Rio, Market Catnician

I was promised a “country of geniuses,” to quote Dario. Until I get mine, for free, with no strings attached and a written guarantee that none of them will go rogue, I won’t touch AI. And that’s that, damn it!

Procrastination/workaholism. You can’t start because you might never stop. You can’t stop because you might never start again. Immanuel Can’t, interpreting Procrates

Rio, Market Catnician reposted

16 Sept

Replying to @ivanthek.bsky.social

🤣🤣🤣 That about sums it up. Since my reflexes aren't what they used to be, I'll wait for the dust to settle, say by Friday, 5 minutes before the close.

16 Sept

Apple made a phone that folds like a book. I'll buy the one that unrolls like a scroll. Quill sold separately.

15 Apr

“Our model is too dangerous to release.” Also: “We’re spending hundreds of millions backing politicians who oppose regulating AI.”

15 Apr

Anyone who's got a problem with Mamdani is the problem at this point.

7 Apr

Heard somewhere on the interwebs: “I hope and pray. And I’m not even religious.” I concur. And as a trader, I don’t even believe in hope.

26 Mar

When the NYT runs “The Long Farewell to Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse,” you at least have to ask whether the burial is getting a bit too unanimous. substack.com/@musingtrade...

The Saturday Morning Perfect Hindsight Report What's there to say? Last week, we said 6500-ish was crucial support. This week, we closed at 6500-ish.

This is full risk-off: stocks, precious metals, even bonds are down (the latter being a scary development, reflecting a potential reversal in Fed expectations.) Oil, on the other hand, remains parabolic.

Same as last week: expect gaps, violent intraday swings, expensive option premiums. Size down. Respect stops. Be careful out there. Thanks for reading. 🙏🏻🙏🏻👊🍻

The Saturday Morning Perfect Hindsight Report What's there to say? Last week, we said 6500-ish was crucial support. This week, we closed at 6500-ish.

6700-ish is now resistance because broken support tends to become overhead supply. If 6500-ish breaks decisively, that opens up a measured-move target near yet another round, almost too-simple-to-believe number: 6000-ish.

That would leave $SPX roughly 14% below the 7000-ish all-time high, well into correction territory. Would the geopolitical situation justify that kind of correction? You tell me Tbh, I’m surprised we’re only about 7% below the highs. Maybe the “nothing ever happens” crowd is right after all?

The Saturday Morning Perfect Hindsight Report What's there to say? Last week, we said 6500-ish was crucial support. This week, we closed at 6500-ish.

Uncertainty is higher. Volatility is worse. Momentum is still tsunami-level to the downside. 6500-ish is support until it isn’t. The 50-week SMA clocks in at 6460-ish, making it the last line of defense before things get structurally ugly.

Unpopular opinion: Dollar cost averaging is a scam.

True. But EMH cultists beg to differ. Their loss.

h/t: Beardo on the other app.

Unpopular opinion: Dollar cost averaging is a scam.

I'd rather just buy the bottom instead of having to dollar cost average the whole way down.

1/4 Not an ideal way to end the week. $SPX closed near the bottom of the weekly candle, with $VIX near 30 and — more ominously — at the lower end of the all-important 6700–6800 support zone.

3/4 Technical damage is piling up. That short-term weekly moving average — the green line that caught the falling knives a couple weeks ago — failed. Price sliced through it and closed below it at 6738. 6700 is now the line in the sand.

4/4 Base case: chop with downside risk until proven otherwise. A decisive weekly close below 6700 opens 6650 / 6550 / 6200. A weekly close back above 6800 would help stabilize the structure.

1/4 Not an ideal way to end the week. $SPX closed near the bottom of the weekly candle, with $VIX near 30 and — more ominously — at the lower end of the all-important 6700–6800 support zone.

2/4 Add a dangerous Middle East war and oil back above $90, and the “range violence” we’ve been tracking just took a darker turn. This isn’t simple digestion anymore. It’s headline risk getting priced in.

28 Feb

$SPX weekly: Weekend recaps used to be “safe” because markets were closed. That was then. This weekend the U.S. + Israel struck Iran, so gap risk is real into Monday. By the open, the storyline may have changed radically.

28 Feb

Still: price is price. Same range violence: 7000 rejected again; 6700–6800 still the floor. Base case: chop 6700–7000. Weekly close >7000 = breakout. Weekly close <~6700 = breakdown (watch ~6650/~6550 next).

