LOOK OVER THERE, A SQUIRREL!

 

“Meanwhile over in the “Spoos”, some heartburn ensues!!”

You mean “Stock Bellies” can actually go down? … huh, who knew? … and while

the whole world watches other markets, “Stonks” mini “Thelma & Louise” in the

last 2 hours, going past RM=4 on the m15 for 2 hours straight into the close … a

yuck jobs number tomorrow and who knows the hilarity that comes our way with

a weekend that looks like Iran & Israel are ready for war … no worries, I’m sure

Biden has a plan … Bwahahaha!

And the propaganda “fix” continues, with another “pie-in-the-sky” fantasy jobs

report, where half the blowout gains are part-time jobs that pay ZILCH, the other

half illegals mowing lawns, and the other half government hiring … where are

the full time jobs? … well, they’re in the shitter that’s where, but who cares?

… somebody enlighten me how government hiring is a “good thing” … and of

course, the ensuing chaos comes “el quicko mucho”, none more so than in gold,

where sell stops got brutalized … a few minutes later, we’re off to a $60+ gain in 2

hours, with no corrective activity, and then it’s the “Loser Formation” … like so

many other markets that have gone hyperbolic over these last years, from crude

oil to USDJPY, when the FOMO is over THE REAL CARNAGE CAN BEGIN, and

gold will be no different … traders today betting on the end of the world over the

weekend, as Israel and Iran look ready to go to war.

But hang on a sec … how many times over the last 70+ years has the west heard

from dictators and ragheads about “total annihilation”? … remember Saddam,

and how he was gonna return body bags by the millions back to the U.S.? … how

long did that war last, a day or two at the most? … and who got overthrown and

died? … bluster and bullshit are their biggest allies, and their threats are NOT

aimed at Israel, they’re aimed at the nutjobs that live in their own country … you

think the Mullahs 1) really want to die this weekend, or 2) live in a deep bunker

for the next 50 years? … start a war with Israel for real and find out just how fast

they kick your ass back to the stone age … come Monday, and we’re all still here,

where do gold longs go from these levels?

Sure, I’m bullish on gold, and have been for a good long while … but over the last

70 or so years this shit has traded, we’ve never seen FOMO like this … EVER!

… and while I believe there are plenty of gains ahead, only greed grows to the sky

unabated and devoid of reality … and quite frankly, IMHO, today is the kind of

blow off day that short term tops are made of … the potential for an “ugly” drop

is high, if not Monday then sometime next week … this cannot be sustained.

Inexplicable.

As I stated before, the viciousness of the “V” bottoms, and their subsequent

“elevator up” in spades ascent, is something to behold … good grief, if you’re

buying the green spike up, close your eyes and get ready for a fill from Hell

… NFP Friday is always a crapshoot, simply cuz the numbers are made up fairy

tales and always have been … a propaganda tool for FED Lounge Lizards

… very tough to navigate, and for my money the absolute worst trading day

each and every month it comes around … whatever the narrative is in any

market, Wall Street will find something in the report to latch onto and push it in

that direction … today, though, gold is about WAR and the fact we’re all gonna

die this weekend, so “load up” … well, if that’s true, “load up” for what exactly?

… there won’t be anything to “load up” for!!

The good news is that ranges, both daily and NY, are expanding at a good clip

… that doesn’t mean every day is Christmas morning under the tree, it means

conditions are favorable … now all we need is some actual “trading” that isn’t

just a buck or two inside the “Loser Formation” or tight chop … I thought we’d

see it this week given the gains … NOPE, just more FOMO … it just heightens the

probability that in the days and weeks to come we’ll get the conditions we want

for trading … straight up / straight down ain’t it … blog update on Sunday

… cya then!

… OUTTA HERE … “The future’s so bright I need 2 pairs of sunglasses 😎😎,

and my own Brinks armored truck” 💓!! … Onward & Upward!!

-vegas

THERE’S AN ANSWER FOR EVERYTHING

“You may not like the answer, but there is one!”

Ah yes, another fun filled week just ahead of us, as the most manipulated

markets evahhh! try and figure out how to keep the masses fooled once again.

With China & Huawei in the news this morning, and not in a good way, it’s

simply a matter of when the corporate buyback stooges & the “Plunge

Protection Team” [PPT] show up and punish those that sell stocks. Will it be a

Trump tweet, the comedy act of Mnuchin & Kudlow, or a planted headline

from the usual suspects like Bloomberg or Reuters? … to soon to tell, but the

answer will be something.

