Futures update brought to you by 11 day old Baby Lucy and the father that won't sleep.

Looks like the major indexes have cut the losses in half so far. Down 1 to 1.25% now.

Mornun!

US red
EU red
Asia mostly green

Watching for 424-425 on SPY. Don't have my exact levels since I'm driving. Alerts set though to exit puts as a trade.



Trade wisely!

FJ43 said:

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RUSSIAN CENTRAL BANK SAYS IT WILL NOT OPEN STOCK TRADING ON MOSCOW EXCHANGE ON MONDAY

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) February 28, 2022

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The oligarchs are not happy. One step closer to possibly deposing Putin. One can hope.

Picked a great week to take off….What did I miss??

Russia CB Doubles Rates to 20%...Talks Start...How Hawkish Will Powell Be

Stocks are rallying dramatically from the overnight lows... S+P Futures have gone from a low of 4251 in the Asian session to 4340 now, up 89 points off the lows... Liquidity has been awful , but that is no surprise... Catalyst was the start of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia on the Belarus border... These talks will fail as Zelensky said the low level of the delegation from Russia was just another smoke screen to their invasion... Nonetheless the markets are trying to put in perspective what this war means for Global markets... Clearly this is not over, and the sanctions will bite, but we doubt it slows the Russians, they only know true deterrence... Treasuries had an up and down moves overnight, with the yield curve steepening in the Asian session . 10 years remained in a range of 1.88 to 1.92, they had closed Friday at 1.96.

Is it safe to talk about the US economy and the outlook for the Fed?. ..Probably not, but we have no choice...Powell speaks in front of Congress Wednesday at the House and Thursday at the Senate... There are 6 other speakers this week including Bostic today and Bullard on Wednesday.. Both Bullard and Waller had talked very aggressively about getting in front of inflation with a 50 basis hike in March...Markets believe that the turmoil in Europe will prevent the Fed from going 50 in March, but expect them to go again in May... Here is our concern... Waller made it clear last week that the Fed will be data dependent in determining whether they go 50 in March... Unfortunately the data, which is lagging, will be awful...Morgan Stanley is the only survey member that has posted on BB and they are expecting an 8% YOY CPI for March 10... Add in the recent PCI data and the upcoming employment report, and you could get numbers that would trigger the Fed to go 50... We still do not believe the Fed will go 50 in 2 weeks, but the chance of it happening, and Powell's reference to "data dependent" ,are worrisome to that view.

Waller 2.. Balance sheet reduction... We were traveling last week to Miami.. Flights are oversold and hotels are booked solid... There is no slowdown in sight... But we saw the tail end of Waller's comments on the Fed balance sheet... HE SAID THE BALANCE SHEET SHOULD BE 8% OF GDP, WHICH IS ABOUT 1.7 TRILLION. PROBLEM IS THAT THE CURRENT BALANCE SHEET IS CLOSE TO 9 TRILLION... And yes he said the Fed should get out of Mortgages, but the FT has an article this morning "Investors Brace for Flood of Mortgage Bonds when Fed Trims Balance Sheet"... Not a pretty sight

Equities... Some think the worst is over, but we are skeptical of that view... Liquidity in all markets is awful, as we predicted...GS was out this morning saying that money is still flowing into equities at a steady pace, but liquidity is evaporating. That is part of the dizzying volatility, including intraday swings of 3% and more. EQUITY LIQUIDITY HAS SLUMPED TO LEVELS SEEN ONLY THREE TIMES IN THE LAST 15 YEARS...Meanwhile JPM, who seems to remain bullish of equities, says that the majority of military conflicts end up being buying opportunities... And last Thursday, even though we were not around to write about, saw the largest day of buying in North American equities since November of 2020... This from MS, who said it was majority backed from HF, who had been short and looking for a place to cover.

Volatility is not over... The Ukraine Russian conflict will go on... Biden will talk about it in his State of the Union speech tomorrow... But what will he say?... No one wants to send troops, but that is the only deterrence that Putin understands... But as Bank America said last week, Ukraine is number 5 on the list of concerns of institutional investors with the Fed and Inflation being number 1 and 2... And the Fed is concerned that inflation has gotten away from them... And they are correct... And higher oil prices do not make it easier... So what will Powell say on Wednesday and Thursday?... Will he bring the 50 talk back?...we do not think so, but we can hear him now repeating that he is "data dependent" and we already know that the data will be awful next week...

i think we're just chopping

gougler08 said:

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Bob Knights Liver said:

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Irish 2.0 said:

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I'm done for the weekend. Added some 3/4 SPY 420P at 1.65 that I'll carry over the weekend.

Y'all have a good one

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These are going to pay! I wish I'd added more than 3 of them or that they were SPX puts.

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Has anyone confirmed that Irish is alive after cook off?

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cctexagMD said:

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wanderer said:

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If you're on the website or using the TD app, you'll have to use "$XSP.X". You can use "XSP" if you're in TOS or the TOS app. (or at least in my experience)

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What is XSP on Robinhood?

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step 1 withdraw all money from RH, step 2 create a cash account with TDA. step 3 trade XSP on TOS/ TDA

Today finishes +2%.

cctexagMD said:

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wanderer said:

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If you're on the website or using the TD app, you'll have to use "$XSP.X". You can use "XSP" if you're in TOS or the TOS app. (or at least in my experience)

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What is XSP on Robinhood?

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If you're smart enough to be a doctor, then you need to be smart enough not to use Robinhood.

50K account: Adding 2 AMD 125C at 1.98

Bob Knights Liver said:

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I plan to trade TSLA from 8:45-9:30. Up or down, doesn't matter but I'll only do it if SPX is going the same way. I'll use the open or the high/low from the opening 15 min candle as a stop.

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I was out by 9:00. Made 40% on the trade and 2% in the trading account. On the road the rest of the day.