Rio, Market Catnician

Dad/ Dork/CMT.
Often wrong. Always in doubt. Musings about 🇺🇸 markets. Inanities about everything else.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

Weekly Market Recap
$SPX chart below

We've spent months between 7600-ish and 7800-ish, with a few failed breakouts and breakdowns.

Spare a thought for your weekly recap analyst, who's had to come up with various ways to describe paint drying or grass growing.

All that pent-up, coiled energy had to resolve one way or the other. This week, it finally did, with a real weekly move and panic-sized volatility explosions.

First, a one-day fake Bullish move, perhaps relief that the election wasn't going to be a protracted mess.

Then a real doozy of a selloff when an already very wobbly AI trade got “stabbed in the back,” to borrow a colorful phrase from Renaissance Macro’s Jeff deGraaf. The potential consequences of the Democratic sweep started looking less theoretical and more real.

Data-center moratoriums, tougher permitting and tighter oversight gave investors something new to worry about, on top of CAPEX, cash flow and uncertain returns.

That's one narrative. Yours may be as good as mine. Narratives are just stories we tell ourselves to make the markets make sense. Truth is: Nobody really knows.

There have also been rumors of pods and prop-shop blowups. Reports confirm heavy hedge-fund losses and aggressive risk-cutting, with some funds chasing Wednesday's rally and dumping those positions on Thursday. Forced selling can give any narrative a helping hand.

Thursday alone, $SPX fell 4.4%, while $VIX jumped nearly 70% to 28.18.

Anyway, 7400-ish is a very important level, and we finished the week just below it, around 7375. If the Bulls can't reclaim and defend that area, the next test is the rising 50-week SMA in the 7200–7300 zone, followed by 7000-ish, the high from before the Iran war started in early 2026.

Another era.

Thanks for reading.

🙏🙏👊🍻

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@sydl_sydl @grok Be careful ladies, some men get knuckle hair implants. It's a thing now apparently.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@RudyHavenstein Which, if true, would prove Jensen wasn't the Godfather of AI.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@RudyHavenstein Which, if true, would prove Jensen wasn't the Godfather of AI.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@WhimsicalHannah @Mayhem4Markets Ok but you're not real.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@Mayhem4Markets Ah yes. People have been underestimating him most at the exact moment(s) he makes his moves. I can believe it.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@Mayhem4Markets 🤣🤣🤣
See what you did there!
Does his name start with an E?

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@KerryHolmekb If I'm starving, I'll say:
"Sorry guys but I'm starving," and start eating in a delicate and deliberate manner. Voilà!

The only people judging you harshly in a fancy restaurant is the staff.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@Mayhem4Markets If you go down this route, it could only have been orchestrated by the most powerful man in AI himself.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@MustangMan_TX

[Compound248 💰 @compound248]

My tinfoil hat theory on Jensen situation.

Bear in mind, the only way Jensen gets ousted is if there is a BAD smoking gun, possibly around a crime.

A theory:

> honeypot Chinese spy-CEO girl gets Jensen

> she buys GPUs for megaspeed

> those GPUs ultimately go to China

> JH figures it out; tries to stop

> CCP tells him, “ha, gotcha b!tch” and blackmails him into continuing

> pressures JH to ship more GPUs

> JH has Nvidia ship said GPUs and tells team to not look too closely

> JH starts defending China as a potential customer publicly (see Dwarkesh pod below)

> CIA figures out what’s happening

[Note: Trump mentioned on 60 Minutes interview the US discovered a major AI CEO breaking the law. Trump threatened him with prosecution if he didn’t get onboard Team USA ASAP. “Do you like wearing orange?”]

> This is Jensen

> JH shuts down honeypot relationship and related GPU shipments

> China says, “No. If you don’t ship, we will destroy you.”

> Stuck between US legal system and Chinese blackmail, JH risks calling China’s bluff

> China does initial leak on JH honeypot affair. JH denies it to Nvidia board (6-12 months ago)

> US CIA / DoJ knows he did it

> China is not bluffing

> China sees anti-AI blue wave at last week’s US ballot box (which it helped catalyze) and decides now is the time to hit Jensen

> Leaks the story aggressively. Kill three birds with one stone: take out blackmail target; disrupt important AI leader; feed AOC’s oligarch AI wet dream

> Nvidia board forced to investigate. Discovers JH a) lied; b) broke the law; and c) had an affair with Nvidia employee

> Nvidia board doesn’t want to fire him but almost has to, especially if he knowingly broke the law

AND SO HERE WE ARE.

Critical question for $NVDA board is did JH knowingly do something illegal. Because everything else falls in a “policy violation” bucket that can be managed without termination.

But if he broke major laws, the board is trapped, barring USG intervention.

We shall see.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@Joshua_WD @JohnJoseph11271 Sorry I actually agree with your post but it came out wrong.
Just to be clear: I don't envy those people. Hopefully there's more to life than just "gaming the system," whatever that system may be.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@telqraft One very early morning, coming back from clubbing, I found a baby human in front of my door, rolled tightly in a yellow shawl, sleeping without a care in the world.
Etc.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@telqraft One very early morning, coming back from clubbing, I found a baby human in front of my door, rolled tightly in a yellow shawl, sleeping without a care in the world.
Etc.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@Joshua_WD @JohnJoseph11271 "Taking advantage of the system" is, to many people, what life is all about.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@Joshua_WD @JohnJoseph11271 "Taking advantage of the system" is, to many people, what life is all about.

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@undertheskey @JohnJoseph11271 How about the (screenshot)^⁴?

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@undertheskey @JohnJoseph11271 How about the (screenshot)^⁴?

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@DaveNadig @paisitfwd 🤣🤣🤣
Ah the original fake news!
We've come a long way.
Or did we?

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

@0xRezu Agreed. It's certainly the most important thing. Bad defense (risk management) doesn't even let you play offense (trading strategies.)

[Rio, Market Catnician @musingtrader]

You need an ever-evolving suite of uncorrelated strategies to survive.
How many?
50-ish.
Never been as true as this year.
And that's only to have a chance in hell to stay alive long enough for the markets to become tradable again.
Good luck out there.
🙏🙏✋️✋️🤞🤞👊👊🍻🍻