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The week so far has been quite clean. We had the DeepSeek plunge on Monday and the everything-is-just-fine-you-big-sillies countertrend rally yesterday, which undid most of the fun. Today, of course, is the Jerome Powell show, and my hunch is that he’s going to let the air out of the tires again.
A real-time example of my Securitization of Feelings concept can be seen this morning in the plunge in price of the equity DJT. Simply stated, the Trump coin has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Trump fans have a better, more volatile instrument with which to express themselves. DJT is boring.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Tulip bulbs. The South Sea bubble. Japan in the late 1980s. We’ve heard these tired old tropes countless times, yet given the age we live in, these allegories are the equivalent of holding up a $20 bill and expecting to keep the rapt attention of your audience while there is a billion bucks of gold stacked up behind you. We need the drama to match our new reality.
What we are experiencing at this very moment utterly dwarfs all past examples, and on this very weekend, we have entered an entirely new level of crazy.
If you look at Slope’s trading rules, number VIII (that’s 8 for you non-ancient-Romans) reads as follows:
VIII. EMOTIONAL AWARENESS IS YOUR GREATEST ASSET – Feeling super-confident and giddy? You should probably be in all cash. Feeling demoralized, frustrated, and out of synch? You’re probably close to a great entry point.
Hmmm. How has the Timster been feeling lately? Demoralized? Check. Frustrated? Check. Out of synch? Czechoslovakia. That’s probably why I woke up at 3 in the morning and stayed up until I got up.
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