MACRO OPS

Triangulating markets through technicals, sentiment, & macro

MO: A Community for traders seeking an uncommon edge

[MACRO OPS @MacroOps]

1/ Druckenmiller's first mentor, Speros Drelles, would often tell him that "60 million Frenchman can't be wrong."

Here's a thread on what that means and how to know when you should listen to or ignore the "Frenchman" (market)...

[Milton W Berg CFA @BergMilton]

Institutional Research https://t.co/zF8UE9i99J

This chart was included in this morning's institutional report. The (S&P Technology Select Sector SPDR) is displaying topping characteristics. It has gapped lower this morning, creating an Island Reversal pattern..

[Warren Pies @WarrenPies]

This market is still semis vs funding shorts.

Short interest in non-AI market segments started hooking higher in mid-2024.

You really see it on a day like today (SOXX -2% vs SP EW +.78%).

[Rob Anderson @_rob_anderson]

NDR's pattern matching tool shows that the NASDAQ has closely tracked the dotcom analog and is closer to 1998 than 2000. It still suggests near-term volatility ahead.

[Mark Ungewitter @mark_ungewitter]

SPX trend channel with post-1998 analog. Risk management, anyone?

[🏴‍☠️ @calvinfroedge]

You people are not prepared for the amount of finding out that's about to happen

[Jurrien Timmer @TimmerFidelity]

The cyclical bull market that started on October 13, 2022, has now turned 45 months, well past the median age of 30 months.

The 118% return places this cyclical bull in the top 4 of strongest bulls since 1960. It remains quite narrow in terms of breadth, making for an interesting comparison to the 169% bull market from October 1998 to March 2000.

[Mark Ungewitter @mark_ungewitter]

Today’s semiconductor melt-up obviously resembles post-1998 behavior (upper clip). ROC is well short of the 76-week reading at the March 2000 top (middle clip), but well ahead based on the 61-week interval since April 2025 (lower clip). Trailing stops, anyone?

[Helene Meisler @Chartfest1]

This is a good chart because it really captures the current environment.

[Turning Point Market Research @TPMRSignals]

Fueled by gains in software stocks, the percentage of S&P 500 Technology stocks outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 63 sessions has reached its highest level since December 2023.

[Linda Raschke @LindaRaschke]

terrible looking Heat Map! Breadth has been negative all day.

[Minerva Capital @MinervaCap]

Crypto down when everything else is up. Can't even blame Software this time. Meanwhile positioning is at all-time highs (via @MacroOps)

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Follow the money on this one. It is rotten to the core.

The Pentagon just lent $620,000,000 to a tiny North Carolina startup called Vulcan Elements. The company is two years old.

It had fewer than 50 employees.

And three months before the deal was announced, Donald Trump Jr.’s venture firm quietly took a stake in it.

Here is the part the administration tried to bury.

Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was weighing, Vulcan was the only deal initiated by a top White House aide. That aide was Peter Navarro, a close friend of Trump Jr. The order came down to move fast.

One official put it plainly: The call came from the White House. We have to get this done.

Staff worked late nights to push it through in weeks. Deals like this normally take many months of vetting. And when it closed, Vulcan’s valuation jumped from about 200 million dollars to roughly 2 billion.

A windfall for the investors, including the president’s son.

This is public money. Your money.

Routed through the Pentagon to enrich the president’s family and their friends. The Bush administration’s own chief ethics lawyer called it corruption we pay for.

And there is more coming.

A drone parts company Trump Jr. holds a stake in is also under Pentagon review.

This is not a one-off. It is a pattern. The president’s family is treating the federal Treasury like a private bank, and the bill lands on every taxpayer.

https://t.co/4kB1cZNmlE

[John Arnold @johnarnold]

America's cultural ideal has been the self-made entrepreneur while Europe's was rooted in aristocracy, with status inherited rather than earned. Europe's inheritance laws show this divide.

Many European countries have "forced heirship" laws that require people to leave 50-75% of their estates to their children. Want to leave the majority of your wealth to charity? not allowed. Your kids are estranged from you, struggling with addiction, or irresponsible? still required to give them the money. Want your kids to avoid a life of entitlement? tough.

Incredibly, these laws look back at transfers made during your lifetime. If you have 3 children in France, you're required to bequeath them a minimum of 75% of your estate. Because French law calculates this based on your assets at death plus all lifetime gifts, giving away more than 25% of your wealth while alive means your heirs can legally sue to force charities or foundations to return the funds. This has limited the development of the nonprofit sector on the continent.

The cultural gap between an entrepreneurial society and one shaped by dynastic wealth is enormous. If you make it yourself, you tend to want your kids to do the same. If you inherit it, the primary goal is protecting the estate for the next gen.

Countries like Spain, France, and Italy legally entrench family dynasties, while America has historically sought to limit them through estate taxes. The result is not only a weaker culture of philanthropy and civil society in Europe, but also less economic dynamism.

[Rory Johnston @Rory_Johnston]

Japanese crude oil inventory chart is one of the wildest through the Hormuz crisis thus far.

[John Arnold @johnarnold]

Between stock trading by federal officials, insider trading in prediction markets, fixed sporting events, and suspicious moves in energy, integrity in markets feels lower today than at any point in the modern era.

[Turning Point Market Research @TPMRSignals]

This week’s Chart of the Week highlights the frequency of 5% daily gains and compares the current environment to the Dotcom-era backdrop.

Read the full analysis on our blog (open to the public).

[Kalshi Crypto @Kalshi_Crypto]

JUST IN: Michael Saylor's 'Strategy' just deposited $30M worth of Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime

[RobertTimper @RobertTimper1]

Can't get a recession with profit growth like this. Instead could hiring pick finally pickup again?

[HFI Research @HFI_Research]

We are ~9 million bbls away from hitting a storage level that's the equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck for gasoline and distillate.

Once we get there, even a minor disruption (any sort of outage) will result in gasoline lines at gas stations.

I guess we are really doing this.

[SpotGamma @spotgamma]

Congrats - you've done it.

COR1M <8

Call froth in full effect

This signals the market will likely have some violent mean reversion in the not-too-distant future.

I'm watching for mid June for when stars fully align, but the trigger has now been set.