As of 4:27 p.m.:

Breadth

% Movers

 S&P Sectors

Nasdaq 100 Heat Map

Intuit  (INTU) , our newest investment short from earlier this week, falls another -$40/share after weak sales and profit guidance.

$2.1 billion to sell market on close.

Wolf Street on demand destruction for existing homes.

* After a sharp selloff stocks rallied throughout the day and with 45 minutes to go the market is at a day's high.

Breadth is strong (5-1 on the NYSE) and reflected in the  (RSP)  (equal weighted S&P being +1.38%):

At 3:15 p.m. S&P cash was +45 handles (I shorted the indices around 4 a.m. when +15 Spoos)

Here are today's "Things":

* I traded  (SPY)  common and  (QQQ)  common so often its impossible to memorialize all of them. Basically I bought weakness and sold in the rally and during several phases of the afternoon began to short Index puts.

* Did a number of other trades in other Indices, again too numerous to mention.

* I traded  (MSTR)  well. Shorting at $533.86 and taking in at multiple levels of declines. I remain short a small amount.

* Covered  (NVDA)  at $140.92 early in the AM. Then I reshorted at $152, covered at $147. Flat the name.

* Sold very small  (BITO)  at $26.42.

* Shorted  (TSLA)  at at $342.47. Partially covered at $337.55.

I thought the President-elect was in favor of a stronger U.S. dollar.

Thus, I am confused by Trump's fascination with cryptocurrencies:

* Interest rates will likely be higher for longer. The peak easing this year priced in for year-end 2025 was an expected federal funds rate of about 2.80%. That is now about 3.90%, so the market has taken away 110 bps of rate cuts. Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen has front loaded Treasury issuance in bills, above the recommended level of 15%-20% of total offerings by the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee. This, instead of issuing more longer-term coupons when the 10-year yield was back under 4%.

While no one at the Treasury will admit it, they were playing the yield curve, didn't want to upset the longer end of the curve with too much supply and instead with the back up in short rates, missed an opportunity to term out U.S. debt.

Stated simply, the Fed blew it.

- (Mike) Wilson, For Christ's Sake.. Sell!!! Doug Kass: (Mike) Wilson, For Christ's Sake ... Sell! - TheStreet Pro

From my pal Larry and something I discussed in my market update earlier this week:

S&P cash at day's highs (+36 handles). Adding to my short calls.

(GOOGL)  and  (AMZN)  have not recovered as of 12:09 p.m.

From the exceptional Dales Report:

If you have capital in the cannabis sector you should definitely run, don't walk to watch this.

According to Reuters, Amazon  (AMZN)  is likely to be subject to EU antitrust sanctions in the next few months.

The shares are trading down by -$7.

With S&P cash +17 handles, I have moved to medium-sized short Index calls.

With S&P cash +12 handles I am back shorting Index calls (naked).

Covered another 1/4 of my existing  (MSTR)  short at $429.10

I covered the balance of my  (NVDA)  short at $142.51 (that's about -$10 from intraday high) for a nice one day profit.

Covered another half (down to 1/4 of original position) of  (MSTR)  at $468.05

That is almost a $70 profit in a few hours.

The volatility is unreal - providing unique opportunistic trading opportunities.

But not investing opportunities, imho.

See my market update from earlier this week: Doug Kass: (Mike) Wilson, For Christ's Sake ... Sell!

Covered half of  (MSTR)  short at $491.01 - that was a quick $40+

From Peter Boockvar:

Restrictive monetary policy? Really? For some for sure, for others clearly no

So the Federal Reserve claims it is restrictive with its monetary policy but someone just paid $6.2 million for a banana duck taped to a wall? Restrictive for some and definitely not for others, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/viral-duct-taped-banana-sells-6-million-auction-rcna180564

The Bull/Bear spread widened further in the weekly Investors Intelligence survey. While Bulls fell a touch to a still high 60 level from 60.3, Bears declined by 2.4 pts to just 18.3 and thus widening the spread above 40 which is extreme. Combine this with the very euphoric read in the Citi index and we need to take note. A partial offset today though was the 8.5 pt drop in Bulls in the fickle retail read from AAII to 41.3 after jumping by 8.3 pt last week. Bears rose by 4.9 pts to 33.2.

From Target:

"we saw healthy growth in traffic throughout the quarter, even as we encountered some macro headwinds that caused our EPS to be lower than expected."

But, "This growth in traffic was mostly offset by a decline in average ticket as consumers continue to spend cautiously, most notably in discretionary categories."

"At the category level, we've seen persistent strength in beauty, which saw a comp increase of more than 6% in the quarter, while our frequency businesses delivered solid growth in both traffic and sales. And we're pleased with our relative performance versus the market in apparel, even with a small sales decline in an environment where we saw slow sales of cold weather apparel across the industry."

"Our other two discretionary businesses, Home and Hardlines, saw continued softness in Q3, as consumers continue to spend cautiously in these categories."

