Monday Market Open

WELCOME TO 2026, DEGENS AND RETARDS. EXTRA-SPECIAL FIRST-OF-THE-YEAR EDITION.

Fresh calendar, fresh cycles, same ruthless arena. The market didn’t reset at midnight—it just gave you another chance to execute better. Volatility is waking up, leadership is rotating, and real opportunity is forming for those willing to stay sharp when others drift.

We’re hyped to get into this SHIT. This is the year of discipline compounding, of boring rules producing violent upside, of showing up every day and letting consistency do the flexing. Tape first, ego last. Lock in and build something real.

2026 Predictions
THE YEAR AHEAD: DEEP DIVE

The market is broadening and it matters. Equal-weight strength is a quiet tell that this isn’t just “mega-cap or die” anymore: $RSP and $SPY look healthier than $QQQ as flows rotate across more sectors and factor buckets. In that kind of environment, index action can get messier (more chop, more false breaks), but it also creates more tradable dispersion—the exact setup where thematic leaders can separate from their ETFs.

So the 2026 approach is less “pray the index saves me,” more benchmark everything. Constantly track whether your names are outperforming their sector ETFs and the broad tape. If your stock can’t beat its own sandbox, it’s not a leader—it’s a passenger. Diversification matters more this year, but diversification without catalysts is just diluted conviction.

Rules don’t change, they just get enforced harder:

• No chasing missed entries

• Take profit instead of donating open gains

• Zero tolerance for positions lingering red (time stops are real)

• Balanced sizing so a fresh cut doesn’t turn into a hemorrhage

• More options—but only on high-conviction setups with clean structure

Current swing buckets:

• Tech: $DOCN, $PSTG, $U, $CRNC, $YOU, $NVTS, $SKYT, $ACMR, $INTC

• Consumer / Services: $AMZN, $ROKU, $JMIA

• Aerospace & Defense: $RDW, $KTOS, $AVIO, $KRMN, $DPRO, $FLY, $VOYG, $KRKNF

• Energy / Materials: $EOSE, $TDW, $SMR, $AMR, $REMX, $FCX

• Random spice: $FIGR, $JKS

Unlike last year’s pedal-to-the-floor energy, cash is a position in 2026—dry powder for volatility and better entries. And if you want “greatest” outcomes, you hunt multi-year base breakouts (5/10/15-year structures). When those go, they can trend like a freight train. The mental model: the $CLS-type scenario—long base, fresh air above, institutions forced to chase.

Federal Reserve
CPI SETS THE RATE CUT STAGE

CPI (Dec) prints Tuesday, Jan 13 at 8:30am ET. This is the kind of number that doesn’t just move futures; it can reset positioning, vol, and sector leadership for weeks.

Layered on top is a rare headline overhang: Powell vs. the White House is no longer just Twitter noise—reporting indicates DOJ scrutiny tied to the Fed renovation has escalated into subpoenas / criminal-investigation chatter. That’s not “normal macro.” That’s institutional credibility risk, and markets tend to pay attention when central bank independence becomes a storyline.

On rate cuts: slower-than-expected cutting can be frustrating for the “free money” crowd, but it’s not automatically bearish. Gradual cycles often keep financial conditions tighter, reduce overheating, and can be more profitable for parts of the financial complex than chaotic pivots. The key is path, not dreams.

Geopolitics
IRAN TARIFFS = CHINA TRADE WAR AGAIN?

Headline risk just got teeth: Trump announced a 25% tariff on any country “doing business” with Iran. If enforced aggressively, this functions like a secondary-pressure mechanism that can ricochet into shipping, energy, and geopolitics fast.

Does this restart U.S.-China trade-war tension? Potentially—China is widely cited as Iran’s largest trading partner, so the market will watch whether this stays a threat, becomes negotiated leverage, or turns into actual policy machinery. Translation: don’t front-run it, but don’t ignore it. Monitor oil, defense, industrials, and anything sensitive to global trade friction.

Market Leaders
SNDK: A TRADER’S DREAM

$SNDK was the cleanest kind of trade because the market got handed a simple villain: AI is exploding, and storage became the choke point. When the street realizes there’s a bottleneck, it doesn’t negotiate. It bids first, rewrites models later, and suddenly a “boring” corner of the market turns into a velocity game.

And $SNDK had the full cheat-code stack at the time:

• Story everyone could repeat in one sentence

• Relative strength that separated it from the pack

• Tight multi-week squeeze / neckline you could literally draw with a crayon

• Volume confirmation (real buyers, not hopium)

• Clean risk: obvious invalidation, no ambiguity

• Fresh air: less overhead supply to choke the move

That’s why it was a textbook trader dream: you weren’t guessing, you were executing. Entry had logic, stops had logic, and follow-through was decisive.

Now? That move is already in the books. The “easy” part is done—the part where the tape gifts you clean expansion after compression. Not denying there could be more upside—leaders can keep trending—but from here it’s a different job. It’s no longer “catch the breakout,” it’s manage the trend and don’t get chopped. If it keeps holding structure and respecting moving averages, it can keep walking. If it breaks, it goes from leader to “remember when” real fast.