MarketChess

06May12:58 pmEST

A Bull Market to Die For

The melt-up in the semis (AMD a big reason why today) and QQQ is becoming more extreme by the day, leaving countless open gaps below as the AI-related charts go vertical and leave virtually everything other stock and sector in the dust (for the time being). Putting to one side the constant hopeful headlines on Iran for a peace deal, beyond the...

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05May2:37 pmEST

Getting Acclimated with Crack

In the energy complex, a "crack spread" involves the price difference between crude oil and its refined products, such as jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel. Generally speaking, higher crack spreads directly benefit the refinery firms as their profit margins surge and they are capturing more revenue per barrel processed. Of course, they tend to...

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04May3:24 pmEST

The Pond is Shrinking

By now you have likely heard of the chronic case of bad breadth that the S&P 500 is experiencing, meaning poor overall participation from a proliferation of stocks and sectors. That said, bulls are all too eager to counter that a shrinking pond is irrelevant these days, as the likes of GOOGL, MU, and SNDK (among others) go up every single...

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01May3:20 pmEST

Afternoon Update 05/01/26 {Video}

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30Apr3:23 pmEST

I Saw Many Signs

Even without a fraction of the legendary innovations we saw under Steve Jobs, you have to hand it to Tim Cook for presiding as CEO over Apple during the stock's run for the ages. The stock was so compelling at one point that even a quasi-Mennonite like Warren Buffett got involved with the stock and rode it aggressively for many years. The...

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29Apr3:49 pmEST

Wars Actually End

"You can't even call this a war. Wars end." -The Wire As we turn the page on Jerome Powell's tenure as Fed Chair, it is hard to believe (although I should know better at this point) that he could actually say with a straight face this afternoon that there is no case for a meaningfully restrictive monetary policy. Seeing as inflation has...

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28Apr3:20 pmEST

The Test Almost Always Comes

With Jerome Powell's term as Chair of the Federal Reserve expiring on May 15th, roughly two and a half weeks from now, it is instructive to examine prior instances of new Fed Chairs coming into power and how markets have reacted. Of course, you might argue the market reactions and new Fed Chairs were "correlations, not causations." Furthermore,...

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27Apr3:16 pmEST

Going Global to Undermine the Oil Bear Case

One of the more popular arguments oil bears are making right now to justify crude oil not quite super-spiking is that the wisdom of the market is accounting for "demand destruction," be it from China and/or the world at-large. This argument seeks to squash any notion of, hypothetically speaking, government intervention in the front month...

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24Apr3:16 pmEST

Afternoon Update 04/24/26 {Video}

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23Apr3:02 pmEST

Hot Summer for Winter Warriors

DBA, the ETF for a basket of soft commodities, is turning in a strong session as I write this, quietly printing seven month highs today. We have been quite bullish on wheat for a while now. And you can see on the second daily chart, below, DBA is sporting an explosive-looking base breakout pattern. What makes this setup even more menacing to...

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