High‑Vol Straddle Offers Near
Dec 2028 SNDK straddles at 100 vol bid. That makes the premium of the 970 strike 970. Meaning stock has to go negative to lose on the downside. Obvi if like YTD the stock doubles your SOL. But a 25% long with a straddle short seems pretty sweet. Is there a business that sells 100% 2+ year IV systematically? Seems fun.
Take a Break: Skip CPI, Play Golf
You know you don't have to write a 1000 word tweet or a new substack article on the CPI print right? Life has choices. Maybe go play or watch golf instead of jumping on the...
US Strikes Miss Core Iran Goals Despite Claimed Wins
Trying to keep score in an unbiased way. U.S. Military Accomplishments as far as I can tell. 1. Many dead old iranian leaders ✅ 2. Massive damage of navy ✅ 3. Massive damage of missile attack and defense infrastructure✅ Achievement of what...
Leveraged ETFs Trigger $18B Inelastic Buying
Classic all day stall. In aggregate 18BN got bought completely inelastically simply because leveraged ETF's rebalanced. Enough buy demand to sustain the gap.
FOMC Minutes Show Sharp RMO Cut,
FOMC minutes confirm substantial reduction in RMO in April and a reserve average expectation of 3TN. Probs still grow soma 20BN per month tho. Do the plumbers among us agree that they will full stop RMO's if a when...
Oil Prices Rise Despite Ceasefire Expectations
Thought I was a hero getting out of Dec oil yesterday after the ceasefire headlines. Nope. It's higher
23
23BN of inelastic buying keeping us in stall. Will it be enough to rip the close?
Short VIX Futures, Half‑Size SPX/NDX Put Spreads
Covered short in vix futures. Bought SPX and NDX put spreads at half max size. See you in a month.
Morning War and Oil Commentary Turns Especially Harsh
The war and oil takes before yesterday were bad but the takes this morning seem extra bad and particularly strident. https://t.co/EYFdUKg6uK
Iran Gains Strait Control, Better Deal, Yet Costs Lives
So we get the strait reopened with Iran controlling it and a toll. And Iran gets a much better deal than JCPOA. And it cost them the death of some old men and some destruction of some stuff. ...
Accepting Small Losses After Selling VIX Near Peak
Sold a little may vix futures near the high. Happy to lose 20 points on this.
High Volatility Overprices SPX Calls, Hedging Impossible
A three month 7250 SPX call costs 30. In two weeks if SPX is 6950 it will be worth 45-50. Vol is simply too high to hedge either direction.
Savings Surplus Flips to Spending Glut, Straining Builders
Real economy "builders" need money. They can source money from investors or consumers. Since Covid, investors and consumers had money from massive fiscal and monetary policy actions. Builders got all the money they needed from consumption plus more from...
Questioning Futures Curve: What Is True December WTI Expectation?
Assuming, as most of you seem to have massive confidence, that the futures curve is not a reflection of true market expectations of future spot. Current Dec Futures are 72.5 ish. What do you think the market expectations for...
Redemption Gates Unlock Real-World Liquidity Premium Returns
Gates. Some thoughts 101 ish Lying to investors and promising liquidity is bad Gates and limits on redemptions that are well disclosed and understood by investors is literally the value proposition. If an investment vehicle is subject to instantaneous full...
Oil Analysts' Warnings Ignored Until Supply Shocks Hit
Oil experts are an interesting breed of people. They are sorta like gold bugs. For long periods they sit in a distant corner of the financial markets. We pass by their desks and they nod at us...
Scored 8 in Globle with a 10.2 Average Guess Count
🌎 Apr 3, 2026 🌍 🔥 5 | Avg. Guesses: 10.2 🟧🟥🟥🟧🟨🟧🟥🟩 = 8 https://t.co/2fxbqb5gWc Enjoying this game #globle
Fed's Oversized Balance Sheet Undermines Inflation Goals
The essay from Lorie Logan is excellent. Unfortunately the tradeoffs of balance sheet size vs public good have been and continue to be mistakenly biased to narrow goals and miss the big picture which remains a failure of the...
