Steve Bick, CFA

Hedge fund manager trading in stocks, futures, commodities and money market funds.

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

@htsfhickey Agreed. These interest rates will definitely break something soon.

[fred hickey @htsfhickey]

Roque pointed out on a chart of the 10-year Treasury yield going back the last five decades 16 instances where it experienced a rapid advance like it is now. During each and every move, some sort of financial calamity resulted.

“We should be prepared or forewarned that rates are rising and something is going to break,” Roque warned.

“Something always breaks,”

With a VIX "fear gauge" at just 15+, sentiment still extremely bullish, FINRA margin debt up 37% Y/Y to $1.45T (and that's just a portion of the leverage in the market), virtually no investors are "prepared or forewarned that rates are rising and something is going to break."

Today's investors are brazenly complacent (as they were in early 2000 and again in 2007 to early 2008) and that's a dangerous position to be in (again).
https://t.co/LyQa9cJiFu

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

@htsfhickey Agreed

[Otavio (Tavi) Costa @TaviCosta]

The US dollar is approaching one of its most consequential technical tests in years.

A break below this support could mark the beginning of a much broader decline.

If I had to choose one market move that could define the next few years… this would be it.

https://t.co/zibz6QZ5WQ

[Otavio (Tavi) Costa @TaviCosta]

Silver miners are swimming in cash.

The industry has built its largest cash balance in history.

You know what comes next…

M&A activity is likely on the horizon.

Game on.

https://t.co/fRncIKJgF9

[Otavio (Tavi) Costa @TaviCosta]

Gold miners are now cheaper relative to the S&P 500 than at any point in history.

This is the uncomfortable accumulation phase.

Fundamentals remain intact, but prices continue to test investors' conviction.

https://t.co/nXbkmVaOWR

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

@TommyThornton Agreed

[fred hickey @htsfhickey]

Funny, I don't remember such a backlash against the internet during the https://t.co/Ao8an6Bw3T years. Probably because the benefits to the average American were a lot easier to see and understand (information at one's fingertips) versus so many of the negatives people see today. Improved search engines versus cost inflation (including rapidly rising electricity rates), potential loss of jobs and wage pressures, wealth inequality, wholesale theft of peoples' work (writers, artists, etc.), a deluge of fake and scam advertising, threats to children's well-being...the list goes on. The average American also doesn't care much about computer programmers' increased ability to write code faster. https://t.co/TDsrWzmye2

[Lisa Abramowicz @lisaabramowicz1]

Not only did US consumer confidence fall to a record low in the latest UMich survey, but the employment component deteriorated to 41 from 52, just 1 pt from matching the lowest since 2008, via @pboockvar https://t.co/lACAKTyttL

[fred hickey @htsfhickey]

Lead comment in Philip Grant's Trading Recap section from tonight's Almost Daily Grant's:
"Stocks swiftly erased early losses to build on yesterday’s potent rally, with the S&P 500’s 0.6% gain drawing the blue-chip gauge back to the cusp of unchanged on the year."

The S&P 500 index is down all of 0.3% YTD, while the Dow Industrial Average is up 0.25%. Really? With everything that's gone on this year! A war with a very uncertain outcome. Closed Strait of Hormuz. Soaring energy prices, Rising inflation (even before the war). Developing shortages (fertilizer, tungsten, jet fuel, helium, semiconductor memories etc.). A potential "run" on private credit lenders. A major bubble in hyperscaler stocks that looks to be leaking air (finally).

The "buy-the-dip" mentality ingrained in investors' psyche is eventually going to trap the very complacent dip buyers in a bad spot. Saw similar complacency before in 2000 prior to the tech bubble's collapse and again in 2007 before the Global Financial Crisis (when subprime was supposedly "contained").

[Mohamed A. El-Erian @elerianm]

The economic and financial fallout of the War for US households includes:
Round One: The immediate impact of surging gas prices and more expensive mortgages (below from Bloomberg News).
Round Two: Almost a certainty by now, a broader hit to the cost of living.
Absent a significant "circuit breaker" or an end to the conflict, the third round would involve lower economic growth and a higher risk of unsettling financial instability.
#economy #markets #middleeastwar

[Garrett Goggin, CFA & CMT @GarrettGoggin]

Here's why Silver is doing what it's doing. Rates go up, Silver falls. Not a conspiracy. The "Silver" lining here is that this is the 1st time bonds are being sold during a major conflict. Never happened before. Trade partners don't want them. Freasury will step up in time to manage yields lower which will send Gold and Silver much higher. Patience grasshopper.

[Otavio (Tavi) Costa @TaviCosta]

This meme never gets old.

You never know the exact bottom — and it’s not worth having the hubris to think you do.

I’ll keep scaling in at what I see as cheap, historically oversold levels.

No need to follow my approach — I know many prefer to buy at $5,500 instead.

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

If there are significant withdrawals they will not be able to pay off the debt and return investor balances. If I am correct and they have to liquidate watch out below!

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

Can someone correct me if I am wrong but MSTR purchased Bitcoin at an average of roughly $75k a coin. It used leverage of around 18% meaning that if Bitcoin falls below $88k they are upside-down.

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

@htsfhickey Agreed Fred just paid 17.6% for the product tariff and another 19% for the reciprocal tariff for total tariffs on my backpacks of 36.6%. Considering they are designed in the USA and use fabric made in the USA the tariff costs will end up costing USA customers in price increases.

[fred hickey @htsfhickey]

Google's CEO has touted the hundreds of trillions of "tokens" it is processing each month and the enormous increases year-over-year, but much of it is pure "AI slop" that's negative for U.S. productivity (massive time wasting) and generating very little revenues (and lots of losses). We must thank our Silly-con-Valley dreamers (and hypsters) for accelerating the dumbing down of Americans, and for pushing their false narratives of the wondrous future ahead of us (as they sell their shares, at ridiculous multiples, making themselves rich). Oh, and thank you Fed for making all of the easy credit available to fund such malinvestments and to be a primary cause for the eventual tragedy of those sucked into this nonsense. https://t.co/SfiZMtQUNl

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

@GarrettGoggin Just need to get over $40/Oz and hold it, then off we go.

[Steve Bick, CFA @spbick]

A massive number of Silver Dec contracts sold to only move silver down 76 cents. RSI approaching a low at 38.54 and MACD at 19, setting up for a massive squeeze rally in the very near future.

[fred hickey @htsfhickey]

Terrific article on (Gen)AI from the New Yorker. Left out of the article was the fact that Meta's Llama 4 model has been a huge disappointment too (not just GPT 5). The (severe) limitations of GenAI large language models (LLMs) are becoming clearer to those not drunk on the hypsters' propaganda (and Wall Street greed). The benefits (additional revenues) from the hyperscalers' capex (mal)investments do not come anywhere close to matching what they're spending.

For a stock market dependent on the current "earnings" growth rates (actually massive losses when the final results are tallied - including depreciation expenses recognized over multiple years) from the big-cap tech stocks dominating stock trading today, this situation is problematic, to say the least.

Just as it was impossible to know the timing of the collapse of the https://t.co/Ao8an6Bw3T bubble, it is the same with the current AI-driven stock market bubble. One thing is for sure - when the collapse occurs, it will be epic -especially because GenAI is no internet (or radio or railroads or canals) that had propelled the imaginations of investors/speculators in past manias. GenAI is a minor league innovation propelling a major league stock market bubble (maybe the biggest ever). It's a bad combo.

https://t.co/82BCBX41Zd