Tariff TACO Rally

Here we go again.  Another round of TACOs.  Another gap up.  The SPX looks unstoppable.  We had a VIX spike on a tariff crisis that went away after 2 weeks, and a private credit crunch, that went away after 2 days.  Add to that a below consensus CPI number, and suddenly the SPX has blasted through to new all time highs.  Something just didn't smell right when the VIX spiked up to 28 on less than 3% dip in stocks.  That speaks to speculators being too short in VIX, rather than an omen of bad things to come.  I heard too many people mention that a rising VIX with a flat SPX is a bad sign for stocks.  It was for 1 day, on Friday October 10.  Since then, its been a great sign for stocks.  You cannot get obsessed with one indicator that shows bearishness.  Especially when many on Twitter are mentioning it.  Its the punch that you don't see that hurts you, not the punch that you can see from a mile away.  

Retail investors are winning, and hedge funds are losing.  The most shorted names have squeezed a lot of hedge funds, who are keeping large gross exposures.  Meaning they have lots of longs and shorts.  But the net exposure for fundamental based hedge funds is low on a 5 year historical basis.  When hedge funds are neutral to slightly underweight equities while the SPX is hovering at all time highs in a clear uptrend, being short is hazardous for your wealth.   While retail investors are usually a fade, so are hedge funds.  Especially when hedge funds are fighting the tape.  From GS Prime broker data, US fundamental hedge funds long/short ratio is actually lower now than in the bottom of the bear market in 2022!  BofA flow of funds data confirms that hedge funds have been selling into strength for the past several weeks.  Hedge funds are very skeptical of this bull market.  

Its eye-opening to see a group of fast money investors like fundamental hedge funds fight the bull market like this.  They usually follow the trend.  It gives me pause when I think about shorting this monster.  

In the bond market, the action has been stale.  With Treasuries hanging around 4% 10 year yields, I see little edge either way.  4% 10 year yields seem about right for this market, where you have the real economy slowing hurting the lower to middle class, with fewer jobs, but the stock market and AI economy on fire, boosting the upper class.  The consensus seems about right on the economy, which means the bond market has little to no opportunity here.  

Without COT data, its harder to figure out the positioning on the Street.   Flows data seems to show that retail has been buying while hedge funds have been selling.  Just looking at the price action in retail favorites shows that retail investors have been quite active in this market, and are positioned heavily long.  The put/call ratios have shown heavy call buying since early September, except for the past 2 weeks.  It appears that call buyers have taken a breather, and gotten less bullish after that October 10 tariff scare from Trump.  That now appears to be over, with another TACO delivered via international air mail by  brown noser Bessent.  

Closed out the SPX short and single stock shorts last week into the brief dip that we saw on Wednesday, to exit shorts as gracefully as one can hope for in this bull market.  A couple of weeks ago, I was regretting not being short before the big one day drop on October 10.  Now, I am actually regretting not buying the dip during the VIX spikes, to play for a November rally.  Of course, the market never really gave you much time to buy dips as they went away even quicker than they came, so I am not the only one feeling that way.  

Its fighting an uphill battle to short now, with positive seasonal forces and the return of stock buybacks.  It appears that the brief dip we saw earlier in the month was the BTFD moment, and its clear skies above for at least the next 2 weeks.  

As the SPX hits new all time highs, I will be paying attention to the retail speculative favorites that have already peaked out.  I see plenty among the  quantum, nuclear, space, crypto, and AI data center names.  Those will be prime targets for shorting when the SPX uptrend begins to flatten out, probably sometime in mid to late November.  You have to give the bulls room to run this bubble higher,  to not get run over.  I may not even short SPX, instead focusing on shorting the more volatile and speculative names.  I see much better risk/reward in those than in the overall market.  

Bubble Recognition

They are finally beginning to recognize the bubble.  The AI bubble.  The circular financing.  The Open AI circle jerk.  But they still don't recognize that there are other bubbles.  The bubbles in super speculative, highly shorted stocks.  The bubbles in crypto and gold.  The bubble is far more expansive than just AI.  

Ironically, the weakest performer during this small pullback in risk assets is crypto.  Even though crypto has gone up way more than stocks since 2020, you hear very little talk about there being a crypto bubble.   But the past several days has shown that the weakest hands are in crypto.  When you see bitcoin go from 125K to 102K in a few days when the SPX just has a 3% pullback, you see where the paper hands are.  Of all the bubbles out there in the market, crypto has the least inherent value.  It is the ultimate meme asset.  With meme assets, investor sentiment is the only driver.  There are no buybacks in crypto like you have in stocks.  Crypto treasury companies can only issue stock to buy cryptos if there is bullish sentiment.  There are no value investors in crypto.  They are get rich quick assets.  They attract young investors looking for fast gains.  Many high leveraged, trying to juice up a very volatile instrument.  

It is sad to see so many young investors get duped into buying alt coins, buying into the hype drummed up by the Administration, by crypto pump and dumpers, by those looking to sell their bags to the greater fool.  These crypto exchanges are not real exchanges.  They are not there just to match buyers and sellers.  They are looking to profit off of forced liquidations, taking the other side of the forced selling.  The crypto exchanges had a field day on Friday, October 10, when you had mass liquidations in all the cryptos, especially the alt coins, many of them dropping 99% during the liquidation drive.  Straight out of the late 1800s.  Bucket shop drives.  These crypto exchanges are modern day bucket shops.  

Outside of AI, you also have loads of speculation in quantum computing, space-related names, and nuclear stocks.  It was odd to see mega cap tech stocks trading weaker than these highly shorted spec names during the early part of this pullback.  But then most shorts must have covered as you saw the opposite later in the week.  The price action has been wild, and the VIX continues to be inflated.  You are seeing a lot of intraday and overnight volatility in the SPX but limited day to day volatility.  The dip buyers are very active and aggressive.  They are not letting the SPX stay down.  When they sense that the market is making a short term bottom, they rush in to buy.  Its FOMO + BTFD.  

It doesn't help that you have hedge funds actively shorting this market.  I usually don't like to stay on the same side of the hedge funds when they are fighting a bull market.  It probably means we have new all time highs in the near future, although I don't expect a "blowoff".  