27 Feb

Wall Street checking its exposure to private credit.

Rio, Market Catnician reposted

18 Feb

Replying to @carlquintanilla.bsky.social

If it's eaten by the consumers it's deflationary, though. So all in all, over some cunningly-chosen period, it's a wash. If you know what I mean...

18 Feb

When did “process” become “workflow”? Not saying the AI overlords did it, but… if you wanted to make everything sound automatable, this is exactly how you’d start! #GSR (Great Semantic Replacement)

17 Feb

Moat is just a polite way to say monopoly.

16 Feb

What does it tell you that the disruptors (OpenAI, Anthropic) are private, while the “disruptees” (most SaaS) are public? No wrong answers.

15 Feb

SPX weekly: midweek air pocket was tech de-risking as AI gets repriced (disruption + capex). Mag 7 made headlines ugly, but internals rotated into defensives; cooler CPI/yields gave cover for a bounce. Still range violence: 7000 lid, 6700–6800 floor. Weekly close >7000 or <~6700 to resolve

30 May 2025

8 Apr 2025

I'm posting this chart here for no reason whatsoever. It has absolutely no relevance to current events and therefore cannot, I repeat, cannot be taken as a cautionary tale. /s h/t: Kyla Scanlon

7 Apr 2025

Best comments of the day (so far): "Yeah, but if tariffs cure the woke mind virus, it'll all have been worth it." "Also, I told you tariffs weren't inflationary. Stagflationary or deflationary but not inflationary."

12 Mar 2025

The following is an absurd and grotesque illustration of a ridiculous potential slippery slope: 1. "Every person who vandalizes a Tesla is a domestic terrorist" 2,3,4,5. Use your imagination 6. "Every person who does not buy a Tesla is a domestic terrorist" 🤣😭🤣😭🤣😭

12 Mar 2025

Word to the wise: If you think that by giving feedback to the chatbot of your choice will make it smarter or more personalized, i.e. that chatbots use real-time Reinforcement Learning, think again. Gemini and DeepSeek both confirmed that it's way too computationally onerous. Sad.

10 Mar 2025

Me to Gemini (with "thinking"): "Thank you for your useful input." Gemini "thoughts": "The user is expressing gratitude, which signals the end of the current line of questioning." Chatbots are off-the-charts autistic and how can it not rub off on us?

17 Feb 2025

It might've been a tumultuous week in DC but on Wall Street, after a hotter-than-expected CPI followed by a cooler-than-expected PPI, lethargic is more like it. 5800-ish is still key $SPX support and 6400-ish is still the measured move target, should 6100-ish capitulate. Thank you for reading.

The Bears had their shot this week. Repeatedly. But the 5850-ish $SPX support is still holding and we finished the week on a positive note right at the 10-week SMA @ 5950-ish. So we're still long-term and medium-term bullish, short-term neutral.

lore but the next few trading days are important at the very least sentiment-wise. Can the market recapture the post-election euphoric mood and keep it until we get a look at what the incoming administration's initial moves are?

The index will have to finally shake free of that 5850-ish to 6100-ish zone it's been stuck in for two months. Below that, we have the all-important 5700-ish support. Above, we logically (not that there's that much logic in markets!) now have a measured move target of 6250-ish. 🙏🙏👊🍻

You know the saying "as goes January, so goes the year", modified by some into "as goes the first week of January, so goes January and therefore the year?" I'm not sure about the statistical significance of this classic piece of

13 Nov 2024

Socrates knew about the normal distribution! This from Plato's The Last Days of Socrates:

13 Nov 2024

Is there anybody out there?

August 2024 is now consigned to the dustbin of trading history, with its “VIX at 66” and its long lower wick/tail (also known in Japanese Candlestick parlance as a shadow - how poetic and maybe prophetic?) on the monthly $SPX chart (1st below.)

The potential double-top is goading us, the potential measured move to 6200-ish is enticing us, and the August 5th low @ 5100-ish is daring us. Enjoy the Labor Day weekend! 🙏🙏👊🍻

The enormous work that has been accomplished to repair the technical damage in the weekly chart (2nd below) and bring the index back to ATH territory @ 5650-ish has also put it in a somewhat equivocal spot.