Normally how this works, is that they’ll let you sell and push price lower in

the SP500 … it’s when you’re done they take over … remember, losses don’t

matter to these manipulators, like it does for everybody else … so, when

you’re done covering “short gamma”, they come in and aggressively bid price

higher doing two things; 1) handing you losses, and 2) making you look like

an idiot. Unless you’re one of the first rats that jumped ship, you’re selling

into lower bids, and coupled with much lower volumes & liquidity I

highlighted yesterday in the Sunday update, you become your own worst

enemy by selling into a falling market. The PPT has a pretty good idea where

it all ends, though, cuz they’re in constant touch with their BFF’s the scumbag

LP banks, and JPM, Squid, & Citibank are more than happy to piggyback the

PPT when the fireworks begin.

All of this, of course, leads to one of the biggest problems facing intraday

traders … whether you trade SP500, gold, FX, or oil, markets move at the

speed of light to a point of manipulation … there they stop … and then they

die for the day basically going sideways with very little up/down action … as I

said yesterday, this is the “Losers Formation”, cuz no matter if it happens up

or down, if you got caught on the wrong side of one of these, you’re toast

… there simply isn’t enough volatility left in the day to make anything back

… and you can trace the rise of this phenomenon in markets over the years,

directly to the rise of manipulation by governments … it wasn’t until 2012 at

the earliest, and then picked up additional steam in February 2016 … now it

happens regularly, especially in the stock indices.

Europe opens today, and stocks are hit right out of the gate … we’re over 2

hours from the NYSE open, and the SP500 already has a 30+ point range

… if you look at the M5, it’s been pretty much a straight shot down since

then … OK, then what’s left for U.S. trading, since we’ve put in the days

range already in less than 3 hours to the downside? … and therein lies the

problem, cuz now are you going to assume a 50 point SP500 range today

… 75 or 100 points? … well, if you do, it’s great if it happens, but statistically

market history says it won’t … ignore the statistical evidence and you might

as well go to Las Vegas … at least there, you’ll get free drinks.

And of course, the bigger the trader you are, the worse it becomes, cuz the

bigger you are in your volumes, the earlier you have to be at tops and bottoms

to be successful … so what we’ve seen over the last couple of years, is

“FOMO” [Fear of Missing Out] by institutions … chasing markets up/down,

and then going apoplectic over missing a rally … throw in the PPT to extract

as much pain as possible if you sell, and you now have an idea what we’re up

against.

Where do I start with today? … seriously, can the news get any worse?

… China trade escalations … hell, they even want their San Diego Zoo

Panda’s back! … China escalates tensions with Taiwan … Iran is saber

rattling again with Trump … the NDX100 gets destroyed overnight via the

tech sector and worries about Taiwan … China threatens to bar exports of

rare earth elements to the U.S. … Ford lays off 7,000 workers … Intel &

Google ban Huawei and their subsidiaries … and on and on down the list I

could go another 2 pages.

Lower opening at the NYSE open? … “sure, c’mon in, the water’s fine”

… and BOOM!, here comes the rally right in your face! … and again, what

does it take to get this shit lower to buy during NYSE hours? … no problem

overnight and up to about 7:00 AM EST, but after that sell it at your own risk.

If ever there was a day for this shit to get “monkey hammered”, today is it,

but so far here at 1:30 PM EST, it’s dullsville as the SP500 is meandering

up/down in mindless chop, about 5 points above where it opened.

Today, another example in the SP500 [as well as NDX100] of nothing but

“trade violence” … straight up or straight down, and practically nothing in

between … there is no “give and take” anymore in stock indices, there is only

terror … it’s either longs or shorts panicking to get out, and then it turns

with a vengeance and traps those on the other side … runaway freight train

up, or runaway freight train down … is it any wonder there is no liquidity left

anymore in the SP500 futures?

This is like the 5th day in a row, where I sit here, and am left wondering,

“OK, what the hell do I do with a runaway freight train? … you certainly

don’t want to fade it, unless you have a death wish, but jumping on the side

it’s moving is no piece of cake either, especially when it stops and starts to

correct, cuz there’s no telling where the correction stops … is it 3 - 5 index

points? … 10? … more? [puke city] … and then you want to hit yourself for

not being patient enough to wait for the correction … but if the move is 20+

index points, what’s left to move it after the correction? … well, 95+% of the

time, it’s nothing that’s what, and it leads to losses.