I hear many investors now, parroting Paul Tudor Jones, calling for a blow off top in this AI bubble.  But when investors start to recognize that stocks are in a bubble, they lose conviction, not gain conviction.  Investors are heavily allocated to stocks but with declining conviction.  That is a not a situation conducive to blow off tops.  Besides, blow off tops are rare in the stock market.  It happened once in the Nasdaq in 2000, but the SPX during the same time didn't have a blow off top.   When investors are heavily allocated to stocks with declining conviction, you are much more likely to get a flattening, choppy top.  I believe we have started the topping process, which could be quite extended.  Given the supportive monetary policy, as well as fiscal goodies from the OBBB in 2026, this thing won't roll over quickly.  I expect marginal new highs to come over the coming months.  I could see this process extending out into the middle of 2026.  Perhaps we get a good news top right after the new Fed chair comes in and coos dovish in June 2026.  

For the next 8 months, I expect a market similar to the first half of 2015, where the market was choppy, but grinding very slowly higher, with declining bullishness as the year went on.  Then the bottom fell out in Q3 of 2015.  That would be my base case for this market.  Of course, this time, I would expect a much bigger drop than in 2015.  

We got the macro bears on the prowl late last week, having a field day talking about credit crunches in private credit, SOFR anomalies, and inadequate bank reserves.  They made a mountain out of a molehill.  While I am short, it is not because of some two-bit regional banks having some bad loans to private credits.  Back in the day, when Jesse Livermore was short something he wanted to get out of, he would rapidly sell a small, illiiquid market like oats to scare the crowd, using it as bear bait, in order to cover his underwater shorts in a bigger market like corn.  In fact, if I were a hedge fund with a big short position, I would do what Livermore did in the past and sell a closely watched small, illiquid market like the regional bank ETF, KRE, and watch the crowd go into a tizzy and start talking credit crunch, Silicon Valley Bank part 2, etc.  That would give the hedge fund the liquidity to get out gracefully from their underwater short positions.

The more you observe the markets, the more you realize that speculation is as old as the hills.  So many parallels to Livermore's trading days and today.  

Trump caved on Friday, trying to talk down the China tariff tough talk.  TACO is alive and well.  Still think investors are too complacent here, despite the "credit crunch" fears whipped up on Thursday.  Have a small short position entered in the middle of last week.  Will give it a few days to see if we get one more dip, hoping for some classic post opex weakness.  Will not be overstaying my welcome, as the stock buyback window begins to open up at the end of the month, and positive seasonal forces will be at work soon.  

The Straw and the Camel

The Friday Trump tweet was the straw that broke the camel's back.  Its easy to forget about all the other straws that were added onto the camel, but they had much more to do with the big drop than the tweet.  Lots of excesses were building up in the system, one straw at a time.  The massive inflows into equity and crypto ETFs, the rampant call buying, the lack of realized volatility.  People were talking bubble, but with the view that the blowoff top was ahead of us, not behind us. These straws already were placing a lot of stress on the camel.  It just took a Trump tweet to collapse the camel's back.  

Now all the Monday Morning QBs will say that Trump took the market down, and that the TACO will bring the market right back up to where it was before.  That's unlikely.  This move down wasn't about tariffs but a return of volatility.  We could get a 1-2 day bounce, but I think this will last until more puts are bought and investors are more protected.  After that, we could have a reflexive rally later this month.  I would guess this pullback is at least 5 days in length, although I don't expect it to be very deep because investors will likely see through the tariffs, and there is still a lot of greed in this market that will remain until you get more signs of weakness in AI + high beta spec names.  Those stocks are still very strong relative to the market vs. where it was the last time SPX was under 6600.   

While there are still some tariff bears out there, a lot have been taken out and shot, with much less in their pockets.  And the remaining ones aren't so loud and proud.  Tariffs are a paper tiger.  They won't last.  The Supreme Court starts arguments on Trump's tariffs in early November, and should come out with a decision before year end.  All the lower courts have rescinded the tariffs by wide margins.  That already signals that odds heavily favor Trump's tariffs being ruled illegal.  The Supreme Court has a conservative majority, but these judges definitely care more about their equity portfolios than Trump's ego.  Besides their selfish desires, they have legal reasons to rule against tariffs.  Many of these conservative judges tightly follow what's stated in the US Constitution.  There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the President the right to tax.  Tariffs are a tax.  That's the power of Congress.  

On Kalshi, odds are at 38% that Trump's tariffs remain.  I would say the actual odds are much lower.  You have to realize that lots of these bettors have a political bias, and many Trump fans/Republicans will vote that Trump's tariffs are going to stay.  That's the reason a lot of these 80/20 scenarios on politics end up being 60/40, or 55/45 like the Trump/Harris election odds in 2024.  A lot of people vote their political bias when it comes to political betting.  That skews the odds closer to 50/50, which is the approximate ratio of Dems and Repubs in the US.  

If I had a Kalshi or Polymarket account, I would bet heavy on the Supreme court ruling against Trump's tariffs.  I view it as almost a slam dunk, similar to Trump's victory last November.  If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court rulings and rule against Trump's tariffs, that makes Trump's tariff tweets toothless.  And all of that tariff money has to be refunded, which would end up being a huge corporate tax refund that would be stimulative for stocks.  This is the one bullish catalyst I don't want to be short ahead of.  Its also why I think this trade war is basically over.  Yes, Trump can use other legal sections to put on tariffs, but they will be limited in duration and scope.  So basically future tariff tweets will be nothing burgers.  And I bet corporations will sue immediately to get future Trump tariffs repealed and outlawed.  

The one force that is more powerful than the US President is the corporate lobby, which rules over Washington DC.  Corporations are the main financial engine for politicians and their campaigns.  Politicians will not bite the hand that feeds them, especially when it would also hurt the stock market.  

Friday did show where the weak hands were in this market.  Clearly, the weak hands are in the crypto space.  Bitcoin flash crashed down almost 20% at the end of Friday.  Lots of alt coins went down over 50%.   It was a massacre for those leveraged long cryptos.  The insiders at the crypto exchanges must have had a field day picking off retail traders and buying the liquidations at fire sale levels.  Crypto exchanges are modern day bucket shops.  When there is no inherent value, volatility can rise quickly.  Because there are no value buyers.  

Its disappointing to miss the index short waiting for the perfect setup but that's the price for being selective.  Missing trades is part of the game.  We have a big gap up on the TACO trade.  I see very little upside from this gap up, but I will not fade it.  I may put on a small short later in the day if we get a gap and go scenario after the cash open, perhaps around SPX 6660 to 6680.  