On the overall consumer, "we're seeing many of the same themes that have defined the environment for some time. Consumers tell us their budgets remain stretched and they're shopping carefully, as they work to overcome the cumulative impact of multiple years of price inflation. They're becoming increasingly resourceful in their shopping behaviors, waiting to buy until the last moment of need, focusing on deals, and then stocking up when they find them. As a result, we're seeing a stronger response to promotions than we've seen in some time. Yet, consumers are still willing to spend when they find the right combination of newness and value, and they're continuing to celebrate important seasonal moments throughout the year."

From TJX:

They reported a 3% comp sales gain "which is at the high end of our plan and entirely driven by customer transactions. Once again, both our apparel and home categories saw comp sales increases this quarter."

Value is what they provide and we know value is what is needed to now drive traffic. "We strongly believe that our decades of off-price expertise and knowledge is a tremendous advantage and will allow us to continue delivering comp store sales growth, driving customer transactions, and attracting new shoppers...we believe our off price model can work wherever consumers seek fashion and brands at great prices."

From Williams-Sonoma, whose stock jumped 27% yesterday as comps were less weak than estimated.

"Even in difficult environment, our initiatives continue to gain momentum and we are optimistic and confident about our business."

"From a cadence perspective, our trends across the quarter were choppy, reflecting the uncertain macroeconomic backdrop."

On their guidance, "We believe the high end of our guide implies a strong holiday season and the low end of our guide reflects the potential for a greater impact from the macroeconomic environment on our Q4 results."

Jack in the Box, the burger restaurant that also owns Del Taco, mentioned that "We battled through a tough environment that brought top line headwinds to the industry."

Comps fell 2.1% and "This result included a decrease in transactions and negative mix partially offset by a 4.8% increase in price."

I'll leave Nvidia to others as we know what drove their still incredible growth. While supply/demand for their new chip is still imbalanced, we know the question for the company and the stock is how much longer they can sustain mid 70% gross margins, along with its current sales pace.

From Snowflake:

"Bookings were strong in the quarter and we are seeing large deal volume increase."

From Palo Alto:

"The market for cybersecurity continues to be robust and continues to grow faster than the overall technology market. Despite the acceleration of technology spend due to AI, cybersecurity continues to outpace technology spend."

As French business awaits the new government budget which will likely include tax increases, business confidence in November fell 1 pt m/o/m to the lowest since July. After dropping by 6 pts last month, manufacturing confidence lifted back by 4 pts. That gain was offset by a 2 pt drop in services and a 1 pt fall in retail confidence and construction. Employment rose 2 pts after falling by a like amount in October. Nothing market moving but the CAC is up just 5% this year, with pressure in particular from the fashion sector with China's weakness.

The November CBI industrial orders number for the UK in November remained deeply negative at -19 but that is up 8 pts m/o/m and 6 pts better than expected. CBI said, "Output has underperformed expectations in recent months, with manufacturers pointing to uncertainty around the UK Budget, the US elections and recent political instability in Europe as among the factors leading customers to pause or cancel orders. Many firms still need to work through the implications of the Budget for their own plans for pay, hiring and investment, but it’s an encouraging sign that output volumes are expected to return to growth in the quarter ahead, with order books also showing some improvement this month."

Nothing market moving here either but gilt yields are lower and stocks are slightly higher.

Shorted more  (TSLA)  at $346.80

I bought back my  (SPY) / (QQQ)  common on the whoosh lower - and I am now delta neutral on the Indexes.

To be honest, the market is so volatile and the swings so abrupt that is next to impossible to document (on a timely basis) a lot of my trading now.

For example, I reshorted  (NVDA)  at around $152, in minutes it was $147 where I covered - many other situations like this but, again hard to memorialize trading rentals on a timely fashion. Also added, much higher to  (MSTR)  and bitcoin shorts.

(Dougie Kass)

STAFF

23 minutes ago

My  (MSTR)  short basis is $533.87 - keeping it very small.

Upside:

-SNOW +24% (earnings, guidance; signs multi-year partnership with Anthropic to deliver Claude models to customers in Snowflake's Cortex AI)

-CDTX +19% (files to sell $105M Private Placement of 3.9M shares at $14.91/shr)

-MSTR +14% (momentum)

-CRNC +11% (earnings, guidance)

-WALD +11% (earnings, guidance)

-VNET +6.4% (earnings, guidance)

-SMCI +5.2% (NVDA mentions SMCI among key partners following earnings)

-WKSP +4.0% (CEO buys 33.3K shares at 44% premium to market)

-SRAD +2.3% (Major League Baseball selects Sportradar to transform player talent scouting for all 30 clubs)

-NVDA +2.2% (earnings, guidance)

-BJ +2.1% (earnings, guidance)

Downside:

-PYXS -40% (reports study data for PYX-201)

-CATX -26% (reports disappointing cancer drug data)

-KURA -26% (Kura Oncology and Kyowa Kirin announce Global Strategic Collaboration to develop and commercialize Ziftomenib in acute leukemias)

-BLRX -23% (enters into Exclusive License Agreement with Ayrmid to Commercialize APHEXDA (motixafortide) through Gamida Cell Ltd.)

