Damn you ain't kiddin. Totally missed energy today.

Back up to 270 now...

Seems like a waste of a wish.

my short vix was about to expire and am short. selling on tuesday was just best case scenario, i'm not actually a wizard

dip buyers battling hard the past couple days. i would not want to be short vol right now

I'd not want to be short vol here either other than PUTW. VIX>VIX3M>VXMT and VIX>VX (every expiration) and HVOL(21)>VIX. Not exactly a good spot.

I rebought AKS @ $5.30 expecting to hold it for a month, and now suddenly "Tariffs expected next week".

Trump moves really fast.

if anyone has any broad hot takes concerning trump's tariffs on chinese steel and aluminum i'm all ears. seems like there could be a lot of different implications for a lot of diff markets.

Was away from the screen today, day looked SPICY.

Buy the dip?

Interesting moves in crypto when pretty much everything was down except maybe ag.

^^^Weed also decided to rub salt in my wounds on a big down day. I remain unfazed!

Also doubt crypto and the markets correlate that much, but if capital is fleeing markets, it's gonna go somewhere.

How can I not short HLF here?

Narrator: He did, in fact, short HLF today.

Are you not entertained?

Dip buyers giving it the old college try. Dunno if it's going to be enough here...

*quote this post at 4pm when we finish green *

lmy post may have been close to the bottom, lol

They aren't on Chinese steel and aluminum. They are on ALL imports of steel and aluminum.

My hot take is that tariffs don't tend to make the market happy.

right sorry, i'm viewing the whole world thru chinese lenses lol

Bought DDS today. It reminds me of when RH started their buyback plan.

Do you have any opinion on whether MLM structured companies are more or less resilient during an economic contraction?

Anecdotally I can say that the number of times I was pitched on MLMs was noticeably higher in 2008-2009 than any other time during my life. Also the idea of unemployed and desperate people being more susceptible makes sense to me intuitively. Less fixed costs and need for financing than traditional corporations as well means they can more easily weather the storm. Herbalife did continue to grow during the last recession.

OTOH there is the idea out there that once the turnover in new fish reaches a certain point the entire structure might come tumbling down.

Curious to see shares in European automakers Monday.

Also really see the risk of war in the mid-east as the highest it's been in a long long time. Going to start slowly building oil positions again.

ROKU's IPO lockup expires on the 27th of this month - 3 weeks away. $600 mil worth of shares at current prices, acquired at $14, or four full days worth of volume/16% of the company. Currently $37 with not a lot going for it. Hard to see people not cashing out at these lofty valuations. And profit taking beforehand in fear of lockup expiry.

No obvious catalysts that I can see to take it higher either. Decent short here at $37.

Buying deep otm MOMO weekly puts tomorrow. It's a bad name in a rapidly growing and increasingly competitive industry. YY earnings should give a boost to it and a better entry for me tomorrow.

Cohn resigned and US considering broad curbs on chinese imports, get ready boys

Yeah I read the Cohn "resignation" and wasn't totally sure about the story behind the story.

Was he basically the moderate to Trump's crazy on trade wars? If so I dunno what to really think. Trump already had his mind made up on this stuff, doubt he listened to these dudes much. Having this guy leave just keeps Trump from fighting with his own people. But I don't think it's going to change what's about to unfold.

I have it about right? Anyway obviously the market hates it. But I thought we already knew this was happening.

here's what i know... post-charlottesville, there was a squawk saying he was about to resign. markets flash crashed.

now, maybe he was more important before the tax law came into affect.

but my read is that markets saw him as the steadying hand to prevent trump from engaging in trillion dollar trade wars with everyone.

even when trump said "i'm gonna issue these tariffs" markets sorta shrugged because 1) trump is known to bullsh*t everyone throwing outlandish statements to gauge reaction and then meet people in the middle for negotiation, and 2) cohn is still around. in a way i think the tariffs were BTFD because markets were calling BS on everything.

now it's very real and trade wars could be spicier than market expected.

markets gapped really hard on the resignation but no real follow through, possibly just due to not enough people knowing about it yet. certainly something to keep an eye on in the days to come, but i have no reason to believe we aren't at risk of going at last month's lows.

Clayton's analysis on this is correct.

Maybe I'm just now conditioned to think every single time the media says something has potential to be a black swan to think it is BS, but I think this is much ado about nothing.

Wow, some GS economic advisor is leaving the Trump WH, big deal. They will get another one.

How far could Trump really go with a trade war? The majority of Americans don't really want it, certainly most GOP politicians don't want it. I just don't see Trump going nearly as far with this as others do. But could be wrong...