Pre-Market - May 22, 2026

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:01]Okay, we're live.

[00:00:05]Uh, let me just ding everyone on Discord here.

[00:00:13]Uh, yeah, we have Worsh being sworn in today.

[00:00:19]We get to hear from the guy. So, let's see if uh his speech can begin to change uh the narrative around uh uh the rate at least uh eliminate the idea of a rate hike. I guess I should wait. We got 21 on right now. Yeah, let's uh let's give it a few minutes. Uh in the meantime, I'll check in on my iPad.

[00:00:54]Let's see. 75. Soon as we get to a little over 100, I'll uh I'll begin. It is early. I did click it uh click on early. So, let's uh I did say at everyone, did I?

[00:01:08]Oh, yes.

[00:01:12]Although it is uh a long weekend in the US, some people might have taken a Friday as the beginning of their long weekend. So maybe participation today will be on the lower side.

[00:01:32]So let's see what uh uh we'll start with some questions here regarding Uber. It will probably still exist, but wouldn't it face margin compression due to increased competition and transition from asset light to asset heavy?

[00:01:47]EV makers have the upper hand. Um, no, they don't. Uh, I disagree. I should say no, they don't. I disagree.

[00:01:58]Um, let's say that you have 200 uh autonomous taxis. Great. How do people use them?

[00:02:06]How do people summon your vehicle?

[00:02:10]You're going to need a platform to be on. Well, you're going to have to create your own platform if you're not going to use Uber. That has a huge cost. Then you got to get people to download the app.

[00:02:21]Then you got to hook up the bank accounts to the apps. And you know what?

[00:02:24]I already have Uber. Thank you very much.

[00:02:27]Um, so more than likely, uh, the EV makers who make autonomous vehicles will will more than likely have the asset heavy balance sheet. Besides, they're in the business of having their vehicles financed anyways. Most of the big vehicle uh, manufacturers have a finance arm to begin with. They're more likely, I would seem to think, to be the asset heavy company. I don't know that Uber would invest in the vehicles right now.

[00:02:54]They don't invest in any vehicle. You own the vehicle, you drive the vehicle.

[00:03:00]They're a platform.

[00:03:02]Uh I think they'll remain asset light. I don't I don't see why they would want to. Uh but even if they did, uh it would remove uh the employee. So you just have to do a net present value saying, okay, well, if we buy the vehicle, we save the employee. Uh what is what is the uh net present value of a project like that? Uh so it's not necessarily that they'll own the vehicle. It's just if you have uh a an emerging robo taxi fleet, what platform are you going to use that already has 140 million users on it? Right. Any big expectations for Worsh today? I don't know who this Worsh fellow is. Uh I know who Worsh is, but Worsh I don't know.

[00:03:51]W A R S H but W SH I'm not sure who that is. Sounds Polish to me. Uh, isn't that fun having your having your spelling corrected? Um, I don't know. I anticipate that he'll give some kind of introductory speech as to who he is and what he wants to get done and how he sees the Fed. Uh, and and there'll be something there.

[00:04:22]Let's see if the market is going to listen to him or say, "No, no, we disagree. We disagree. You're going to be just like Powell." Because the market does that. It dis You can tell it blatantly. I'm going to do this. And the market will go, "Nope, we disagree." You know, let's find out. Um, thanks for going live publicly.

[00:04:46]Oh [ __ ] Ah, that's a mistake.

[00:04:54]That's a mistake. Uh, I didn't mean to do that.

[00:04:58]Um, uh, well, we got 180 on now. It's too late to to change it. Sorry about that.

[00:05:05]It should not be public. I am I am sorry about that.

[00:05:10]Um, would you say Worsh is a loyalist? I don't think that Worsh is a loyalist.

[00:05:16]No, I I I I I think that you're going to have uh a a a Fed uh chair. Um I don't think Trump is the Fed chair. I think Trump is the secretary of commerce. I think he's a secretary of defense. I think he's he's uh the the uh attorney general. I think he's everything. And all those other people are just spokesman are just spokespeople. Uh Bessant is Trump's spokesperson over at Treasury. Uh uh you know uh Lutnik is Trump's spokesperson over at Commerce, but I I think that Worsh is a Fed chair.

[00:05:54]Ah, there's our chipmunk. We feed a chipmunk uh nuts every day. It's sitting right out on the ledge out there waiting for its nuts. You know, it does this stand up thing and it Oh, it just ran.

[00:06:04]Oh, there it is. Came over to the other window just in case I didn't see him.

[00:06:09]Anyways, let's get back to business here. Um no, I think he will be a Fed share. I just happen to think uh that that his monitoriist perspective aligns well as best as possible with what Trump would like to see done um without actually hiring a loyalist and and losing confidence of the street. So this is the best I think that he could get.

[00:06:36]Uh in a world where everything is techdriven, uh I have business ideas but feel hesitant due to lack of deep technical knowledge. How can someone move past that apprehension? Well, you're never going to do it alone. Build a team.

[00:06:48]You're going to have to build a team with somebody who has the tech knowledge.

[00:06:52]It's better to share the pie uh a growing pie than to own 100% of a pie worth zero. Right.

[00:07:01]Uh good evening from India. Is it evening in India? Oh, it would be right.

[00:07:06]Yeah. Uh, when you post your uh options, how far out are you usually selling? I assume you don't give the full contract by design. Don't understand what that means. I don't give the full contract by design. When I post my options, um, I don't understand the question. Uh, if you're asking about uh when I use options, it would be whatever makes sense uh for the day. We have 810 right now. I want to start the tour at 8:15.

