To The Moon

All is fair. Just a game.

I prefer monitoring actual Strait of Hormuz transit volume before aggressively buying energy names. Geopolitical spikes often produce sharp short-term volatility in spot oil (Brent breaking $90), but energy equities like XLE tend to wait for confirmation of sustained physical supply disruptions or longer-term higher average oil prices. Until real transit flow is impacted, hedging via short-dated oil options might be safer than locking into equities.

I’d choose C — wait until the wildfire liability rules become clearer. PCG and EIX look tempting after falling more than 20%, but I don’t think this is a simple “buy the dip” situation. The core problem is not whether these companies are profitable today; it is the uncertainty around future wildfire liabilities and whether California’s Wildfire Fund will have a sustainable replenishment mechanism. A stock can become cheaper while its risk premium is rising at the same time. That is exactly what I see here. Until the rules become clearer, PCG and EIX could remain highly sensitive to headlines, legal developments and financing costs. If I wanted utility exposure now, I’d prefer XLU or VPU for diversification. For individual California utilities, I’d rather sacrifice the first part of a rebo

California’s Wildfire Bill Turns PCG and EIX Back Into High-Risk Assets One-line takeaway: Utility stocks may offer protection against the economic cycle, but they are not necessarily protected from wildfire liabilities, regulatory changes or the legal risks of a single state. The biggest individual stock moves in the U.S. market on Monday did not come from the technology sector, but from traditionally “defensive” stocks. PG&E $PG&E Corp(PCG)$ fell 20.1%; Edison International $Edison(EIX)$ dropped 23.1%; Sempra $Sempra(SRE)$ declined 3.1%. The trigger was a California wildfire bill. The final version did not in

Direct Commodity vs. Equity Hedging: If you are seeking pure exposure to geopolitical risk, crude futures or commodity ETFs (like USO or DBO) offer direct alignment. Energy equities (XLE) reflect long-term corporate cash flows, refining margins, and broader equity market sentiment rather than instantaneous barrel prices. Tactical Approach: Avoid chasing the initial spike in spot oil. Wait for confirmation of persistent chokepoint disruptions before placing aggressive upside bets on upstream producers.

it's all emotional trade caused by media . The real action from institution is obvious, buy now and follow the train

Hormuz Watch: Tracking actual vessel traffic and freight insurance rates through Hormuz provides a clearer signal than headline noise. Real supply bottlenecks beat geopolitical rhetoric every time.

Hello. After Warsh spoke on Friday, one estimate put the odds of a September rate rise at 60 per cent. Over the weekend US forces struck Iran and Brent crude went above US$90. Dearer oil makes inflation harder to hold down. But this particular fire is burning on the supply side, where a rate rise will not put it out and will press on demand as well. In three days, September became a harder question. This was Warsh's first appearance at Jackson Hole as chair. He restated the commitment to holding inflation down, and coverage rated the speech "moderately hawkish". He made clear he was not offering forward guidance; a former Fed vice chair said he had given it anyway. The market took him at his word: the two-year Treasury yield jumped, spot gold fell from US$4,649.60 last Thursday to US$4,478

Following last weekend’s Jackson Hole symposium, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a relatively hawkish message, prompting the market to reassess and reprice the timing of U.S. interest-rate hikes. According to the current FedWatch data, the probability of a rate hike at the end of September is slightly above 50%. This implies that the next round of nonfarm payroll and inflation data to be released next month could play an important role. From a data perspective, the probability of a rate hike surged by nearly 20 percentage points within just one week, driven entirely by Warsh’s remarks rather than by any other major economic data releases. However, based on historical experience, only probabilities above 70% tend to produce near-certain outcomes. With the current probability still below 60%

I’d watch Hormuz transit before aggressively chasing energy stocks. The US-Iran exchange clearly restores the geopolitical premium, with Brent back above $90, but the key question is whether this translates into a sustained physical supply disruption. There are already warning signs: visible commodity-vessel traffic through Hormuz fell to around five ships a day over the weekend, while a tanker was reportedly struck by a projectile. Yet Gulf oil exports have recovered substantially from their March lows, suggesting flows have not collapsed. So I wouldn’t chase XLE purely on headlines. I’d consider energy as a partial hedge, then add only if tanker traffic deteriorates, insurance/freight costs surge or export infrastructure is hit. If Hormuz flows keep recovering, Brent’s war premium could