Speculative Fire

They are going out on the risk curve.  Its not enough to just hold high beta stocks like NVDA, TSLA, or PLTR.  They need to dial it up and trade call options on those names.  And if they don't want to trade options, they just go to even more speculative names like a LAC, IONQ, RGTI, or down to low dollar stocks like PLUG.  Bitcoin is back near all time highs.  It took just a week to go from 109K to 124K.  

This reminds me of November 2021, which was the 2nd wave of speculation in the Covid bubble after the 1st wave happened in January/February 2021.  The 1st wave of the AI /debasement/Trump bubble happened in November/December 2024.  We are getting the 2nd wave now in October 2025.  You can judge these speculative waves by watching the Russell 2000, which really only comes alive and bursts higher when speculation is hot.  The Russell 2000  is filled with speculative, nonprofitable, high beta names that only catch fire when the gamblers are on the prowl.  And they are definitely on the prowl.

The bearish catalyst that popped the Covid bubble in 2022 was inflation and Fed rate hikes.  Inflation was rising but the Fed remained dovish in 2021 which encouraged speculators to chase after speculative names that are prevalent in the Russell 2000.  

Now, the Fed is tilting dovish and will likely get more dovish with a Trump appointed Fed chair in May 2026.  So what will be the bearish catalyst this time?  It has to be the popping of the AI bubble as reality sinks in that a lot of overbuilding and malinvestment has taken place.  The first signal of that will happen when stocks stop going up on announcements of more AI capex.  We may be seeing the beginnings of that as ORCL and META are not trading as well as the SPX in recent weeks.  Its still early, and you need to see more signs of AI fatigue before the rats jump ship.  But you can't wait too long or you will miss the first big drop from this bubble.  The first drop is always the quickest and most vicious.  

What makes picking this top so difficult is seeing the hedge funds not actively playing this bubble.  Leveraged funds are holding large short positions in SPX futures, as well as not increasing net leverage.  In fact, Goldman prime broker data shows fundamental L/S funds sharply reducing net leverage in late September.  This makes it less likely that you see hedge funds mass liquidate on weakness like they usually do when they are fully long.

While systematic funds are near max levels for equity exposure, the fundamental funds are closer to neutral.  It's much better to fade a market when both systematic and fundamental funds are maxed out for equity exposure.  Tough.

On the other hand, retail investors are piling into equity funds as well as call options.  Call volumes have soared recently.  This can be an early warning sign that a market top is coming around the corner.  It was way too early in January 2021, when the first wave of call speculation hit the market.  The SPX kept rallying for several more months.  It was spot on though in nailing the top of the 2nd wave in November 2021.  It was also a bit early in December 2024, but if you shorted in early December 2024, you would have been able to cash in on a brief, but sharp dip later that month.

These type of 5+ month rallies without at least a 4-5% correction are not common.  You did see one in 2021, and almost saw one in early 2024, but they are unusual.  Usually the stock market is choppier than this.  But this uptrend has been quite smooth, with small dips being voraciously bought, giving bears little time to monetize shorts or put positions.  Usually these type of lengthy rallies end with a sharp selloff.  They aren't always deep, but they tend to be sharp enough that you get a notable VIX spike.  

But the rally in recent days has been accompanied by a rise in the VIX, which is puzzling.  Usually you don't see this kind of persistent bid for VIX when the SPX keeps going higher, in a non-volatile manner.  The realized vol has been very low, but the implied vol keeps going up.  It makes no sense.  And its not as if there is a big future event that is feared keeping IV elevated.  No, the government shutdown is not a feared event.  It could be buyers of VIX ETFs and ETNs which are keeping the VIX well bid.  There has been a lot of buying in VXX, UVIX, and UVXY ever since the market bottomed in April.  But the amount of buying, which is nearly $2B combined over 6 months, is just not enough to distort such a big market.  Usually a rising VIX with a rising SPX is bearish, but there are so many other signals that are flashing bullish right now.  

The market is just too strong to fade here.  Too many risk on signals are firing which make the rally more durable.  I prefer to short a market when SPX is flat to rising while bitcoin and other speculative favorites have topped out and are going down for several days to weeks.  I also prefer to see Nasdaq weaker relative to SPX and RUT. That isn't happening.  And you still have the government shutdown, which keeps a fair number of chicken little investors on the sidelines.  This means when the government shutdown ends, you have chicken little money coming in to lift the market.  So the government shutdown is actually a future bullish catalyst.  And I don't like shorting ahead of bullish catalysts.  Perhaps the market tops despite all the strength in speculative tech and bitcoin.  But to survive as a short seller in a raging bull market, you have to wait for perfect setups to short.  And the current setup is far from perfect.  Watching and waiting, probably on the sidelines until the government shutdown ends.  

Ninth Inning of a Blowout

There is a widespread belief that the stock market tops on euphoria.  In practice, that’s usually not the case.  Most of the time, investors are more bullish in the 6th inning of a bull market than in the 8th or 9th inning.  If you want to compare this bull market to a baseball game, it starts in October 2022, which is the 1st inning.  This bull market is 36 months old.  The peak of bullishness for this bull market happened in late November/early December 2024, when the euphoria of a Trump victory and hopes of a repeat of 2016 to 2020, as well as tax cuts and deregulation got everyone bulled up.  That was about the 6th inning of this bull market.  Back then, the SPX was trading around 6050.  Now, about 600 points higher, and investors are less bullish now than back then.  

I would say we are in the 8th or 9th inning of this bull market.  It is a blowout.  The bears have shown only a few short moments (October 2023, August 2024, April 2025) of glory, while getting pummelled the rest of the time.  But the game is almost over, and the winning team is no longer as enthusiastic about the game.  

You can look at the AAII, NAAIM, and other sentiment surveys which show less bullishness than late 2024.  Some use this as a reason that this bull market has more to go because investors aren't super bullish. If you look at the 2020-2021 bull market, investors were the most bullish in early 2021 when all the Covid stimmies were being passed and you had the re-opening optimism. By late 2021, despite a much higher SPX, investors were less enthusiastic as there was no new catalyst to look forward to.  It appears we are at the same point now as in late 2021.  The latest catalyst, Fed rate cuts, is well known, and just not that potent when it fails to bring down 10 year yields.  

