Unpopular opinion: Dollar cost averaging is a scam.

1/4 Not an ideal way to end the week. #$SPX closed near the bottom of the weekly candle, with #$VIX near 30 and — more ominously — at the lower end of the all-important 6700–6800 support zone.

#$SPX weekly: Weekend recaps used to be “safe” because markets were closed. That was then. This weekend the U.S. + Israel struck Iran, so gap risk is real into Monday. By the open, the storyline may have changed radically.

Wall Street checking its exposure to private credit.

If it's eaten by the consumers it's deflationary, though. So all in all, over some cunningly-chosen period, it's a wash. If you know what I mean...

When did “process” become “workflow”? Not saying the AI overlords did it, but… if you wanted to make everything sound automatable, this is exactly how you’d start! #GSR (Great Semantic Replacement)

Moat is just a polite way to say monopoly.

What does it tell you that the disruptors (OpenAI, Anthropic) are private, while the “disruptees” (most SaaS) are public? No wrong answers.

SPX weekly: midweek air pocket was tech de-risking as AI gets repriced (disruption + capex). Mag 7 made headlines ugly, but internals rotated into defensives; cooler CPI/yields gave cover for a bounce. Still range violence: 7000 lid, 6700–6800 floor. Weekly close >7000 or <~6700 to resolve

I'm posting this chart here for no reason whatsoever. It has absolutely no relevance to current events and therefore cannot, I repeat, cannot be taken as a cautionary tale. /s h/t: Kyla Scanlon

Best comments of the day (so far): "Yeah, but if tariffs cure the woke mind virus, it'll all have been worth it." "Also, I told you tariffs weren't inflationary. Stagflationary or deflationary but not inflationary."

The following is an absurd and grotesque illustration of a ridiculous potential slippery slope: 1. "Every person who vandalizes a Tesla is a domestic terrorist" 2,3,4,5. Use your imagination 6. "Every person who does not buy a Tesla is a domestic terrorist" 🤣😭🤣😭🤣😭

Word to the wise: If you think that by giving feedback to the chatbot of your choice will make it smarter or more personalized, i.e. that chatbots use real-time Reinforcement Learning, think again. Gemini and DeepSeek both confirmed that it's way too computationally onerous. Sad.

Me to Gemini (with "thinking"): "Thank you for your useful input." Gemini "thoughts": "The user is expressing gratitude, which signals the end of the current line of questioning." Chatbots are off-the-charts autistic and how can it not rub off on us?

It might've been a tumultuous week in DC but on Wall Street, after a hotter-than-expected CPI followed by a cooler-than-expected PPI, lethargic is more like it. 5800-ish is still key $SPX support and 6400-ish is still the measured move target, should 6100-ish capitulate. Thank you for reading.

The Bears had their shot this week. Repeatedly. But the 5850-ish $SPX support is still holding and we finished the week on a positive note right at the 10-week SMA @ 5950-ish. So we're still long-term and medium-term bullish, short-term neutral.

Socrates knew about the normal distribution! This from Plato's The Last Days of Socrates:

Is there anybody out there?

August 2024 is now consigned to the dustbin of trading history, with its “VIX at 66” and its long lower wick/tail (also known in Japanese Candlestick parlance as a shadow - how poetic and maybe prophetic?) on the monthly $SPX chart (1st below.)