Fed’s Reserve Policies Shield Wall Street, Fuel Inflation
It prevents fed funds cuts, props up Wall Street, props up inflation, all because the Repo Gang of Four won't deal with uneven distribution of reserves.
Buy NDX if SpaceX IPO Gets Canceled
Here's a simple signal that will work great. Buy NDX when SpaceX cancels its IPO. https://t.co/RUszD8xRxZ
Post-War Iran: Uncertain Oil Disruption Potential
One day the war will end. Iran has been crippled and may be further bombed back to the Stone Age. But once the war ends either Iran will be able to disrupt global oil flow or it won't be...
Nik Launches New Podcast Collaboration with Jimmy and Team
Nik is building out a great podcast. Proud of what he is doing and he is a great partner at DSMMA. See here for the collab with Nik, Jimmy and me. https://t.co/PqYYoFGCGM
Light Portfolio Delivers 6.5% Alpha, 5% Beta Gains
Positions are super light. Alpha up 6.5% YTD 2% of AUM in SPX Puts bought on yesterday close A boatload of STIR bought higher but exposed to rate cuts and recovering That's it Beta up 5% YTD cuz own gold and commodities as...
Post‑low JHEQX Rally Signals War’s Bottom Ending
Fwiw there have been 3 recent lower strike JHEQX events. The major lows on 6/22 and the actual low was the exact strike on Sept 22. Both followed by massive rallies. This one was the best proxy...
Favor 6180 Settlement, yet 6865 May Arrive Quickly
The first tweet was confusing. I favor 6180 for settlement but 6865 could happen fast https://t.co/P9FqExf0Xf
Shorts Covered, Long Entries
A week ago Sunday we were all bulked up waiting for our levels to cover shorts and bonds and go long two's, gold , zb and stocks. Some of our levels hit (we covered shorts and had highly levered...
War News Fuels Reflexive Sell, Spurs Leveraged ETF Buying
Gamma. Roll delta flips, month end equity buying not needed as much given price, sudden massive leveraged ETF buying now needed. All this in an environment which makes folks think the war news is actually the thing driving markets....
JPM’s PM Moves, Not Just Short Gamma, Drive
If you think the only thing that's happening on $JHEQX collar is short gamma you are completely missing what the PM at JPM was doing to roll the collar before the rip and what they now have to do.
Management's Costly Deals Hurt Shareholders, Create Profit Opportunities
Screw your shareholders by doing a stupid massively expensive issuance favoring a particular investor. Underperform your asset by 15%. It's unbelievably easy to make money when idiot management do these deals $MTPLF $ONDS $IONQ https://t.co/kMwFGySBfO
Big Tech Stocks Slide Deeply Year‑to‑Date
YTD $AAPL -9.1% $AMZN -12.6% $GOOGL -12.5% $META - 18.6% $MSFT -25.8% $NVDA -11% $TSLA -20.6% https://t.co/zGRemDg3Sb
Weekly 20‑Minute Podcast Simplifies Portfolio Risk Insight
The whole point of 2Graybeards is to provide a credible once a week check in for busy people who need a 20 minute credible synthesis each week. If that's you and your trawling twitter or cnbc or mainstream media...
Asset Supply Surges, Credit Stagnates Amid Wage Stagnation
Note sent to clients. Overall macro synthesis and update based on war related conditions impact and pricing. What we are doing about it is for clients only. Based on all things happening in the world my macro view is...
Stay Near Target Risk, Always Own Market Beta
If you are persistently leveraged long assets above your risk target you are doing it wrong and this month is a lesson. Consider moving to your risk target If you are perma bear and always underinvested and in...