In order for a bull market to make an extended run, it needs to keep the bullish psychology going with fundamental catalysts, not just higher prices.  The Trump tax cut/deregulation catalyst was used up in late 2024.  The Fed easing catalyst started in the fall of 2024 with the 50 bps cut last September, stopped in December, and has restarted again just recently.  This catalyst is very weak, as inflation is still high, and sticky, and with minimal effect on long end yields.  

The AI boom catalyst is still ongoing, but it is aging and very well known.  There are cracks that are forming in the hyped up AI theme.  NVDA's earnings report in August was a beat, but not as big as many expected, and the stock traded down afterwards for several days.  NVDA has lagged the SPX ever since that report.  You are seeing AI deal announcements which are quite circular.   A deal based on hopes that OpenAI can get financing to pay for AI infrastructure from ORCL.  A deal based on vendor financing (NVDA making an equity investment in OpenAI so they can keep buying NVDA chips).  Perhaps NVDA is seeing that the hyper scalers are nearing their threshold for AI capex spending, and need OpenAI to buy even more chips.  

The OpenAI - ORCL deal boosted ORCL by over $100 from the $241 September 9 close to the top at $345 on September 10.  Two weeks later, with the SPX higher than it was on September 10, ORCL closed at $283 on September 26, giving back more than half the gains on the announcement.  The OpenAI - NVDA boosted NVDA from $176 to $184, to only give it all back in the following 2 days.  The price action in AI stocks is not quite matching the enthusiasm of all these Wall St. analysts.  

It's quite clear that the SPX bull market is dependent on the AI capex boom continuing in perpetuity.  That is the dominant driver of corporate investment, which feeds into the earnings for the most important stock in the SPX: NVDA, as well other huge names like AVGO and ORCL.  The combined market cap of those 3 stocks is nearly $7 trillion.  When the hyper scalers cut back on AI capex and the AI bubble pops, it will have huge ramifactions for both US GDP as well as the earnings for NVDA, AVGO, and ORCL.  Not just that, all the high flying utility stocks that are banking on huge electricity demand from all the AI data centers would be in for a huge disappointment.  As NVDA goes, so goes the SPX.  

Why would the hyperscalers cut back on AI capex?  The main reason would be because they are not getting a return on investment.  Another reason could be because they have enough GPUs and AI data centers to do their LLM training and fulfill their inference needs.  Remember back in 2021 and 2022 when Facebook changed their name to Meta because they were going to spend tens of billions on the metaverse?  Well, they stopped spending when their stock kept getting pummelled as Wall St. realized META was rapidly burning money in a bonfire.  When Wall St. starts to punish big cap tech for burning tens of billions on AI capex with no ROI in sight, that's when the CEOs will listen and start cutting back.  Not there yet, but when it happens, that will be a game changer.  

We continue to see massive inflows into equities.  The so-called most hated rally has managed to pull in huge amounts into stocks.  From the BofA flows report, $88B has gone into global equities in the past 2 weeks, the 3rd highest ever for a 2 week period.  

Now that September is almost over and up almost 3% for the month, the seasonality bears have quieted down.  I still hear some say the markets will be "choppy" over the next few weeks, which is toned down from saying they will pullback over the next few weeks, like they did in early September.  So their confidence in seasonal patterns is definitely lower, but not fully shattered and embracing the bull train.  Another few days of strength into early October should force most of these seasonality bears to throw in the towel, which would be a welcome sight.  

Last week, we got an unusual surge in COT SPX net long positioning among commercial traders, which I suspected was triple witching opex related.  And with Friday's release, those suspicions were confirmed.  The commercials are now back to similar positioning from 2 weeks ago.  

COT SPX Commercial Positions

More importantly, asset managers are now the most net long in SPX futures since late March.  

COT SPX Asset Manager Positions

In the options market, the put/call ratios have been trending lower and are now at extremes on a 10 day MA basis.  Investors are getting complacent and trading few puts and more calls.  

Covered shorts last week.  Still not seeing enough in the price action to justify a longer term short position.  But this market is getting very stretched and it feels as if investors are not as enthusiastic as they were earlier in the rally.  This along with the large inflows into equities is puzzling, and means that you probably have weaker handed buyers coming in over the past few weeks.  Those late buyers as well as the max positioned systematic funds are the potential sellers into any October weakness.  

Considering how extended the SPX is without any meaningful catalyst on the horizon, you could see a sharp correction soon.  But there are still little walls of worry that the market can climb:  government shutdown, econ. reports, and bearish seasonality (still!).  If the market continues to climb this week to another all time high with lots of complacency, that could be a spot to put on shorts.  You cannot short in the hole vs. this monster.  Can only short rallies and into strength.  The SPX is a monster that is still on a mission to crush all short sellers.  That needs to be respected, so only exquisite short setups will be taken.  

Air Pockets

The FOMC meeting where many feared a sell the news reaction picked the wrong asset class.  It was bonds that sold the news, not stocks.  We got a continuation of the equity squeeze higher, led by the most speculative quantum and nuclear stocks.  Shorts are getting punished again.  They are being targeted and focus fired by retail and hedge funds looking to squeeze out other hedge funds.  Shorts are in a world of pain.  The market is on a mission to squeeze out as many shorts as possible, leaving behind only the most well capitalized and stubborn shorts.  Only the shorts who can survive this barrage and stick around will be rewarded on the other side of the hill.  

The realized vol remains low, but VIX remains sticky with a floor around 15.  This kind of realized vol doesn’t merit a VIX at 15.  This kind of dull price action would normally cause VIX to trade around 12 to 13.  Yet options markets are not willing to price put options with such a low IV.  The options market doesn’t believe this low volatility grind higher can continue for long.  I agree.  Even with IV high relative to realized vol, I would not be selling options here.  Those looking to continue to collect premium by selling puts or selling covered calls are picking up quarters in front of a bulldozer. 

Relentless rallies like the past 5 months set up corrections that plunge through air pockets.   Air pockets form when the index rallies to all time highs and blast higher without much time / volume spent at each level.  Three examples include January 2018, November 2021/January 2022, and July 2024.  The crash in October 1987 is a classic example of an extremely overbought market forming big air pockets along the way, setting up an environment susceptible to a waterfall decline.   