Gold traded lower on Monday (31 August), as renewed inflation concerns, developments surrounding U.S. strikes on Iran and Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech weighed on market sentiment. Spot gold was hovering around US$4,400 as of 12pm Singapore time on Monday, after pulling back from last week's high of US$4,696. Tracking the spot price, $SPDR Gold ETF(GLD)$ fell about 3.2% during Friday's trading session. Amplifying the return, GLD 5x Short DLC (GOSW) rose around 16%, while GLD 5x Long DLC (GLDW) declined by a similar magnitude. Silver also came under pressure, with $iShares Silver Trust(SLV)$ declining 4.4%. Correspondingly, the SLV 3x Short DLC (SVSW) rose more than 12%, while the SLV 3x Long DLC (SLSW)

The anticipated pullback may already be underway: Three strategies for navigating today’s choppy market The U.S. equity market is currently in a highly sensitive, tightly balanced high-level volatility regime. Previously, cooling macro data—including softer-than-expected CPI and PPI readings—helped ease inflation expectations and created an exceptionally favorable backdrop for U.S. equities. Supported by these conditions, the S&P 500 continued advancing and reached fresh highs. However, renewed geopolitical tensions this week have disrupted the previous calm, as a sudden rise in crude oil prices has altered the market landscape once again. At this macroeconomic crossroads, characterized by an unusually large numbe

The low-side bid we had kept sitting under the Nasdaq for two weeks was never filled. With the index stabilising and rebounding off 27,000, and with several other headline developments turning, the correction that has run for more than a month may now be close to its end. What we do expect from here is dispersion: the divide between what stays strong and what has already topped out should become considerably more visible. Set against the S&P and the Dow, the Nasdaq was clearly the US index that gave back the most in this round of correction. Gains and losses share the same source, so it is no surprise that AI and technology names — the hardest-hit group — were what dragged the index lower. In practice, though, the pullback did not even reach the 61.8% retracement. That is an indirect r

The first week of August is formally here. In terms of how the calendar falls, the opening week of a month tends to have an outsized effect on volatility in US trading, chiefly because the US non-farm payrolls report — the release markets watch most closely — lands early in the month. In a market as rate-sensitive as the current one, payrolls feed straight into rate expectations and therefore into a wider trading range. On top of that, the weekend's US–Iran flare-up has left the progress of the “so-called” 60-day negotiation window genuinely hard to read, and that is another source of instability in the market right now. A market like this, however, is actually easier to profit from — provided you approach it with a relatively short-term mindset. $Inve

On Thursday evening I hosted a livestream on whether this Fed meeting will burst the AI bubble, and how we should be positioned for it. There were a great many charts and I moved through them fairly quickly, so not everyone will have been able to follow in real time. What follows is a written walk-through of that session — the key judgements, the charts, and every operating condition I laid out on the night, kept as close to the original as possible. Let me put the conclusion up front. Holding rates steady in July was in line with expectations, but going into the meeting the probability of “no change” was only 65.8%, whereas heading into past meetings it has typically been above 80% — which tells us the market's ex

This week's price action in U.S. equities is critical for the market trend over the next several weeks — above all the FOMC decision due early Thursday Beijing time. The U.S. indices have arrived at a very important support level, and once a key variable pushes them into choosing a direction, the broader medium-term trend could change. The current calm may therefore be brewing sharp volatility in the back half of the week. First, the latest developments on the technical side As you can see, the Nasdaq has now reached a very critical level. On the head-and-shoulders top pattern, the formation can already be treated as a breakdown of the head structure; by conventional technical projection, the subsequent downside would theoretically be roughly equal to the distance from the head to the curr

Over the weekend, Iran once again claimed it had blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, after which the U.S. said the Oman shipping lane was still operating normally. For this kind of news about the strait being blockaded or reopened during negotiations, the market has already built up considerable immunity — it was basically fully priced in as soon as Asian markets opened last Monday. So investors need not be overly sensitive to such news; just watch the market's reaction after the open. The relatively important events this week are the Fed Chair's testimony and the release of the CPI data, on which the market will place its bets regarding rate-hike expectations. Although I don't think the Fed will make any major rate-hike move, the market may use the occasion to react ahead of time, causing a c

