Hi Trader,
Tomorrow night at 6 PM Eastern, a few hundred thousand people are going to open the same app at the same moment and stare at one number.
Futures.
Green or red?
And for the first time in a long time, they won’t be looking out of habit… They’ll be looking because they’re worried.
I’ve done this job of watching, figuring out, and writing stories about the market… since about 2005.
So I’ve sat through a few of these weekends.
The one after Lehman.
The one after the Covid circuit breakers.
The one after Liberation Day last spring.
They all have the same feel to them: everyone’s suddenly an expert, nobody’s actually sleeping, and the whole conversation shrinks down to one dumb question…
Crash or no crash?
That’s where I was by midday yesterday.
After the big selling day we saw Thursday, you’d want the next day to give you a nice big bounce.
Didn’ t really happen.
That close looked weak. Anemic, even. It had no guts to it.
The chips bounced, nearly two of every three S&P stocks still fell, a hot jobs report pushed rate-hike odds back up, and the index closed out its worst week since the tariff crash.
Call that a recovery if you want. I don’t.
So now the guessing game.
Either someone in the administration drops a Sunday-night post, a data-center executive order, a Fed walk-back, anything to stop the bleeding, or nothing comes and the Nasdaq makes its correction official for everyone who hasn’t admitted it yet.
I have no idea which one we get.
Neither does anyone selling you certainty this weekend.
What I do now is that we started last week by putting everyone on the team in front of you to get you ready for the big changes we’re already starting to see.
Mark said oil and gas sell off on a Democratic win.
Andrew sold every oil stock he owned and bought Exxon puts the day before.
Brent broke under $100 on Wednesday for the first time since early October.
Frank gave three names for Wednesday’s open: HCA, Oscar and First Solar. First Solar ran 9%, Molina popped 6%, Centene 4.5%, and the hospitals rallied.
Frank also called GEO and CoreCivic played out. Both sank more than 5%.
Andrew’s Booz Allen call popped to 88.50 before the profit-takers showed up.
And on Wednesday morning Mark said on air that any real weakness in defense turns into a buying opportunity, with the 13-F filings in two weeks as his tell.
Thursday handed him the weakness.
None of those calls needed to know whether the index was about to crash. They needed to know who gets paid and who gets hurt when power changes hands in Washington, and that read keeps paying whether the Nasdaq gaps up 2% or down 4% on Monday.
I’ve never been the loud consensus guy.
Crash or no crash is a coin flip dressed up as analysis, and it’s the only angle anyone’s taking this weekend.
The one nobody’s taking: the next 58 days reshuffle the money in Washington on a schedule that has nothing to do with Monday’s open.
December 7th, the defense bill compromise.
December 11th, the government runs out of funding and the Medicaid fight lands on the table.
January 1st, Medicaid work requirements kick in unless somebody delays them.
January 4th, the new Congress gets sworn in and the subpoenas start.
Every one of those dates already has winners and losers lining up. Defense primes, Medicaid insurers, private prisons, solar, data-center power, private credit.
Making the moves is what Cycle 11: The Post-Election Playbook is all about.
Mark runs it from now until January 3rd, with every Option Pit trader feeding him setups and Mark vetting each one on money flow, volatility and sentiment before it goes out.
Mark’s first trade goes out Monday, November 9th at 10:30 AM ET.
Come get in before that first trade goes out.
And get a free month of Andrew’s Two-Way-Trades added on.
Tap this link to find out more.
Have a great weekend,
Charles Delvalle
Editorial Director, Option Pit