January 2018 top

November 2021/January 2022 top

July 2024 top

SPX 6 month chart

The move from 6100 to 6670 happened in less than 3 months, with little time spent at each new all time high.  That's where the air pocket has formed.  Based on how big this air pocket is, the next correction should prove to be violent.  

The COT data was interesting for the SPX as of September 16.  Into the Fed meeting and after a 90 point rally in a week, leveraged funds went heavily short SPX and dealers took the other side.  Its not unusual for leveraged funds to fade moves, but it is unusual for dealers to follow the trend and reduce shorts into a rally.  This positioning might have gotten unwound into triple witching opex.  There was a big expansion in open interest so it seems to be triple witching related, but we'll have to see the COT this coming Friday to confirm.  But initial thoughts are that its not a good sign for bears.  If you are a bear, you want to see dealers add to shorts when it rallies, not reduce.  

Disaggregated COT data which show asset managers, leveraged funds, and dealers seperately is most useful when looking at SPX data.  The legacy COT data does have some uses.  Unusually, commercial traders have maintained a large long position since April as the market has continued to rally.  They are usually trend faders.  The last time commercials were very long as the SPX was rallying and making new all time highs amidst hedge fund skepticism was the summer and fall of 2007.  In the short term, this is a bullish factor for the SPX.  But long term, fundamentals, valuations, and investor positions in stocks are more important than futures postioning.

Its insanity out there.  The stocks with the worst fundamentals are performing the best.  Its a meme stock bubble riding on top of a US stock market bubble.  Intuitively, this feels like a blowoff top thats near the apex, which makes it dangerous for both longs and shorts.  The most shorted stocks are ripping, as well as retail favorites.  There is some overlap between the two, as some of the retail favorites are heavily shorted.  

For longs, they are taking on massive left tail risk once the insanity ends.  For shorts, if the insanity continues for even a few more weeks, it can be quite painful as shorts get squeezed even harder.  Based on the COT data, I am scared that this thing squeezes out the shorts even more before violently reversing.   It is hard picking tops in an irrational bubble, you cannot stay short for long if prices are going against you.  That’s the position that shorts are in right now. As a short seller, you have to be nimble.   Only when prices are going down and staying down can you maintain shorts for more than a few days.  

The price action in bitcoin and ethereum is interesting.  You had a huge wave of euphoria in crypto in July and August, and a lot of these crypto treasury ponzi schemes used the liquidity to unload loads of new shares on the public to buy cryptos.  Now all that stock issuance is coming home to roost.  There just isn't much more demand to buy these crypto treasury stocks or the cryptos themselves.  MSTR has been trading very weak vs. bitcoin since July.  Bitcoin has been trading weak vs SPX since July.  You would figure that a Fed cutting cycle would be favorable for cryptos, but that market seems saturated with retail bagholders who don't have an appetite or the ability to buy more.  

As the quantum and nuclear plays skyrocket, the crypto names have been left behind and trade very heavy.  They used to all go up at the same time (like in July), but that's not happening despite SPX squeezing to new all time highs almost every day.  This shows that there are limits to the retail traders' capital that prevent all boats from rising.  Its not like 2021.  There is no massive fiscal stimulus helping to fund all the insanity.  The job market is weakening.  The fiscal juice is just not the same as it was a few years ago.  It means that stocks can jump, but they can't fly.  And when they jump, its hard for them to all jump up together.  There just isn't enough retail trader ammo to pump all the speculative stocks together. 

As for the SPX and NDX, those are another story.  They are dependent on institutional flows, not retail flows, which only help a bit at the margin.  Institutions are still believers in the AI theme, and are still bullish based on Fed easing.  But I think that's a fragile bullishness that's based on looking at the rear view mirror on AI, and orthodox thinking that Fed easing is always bullish for stocks.  

This time, the Fed is not the one in charge.  Its the White House and Congress, and they are mostly on the sidelines after the OBBB passed.  The fiscal largesse is not what it used to be.  Yet almost everyone on finance TV and in podcasts talk dollar debasement, and giant fiscal deficits as if 2025 is like 2021.  Its not.  There isn't a bottomless well of money looking to go into the stock market.  In fact, the cash balances are near record lows at mutual funds.  At SPX 6205, percentage of financial assets in equities was 45.4%. Based on current SPX of 6664, the percentage of financial assets in equities among US households is nearing 50%(roughly 47-48%).  For comparison, during the dotcom bubble, it only got up 38%.  And during the 2021 everything bubble, it got up to 42.4% at the top.  

American households are heavily positioned in stocks, which makes the US economy extremely dependent on the stock market to keep it going.  If you do get a bear market, it will have big ramifications for the US economy as the wealth effect is bigger than ever.  The US economy is completely financialized, meaning the stock market has a huge effect on the economy.  

Holding large postions short in SPX and heavily short/ meme stocks.  I will be looking to reduce those positions this week, hopefully into seasonal post Sept. opex weakness.  I have a gut feeling that only after the seasonality bears and macro short sellers throw in the towel can you get a final top for SPX.  I do expect the meme stocks and retail favorites to top out before the SPX.  If we don’t selloff within the next 2 weeks, I expect seasonality bears to give up, and also macro bears after the next NFP report on October 3.  I want to hold on for a long term short but can't be stubborn when the price action is going against me.  Will look to get out sometime this week to reload at a later date.  It still feels like we could have a bit more of a rally, as absurd as its been. 

Great Expectations

This relentless, obnoxious rally has been jumping over midget hurdles for the past few weeks.  This display of strength has frustrated bears befuddled by the continued rally with dips quickly bought.  

A list of the hurdles that this bull has overcome since the start of August:

August 1: bad NFP number

August 12: feared CPI number

August 22: feared hawkish Powell at Jackson Hole

Early September: feared bearish seasonality in September

September 5:  bad NFP number

September 9:  bad NFP revisions number

September 11: feared CPI number

The US stock market has overcome all those "potential" negative catalysts because of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: Fed rate cuts.   That is driving this aging bull market.  We have the much anticipated FOMC meeting on September 17.  Expectations are high.  

You also saw continued optimism about AI, with ORCL's huge 1 day rally on future AI revenue forecasts.  Of course, those projections are contingent on OpenAI keeping their promise, on Larry Ellison keeping his promise.  I wouldn't hold my breath.  You already saw a big chunk of ORCL's gains taken back from Wednesday's highs to the Friday close.   If that ORCL announcement was made in July, I doubt you would have seen it pullback so hard off the highs.  It's a clue that investor positioning is quite saturated in large cap tech stocks.  It is why Russell 2000 has been outperforming the Nasdaq for most of the past month.  

