OP Ed Note: This Editorial Was Drafted Without AI

Yo Pit Crazies,

Fall’s in full swing here in Maine, and for those who know, that means burn season.

You can pull a burn permit online (which my wife did today).

My oldest son bucked up some logs to roll into the fire once it got nice and hot.

The photo above is kinda sneaky. That pit’s deep, and there’s no small amount of brush and logs down in there. Here’s the angle from right next to the fire:

It’s four feet from the bottom of the pit to the top of the ledge. We’ve got a lot of granite ledge around here because the last ice age parked at least a mile and a half of ice over Maine about 25,000 years ago. That ice carved the coastline we’ve got now.

Perspective is everything, and this week’s headlines could use some.

Current News Is Just Awful

With one party in power, the news around the election was bound to be awful. Just look at the National Enquirer-style headlines below. Read them and you’d think disaster’s right around the corner.

With all that bad news, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) should be down 1 or 2 percent. Instead, it slipped barely 0.1 percent today.

The Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) fell 0.7 percent because we’re running out of money for AI. That story’s been making the rounds since last week, when chip stocks sold off on chatter about OpenAI’s revenue and rising borrowing costs made all that data center spending harder to justify. More painting the tape with bad news.

The Thing You Won’t Expect Will Happen

Frank Gregory is going live with his take on the election. Look for that announcement soon.

On the trading side, the September CPI number drops Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, with PPI right behind it Thursday. That should be a big catalyst.

Most of the inflation is coming from oil prices and congressional spending. Bond traders have been dumping long-term Treasuries for months, worried the Iran war keeps energy prices high and government finances keep sliding.

Until those numbers hit, there’s very little action this week. There’s still action in single-name stocks (individual companies, not the indexes), which is why they’re fun to trade.

SNAP Crackle Pop

I flagged the big open interest buildup (the number of option contracts traders are holding open) in Snap Inc. (SNAP). It’s now pushing to its best levels in months. Go me.

Snap set its third-quarter earnings call for November 4, which gives those option holders a catalyst on the calendar.

SNAP 3-Month Chart

Perspective is everything.

Take a look at the next big market opportunity here.

I hope this was helpful,

AG