[00:07:38]Uh AT&T is back around 24. I remember you uh being bullish on it around that level. You still selling puts on it now.

[00:07:44]It's IV is very low. Um there are just better fights right now. If I were running a more valueoriented or income oriented portfolio, then sure, it it's a no-brainer to sell puts on on on AT&T because you're getting a very good good stock with a a very good dividend yield.

[00:08:02]Uh, so that would be a no-brainer, but there are just so much so much so many other things to do, especially in the AI trade, which I believe is is growing into a short position, but it has huge volatility. So, the that's the better V to play. And if you play that V from the short side, I think that's the safer place to be. So, I've been looking more uh into that end end of the market. And I'm willing to short anything uh uh for the volatility at this point because it is just a matter of time before all this disappears as it always does. As it always does when I don't know that's the one thing that that that that we don't know is is when. But we do have good good feelings about what just not the when. Uh let's see. Can you explain uh the setup for some of your trades like be synthetic call? I should have said synthetic short call at 360. You get paid 380 for a synthetic short call at uh at 380. Why do a synthetic short call and not a call? Um is because uh when I do a synthetic short call, I get all of that capital. It is a source of capital. So, every every contract you do gives you $38,000 of which you then start making the money market spread on. And if you're already What is uh going on here with all this uh ding ding ding ding ding here?

[00:09:34]I think it's just cuz I got like eight different devices. I get one email, eight things go off and I think I'm getting eight emails. People really love me this morning.

[00:09:45]Um what what uh when we do the live session and I'm thinking maybe next week um because I'm I'm going up to to an auction next weekend. Um next week would probably be a good week. Wednesday is not a good day because I'm getting the furnace replaced here and I have a doctor's appointment. But if we think about maybe Thursday actually maybe Tuesday would be better.

[00:10:12]Let me look at the economic calendar like for next week here. Give me a second. Let's see what we have next week. We have PCE next week.

[00:10:23]Uh and I believe we got our second look at US GDP and PCE. We get it next Thursday.

[00:10:32]Uh next Thursday would be a good a good time to do it. So why don't we plan for that? Uh we'll do the pre-market as we normally do. We get to watch PCE and second look at GDP, see how that affects the market.

[00:10:47]Um, we also get initial jobless claims as well. And then, um, I think I think the there'll be an announcement next Thursday that Iran and US are close to a peace deal like there is every day. Uh, but but we can look forward to that on Thursday.

[00:11:08]Um, Thursday would be a good day to do vault and then I could just show you uh how these uh how these trades are set up because I'm I'll be doing more today.

[00:11:17]I'm going in very very lightly by the way for my account size. I'm going in very lightly because I think we're at the very beginnings of this. Uh a lot of these AI stocks, AI infrastructure especially, have gone way way way too far. Some of them can never ever make money. Uh, so it's just a matter of starting to to pick at the weakest of the herd and the safest play and pick off the highest volatility. Why don't we do that? Let me make a note that we will do uh next Thursday um uh you should not trade between 9:30 and 10. Let's do uh 10 a.m. to 100 p.m.

[00:12:05]Well, it's 3 hours. I'm going to need 3 hours to get through what we got to get through. Uh and we'll do that on Discord. We'll do it in the um the market stage or the main stage of the market stage on Discord. I'll set something up and then we'll I'll show you how to set up these vault trades, how to screen for them, and then how to set them up. How's that sound? We have 8:15. Let's do our tour. Uh where I got to move my microphone. Let me find my There we go. screen here. There. And start with Forex.

[00:12:39]I'm not seeing any really big movers.

[00:12:42]Although, uh, we're on yen. Watch 15,909. Watch that 160.

[00:12:48]Um, it appears that Japan has been selling treasuries to do this.

[00:12:54]Uh so you know you get to 160 you could get uh get some unwinding of the of their treasury position. Almost all countries have been selling uh treasuries and I think that's due mainly to the high price of of uh energy right now. But we have nothing over.5. So there's no single country risk that I think we need to pay attention to today or that should grab our attention.

[00:13:21]Canadian at 138.

[00:13:24]Um, let's head right to energy. This was much stronger this morning at 6:00 a.m.

[00:13:30]It was uh I think 2:00 across uh sorry, $2 across the curve. Uh it's really coming out now. Uh we're down to 810 on the calendar spread.

[00:13:41]Uh September under $90, 8976.

[00:13:47]Um, uh, as you know, I am selling the $75 puts under that contract. But what I want to see is is is a big announcement that we are close to something and and a good $78 come out of the September contract. I would heavily sell 75 puts.

[00:14:06]I've already sold one, but I do want 10 to 15 of these. Um, so let's see what happens. Uh but that is what I'd be willing to do because I don't think uh we're going to just get right back to the normal supply that we've had. So I don't I don't think that we're going to get much below 75 at least on the September contract. So I'll be looking looking for some big red numbers there today. Maybe uh metals metals always a safe play.

[00:14:35]I've still got the $70 puts on uh silver. Uh they are paying right now um I only did two uh but they're paying right now 125 13,000 if I close them but I we have a long weekend. So anybody who wants to close options wait until late this afternoon. You'll get three days of theta coming out of your options today because it's going to be closed for 3 days. Uh copper nice and strong. Uh and I think it continues to be strong. I think a five handle now would be a gift.

[00:15:10]Five five0 would be would be wonderful.

[00:15:13]I would I would probably go in heavier there. I got $6 puts and gold. I got 40 4450 puts.

