Yo Pit Crazies,

Rallying to all-time highs is usually a sign of celebration. 

Folks look at their 401(k)s and feel real happy. Retirement gets closer, and the Gen Xers are starting to notice what the Boomers are doing over there in happy retirement land. 

AI was the wave the Gen Xers got to sail into the retirement sunset. The Boomers rode the internet boom into their retirement years, and Gen X, or the old Xers like me, see the AI boom as the next market cycle up.

Then last week struck. 

All of a sudden AI was bad for all the stocks it used to be good for. The Mag 7 will have to spend oodles of dollars, and nobody knows what the payout will be. 

Software companies, once the pride of the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), got 20 percent to 40 percent of their value lopped off. 

And let’s talk about jobs.

SPY 20 day chart

Things are changing, from what companies are hiring for, to the people they hire, to what AI might be able to do for them. That naturally makes hiring slow down.

That makes this jobs and CPI data important.

Traders are keeping VIX near 18 for this jobs number. That’s pretty high considering stocks are trading at or near all-time highs for SPX.

If the job number is decent, we should rally, but the VIX crush won’t come until the CPI number comes out.

A bad number will set us back below 6,900 again, and there’s no joy in VIX crush land.

Rant and Rave: Congress Broke It, VIX Knows It

There was a time when the political parties actually had different agendas. We are into year five of the COVID spending free-for-all, and the only thing I am certain of is:

We didn’t need it.

It’s causing inflation.

My guess is the Uniparty started to form when GW Bush got elected. Maybe around 9/11 this coming together happened, but all of the freedom loss and massive federal outlays since then have delivered zero for the American people. Everything, including healthcare, is ridiculously more expensive. And my guess is Congress is to blame for nearly all of it. Will we skate on this inflation number with crazy federal outlays? VIX says we might not.