While the SPX and NDX continue to hit new highs, the 2 biggest retail AI names: NVDA and PLTR are both down several percent from their all time highs hit in August.  Those are subtle signs that investors who want to invest in those names already have.  Now, with rate cuts on the horizon, investors are chasing more speculative names to try to get more bang for their buck.  

On Friday, you saw big moves in the quantum stocks (IONQ, RGTI),  speculative crypto stocks like BMNR, and of course the biggest meme stock of them all:  TSLA.  You cannot underestimate the short squeeze factor.  Hedge funds have historically high gross leverage in their portfolios, meanings lots of longs and lots of shorts.  A lot of high short interest names got squeezed higher, which is a continuation of the trend starting in July.  It appears a lot of hedgies are feeling considerable pain in the short side of their portfolios.  

Exhibit A for this short squeeze is OPEN.  The Chamath SPAC from the go-go days in 2020 is the hottest meme stock in the market.  It also happens to have big and growing short interest.  26% of the float is shorted.

OPEN is the poster boy for meme mania, as the worst the fundamentals, with lots of short interest, the better the squeeze potential.  Its a toned down version of the meme stock bubble of 2021, when GME and AMC went crazy.  It always ends badly, but the speculators all think that they can get out near the top before the bubble pops.  Of course, there always has to be bagholders on the way down.  Eventually, these ADHD traders lose interest and the stocks take the long road to lower prices.  Like AMC below.

The crypto space continues to pump out more PIPEs as the Ponzi continues.  The latest big one is ORBS, which raised $270M by issuing PIPE shares to buy Worldcoin, a worthless alt coin with Dan Ives hired to pump it.  They are feeding the ducks while they are quacking.  The Winklevoss twins IPOed Gemini on Friday, trying to hurry and go public when they can.  You are seeing more and more IPOs lately as private companies are hurrying to go public while the investor appetite is there.  Very late stage bull market behavior.  

What kept me from holding long term shorts was not wanting to get in front of the rate cut optimists pumping stocks higher.  Ever since Jackson Hole, Treasuries have traded quite strong in anticipation of a dovish Fed.  Now that we've had quite a stock and bond rally so far in "bearish September", it sets up a post FOMC hangover.  

You saw 10 year yields bounce back higher on Friday after the euphoria wore off over the CPI numbers.  Given the weakness in the labor market and the rate cut anticipation, you would have expected bonds to act stronger this week.  But with European and Japanese bond markets trading weak, there just isn't that much demand from overseas investors.  China is basically taking all their dollars from their enormous trade surplus and piling into gold, avoiding US Treasuries like the plague.  Its a different era, without Fed QE, you are left with a bunch of price sensitive buyers who don't want to pay up for something with such a huge growth in supply.  The US debt is at over $37 trillion and rising $2-3 trillion per year.  

The economy is clearly slowing but I continue to see lots of denials and stubborn optimism about the economy. The most common reason for the optimism are the big fiscal deficits/ one big beautiful bill / deregulation / AI capex which are expected to support the US economy no matter what happens.  But what has been ignored is the much lower immigration numbers holding back population growth, a key component for GDP growth.  The only things holding up the SPX are AI capex spending and Fed rate cut expectations.  If one of the two fail to deliver on great expectations, there is a huge air pocket below.  

In a past age, when Treasuries were a premier risk-off asset, with a slowing economy with Fed rate cuts coming, buying bonds would be a superior trade to shorting stocks.  But as mentioned earlier, inflation is just too sticky, and the supply deluge too big to make me a long term buyer of Treasuries.  I prefer to make a risk-off bet by  shorting stocks rather than going long bonds.  

We are about to enter the corporate buyback blackout period which usually runs from mid September to late October.  All buyback blackout periods coincide with post triple witching opex, a time when stocks are usually weak.  Below is a rolling estimate of corporate buybacks with historical data:  

Started a short position on Friday with plans to add this week.  Unlike previous short attempts, looking to hold for several weeks as conviction now is higher.  The rate cut optimists are overplaying their hand.  As mentioned before, Fed rate cuts just don't mean much in a fiscal dominance regime + most mortgages locked in at much lower rates.  Lots of room for disappointment during this rate cut cycle.  

Rate Cuts are Coming

Interest rates are now the main focus after the much feared nonfarm payrolls came and went without much damage to stocks.  Friday's reaction to a bad NFP number wasn’t as dramatic as many expected.  The bad jobs number now all but guarantees a dovish Powell at the upcoming FOMC meeting.  The CPI this week is all but meaningless.  In a weakening economy, the Fed prioritizes jobs over inflation.  

Investors are conditioned to believe that lower Fed funds rates is bullish for stocks.  Its likely they will be buying in anticipation of a rate cut and a dovish Powell on September 17.  I do expect Powell to come out dovish, but that’s going to be expected.  Unlike going into Jackson Hole, when the majority were bracing for hawk Powell, but got dove Powell, the expectations will be much higher.  Unless Powell goes big with 50 bps, its probably a sell the news reaction.  Given how reluctant Powell was to turn dovish until last month, I doubt he does the 50 bps.  Especially since he's going to be replaced, there is no need to pander to Trump now.  

Rate cuts are not what they used to be.  In fiscal dominance, lower short term rates means less interest expense for the government, which is less fiscal stimulus.  Lower Fed funds rates means less interest income from T-bills and money market funds.  Most of that interest income is going to the wealthy, who have a high propensity to invest in financial assets.  Less interest income = less inflows into stocks and bonds.  

A weaker job market means less consumption, which feeds into lower corporate profits.  It also means less inflows into 401k's and equity funds.  Passive inflows into index funds and target date funds has been one of the biggest factors in this bull market.  Its clear that the jobs market is slowing, a combination of less immigration, aging demographics, and tariffs.  

Counterbalancing the negatives of a weaker labor market, bond yields went down significantly across the curve, which is a short term positive for the stock market.  When bonds outperform stocks, like last week, target date funds and pensions have to rebalance by selling bonds, buying stocks.  It is this strength in Treasuries which makes me want to be more patient in putting on index shorts.  