[00:15:22]I would like to see more weakness in metals because I think that's the play for the next uh for the next uh uh uh couple of years is is the metals and then our mining sector. Look what's doing well. PPTA uh announced yesterday that they've got their financing in place uh big financing too. Um they uh brought in uh where is it 2.9 billion uh senior secured uh uh to move ahead.

[00:15:52]Yeah. Uh the export import bank of United States uh gave them a loan. They were 32 uh 32 last night.

[00:16:02]I'll probably if any weakness on PPTA I'll pick up some of that. But look what you have here. Uu UU UAY MPU us all in the green.

[00:16:13]Uh USAS at least not red. Uh and I think I might pick up some GFI today as well.

[00:16:20]Um in the mining sector, I think this is the mining sector. you're looking at a a a uh uh um a commodity super cycle I think in both energy and uh and um when I say energy I I'm I'm thinking about the whole energy portfolio not just carbon not just carbon based right so I'll be looking there treasury is green let's see if wars can make it even greener at least get it back to 9636 at least he Be confident, please, in saying at least convey, look, with what I'm doing. You're looking at the wrong thing. You can't look at the interest rate. You got to look at the balance sheet. That's where all the action's going to happen. And if we can just at least get the market to agree that no rate hikes, maybe no rate cuts. And I don't see that he has the flexibility uh or the momentum for rate cuts in the first two, three meetings.

[00:17:23]Um let's see what he can do with the balance sheet. Let's see that. Let's see that work. Uh I I'm curious to see if if the removing of liquidity can uh uh can get anything done.

[00:17:36]Uh energy still, you know, front month front month negative. Let's let's watch this. This I think today is where some action is going to be. Our futures are green. They're positive. Um, we still have the quantum stocks. Uh, still celebrating a little bit from yesterday. IBM, uh, the big winner here, got a billion dollars.

[00:18:02]Uh, C, that's the Avis plate. I still have uh I have short shares on that one now. I don't know what to do with that.

[00:18:10]I mean, I they're basically free. I don't know what I'm doing in in this trade anymore, but AXTI AOI I uh an AXTI huge volatility. Hard not to play those with that vault. Uh but uh I think uh I see 123 on AXTI. I think I will start to shift my positive delta towards zero and the higher it goes I will go from zero to negative delta on axi cuz uh it is uh it is rich at this point.

[00:18:46]Uh run is good. SEI is doing well. Our nuclear is doing well. Olo 67 uh VST 151 was down in the 130s. Anything interesting here? Bloom Energy up 10. Uh but the trade I did on Bloom, the Vault trade I did on Bloom leaves me good all the way up to 380. So I am unconcerned about its movement right now.

[00:19:13]Uh not much to see here.

[00:19:17]Uh reach we haven't started trading yet.

[00:19:21]Uh all green along here.

[00:19:25]Uh, Verdov is another one that I would start to look at in terms of uh of playing its ball from the short side.

[00:19:35]Um, NBIS uh if I see this I do think that eventually, you know, like a couple more headlines. I think this could see 350.

[00:19:45]Uh, but I'm not going to play it that way because they are headlines and uh I don't know that there's much in there. I've got Sienna CEN a V trade from the short side on that one. Verdive I I would be interested in looking at a V trade from the short side on that one as well.

[00:20:04]Uh just uh you know an opening uh starting an opening position on that.

[00:20:08]Tesla it's V is too low now so it's not interesting.

[00:20:15]uh memory, you know, there's volatility there, but this stuff is so massively overpriced. It may if you think about just one year a multiple, the Ford multiple, you'd think, oh, it's reasonable.

[00:20:28]But this is a cyclical industry.

[00:20:30]Capacity will come online and down it'll go. They don't get to keep these prices.

[00:20:35]They don't get to keep these margins. Uh capacity will come online.

[00:20:41]Uh and it doesn't matter who builds capacity. It's not an iPhone, you know. It's not like anybody else can build capacity and put more iPhones out there. Only one company can. Uh but Samsung puts out bandwidth memory.

[00:20:55]Samsung uh uh uh Micron puts out high bandwidth memory. SK High. It doesn't matter who adds capacity. And because it's interchangeable, uh you can't you can't play the monopolist's game by saying I can control the price. It is it is game theoretic. uh if your uh competitor is adding capacity, your best choice is to add capacity. Period. Everybody's best action is to add capacity.

[00:21:24]Uh which is collectively the worst action for the industry as a whole, but they do it every freaking time and they'll continue to do it. Uh so I I I'm not interested in playing any of these names. Too volatile and uh they could easily go up. Boom. 50 60 bucks in a day and go down 50 60 bucks in a day. That V is hard to play.

[00:21:48]Uh and uh cyber security still on a run all green. Look at Crowd Strike 650.

[00:21:56]PaloAlto 250, Fordet 130. Just uh like what six weeks ago we were looking at Crowdstrike struggling to reclaim the $400 level. That's amazing. Coralavee. I would love love love to see this 120 130 140. Uh but I will continue to short Coralavee. Um that I'm more interested in in I'm playing it from the short side. V from the short side, but uh with much more aggressive negative delta circle, same thing. Um I think uh uh you know that's a fair trade. Alabs, uh I'm doing the same thing there. 300 bucks. I mean, we've gone we've gone too far too fast. And it is um you know, they're more defensible uh than Credo is. I will admit that. But still, they're they're uh it's hard to justify uh these prices and that V is hard to give up. So, there we go. Um mostly the two big things that I'm looking at is is metals. Anything that gives me a great entry into metals, whether it be the futures contract or the miners, I'm in. And uh any big volatility in the AI infrastructure space, I will begin uh to open uh volatility positions with a short delta bias on that. But let's let's be clear, I'm there for the theta.