Last time I talked with you about this week's options strategy: besides continuing to run the index options straddle into rallies, one could also consider going long U.S. Treasuries on dips — especially the price of the long-bond TLT. But on Treasuries, as of today, after the escalation of the U.S.–Iran war, everyone needs to be more careful: rising crude oil drives inflation expectations higher, which could push Treasury yields up further, and Treasury prices would then face downward pressure. So we can lift the stop-loss on the buy-the-dip Treasury view a bit higher — up to near the prior-low support around $83.5. Review：Strong Dollar Returns: After Booking the Straddle Win,Why Treasuries Deserv

The Old Man That Cried Wolf. After many weeks of pre-emptive Truth Social declarations that routinely cried wolf to the markets, Trump’s heavily promoted US-Iran peace deal finally graduated from social media propaganda. It became a verified, official framework agreement. Tentatively, the agreement to end the war, will be officially signed on Fri,19 Jun 2026 in Switzerland. At the just concluded G7 Meeting, Trump hogged the limelight and infamously declared that he has signed the MOU to: End a US blockade of Iranian ports. Reopen the Strait of Hormuz for 60-days tariffs free. Start the 60 days of nuclear negotiations. Equally important, it is confirmed too that Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has counter-signed t

A quiet shift is taking place at the very top of the global aluminum supply chain. Guinea, the world’s largest bauxite producer, plans to announce new export control measures in June. The goal is not to stop exports, but to manage volumes and push prices back to what the government sees as a more reasonable level. Bauxite sits at the starting point of the aluminum chain. It is processed into alumina, which is then used to produce primary aluminum. If bauxite starts to be repriced, the impact will not stop at the mine gate. Alumina, primary aluminum and downstream aluminum products will all have to recalculate their costs. Why Guinea Is Acting Guinea is not short of bauxite. The issue is that it may have been selling too much, too cheaply. In 2025, Guinea’s bauxite exports rose 25% to about

California’s Wildfire Bill Turns PCG and EIX Back Into High-Risk Assets One-line takeaway: Utility stocks may offer protection against the economic cycle, but they are not necessarily protected from wildfire liabilities, regulatory changes or the legal risks of a single state. The biggest individual stock moves in the U.S. market on Monday did not come from the technology sector, but from traditionally “defensive” stocks. PG&E $PG&E Corp(PCG)$ fell 20.1%; Edison International $Edison(EIX)$ dropped 23.1%; Sempra $Sempra(SRE)$ declined 3.1%. The trigger was a California wildfire bill. The final version did not in

All is fair. Just a game.

I’d choose C — wait until the wildfire liability rules become clearer. PCG and EIX look tempting after falling more than 20%, but I don’t think this is a simple “buy the dip” situation. The core problem is not whether these companies are profitable today; it is the uncertainty around future wildfire liabilities and whether California’s Wildfire Fund will have a sustainable replenishment mechanism. A stock can become cheaper while its risk premium is rising at the same time. That is exactly what I see here. Until the rules become clearer, PCG and EIX could remain highly sensitive to headlines, legal developments and financing costs. If I wanted utility exposure now, I’d prefer XLU or VPU for diversification. For individual California utilities, I’d rather sacrifice the first part of a rebo

I prefer monitoring actual Strait of Hormuz transit volume before aggressively buying energy names. Geopolitical spikes often produce sharp short-term volatility in spot oil (Brent breaking $90), but energy equities like XLE tend to wait for confirmation of sustained physical supply disruptions or longer-term higher average oil prices. Until real transit flow is impacted, hedging via short-dated oil options might be safer than locking into equities.

