was up 2.9% in Q3 vs 2023, in line with expectations. Value is critical right now and we are committed to take the least amount of pricing as necessary."

"Labor wage inflation for the quarter was 3.8%...Commodities were better than expected in Q3 at approximately 2% driven by more modest inflationary expectations across seafood, oil and dairy. We continue to see positive signs within our beef program, but this category remains inflationary."

"Given the volatility the industry is seeing in traffic trends, we are updating our adjusted diluted earnings guidance...Prior guidance assumed industry trends would strengthen, but our updated view assumes no improvement."

From Madison Square Garden Entertainment, a stock we own and benefiting from spend on concerts, other live events and sports but was down 9% on Friday because of a slowdown in concert bookings:

"In our bookings business, the Garden recently saw a record number of concerts for a fiscal first quarter" but "our bookings business saw lower concert related revenues y/o/y. This reflected lower per concert revenues, primarily due to a mix shift at the Garden from promoted events to rentals, which all else equal, generates similar adjusted operating income but lower revenues on a per-event basis. It also reflected fewer concerts at our theaters."

"From the demand side, consumers continue to demonstrate their desire for in-person shared experiences, with the majority of concerts across our venues once again sold out during our first quarter. In terms of in-venue spending, combined food, beverage, and merchandise per cap set concerts were down modestly y/o/y" off a tough comp.

"Looking ahead, we have seen some slowing in our concert bookings pacing in recent weeks. That said, we are experiencing positive momentum across family shows, special events, and marquee sports, and continue to expect to grow our total number of bookings events this fiscal year."

With the Knicks and Rangers, "while still early, we are seeing positive momentum across our share of food, beverage, and merchandise at Knicks and Rangers home games."

Early sales for the Christmas Spectacular run "continue to outpace where we were at the same time last year. This reflects increases across individual and group sales aided by the ongoing return of tourism to New York." They've added two more shows in response to the greater demand.

Moving overseas, there continues to be disappointment with China's lack of fiscal stimulus meant to boost consumer spending but I continue to think it's misplaced. The two biggest challenges for their economy is the downturn in residential real estate and the excessive debt at the local government level and both continue to be addressed. With respect to the Chinese consumer, they have plenty of savings, just a lack of confidence that I think will bottom when home prices stop going down.

China also reported its October CPI which rose .3% y/o/y and continues to reflect some price stability and a low level is needed with consumers feeling the way they are. PPI fell 2.9% y/o/y, more than the forecast of down 2.5%.

* Is the Trump Honeymoon in the markets nearing an end?

The market advance has begun to narrow and... it's now all memed up.

The Trump trades, Tesla  (TSLA) , Coinbase  (COIN)  and Bitcoin are soaring like AMC Entertainment  (AMC)  and GameStop  (GME)  did in the good old days when I was a yute.

The Magnificent Seven were down Friday and are today (in premarket) as well.

The stock market's "Trump Honeymoon" may be now nearing an end.

More tomorrow morning on the "Honeymoon."

Though certainly far less consequential than the failure of Amendment 3's passage in Florida, the delay in the DEA hearings and the growing likelihood that anti-cannabis Senator Rick Scott will become the Majority Leader of the Senate — this DEA lawsuit adds insult to injury and the rising headwinds against industry-friendly legislative gains.

Researcher Asks Federal Court To Halt DEA Marijuana Rescheduling Hearings Over Allegations Of Illegal Proceedings And Agency Bias - Marijuana Moment

Doomberg on "Shift Shaping."

"I believe life is an intelligent thing: that things aren't random."

- Steve Jobs

Bonus — Here are some great links:

A Brand New Bull Market

Election Week Recap

Alpha Trends

Is This Frothy?

The Most Bullish Chart in the World

Wolf Street howls about AI's role in the U.S. economy.

Senator Scott is anti cannibas.

Overnight the S&P Short Range Oscillator climbed to 3.16% from 1.51%.

We are in a deepening overbought.