-PDD -10% (earnings)

-VRCA -9.9% (prices 47.0M in shares and warrants at combined $0.89/unit in $42M underlying public offering)

-ATKR -8.5% (earnings, guidance)

-CPA -7.4% (earnings)

-BEKE -6.2% (earnings)

-VSTS -6.2% (earnings, guidance)

-JACK -4.1% (earnings, guidance)

-BLZE -3.9% (prices 6.25M shares at $5.60/share in upsized $35M follow on offering)

-WMG -3.8% (earnings)

-PANW -3.7% (earnings, guidance)

-MMS -2.5% (earnings, guidance)

-BIDU -2.3% (earnings)

Charts from 8:19 a.m. ET:

Chart from 8:39 a.m. ET:

8:45AM: Fed Bank of Cleveland President Hammack (Voter) gives welcome remarks before the 2024 Financial Stability Conference: Emerging Risks in a Time of Interconnectedness and Innovation, hosted by the Cleveland Fed and the Office of Financial Research.

12:30PM: Fed Bank of Cleveland President Hammack (Voter) participates in conversation before the 2024 Financial Stability Conference: Emerging Risks in a Time of Interconnectedness and Innovation, hosted by the Cleveland Fed and the Office of Financial Research, Cleveland, MO.

2:25PM: Fed Bank of Chicago President Goolsbee (Non-Voter) speaks at the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership .

This all likely ends poorly, but maybe from higher levels (given the momentum and "animal spirits")/

Stay tuned.

This table is a valuable resource for momentum-based short-term traders:

From JPMorgan:

US: Futs are lower. The disappointed guidance from NVDA’s earnings after market close led to some pressure in equities this morning. Pre-market, NVDA is -3.2% lower with the rest of Mag 7 showing some modest decline. Bond yields are 2-3bp lower this morning and USD is higher. Oil and precious metals are mostly higher; base metals are largely unchanged. On geopolitical headlines, RTRS reported that Russia fires intercontinental ballistic missile in attack on Ukraine. Today, key data focus will be Leading Index, Jobless Claims and Existing Home Sales.

and...

EQUITY AND MACRO NARRATIVE: NVDA’s guidance miss added some pressure to equities, particularly given the high expectation into its earnings. Overnight, NVDA stocks was able to recover some of its initial selloff after the conference call. Our TMT specialist Josh Meyers tells us that “they’ve done a great job managing the unexpectedly strong H200 ramp and a tough transition to Blackwell. Give them credit for strong execution as they push the envelope to the extreme with an annual product cadence. Importantly, the margin story to mid-70’s remains intact, and it feels like they’re setting expectations well. It actually felt like there was a bit of a reset that happened this Q”. Overall, despite the underwhelming guidance, we do not see NVDA’s earnings yesterday change the narrative around AI, particularly as growth still remain robust.

As I noted in my market update earlier in the week, the entirety of the market advance in the second half has been a valuation reset higher as S&P profit estimates have foundered:

The S&P Short Range Oscillator has moved into a modest oversold — at -1.08% vs. -0.17%.

"Everybody has some information. The function of the markets is to aggregate that information, evaluate it, and get it incorporated into prices."

- Merton Miller

Bonus — Here are some great links:

Why We Aren't Perma Bulls

How Options Traders Should Play Thanksgiving Week

Baker Brothers' Special Report 

Nvidia Day

* But taking baby steps...

"One tiny step at a time, baby steps."

- What About Bob?

We have shorted MicroStrategy  (MSTR)  in premarket trading at $526.01.

As I often write, few should short. These words particularly apply to this trade.

I am simply showing what we are doing — and this is not a recommendation.

I am disciplined in my approach to short selling and I size appropriately given my risk appetite and profile.

Read these tweets:

and

A PS...

To me, there is something untoward about this whole endorsement by the new Administration of cryptocurrencies:

* The President-elect is getting into the crypto trading business. Trump Media in reported talks to buy crypto trading platform Bakkt

* The President-elect's BFF Elon Musk is immersed in the cryptocurrency business.

There is more but I prefer not to get political in my discussion of potential conflicts of interest.

Baby steps out the door, it works.

"You want to play games? Say hello to my little friend..."

- Scarface 

From Knowledge@Wharton: How Are Companies Really Using AI

How Are Companies Really Using AI? A New Report Has Answers - Knowledge at Wharton

On Thursday morning, at 4:45 a.m. ,we covered most of our  (NVDA)  short at $140.92 (we re-shorted last night at $145.35).

The profits are adding up from my strategy — reminiscent of trading sardines Twitter and Occidental Petroleum  (OXY)  where we bought weakness and sold strength repeatedly.

JeffI

And I regret my NVDA stock sales from 3 months ago. :)

Dougie Kass

We can either look back or forward.

We can take a dystopian view and look backward. To quote from George Orwell's "1984"..."Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

Or we can look forward and recognize that, to quote Herman Hesse ... "Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”