General Discussion

Monday's rumor of a 90-day pause showed how easy the market would go up.

Wednesday went right up the level of "Liberation Day" and stopped there. Then overnight came the realization that uncertainty will continue and that is the biggest drag. Pausing tariffs will not end the uncertainty but rather will prolong it.

I disagree that Trump's family or others are playing on inside info because 1) these broad moves aren't the stuff that insider trading thrives on, 2) it assumes that there is coordination and the ability to plan despite the fact we see no evidence for that and 3) they have other, more reliable ways to profit from Trump's presidency as many analysts have cited.

Further, there seemed to be some "stop hunting" right before the bounce on Wednesday. If you look at charts you will see a distinct dip, nearly straight down at around 1:12 when volume was low. Stop hunting is when large traders look at order flow, they look at where retail traders have their protection sell limits (stop loss orders) and what amounts they will sell at those numbers. So, knowing that the market is about to rally with huge volume, stop hunters put up one last big sell order that makes prices dip low enough that all those stop losses get triggered -- they buy them then the market shoots up. That kind of play is not something Don Jr or Eric could pull off because it takes real time access to order flows, algos and, likely, front running the trades.

My guy is as angry as I have ever seen him which is not much -- from the 3:00 to 5:00