Following last weekend’s Jackson Hole symposium, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a relatively hawkish message, prompting the market to reassess and reprice the timing of U.S. interest-rate hikes. According to the current FedWatch data, the probability of a rate hike at the end of September is slightly above 50%. This implies that the next round of nonfarm payroll and inflation data to be released next month could play an important role. From a data perspective, the probability of a rate hike surged by nearly 20 percentage points within just one week, driven entirely by Warsh’s remarks rather than by any other major economic data releases. However, based on historical experience, only probabilities above 70% tend to produce near-certain outcomes. With the current probability still below 60%

Hello. After Warsh spoke on Friday, one estimate put the odds of a September rate rise at 60 per cent. Over the weekend US forces struck Iran and Brent crude went above US$90. Dearer oil makes inflation harder to hold down. But this particular fire is burning on the supply side, where a rate rise will not put it out and will press on demand as well. In three days, September became a harder question. This was Warsh's first appearance at Jackson Hole as chair. He restated the commitment to holding inflation down, and coverage rated the speech "moderately hawkish". He made clear he was not offering forward guidance; a former Fed vice chair said he had given it anyway. The market took him at his word: the two-year Treasury yield jumped, spot gold fell from US$4,649.60 last Thursday to US$4,478

Gold traded lower on Monday (31 August), as renewed inflation concerns, developments surrounding U.S. strikes on Iran and Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech weighed on market sentiment. Spot gold was hovering around US$4,400 as of 12pm Singapore time on Monday, after pulling back from last week's high of US$4,696. Tracking the spot price, $SPDR Gold ETF(GLD)$ fell about 3.2% during Friday's trading session. Amplifying the return, GLD 5x Short DLC (GOSW) rose around 16%, while GLD 5x Long DLC (GLDW) declined by a similar magnitude. Silver also came under pressure, with $iShares Silver Trust(SLV)$ declining 4.4%. Correspondingly, the SLV 3x Short DLC (SVSW) rose more than 12%, while the SLV 3x Long DLC (SLSW)

I’d watch Hormuz transit before aggressively chasing energy stocks. The US-Iran exchange clearly restores the geopolitical premium, with Brent back above $90, but the key question is whether this translates into a sustained physical supply disruption. There are already warning signs: visible commodity-vessel traffic through Hormuz fell to around five ships a day over the weekend, while a tanker was reportedly struck by a projectile. Yet Gulf oil exports have recovered substantially from their March lows, suggesting flows have not collapsed. So I wouldn’t chase XLE purely on headlines. I’d consider energy as a partial hedge, then add only if tanker traffic deteriorates, insurance/freight costs surge or export infrastructure is hit. If Hormuz flows keep recovering, Brent’s war premium could

Direct Commodity vs. Equity Hedging: If you are seeking pure exposure to geopolitical risk, crude futures or commodity ETFs (like USO or DBO) offer direct alignment. Energy equities (XLE) reflect long-term corporate cash flows, refining margins, and broader equity market sentiment rather than instantaneous barrel prices. Tactical Approach: Avoid chasing the initial spike in spot oil. Wait for confirmation of persistent chokepoint disruptions before placing aggressive upside bets on upstream producers.

Hormuz Watch: Tracking actual vessel traffic and freight insurance rates through Hormuz provides a clearer signal than headline noise. Real supply bottlenecks beat geopolitical rhetoric every time.

it's all emotional trade caused by media . The real action from institution is obvious, buy now and follow the train

The anticipated pullback may already be underway: Three strategies for navigating today’s choppy market The U.S. equity market is currently in a highly sensitive, tightly balanced high-level volatility regime. Previously, cooling macro data—including softer-than-expected CPI and PPI readings—helped ease inflation expectations and created an exceptionally favorable backdrop for U.S. equities. Supported by these conditions, the S&P 500 continued advancing and reached fresh highs. However, renewed geopolitical tensions this week have disrupted the previous calm, as a sudden rise in crude oil prices has altered the market landscape once again. At this macroeconomic crossroads, characterized by an unusually large numbe

The low-side bid we had kept sitting under the Nasdaq for two weeks was never filled. With the index stabilising and rebounding off 27,000, and with several other headline developments turning, the correction that has run for more than a month may now be close to its end. What we do expect from here is dispersion: the divide between what stays strong and what has already topped out should become considerably more visible. Set against the S&P and the Dow, the Nasdaq was clearly the US index that gave back the most in this round of correction. Gains and losses share the same source, so it is no surprise that AI and technology names — the hardest-hit group — were what dragged the index lower. In practice, though, the pullback did not even reach the 61.8% retracement. That is an indirect r