[00:23:25]Uh it's just you're going to have some exposure. It is expensive to maintain zero delta. Uh you just give away all your theta when you try to maintain zero delta. So you have to decide on your vault plays am I willing to accept positive or negative delta? And on the AI infrastructure trades I want that vault and I'm willing to accept negative delta to get it done.

[00:23:50]All right. Um let's answer a few questions. And because I live publicly there are a lot.

[00:23:57]So, let me uh I'll just scan and I'll look for uh thoughts on these quantum stocks. Seems massively overvalued. Yep.

[00:24:04]I mean, Regetti is nearly a 10 billion market cap on 4 million revenue. What are we doing here? Yep. Yep. I agree. I agree. Um but but there is there is headlines and euphoria. This is a headline driven market. Uh this was what 1999 was. It was about headlines. It was a headline driven market with new metrics uh to look at. So uh all you have to do is say we've achieved 2500 stable quibbits. Oh, a headline. Off you go. There's no revenue behind that, but it's a headline. It's progress. Uh think of these stocks as very expensive options and they all have optionality.

[00:24:45]Uh and every time they have a headline that shows that they've made progress towards getting to a stable quantum quantum greater of which you need about a million stable quibbits to get to um the uh implied volatility or the risk within the option has decreased. Uh so that the option uh option has more value. It's it's it's it's likely outcomes have narrowed. Uh so you have to think of them as as as having optionality and that each headline reduces some risk and what you're paying is is the option value of what that future would look like. The winner is going to be IBM or Google hands down. Hands down because they have the money, they have the resources, they have the talent. Uh the other companies might have interesting patents uh and they might be worth their patent portfolio at some point but certainly not 10 billion. I agree. I agree. Don't short it. Don't short it because it is it is a story stock right now. And for a lot of the market, especially a lot of the 20somes that play this, a headline is all you need. A headline is all you need. And these companies are very adept at producing headlines. That's why I would not short Nebius at this point in time. They they won't be profitable.

[00:25:59]They'll never be profitable. But man, they've got a whole bunch of headlines that they can produce because their contracted power is way more than their connected power. Uh so if you want to know how many headlines a company can produce in the numerator, put your contracted power. In the denominator, put your connected power. The higher that ratio, the more headlines they have in the pipeline.

[00:26:25]Don't short headlines.

[00:26:27]remember um Beyond Meat? Uh it was it was uh excellent at producing headlines.

[00:26:37]Man, could it produce headlines.

[00:26:39]Absolutely misleading headlines.

[00:26:43]True. The The headlines were not actual lies, but they were massively misleading. That's what this is. We're in a headline. These are headline stocks. I I I wouldn't short them. uh at some point. Yeah, they are, but not now.

[00:26:57]Not today.

[00:26:59]Uh any CFA related questions? Mostly stock market. This is just a um a pre-market right now. Um let's uh just hit the economic calendar. I think we had something this morning at 8:30.

[00:27:14]Canada retail sales 1.4%.

[00:27:19]PPI. Oh, look at this. Canada month over month 2%.

[00:27:26]O let me say that again. O 2% yearover-year 11.4%.

[00:27:38]Raw materials price month over month up 2.6% year-over-year.

[00:27:44]Everybody sitting down for the raw materials price year-over-year 31.6%.

[00:27:50]31.6.

[00:27:52]That's because metals are are are sitting near all-time highs. Energy is sitting near all-time highs, and Canada's got a lot of that stuff. So, there we are. Also, at 10:00, we're going to get Michigan consumer confidence. The last read was the lowest ever, the lowest ever in consumer sentiment.

[00:28:18]I don't know that we can believe who cares what the consumer feels. Um the consumer spends uh uh they'll they'll complain all their way to the cash register, but spend that money they will. But they'll complain about how bad things are all the way to the cash register. So I I don't even know that it matters. What matters is are they getting a paycheck? Yeah. Well, let them complain about the high cost of things.

[00:28:41]They're still going to spend every penny they make.

[00:28:46]Um CNBC seems to suggest that today's lower inflation in Japan puts the Bank of Japan in a tough position as rate hikes are now off the table, which is bearish.

[00:28:56]Well, they got to they got to protect that currency.

[00:29:00]Um 160 is a line in the sand. Um if uh if rate hikes are off the table, um the the big driver of currencies is interest rate differentials.

[00:29:13]uh so if there if you can't see uh an interest rate differential decreasing against the US then then um that means intervention uh uh in the currency market which is expensive right uh what do you think of constellation energy near 52- week low appears to be bouncing again that's not on my watch list I don't really watch constellation energy um so I I I'm not going to uh put an opinion uh out on that. Uh seems it seems you're in Canada. I am in Canada.

[00:29:49]Yes, I am. Are you going to do a live stream at 11:00 a.m. when war? No. No. I have a haircut at uh 11:30 because look at my hair. It's I'm a hippie. I'm a freaking hippie here. So, I got a haircut at 11:30. So, I won't uh I won't be here, but I will have my uh mobile device with me. I have uh an Apple mobile device that happens to have a phone feature. I don't know why they don't call it an i device. They call it the iPhone, but you use the phone the least amount yet that's called an iPhone.

