All right, everybody, let’s jump right into it.

This morning on I’d Trade That, I handed you something I’d happily let you steal. Write an article about it tomorrow, claim you discovered it, and I won’t be upset. I’ll just go, “Yeah, you’re right. That’s 100% how the markets work.”

I want this to be your thing. I want it to make you money. I want you to be rich, because having money is awesome.

The setup fired on my screen while we were live, too, and further down I’ll tell you what I’m doing with about a hundred bucks before Monday.

You can watch the replay below or scroll down for the wrap up:

What the Newsletter Guys Charged For

It started with Lynn, who asked for a TradingView tutorial. Lynn, you need it. The Essential plan runs $12.95 a month.

They’re always going to try to make you upgrade. Don’t. You don’t need extra New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq data, because you only need to track individual stocks and trade the Qs.

I know. It’s one more charge on the credit card. But that $13 is hopefully going to make you $130.

I worked in the financial newsletter business for a long time with people who’d take this idea and try to sell it to you for $1,295. I’m giving it to you for free.

Pull up the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) on a daily chart. Add Bollinger Bands (lines that sit a set number of standard deviations above and below the average price, so they stretch wider when the market gets wild).

Why the Nasdaq? Because that’s where the leverage lives in the whole system. I don’t care at all about Campbell’s Soup or Hershey’s. Great companies, but that’s not what this show is.

About 68% of price moves stay inside the first band. About 95% stay inside the second, and the third catches 99.7%.

When the Qs tag that third band, human beings don’t run the market anymore. Algorithms and passive investment flows do.

Fifteen Minutes of Wrong

So what happens out there? Peak fear. The headlines say we’re going down 80% and start talking about the next Great Depression.

And right at peak fear, the shorts cover.

Take Nvidia. ETFs, pension funds and hedge funds own a staggering amount of it, and they won’t let it go, because the whole financial system concentrates around 20 to 25 names. But they’ll lend it to a short seller, who pays 3% or 4% to borrow it and sells it into the market.

When those shorts have to buy back what they borrowed (that’s covering), the buying sends the whole thing back up.

This just happened in July, and it was one of the greatest trading opportunities of the last 10 years. Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund loaded up on AI stocks with a lot of leverage, and things got gnarly.

I’m not saying his AI thesis is wrong. I’m saying he was wrong for 15 minutes, and the whole market knew it was him. They figured out his positions, borrowed shares and shorted his stocks.

When Citadel bought his book on July 30, the market took back off. That’s all this is. A bunch of people went hunting, tracked this guy’s fund down and took his money.

I used to think the stock market was about earnings and valuations and everything that’s so beautiful. No. This isn’t about whether AI is a great thing. It’s about when the shorts have to cover.

Here to Here

Now look at the top right of my screen this morning. We just hit the third deviation band.

So what’s the logical play? Buy whatever Q call two weeks out costs a dollar. Set your stop at zero, because yes, this can keep selling off.

Look at yesterday. Mark and I went on a random rant, RSI (a momentum gauge that flags when something’s been sold too hard) went oversold, and we missed it because we were too busy being idiots. The QQQ 725 calls that expired yesterday went to six bucks.

If you still don’t believe me after that, please don’t watch my show ever again.

I’m always watching MFI, the money flow index (think RSI, but it also counts how much volume is moving). It doesn’t have to hit 30. If RSI is oversold and MFI sits around 35, that works.

Line up your hourly and your daily, have the conviction and bet small.

Today I layered on a one-minute VWAP (volume-weighted average price, the average price everyone’s paid today, weighted by how much they bought). This morning’s dip came from an overreaction to PPI (the wholesale inflation report). People hedged, took positions off and rolled into November.

I’m going to be bullish. It’s unpopular, but I love being a bull.

We don’t trade until the Qs get back above that line. Between yesterday’s VWAP and today’s, you’ve got bumper cars.

Buy a call near the bottom bumper and sell one near the top (a call spread). It’s only a $2 move around 724, but on expiration day that can make you 300, 400, 500 bucks. If it falls back under, you let the whole position go.

I hate losing money, so I only trade what I can see in the lines.

As for Monday, I’m going to be long. I’ll go find the dumbest thing I can buy for next Friday that costs a dollar. That’s a hundred bucks.

Heading into next week, I either make, I don’t know, $1,000, or I make nothing. But the Qs have to sit above that line before I do it. (Wazoo asked for the strike: next Friday’s 742 would be my bid, end of day.)

That’s it. It’s that stupid.

I don’t care if Elon Musk gave a speech. It’s math, guys. It’s numbers on a screen.

Have a great weekend,

I’d Trade That,

Garrett Baldwin