On Thursday evening I hosted a livestream on whether this Fed meeting will burst the AI bubble, and how we should be positioned for it. There were a great many charts and I moved through them fairly quickly, so not everyone will have been able to follow in real time. What follows is a written walk-through of that session — the key judgements, the charts, and every operating condition I laid out on the night, kept as close to the original as possible. Let me put the conclusion up front. Holding rates steady in July was in line with expectations, but going into the meeting the probability of “no change” was only 65.8%, whereas heading into past meetings it has typically been above 80% — which tells us the market's ex

The first week of August is formally here. In terms of how the calendar falls, the opening week of a month tends to have an outsized effect on volatility in US trading, chiefly because the US non-farm payrolls report — the release markets watch most closely — lands early in the month. In a market as rate-sensitive as the current one, payrolls feed straight into rate expectations and therefore into a wider trading range. On top of that, the weekend's US–Iran flare-up has left the progress of the “so-called” 60-day negotiation window genuinely hard to read, and that is another source of instability in the market right now. A market like this, however, is actually easier to profit from — provided you approach it with a relatively short-term mindset. $Inve

This week's price action in U.S. equities is critical for the market trend over the next several weeks — above all the FOMC decision due early Thursday Beijing time. The U.S. indices have arrived at a very important support level, and once a key variable pushes them into choosing a direction, the broader medium-term trend could change. The current calm may therefore be brewing sharp volatility in the back half of the week. First, the latest developments on the technical side As you can see, the Nasdaq has now reached a very critical level. On the head-and-shoulders top pattern, the formation can already be treated as a breakdown of the head structure; by conventional technical projection, the subsequent downside would theoretically be roughly equal to the distance from the head to the curr

Last time I talked with you about this week's options strategy: besides continuing to run the index options straddle into rallies, one could also consider going long U.S. Treasuries on dips — especially the price of the long-bond TLT. But on Treasuries, as of today, after the escalation of the U.S.–Iran war, everyone needs to be more careful: rising crude oil drives inflation expectations higher, which could push Treasury yields up further, and Treasury prices would then face downward pressure. So we can lift the stop-loss on the buy-the-dip Treasury view a bit higher — up to near the prior-low support around $83.5. Review：Strong Dollar Returns: After Booking the Straddle Win,Why Treasuries Deserv

Over the weekend, Iran once again claimed it had blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, after which the U.S. said the Oman shipping lane was still operating normally. For this kind of news about the strait being blockaded or reopened during negotiations, the market has already built up considerable immunity — it was basically fully priced in as soon as Asian markets opened last Monday. So investors need not be overly sensitive to such news; just watch the market's reaction after the open. The relatively important events this week are the Fed Chair's testimony and the release of the CPI data, on which the market will place its bets regarding rate-hike expectations. Although I don't think the Fed will make any major rate-hike move, the market may use the occasion to react ahead of time, causing a c

The Old Man That Cried Wolf. After many weeks of pre-emptive Truth Social declarations that routinely cried wolf to the markets, Trump’s heavily promoted US-Iran peace deal finally graduated from social media propaganda. It became a verified, official framework agreement. Tentatively, the agreement to end the war, will be officially signed on Fri,19 Jun 2026 in Switzerland. At the just concluded G7 Meeting, Trump hogged the limelight and infamously declared that he has signed the MOU to: End a US blockade of Iranian ports. Reopen the Strait of Hormuz for 60-days tariffs free. Start the 60 days of nuclear negotiations. Equally important, it is confirmed too that Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has counter-signed t

A quiet shift is taking place at the very top of the global aluminum supply chain. Guinea, the world’s largest bauxite producer, plans to announce new export control measures in June. The goal is not to stop exports, but to manage volumes and push prices back to what the government sees as a more reasonable level. Bauxite sits at the starting point of the aluminum chain. It is processed into alumina, which is then used to produce primary aluminum. If bauxite starts to be repriced, the impact will not stop at the mine gate. Alumina, primary aluminum and downstream aluminum products will all have to recalculate their costs. Why Guinea Is Acting Guinea is not short of bauxite. The issue is that it may have been selling too much, too cheaply. In 2025, Guinea’s bauxite exports rose 25% to about