[00:30:25]You know, hey, I have an idea. Let's make something and let's name it after its least used feature.

[00:30:32]You know, I mean, seems silly to me. Uh should we buy VIX calls before the weekend due to No.

[00:30:40]Well, I don't know that you know I don't know that that what you're what you're suggesting the haj and and and uh war risk. I don't know that that is a driver for wanting to buy the VIX. I it's nothing I would do. No.

[00:30:56]When it comes to trading stupidity of the crowd, does it make sense to just go with the flow momentum regardless of the fundamentals with tight stops? I wouldn't say tight stops. Uh I would not use tight stops because if you're playing high volatility, all you're going to do is just get stopped out.

[00:31:12]What's the point of that? Uh you have you rather than tight stops, you don't start with your stop, you start with your position size. Uh and then you let average true range. I use 15 date. You let average true range uh be your stop.

[00:31:27]You start from your your maximum loss and you move backwards towards your position size. But yeah, um some things uh are lack all fundamentals.

[00:31:39]Uh but I wouldn't short them. You have to know when to go with it. Uh you know when to to to you and um if it's momentum, there are ways to play that. If it's volatility, there are ways to to to isolate just the Vega and the theta.

[00:31:56]Um how did you navigate yourself when you were lost? Okay. Uh Whimo is already doing 400,000 rides per week through its own app and partnered uh uh other than uh Uber and Nashville and London. If the leading AV operators can aggregate its own demand, why uh what keeps Uber sticky? That's a good point. Um that's a good point.

[00:32:22]I I guess I would I would say it's not as if uh Uber will not have any competition. I mean, it does. It has Lyft uh and and Whimo does use Lyft I think in in one in one city. I'm not sure which one. Um this is uh in the 80s uh with the car companies uh they followed a strategy called tapered integration uh because it made them better uh um better uh at procurement. And tapered integration means that uh they weren't interested in making parts for their vehicles. They you know especially at at you know your tier one uh your tier one suppliers which are the suppliers uh supplying directly to the auto assemblers but they would have some uh production of tier one material. So it made them better at at determining how much does it really cost. So when they went to buy the stuff, they already had knowledge of of of what it would uh what it would be like. So by um Whimo uh using their own app, you know, the question is should we have our own app?

[00:33:34]Should we just use Uber? There's a lot of unknowns. Well, how much does it cost to run the app? We already have infrastructure, so we have this, we have the technicians, we have the software uh skill inside, we have all of that. We have our own servers. Maybe it's cheaper, maybe it isn't. Uh so when you're uh early in in in the process, and this is still early, it's maybe you have a portfolio of options because they do use the the um uh other platforms and they may have their own platform and they may come to some conclusion somewhere like okay, let's let's uh let's deprecate our platform. We know it's easier to go with the other platforms or you know what, our platform is good. So it it just is is is more of a portfolio of end market entry strategies where not all of them will win. Uh but it gives them information on on how to negotiate better. They understand the costs a little bit more, you know. So I don't know that I would see that as evidence that they're not going to use uh um Uber or um or Whimo Uber or uh Lyft. Uh do you have a directional bias on the US30 yield?

[00:34:46]higher higher higher higher um higher higher um I I I I I don't see how this gets salvaged uh um in the US right now in a world of AI wouldn't the telecom companies be best positioned to benefit from AI uh in the future strong synergies free cash flow acquire winners uh all uh AI fight and downside protection well I don't know that telecoms really want to be in data center businesses uh and really want to be be doing that kind stuff. They're already very asset heavy to begin with.

[00:35:19]I don't know that they want to add another asset heavy business. I think they'd be looking to to leverage their fiber, which is the the smarter way to go. Uh right now, I have Bell Fiber, um three gigs. Um they could give me 20, they could give me 25. That's the whole thing with fiber is you can have as much as you want, but they're going to give me three. Uh and then as AI uh begins to um you know require more and more usage on my side then they'll they'll start selling me an extra gig for for this much more an extra gig for that much more. That's all pure margin because the fiber is already laid. That's all pure margin. So I think that that I think they'd be less interested in in the end in the ends and more interested in in the highway. Uh so I think that they're probably uh more interested in laying as much fiber as they possibly can right now. Uh at least AT&T is big on that and uh is now using an infrastructure fund to finance the l the uh uh fiber. It's a joint venture of which they're the biggest customer. So hey, let's start a business. Uh you pay for my infrastructure and I'll be the biggest customer and we'll own half of it. I mean what a great deal. Doesn't it it doesn't hurt my debt. It's it's not my company. I don't have to, you know, other than joint venture uh rules of reporting.

[00:36:47]Uh the China Securities Regulatory Commission imposed administrative penalties on Long Beach Securities today, sending their pre-market trading in a stunning plunge. Okay. Uh let's see, maybe rate hike in 2027 if demand side keeps it uh hot.

[00:37:04]Let's uh before we start thinking rate hikes, let's let's give the guy a chance and see what he can do with the balance sheet. Uh interest rate the interest rate didn't work. It doesn't work. Uh I I think that we have a world that is so financially sophisticated. Uh so much of the world is immune from changes in interest rates. Uh so uh let's see what happens when you change the quantity of money as opposed to just the price of money. Changing the quantity of money will change the price of money. But it does something else. It removes the money to begin with. So you cannot borrow it, right? Let's see.

[00:37:41]Let's see what he can get done.

[00:37:44]Uh notice effect of federal funds raised basis points. Would war removing liquidity cause effective federal funds rate to spike towards the upper Fed limit?