Questioning SPX Earnings Surge Amid Short Covering
I'm in the midst of covering all of my equity shorts and going long. But jeez just checked SPX NTM Bloomberg consensus earning of 334 vs 277 trailing or 20.6% expected earnings growth. Honestly is there a legitimate...
Trump Could Spark Unofficial Iran Peace via Single Tweet
Is there a unilateral tweet Trump could make today that results in a "peace" trade that is NOT corroborated by official Iran
JCPOA Viable,
Asked Claude for this (heavily guided the framework myself and used Claude for format). Seems about right. Basically something like JCPOA is possible and the new issues are impossible to bridge the gap. https://t.co/YnSNjDjGMw
JHEQX Option Shift Negligible; only Market Makers Notice
This may or may not be true. But unless you care about which exchange/clearing/venue has volumes. Shifting $JHEQX from SPX cash options to some other form of ES options or BTIC+ settled ES options has literally no impact on...
Oil Price Surge Adds 2.8% to CPI Inflation
Funny math. If Dec oil meets futures. The YoY inflation of oil will be roughly 40%. Pick your inflation basket weighting and any feed through to core . Headline CPI direct is roughly 7%. Others...
Trump’s GSE MBS Boost Fades, Mortgage Rates
All the manipulation impact of Trump "Instructing the GSE's" to buy 200BN in MBS has disappeared as OAS is now higher. Throw in higher vol and modestly higher 10's and you get higher mortgage rates. https://t.co/NKfe9Jq3vg
Bessent's No‑Term Debt Plan: Mixed Results So Far
So how has the plan by @SecScottBessent to not term out the debt and keep rolling bills worked out?
Prefer QT and Term‑Premium Expansion Over Fed Rate Hikes
Fwiw I still prefer restarting QT and solving the uneven distribution of reserves and killing inflation through term premium expansion vs hiking fed funds https://t.co/tp7owr8gxQ
Original Persian
The OG map in case the Persian Gulf map is stale. Props for the H4L folks. Though they got it right due to war perhaps. https://t.co/znhzJ8nL12
Exiting Non‑US Rally, Maintaining Global Balance with Cash Buffer
After a massive run in non U.S. assets for 14 months, over the last few weeks, I have been getting out of the "Get Out" trade for my long only long term beta portfolio. Current portfolio is a globally...
Vol Skew Interpreted as Implied PDFs Across Expiries
Here's a question for options nerds Ignoring if it's "right" or "wrong" whether it's caused by paper flow or some expectations. Is baseline assumption in modern option thinking that each expiries vol skew represents an implied PDF and the vol...
10‑Year Treasury Real Yield Stalls at 1.89%
1.89 10 year tips real yield. Meh. Not much return yet in the benchmark asset on earth. Less than 3 months ago.
Investors Flock to Long‑term US Treasuries Today
It's funny that long term US treasuries is where people are putting their money today. They make more folks.
2026 Dot Rise Missed; Haw
Those predicting the 2026 dot would rise to no cuts just didn't do the math. What did happen is the 3 Most hawkish reduced from a protest hike to a pause (less hawkish) 3 middle doves got modestly more hawkish And Miran the...
Warrant Sold at Deep Discount, Enriching Hedge Fund, Hurting Shareholders
Unlike a convert which sells a warrant at a relatively fair implied volatility and monetizes that vol for the benefit of existing shareholder. This atrocious deal sold the warrant at a massive massive discount to fair implied volatility and...
Learn From Results, Avoid Paralysis and Overconfidence
Learning from bad outcomes GOOD Being paralyzed by bad outcome BAD Learning from good outcomes GOOD Being overconfident due to good outcomes BAD Welcome to my Ted Talk @pmarca
FOMC Chaos: 5‑Year Inflation‑Killing Plan Revealed
The FOMC is a mess. I have been writing about the original sin, the false flag of 2019, and a workable plan to kill inflation for 5 years. Here is Sundays client only DSR. I'm making it...