As I’ve said before, you can thank bank manipulation HQ for this, and by

the month it gets worse each and every year that goes by, cuz they’re trying

to manipulate volatility, while at the same time hurting short specs … yes, it’s

bullshit, but it’s the paradigm we have for the foreseeable future in trading

[if you can call it that].

So today, another example of an opening that makes ZERO sense

… manipulated no doubt, and the turn wicked as hell … and then of course,

once the freight train runs off the rails, the day is over … nothing left but

chop, and the wailing & gnashing of teeth … and literally, there’s nothing to

do cuz the algorithm is giving no buy signals … zip, zero, zilch, nada … and

within 30 minutes of the opening at 9:30 AM EST, the M1’s have gotten

smaller in scope, and the day is nothing but a chopfest … good luck getting

that point and a half profit out of anything. Let’s hope tomorrow is better

… how can it be worse really? Until tomorrow mi amigos

… Onward & Upward!!

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

SUNDAY UPDATE: THE EFFECTS OF MANIPULATION

“Somebody please post this at the Eccles Building in D.C.!”

Over the weekend, I found some interesting chart porn detailing liquidity

conditions in the SP500 futures market from Deutsche Bank. Directly below,

the chart measures futures orders within ± 4 ticks [0.25 index points] of the

current futures price.

click on chart to enlarge

Well, isn’t that interesting … and while the bankers bemoan loss of volume &

liquidity, they fail to address the underlying cause, which in my book is clear

government manipulation of markets through the “Plunge Protection Team”

[PPT], and other various methods … for your protection of course, cuz you’re

too stupid to understand the ramifications of stock prices on societal control,

and besides we’re the smartest people in the room and we know best.

And isn’t it interesting that if you extrapolate then SP500 liquidity figures

shown above, it’s nothing more than a straight line DOWN since 2012 … and

what happened in 2012? … well, for one, Preezy Soetero started the

suppression of the gold price through the “Rally Protection Team”, which is

the FED & BIS [Bank of International Settlements], and since that time gold

is either going down or is basically dead, with intermittent periods of short

rallies so the banks can sell it higher again. Then in February 2016, the FED

steps in and “saves” the crude oil industry from collapse, by furiously buying

oil futures off the bottom … and since that time, stock indices have been

overtly manipulated almost every “Hoover Dam” day.

Well, IMHO, this overt manipulation is the main reason why liquidity in the

SP500 futures has dried up … from about 7,000 - 8,000 contracts in 2013 to

today’s 1,000 … why? … simple: “who wants to get caught when the

manipulators push the button to buy all offers, and then you’re stuck

… wouldn’t it make far more sense to wait, let them do their magic … AND

THEN place your offers. Same way on the downside when the “short gamma”

crowd gets stuck … why get picked off"?

What’s interesting to note, is that the exact opposite of what the manipulators

want, is what they eventually get, cuz when you suppress normal volatility,

usually sooner than you expect, it explodes with a violence that is far greater

than it would have been if you had just left it the hell alone … but then, that

means the reason for their existence is bogus, and try telling that to

Apparatchiks filled with hubris. “It’s all about feelings & ideals, with ZERO

thought to the consequences … results don’t matter to Libtards, cuz they

don’t suffer any of the consequences of them being totally wrong when SHTF

… and so here we are, constantly dealing with the laws of unintended

consequences.

Directly below, this weeks 20 Day Range MA’s.

click on any chart to enlarge

As you can see, there’s been a sharp upturn in SP500 ranges, and therefore

VIX … collapse of the China trade deal among other things, but what remains

unsaid in the financial MSM is the unwelcome role of government into the

equation making and thus making things [volatility] worse … a lot worse

… and you wonder why bid/offer resting orders have literally collapsed over

the years in the SP500 futures?

As we move into the week, E.U. elections should be fun to watch … what effect

that has on the S&P’s remains to be seen, but a strong populist showing will

ruffle the “big girl panties” of the elite globalists. As always, what concerns me

the most is not what any market does day to day, or week to week, when I’m

trading it … what concerns me is how it trades during the day, and what we

are seeing more and more of are straight shots, and then it dies … this is what

is known as the “loser formation”, cuz if you’re on the wrong side of this move,

you got no chance of making anything back cuz VIX literally dies after the

move is over … and this has been happening with greater frequency since the

FED started their overt stock manipulation schemes in February 2016 … we

used to almost never see this phenomenon, and now we see it quite often, and

it’s sole purpose is to punish specs.

Onto the week at hand .... until tomorrow mi amigos … Onward & Upward!!

Have a great rest of your weekend everybody!

-vegas