Not much in the COT data for index futures, but the COT for VIX futures shows a continued expansion of speculative shorts in VIX.  This sets up a possible VIX explosion higher when these shorts are unwound.  After a 5 month rally, the market is a powder keg.  Any spark that gets investors nervous could cause an explosion. 

VIX COT Positions

I noticed last week an unusually large number of fast money trader warning about September weakness as if it was a near certainty. That’s not common.  Seasonality usually doesn't work when most traders and investors are focused on it.  I think it was these seasonality bears that caused the sharp drop on September 2.  A weak jobs number may be setting a bear trap this week.    September weakness mostly comes in the first couple of days, and then in the  2nd half of the month coinciding with the post triple witching opex period.  This week could be a short window of strength leading up to the FOMC meeting. 

While the SPX was barely up last week, the path from Friday close to Friday close was quite volatile.  Despite the Friday drop, VIX went down and SPX fixed strike vols also dropped.  SPX fixed strike vols going lower even though SPX went down is short term bullish.  However, looking at the important components of the market, signs of weakness remain.  NVDA, which is the most important stock in the world, is lagging badly.  The momentum stocks and retail favorites also mostly underperformed last week.  In the past, retail investors were a non-factor and could be ignored.  But they have become an important segment of the market.  Their increasing participation has caused the market to be stronger than it would otherwise be.  Signs of weakness among heavily owned stocks among retail is an important tell.  Something to keep in mind as we get closer to FOMC and the big triple witching opex on September 19.  September opex is a big vol dampener on both upside and downside, as there is huge open interest.  So definitely would not recommend chasing any big moves from now until September 17.  

Covered all short positions last week, as I was wary of being short ahead of NFP.  On the sidelines for now, waiting for higher prices to re-short.  The plan is to wait until after CPI is released on Thursday to see how the markets react, and assess the situation then for a possible short.  Not everything goes according to plan, so will adjust if conditions change.  

Will the Beatings Continue?

For 4+ months, those who have sold have mostly regretted it.  Either selling their longs or getting short.  They say that the beatings will continue until morale improves.  This market has beaten the bearishness out of the shorts and telling them to throw in the towel.  Those with thoughts about tariffs, economic weakness, and the huge selloff earlier in the year have gotten punished.  Morale doesn't usually change in a few weeks.  It takes time for short sellers to feel enough pain to force them to cover.  It takes time for uptrends to re-establish, for volatility to go back down.  Which means it takes time for CTAs and vol control funds to get back to being heavily long after being flat to short in April.  It appears that enough time has passed for investors to get off the sidelines and jump in.  

Recent allocations for the biggest trend following ETF, DBMF, show them massively long index futures, not only SPX, but also MSCI World developed and emerging markets.  This was not the case as recently as a month ago.  But the rip to new highs after the quick dip on August 1 got the CTAs near max long.  As of August 21, CTAs are at the 94% percentile in net long exposure.  This is actually higher than their net long position in late 2024, before all the rumblings from tariffs rattled the market.  

It has been nearly 5 months since the April bottom.  5 months without a significant pullback is significant.  5 months is enough time for most investors to put the big selloff into the rearview mirror and reload their equity exposure.  A look at past big rallies off of significant bottoms have run into trouble around 4 to 5 months.  The latest examples are August 2023, April 2024, and December 2024.  Each of those local tops was preceded by a rally of between 4-5 months without a 5% pullback.  

From a technical timing perspective, the odds are favoring a 5% or more pullback within the next 2 months.  That doesn't guarantee a pullback, but combined with other data and how investors are behaving, the odds look favorable on the short side.  From a risk/reward view for the next 2 months, I see at most 100 points of upside for SPX, and anywhere from 300 to 800 points of downside.  So while it may be a 50-50 coin flip of whether the market is up or down for the next 2 months, there is a lot of asymmetry between the two outcomes.

Seasonally, we are entering the weakest month of the year, which has been repeated a bit too much by the crowd for my liking.  But most of that September weakness happens after September triple witching opex, which is September 19.  Its very possible that we grind higher towards that September opex, frustrating the seasonality bears who are short just because its September, and then have a rug pull afterwards.  September post opex also coincides with the start of the corporate buyback blackout period from late September to late October.  During that window of smaller than normal buyback flows, a sudden risk off move can accelerate more quickly than usual.  

Under the surface, there are divergences and signs of an upcoming trend change.  One of those is the Russell 2000/Nasdaq ratio.  We are seeing enthusiasm again for the small caps, which used to be a bullish sign back in the day, when there was ZIRP and endless QE.  Now, its a sign of investor overexuberance and trend exhaustion.  For the past few weeks, the RUT has continued to outperform the NDX.  Unlike what the old school paper napkin chartists tell you, strong breadth after an extended rally with laggards rallying while leaders lag is bearish, not bullish.  

Bitcoin is the best indicator for risk appetite among aggressive, speculative retail and institutional investors.  These investors are a small minority of the total investor pool, but have a big effect on prices as they are active traders that are usually price takers, going with the flow.  They are the ones that move markets.  When they are saturated with stocks/crypto, that tells you their next move is likely to be to sell.

Bitcoin has now underperformed the NDX over the past 3 months.   That underperformance has been particularly noticeable and sharp in the past 2 weeks.  The top in bitcoin coincided with lots of euphoria over crypto this summer, which makes this bitcoin underperformance even more meaningful.  There are lots of underwater, trapped longs in the crypto space now.  

IBIT vs QQQ

Another divergence I have noticed is the relative weakness of the NDX vs the SPX, in particular, momentum and large cap tech favorites like PLTR, MSTR, META, MSFT, and bitcoin have recently lagged badly.  

Last week, we saw some more signs that another piece of the momentum trade, AI, is getting tired.  NVDA sold off after beating earnings on Thursday, and the selling accelerated on Friday.  

As I write, we are getting a big gap down as the seasonality bears are on the prowl, fear mongering about seasonal weakness and historically the worst month for stocks, September.  While I am short, I don't think its going to be straight down from here for all of September.  Its possible that there is relief buying after the jobs number, as a weak number would raise expectations for the Fed to be dovish at the September meeting, while a strong number would alleviate fears of a weakening job market.  There is still the much anticipated Fed rate cut at the FOMC meeting on September 17, along with triple witching opex on September 19.  That provides a backstop for bulls, so not expecting a big decline just yet.  