[00:37:54]Sulfur. Um most likely sulfur.

[00:37:59]Um but I wouldn't say the the the effective federal funds rate is immune. Let me have a look here. Uh you say it has uh changed. Where is my uh verse repo? Repo repo. Where is my tab?

[00:38:16]Here it is. No, that's a bank balance sheet. Here is sofur.

[00:38:22]Sofur's at 351.

[00:38:24]We're We're sitting at 3.5. Wow.

[00:38:28]That is the lower end of the range. Um I haven't looked uh online here for a bit.

[00:38:35]Uh our uh reverse repo sitting at 3 billion. It it was 24 billion yesterday.

[00:38:42]That is a big number. And repo uh still sitting at zero I think. I don't think the repo windows being used. Nope, it is not being used. and effective.

[00:38:56]Uh where are we here? We're at 3.62.

[00:39:02]It has been coming down for quite some time, right? 3.64 3.63 3.62 3.62 62, which would put uh our June contract at 9638.

[00:39:20]9638.

[00:39:23]There we are.

[00:39:27]That is interesting. And now the balance sheet did drop uh I think by about 10 billion week over week. Not much. It didn't drop by much. It dropped by about 10 billion week overw week. Um, and I think we had uh let's see data factors.

[00:39:44]Uh, let's go to uh the 21st. We got the balance sheet yesterday.

[00:39:50]Reserve still sitting at 3.1.

[00:39:57]Uh, we can look up soma sa.

[00:40:03]Let's see what the s says.

[00:40:06]Uh we have a balance sheet uh that is uh 6.334 trillion change from prior week is up 3 trillion.

[00:40:20]Last week it was up 15 trillion. Week before up 7.5 trillion there we had a negative there. So yeah, we are uh we have brought the balance sheet we've introduced almost $ 34 trillion in the last month to the size of the balance sheet or sorry 34 billion trillion. Can you imagine $34 billion that's another $34 billion that supports asset prices. So uh looking to build a start building position at Ster Labs it comes closer to 300 already started on the short side.

[00:41:00]If you were streaming till noon today, no, no, no. Next Thursday, I'll do my pre-market till about 9. Uh, and then I'll come back on at 10. This will be in Discord on the market stage or the main stage. I mean, the market stage, main stage. I think I can I think the audience can hold 420.

[00:41:21]That's about it. Uh, I don't know that that's going to work. We're going to try it. Uh, and then I will do uh some trades live, show you how to set up some V trades live and what I'm looking at, how we get our delta and gamma to where we want it to be.

[00:41:37]Uh, and then we can judge how much how much theta we have. We can set a theta budget so that we we don't run into any trouble. Uh, and determine what our income per day is, where our stops are.

[00:41:49]um about 3 hours to get that done cuz there's there's a lot of setup before you just go doing something and throwing it in your portfolio. There's a lot of thinking you got to do beforehand.

[00:42:01]There's a lot of setup that you have to do. And if you do all of your risk management up front before anything even hits your portfolio, you can just get on with your day. So many people buy something, they put it in their portfolio, and then they watch and they're watching, they're riskmanaging, you know, if it does this or does that.

[00:42:18]Um, do it all first. Get it out of the way. Then you can move on. You can start looking for the next target. Right. So, we're going to do that. That'll be next Thursday from uh 10:00 to 1. If we we get good three hours in, I can I can get a lot in. The problem I think I might have is with 400 people in there, I may not be able to keep up with the questions. Well, first of all, I know I won't be able to keep up with the questions, but let's just see how many questions there are.

[00:42:48]Um, and then I'll know for future uh sessions how I can set the size. Maybe I'd have to reduce the size of uh the numbers coming in. Do you play V on companies that you know? Yeah. If not, how do you determine your bias? I play them on on companies I know and companies I don't know. If the volatility is there and it's high enough, there are times where I don't give a [ __ ] what the company does. I don't really care what the company AXTI when I first started playing it. I didn't really understand what it did. I mean, I read a few things like, okay, I get what you're doing there, but I don't really know who your customers are or what you're doing, but I know you have volatility. And it had almost 200% when I started. I think we're down to Where is AXTI now? XTI is down to 150, 140, 148.

[00:43:44]Um once you got start getting down to 100 90 80 there are better targets. Um that's when it becomes less interesting uh as a vol play. It may be interesting as a delta play but it stops being interesting as a vol play.

[00:43:58]Uh any views on SoFi? Nope. No I I don't have that one. Do you play vol on answer that uh way to manage the future oil spread? What is your view to manage risk? What is your view on selling puts for the shorter data contract?

[00:44:15]So what I did was um when the December contract was elevated, I sold the December contracts. I had 28 of them. So that provided $115,000 uh in a gain. And then I sold $110 puts against the September underlying. Uh and it was done in such a way that it gets me out with about 70 cents uh extra uh as the time decays. Usually on a spread trade, you make money on one leg, you lose money on the other. Well, I've made money on one leg and I've sold the puts in such a way that I lose nothing on the other. Uh the theta every day, let's have a look, I think is about $1600. So every day that passes uh is $1,600 of time value that runs off. So let's just look at where the CL trade is right now. Uh so CL front month is uh negative 153,000 on on the front month. Uh but the uh the puts uh have 41. So if we look at September at -150 minus the 41 you're at 109. I've already taken 115 profit. Uh so this would be 109. But why would I do that? Why why would I take the 109 loss?

[00:45:32]I think I can have zero loss. As long as September oil stays below 110, I will end with zero loss. And every day that goes by, the theta is 053.

