The Shit to Know Friday

Yeah, we're a day late.

Rocky got knocked down in round one too. Didn't stop him from going the distance.

Markets threw hands this week. We took the shots. We're still standing.

Ding ding.

Macro
TACO DIMINISHING RETURNS

Listen up, because I can't believe I'm typing these words: Trump might actually be stumped.

The guy who built his whole brand on winging it has walked face-first into a no-exit maze and the doors are all on fire.

Here's the trap he's in:

• Option A — Back down from the Iran war. Sounds nice right? Wrong. The second he flinches, Bibi releases the Epstein files and smokes him alive on national television. Career. Over.

• Option B — Keep the war going. Strait of Hormuz stays sealed like your ex's heart. Oil goes to $200/bbl. Gas hits levels that make your 2008 flashbacks feel cozy. Economy folds like a lawn chair.

  We called this Monday at market open and here we are — no taco in sight, no escape hatch, just a man who thought he was playing checkers realizing it was always chess. Couldn't be me. But it is him. And it's our portfolios paying the cover charge.

  

Energy
NATURAL GAS: NEXT IS ALREADY HERE

$NEXT. 12% yesterday. You're welcome.

If you tailed this call, you ate well. If you didn't — screenshot this, tape it to your monitor, and stop paper-handing the setups we hand you on a silver platter.

At ~$8 right now we see this thing running to $20. That's not hopium. That's the math. Do the x's yourself.

The MBA soy-boys at Goldman aren't touching this. That's exactly why we are. While they're writing 47-page pitch decks justifying a 3% position, we're already in and compounding. Hold the line. Paytience.

The Fed
NO MORE RATE CUTS FOR 2026

BREAKING: The Fed is NOT cutting rates until December 2027.

Read that again. Slower.

There is now a 51% chance of a rate HIKE by March 2027. Rate HIKES. More likely than rate CUTS. The entire IWM thesis — your beautiful, degenerate, shit-co moonshot thesis — just got carpet-bombed from 30,000 feet.

Trump had it all lined up. Fed cuts, cheap money, our garbage small caps were gonna rocket-ride into the stratosphere. Girls, girls, girls. Tequila on the yacht. The whole thing. Now? We're buying Walmart.

I didn't choose the wagie life. The wagie life chose me. And apparently it chose you too, you beautiful idiot. Rotate or get roasted. It's that simple.

Trading Wisdom
JOKER’S TRADING CORNER

If you don't adapt to the environment, you will blow up your account. Full stop. No asterisk.

In an uptrend — I'm buying weakness. I'm taking shots on pullbacks. I don't wait for confirmation because by the time you get it, the move's already gone and you're chasing air.

In a downtrend like this one — I want to see base-building. I want confirmation. I want the market to show me something before I give it my money. Wide stops + big size in a choppy market = getting steamrolled. The playbook that made you money in a ripping bull run will faceplant you in this environment.

Different conditions. Different tactics.