Entered into some SPX and single stock short positions last Wednesday and Thursday.  I anticipate a bit of weakness ahead of nonfarm payrolls, which could be a spot to trim shorts.  Depending on the price action this week, may trim some short positions ahead of NFP on Friday.  We are likely to chop in a small range until September opex, so I wouldn't get too aggressive on the short side just yet.  

Cracks in the Foundation

The raging bull is showing signs of cracking.  The momentum names are the key to this market.  They are what drive the animal spirits which brings in the inflows in a virtuous cycle that keep the bull market going.  The cracks are forming in AI and crypto, the two drivers of the momentum train.  In AI, the biggest ripple has been made by PLTR, which went from 190 on August 12 to 143 on August 20.  That's a 25% haircut in 6 trading days.  While the SPX went down less than 2% during that time.  Compare that to the dip in July 31/Aug 1, when the SPX went down 3%, yet PLTR didn't even go down 5%.  The momentum names were extremely strong during that dip 3 weeks ago.  Its a totally different story now.  The strongest YTD stocks performed the worst during last week's selloff.

In crypto, you can see a similar pattern of relative weakness during this pullback vs the July 31-Aug 1 dip.  When the SPX went down 3% in that dip, bitcoin went down 5%.  In last week's pullback, SPX dipped 2% yet bitcoin went down 9%.  Relative weakness in bitcoin vs. earlier in the summer.  Also, the most important stock for bitcoin is MSTR.  Its premium to NAV is shrinking steadily.  The money suck coming from big crypto IPOs like CRCL and BLSH, and crypto treasury companies selling stock to buy cryptos is slowly sopping up a lot of risk capital that would otherwise go to other momo favorites.  

These are the subtle signs of a weakening bull, when the momentum names are no longer leading and are getting punished on dips.  You can rationalize these moves as being driven by news such as Citron Research's short report on PLTR, which wasn't anything revolutionary (just a dig at the absurb valuation of PLTR compared to another overvalued company, Open AI).  Or META talking down future AI hiring plans.  These aren't significant news drivers, yet they caused quite a bit of damage to PLTR, META, and NVDA.  Those 3 names, probably the 3 most popular AI names out there in the US stock market have all underperformed during this pullback vs the sharper pullback on August 1.  

Another difference is the length of the pullback starting from August opex.  It was a 5 day pullback that was slow and grinding, not a sudden fear induced selloff that quickly recovered like August 1.  A technical sign of saturation.  Also, put/call ratios were quite low for the first 3 days of the pullback, before finally getting to a bit more elevated levels last Wednesday and Thursday.  If you look at the big picture, the cash holdings at equity mutual funds are very low.  There is almost no dry powder among mutual funds, and very little dry powder at hedge funds who also have above average net exposure vs. history.  

Last Friday, we got the much awaited Powell Jackson Hole speech.  Going into the speech, I noticed quite a few "experts" on CNBC, Bloomberg, Twitter talking about how hawkish Powell will be at Jackson Hole.  It probably explains the slow drip selloff going into the big event.  Expectations for Powell were low, so when he did tee up a September cut with some job market weakness excuses, it launched off a FOMO rocket.  Those fund managers who wanted to lighten up on longs did so ahead of J-Hole, which caused them to panic back into their longs when they realized that this rally wasn't done.  They have to keep up.  Its not a choice.  Its a career decision.   

Long term, whether Powell is dovish or hawkish doesn't matter.  The Fed is no longer the driver of markets.  The econ nerds will always focus on the Fed, but economists don't move markets, investors do.  The Fed can move the markets for a day or two, but they don't move it for months and years like they did in the monetary dominance era.  

We are now in a new era of fiscal dominance, where fiscal policy drives the market, not monetary policy.  Monetary policy becomes toothless when lowering rates actually lowers interest income for the private sector (due to the huge national debt levels, high percentage of T-bill issuance) more than it reduces interest expense for them.  The mortgage refi channel via lower long end rates is broken, as the long end has stubbornly stayed high during this cutting cycle.  In addition, most home owners are already locked in to mortgage rates much lower than current levels, greatly reducing refi demand even if long end rates go lower.  Only if/when the Fed does QE will that have a meaningful effect on the stock market.  That may come sometime in 2026 after Trump installs a dovish puppet as Fed chair.  

Over the past 2 weeks, as momentum has weakened, the Russell 2000 has instead strengthened.  On Friday, while SPX went up 1.5%, the RUT went up 3.9%.  We haven't seen that kind of RUT outperformance in a while.  It is eerily reminiscent of July 2024, right before the SPX had a 10% pullback and a vicious VIX spike over 50.  I do not expect that to happen this time around, but I expect a similar bearish response to RUT outperformance over Nasdaq.  

Before 2022, Russell 2000 underperformance vs SPX and NDX during a rally was a warning sign of a pending correction (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021).  That was why so many investors became obsessed with breadth as a indicator of the health of the market.  Everyone thought strong breadth is a good sign for the stock market.  Since 2022, as we've entered the fiscal dominance/higher rate regime, Russell 2000 outperformance vs SPX and NDX was a sign of short covering/excessive optimism, proving to be an urgent warning sign that a correction was coming.  You saw this in July 2024, before a sharp 10% correction, and December 2024, before a sharp 5% correction.  And it appears that is happening again in August 2025.  

IWM:QQQ price ratio

No significant changes in the SPX COT data.  The VIX positioning is getting more interesting.  Commercial traders keeping adding to an already big VIX long position, meaning speculators are getting short VIX.  This has happened ahead of some explosive moves higher in VIX in recent years, such as November 2021, August 2022, July 2024, and February 2025.  

COT VIX Positions

The big event of the week is NVDA earnings.  Its a quiet week where many are on vacation, and already squared up without much desire to put on big positions.  There appears to be a bit of caution ahead of NVDA earnings, more than last time, due to some recent headlines and relative AI weakness, but that's offset by most people's expectations that they will beat earnings and pump their stock like they always do.  So expecting NVDA earnings to be a nothing burger.  With the cracks in momentum, the sudden outperformance in Russell 2000, and upcoming seasonal weakness, the odds are now favorable for the shorts.  Will be looking to put on shorts in SPX and individual stocks this week.  Looking for a big down move that could last several weeks in September/October.