[00:45:44]Where's my calculator? So take 053, multiply by the quantity, which is a,000 for CL, and then multiply by 28. Uh $1,484.

[00:45:56]So if I wait another day, I get another $1,484 off of that. and we have a long weekend coming up. So, uh roughly about $6,000 will will um um disappear off of the off of the contract. Uh the price right now of those are 2470.

[00:46:19]September oil is sitting at 90.

[00:46:23]So, we can see that there's uh roughly about $4.70 or $4,700 per contract left to go times 20. There's $131,600 of time value left to decay.

[00:46:36]Uh and I get 14 almost 1,500 of that every single day.

[00:46:41]I'm good. I'm good. So you can you can change your your spread uh into uh when you take off one leg, your margin is going to shoot right up because now you have 28 short uh Oh, look at that.

[00:46:57]You see what just happened there? Ah um because you have 28 Well, I'll have 28 uh um short contracts. So when you sell the the 110 uh puts against it, you re your margin again. And on any big drop down, I am now selling the 75 put under that contract. So, I'm going to play.

[00:47:17]So, now I get a volatility play on the other end of that play, which is nice.

[00:47:23]Uh, you sold courses, right? Never expected you check Never expected you check markets.

[00:47:31]It's what I do. Do you day trade or long-term investing? Day trade is a tool. If you ask a a carpenter, "Are you a hammerer?"

[00:47:41]The carpenter would say, "Well, no, I'm a carpenter, but I do use a hammer." Uh, a day trade is only a tool. It's not It's not a strategy because day trading is, if you set out to day trade, you got to get lucky. You got to get lucky because you're playing noise. Noise is brutally hard to play. And even if you play with lines on charts, you draw your stop, you draw your lines on charts. Um, that works 50% of the time. So now you've added a random strategy to a random strategy. No, day trading is it's it's it's a tool. Now there are times where it makes sense, but I don't set out to do it. There are time I'll open a trade and it moves incredibly during the day and I think, "Oh, wow. I may as well take it. Thank you." Uh, but I don't look I don't look around to to day trade. I make the same decision every day on every trade. If I wasn't in this, would I enter it now? And if the answer is yes, I stay exactly where I am.

[00:48:39]Um, no, I don't day trade. Uh, did Mark exit ZQ? No, I still have ZQ. I still have ZQ. It has not been my friend.

[00:48:50]Uh, today, no high impact news. No. Uh, consumer confidence, that's about it.

[00:48:55]Consumer sentiment. Sorry. Have you tried the new Gemini model? No. Uh I uh I believe it is out. Let me head over here. Let's see what we have. Um I would have to refresh this. Let me refresh and let's see if the model updates for me. I have um 3.1 Pro.

[00:49:19]Uh I noticed it changed its font. Is that a thing? I mean, it changed its font. I guess that's a thing. So, yay. I got a new font. Um, I don't know.

[00:49:33]I haven't tried it yet. I'm still Claude does pretty much everything I need to do.

[00:49:39]Uh, will you buy uh SpaceX shares? No.

[00:49:43]Where is he reading the chat from? Is he streaming on Twitch? No, this is YouTube and the chat is just right on the side of the screen for me. Have you considered starting a Substack? No. Uh thoughts on shorting semis that I probably would not do. Although it's hard to look at SanDisk, Micron and Seagate, Western Digital, the storage NAND uh uh the DRAM, the NAND and the storage uh sector without saying, look, man, this this this is cyclical. It can't hold. However, there really is no significant capacity coming on till later this year and into next year. And especially once you get to the end of 2027, 2028, a lot of capacity is coming online. This story is is going to be over. Not today. Not today. Now, do Canadian oil producers stand to massively benefit from Hermoose crisis?

[00:50:37]Yes, because if you pull up the benchmark price, which is West uh West Texas, um West Canada Select uh because of its quality and its location does trade uh at lower uh at lower uh price to the benchmark. That's called a basis.

[00:50:53]So, it has a a negative quality basis, negative location basis. Uh sometimes as much as 20 bucks, but when you push the price of WTI up, you also push the price of West Canada Select up. uh and I think uh Canada sells some five to 5 a.5 million barrels a day into the US.

[00:51:16]Uh thoughts on upcoming dilution risk for AXTI? Something about a share count increase at their next shareholder meeting? No. Well, that's not that's not necessarily a um uh a dilution. Uh, every company is authorized to issue a certain number of shares and that's usually set very high and under that they issue. So you might have a company that says authorized 1 billion shares issued 200 million which means they don't have to change their charter for another 800 million shares. Uh but if they're authorized to issue let's say 75 million and they have 60 million issued and uh they need to add capacity, you got to find a way to at least lift the ceiling on the amount that you're authorized in case you do uh want to issue shares, right? So all they're doing is is um looking to raise the amount that they are authorized to issue. uh whether they issue them or not, who knows? But they're just it's just prudent to say, "Well, let's just let's just get ready." Besides, show me one stock where the market gives a [ __ ] about dilution in the AI space.

[00:52:29]Cororeweave has diluted and diluted and diluted and no one says anything. No one brings it up. No one says, "Well, they in one year they went from 200,000 shares or 250,000 to over 500,000 shares. which means they should be cut in half. Their price should be cut in half per share, but no, it went up. So, show me in this storied stock universe that we live in today, show me one stock where anyone gives a [ __ ] about dilution anymore. No one cares. So, every company does it. Why? Because you're not watching and you don't care. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. But look, just look at the sheer amount of sharebased compensation these companies are throwing out. Um, with no stock buybacks. That's dilution. That's dilution.

