MarketChess

18Nov2:54 pmEST

More Horrors in the Crawl Space

I recently watched the well-crafted Peacock miniseries, "Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy" (which blows the Ed Gein one out of the water, by the way, in terms of overall quality). Gacy, as you may know, hid the remains of most of his victims in the crawl space underneath his Norwood Park Township, Illinois, home.  You may forgive me for the...

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17Nov3:11 pmEST

Growing More Dangerous

After a brief spike over 20 last month, the VIX (or Volatility Index, which typically measures expectations of fear in the options market) immediately moved back down into the mid-teens, a fairly common occurrence from this market regime we have seen over the years, particularly since the pandemic.  As we have noted often both here and with...

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14Nov2:59 pmEST

Afternoon Update 11/14/25 {Video}

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13Nov1:56 pmEST

Diminishing Returns

We are seeing a fairly steep broad sell-off this afternoon. And, perhaps, of even more significance is the fact that the likes of CNBC is struggling to assign a reason for said big move. It is often said that when markets sell off on (seemingly) no news it can be seen as all the more bearish, as opposed to headline-drive swoons.  Of course, one...

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12Nov3:26 pmEST

Trapped But Plotting an Escape

The updated chart, below, of the QQQ ETF, on the hourly timeframe dating back to the October 29th highs exactly two weeks ago, pretty much sums up where the Nasdaq is at the moment. We have a corrective structure in the near-term, with bulls arguing this is but a mere blip before an inevitable end-of-year melt-up, while bears counter that every...

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11Nov3:28 pmEST

Perhaps All Roads Lead Back to Exxon

Exxon, of course one part of the ExxonMobile Corporation since the 1999 merger, used to part of the Standard Oil trust, specifically Standard Oil of New Jersey. There is a rich history, some violent, some catastrophic, in my original hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey dating back to 1900.  Even with the long-term struggles of crude oil itself, it...

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10Nov12:58 pmEST

You Cannot Fool All of the Markets All of the Time

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time" -Abraham Lincoln (most likely) After a recent minor pullback on the major indices we saw President Trump spend most of the weekend touting various stimuli, namely $2,000 tariff rebate checks and...

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07Nov3:29 pmEST

Afternoon Update 11/07/25 {Video}

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06Nov3:22 pmEST

Don't Stay at the Casino Too Late

I see the President is out today again reminding everyone not to be a "Panican" due to a booming stock market and falling oil and gas prices, as well as falling egg prices.  Putting to one side the sustainability of this type of a micromanaging/cheerleading the daily moves in markets from the White House, I do take issue with the President...

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05Nov2:34 pmEST

Groundhog Day on a Constant Loop

The recurring theme of the Nasdaq and, indeed, senior indices for a few years now has been the constant snapback rallies after any and all temporary bouts of weakness. Earlier this year we did see a correction which bottomed in early-April for another V-shaped bottom. Since then, even the slightest weakness has been immediately gobbled up for...

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