[00:53:21]Uh, how do you structure your BE trade to protect yourself up to 380?

[00:53:25]Uh, I can show you that next uh next Thursday. My understanding is that uh Topicus utilizes AI to make their acquisitions more profitable. Do you consider to be a decisive edge over consolation software? I'm not necessarily sure. I mean, uh, there are there are things I use AI for that I think I could never get this done in any reasonable amount of time myself. Uh, but I am skeptical of the numbers. So, it's always always you need to give me references for every for every statement. I need a reference so that I can check to see that that is true. Now, I uses more tokens. It's going to cost me more, but a mistake a mistake can be devastating. Um, Sure. Sure. I think you'll see more of that. That is the promise of AI is is is that it does uh um add to your productivity significantly. Sure. Do you live stream every morning? Um well, not live. Uh it's usually unlisted and it's usually for Discord, the Discord uh um crew only. So um don't get used to this. This was a mistake. What are your target prices expected annual rate of return?

[00:54:33]Copex Cyber today from uh I don't know.

[00:54:37]I I don't engage in that kind of stuff.

[00:54:39]Who who the hell knows? You're just pulling pulling a number out of your ass. Uh higher uh higher is what I would say. Higher.

[00:54:48]Uh rather muted Nvidia move after earnings. Yeah. Well, it's hard to move a five a $5 trillion uh company. It's hard to move a move it especially when you're operating at capacity uh and you don't have any new capacity coming online uh and you're relying on pricing.

[00:55:05]It is hard to move a $5 trillion company.

[00:55:09]Uh what Jensen can do more to impress the market a backflip.

[00:55:18]I think the market's thoroughly impressed with Nvidia again. I mean, how how it can't possibly go up every single earnings and up and up 5 trillion, 6 trillion, 7 at some point, you got to say, "Look, man, you know, like you're pricing in a lot. Maybe this is the run rate for your revenue." And and now your growth at this level, maybe your growth is sub 10% per year for maybe the next two or three years until the AI infrastructure build is done. uh and you're going to get consolidation. Uh you've really got what six to 10 major models out there. Um and the Chinese models are you can't ignore the Chinese models and they're not using Nvidia chips. They're cheaper to run. They're cheaper to operate than the American models. Uh even if you're paying for tokens, it's like a third the cost. Uh and they are pretty good.

[00:56:16]So, you know, how much more do you want it to go?

[00:56:22]Actually, I already did that. Uh, you suggested two times ATR is a good tool for sizing. True. Say a long position.

[00:56:28]How would you size long short positions in mean reverting trade? Correlation between long and short legs complicates this. Uh, well, mean reverting trade.

[00:56:38]Uh, I mean, uh, yeah, you're asking me to speak abstractly about something I can't see. It's better if I had an example uh to look at that I could that I could that I could see.

[00:56:49]Uh if we can't attend live sessions on Thursday, we possibly record it on Discord. It will be recorded on Discord.

[00:56:55]Does this crash eventually on earnings or credit or what? Um well, earnings usually follow. Earnings usually don't lead. Earnings usually follow. Um, I don't know that I can see a credit issue on the horizon. Uh, but this that's the whole thing with credit is you never actually see it. It just shows up one day that I would seem to think if something's going to take the market down, it usually is a credit event. Um, usually. Uh, anyways, um, Gemini 3.5. I don't I don't have Gemini 3.5 and I pay uh uh $300 uh uh uh $339 a month here. I got I got 3.5 flash 3.1 flashlight 3.1 Pro and that's it. I don't have this uh particular open sidebar videos new. Oh, you can create videos. Uh, yeah, maybe I have to do a little bit more or log out and log back in to get it as opposed to just refresh. Where is my uh camera here? Okay, let's do one last tour here before we go. Let's see what we have on our uh screens here.

[00:58:17]Miners still pretty much where they are.

[00:58:19]Where's our metals? Copper nice and strong. Silver coming back uh 7655. It printed 77s yesterday. I do expect 80s uh at some point. It's I think it's inevitable on on silver. Gold kind of hanging in there and consolidating. Uh energy. Well, there we go. That that was shortlived. Uh and uh the market just doesn't give a [ __ ] Just doesn't give a [ __ ] Um okay, there we are.

[00:58:55]uh still green on uh on ZQ although I mean let's face it it's uh it's been an ugly trade altogether the April ZQ 9608 pricing in one rate hike I'm hoping that Wars today can can throw some cold water on the whole notion of rate hikes uh I really don't see rate hikes uh happening anyways let's end it here uh I'll be back on uh Sunday night uh for GlobeEx Actually, no, no, no, no, no, no GlobeEx Sunday night because there is no market on Monday. What would be the point? Um, even though Globeex will be open, what would be the point? There'd be almost no volume. Uh, so there'll be no GlobeEx Sunday night. Uh, we can push Globeex to Monday night. Yeah, Monday night.

[00:59:47]Uh, I think after a long weekend, I don't think that it opens till 8:00 p.m.

[00:59:54]Uh, but we'll try it anyways. We'll see what's going on. We'll do a GlobeEx for uh Monday night. Then we'll do our regular um things uh in the morning. Um and then we'll set up I think it's the market stage we're going to do uh do it on because um this is for applied level.

[01:00:12]Uh so we'll we'll do our trading thing.

[01:00:15]um on the market stage. Okay. Uh let's have uh let's have a successful day. Ciao, guys.