Transcription
It's been a while since we've seen this indicator actually activate. And the last time it did, we almost entered into a bare market. So, what is it and why should we be paying attention?
As markets start to see some problems on the horizon with the AI bubble potentially starting to get pressured through semiconductors and them falling over the last 24 hours, oil skyrocketing off geopolitical conflicts, and some of the largest world's hedges starting to get massive inflows. There's a lot of V right now, guys. But whether you like stocks, commodities, or cryptos, in today's video, we've got a lot to discuss. Don't go anywhere. Whether you're an investor or trader, there's heaps happening. See you soon.
Well, welcome back everybody to the Daily Show. My name is Thomas Atinson and today we're discussing the latest from the macro to what Wall Street's been up to to of course the options flow of the last couple of sessions. Maybe more importantly than all of this though, we need to talk about semiconductors as they fell off a cliff over the last 24 hours as markets started to show real signs of risk off. So let's begin by talking about why this risk off is happening and what we really need to be looking at specifically with bonds. Then we'll look at data. Then we'll look at the options flow and of course we'll go through the key levels.
But to begin with, this is a chart here that was shared from Bar Chart over at bar chart on X and you can see also sourced from JP Morgan and it showed that retail imbalance was pretty high. Now, we also talked about this just a few weeks ago, but you'll notice that this is the type of thing that happens when everyone jumps on board. And let me talk to you guys about this because one of the things that we're starting to see right now is not only are retail coming in, but the overall positioning of markets is just getting extreme to each side. You can see this chart here from at Cameron Dawson over on X and from Bloomberg shows that basically everybody is starting to look at certain trades and we're getting concentrated moves. We've had this in software. We've seen this of course in people betting against staples and being wrong and of course we've also got it with the world's biggest hedge being the US dollar. And recently everybody has been positioning to the short side. As you'll see later on today's video though, the price action is starting to show something very different as our yields. So, it's often the counterintuitive trade in some ways that often does come through. Remember, everyone piling on something is a bit of a warning sign and it is something we've talked about here for a while.
Speaking of warning signs, this chart here from Duality Research over on X kind of shows something about the VIX that I think is always important to note and we talk about this on the channel all the time. The idea is that if the VIX is above 20, then of course you've got volatility. If it's above 25, then you're in kind of a unique period. And what we've seen recently is that when the VIX has gone up to around 27. And for anyone watching that doesn't know what the VIX is, it's the volatility index uh based on of course options. And what ends up happening is this often can be a sign of buying fear in the street. So a lot of people see it as yes, it's a fear index. Yes, it can get a lot higher and obviously markets can fall, but people do often see it as a buying opportunity. Now, why is that? Well, when the VIX is above 27, the market stats at the market stats over on X, you can see down here the name basically does go through and show you guys what tends to happen when you get a high VIX. And when the VIX spikes up, often what happens is you'll hit a key support or a key demand in markets. Effectively, markets will fall into big levels. And one of those levels that we've talked about a lot has been 6770 to 6,800. Effectively the options put zone, the zone where Wall Street is holding as best it can to not allow what we call a waterfall effect or a massive short sell to come through. You'll see with the updated puts, by the way, guys, how many puts actually sit under this level in just a moment. So if we do drop this area, we could be like a click of a finger all the way down to 6600 pretty quickly.
Now, why could we be going down so quickly if things go bad? Well, one of those has to do with something we've also been discussing for a while. This one here from tier1alpha.com, I retweeted them over on our exac account, FXEolution, if you want to check it out, guys. And this actually shows something that I think we've been concerned about for a while. Basically, that we're seeing long exposure through leveraged ETFs, the new version of margin massively expanding. And in 2025, we actually saw some companies launching 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 different um different mo different accounts and ETFs and all sorts of different uh leverage funds. And we saw leverage from 2x to 3x across almost all single stocks that are major. This is a sign of the times. People are chasing and it often shows a later cycle style market. So, it's something that we have to keep on our kind of tippy toes for. And you can see here the leverage amount. Now, interestingly, stock or crypto has actually declined a little bit, but total market caps have been very very high. So, effectively people are leveraging pretty hard into 2026.
Now, why is this important? Well, with leverage comes high volatility. Blue Curtic actually put together a little bit of an interesting stat here at Blue Curtic over on X. And you can see that the open goes down 1% then gaps up or moves up then it goes gaps down and then it moves up again. And it's actually kind of rare and it does show some extreme vol. Now with the limited data stats that are here, a lot of the time these are actually looking kind of negative across the board. But I will say that if you gap down and then you're bidding up, it often shows that there's a decent buyer there. So somebody is actually really trying to buy the bid. The question is, is it retail or is it going to be Wall Street? Because obviously if it's Wall Street and some of the bigger players, that's good. If it's retail buying the dip all the time, that could be a trap. And that's why it's so important to be looking at more sectors and single stocks like we've been talking about recently as the debt and more importantly the risk profiles are very different from where they were back in 2024 and 25.
Now why do we say they're very different? Well, it all has to actually do with the new bubble which is of course the AI data center buildouts. We've seen bonds markets already start to put risk on these. And this chart here from Bloomberg, Sherwood and at shared at barchart.com or bar chart onx basically shows here that we've got credit default swaps which is effectively the spread risk that's needed starting to widen on Oracle. Now, this is no news uh to anyone that's been watching this channel for a while. If you're new here, by the way, make sure to subscribe, smash that bell button if you like this type of stuff. But the main thing is that we're looking at this guys because what we're trying to figure out is when will the bonds market crack? When will it decide, hey, we need some profits here from these AI buildouts? You've spent all the money. You've gone to the markets. You're asking for more bonds. You're asking for more debt. It's just, you know, will it just continue to be like the human centipede kind of thing that people have been talking about with Nvidia and all the others? Well, I do think that the risk is starting to widen. And of course, this is a story that's going to go through 2026. But because it's macro, because it's bonds, you really need to be very careful about just getting scared instead of actually seeing these things become the problem. Remember, when it becomes the narrative and then all of a sudden you see selling, that's when you've got to actually be a little bit scared of this stuff.
S&P 500 sector performance, guys, it is a totally different market. 2025 all about tech. 2026 all about energy, materials, staples, and defensives. And again, we've been seeing this. We've been following it here on the channel and you can see here that pretty much one of the most hated sectors at the moment has been software. Now uh we'll look at software in a moment because actually IGV starting to increase but the most important aspect of this market was not really all of these moves. It's been the tech hardware move. Now this chart here from duality research shows you can see the hardware has been significantly overperforming and that's semiconductors. Now if semiconductors start failing because of the concentration of the market because of the way the market is kind of really based on this AI data center play then that is going to be a problem. So this is of course something we'll look at in just a moment. Technology stocks according to Subu Trade have been pretty shorted. They also have been pretty long but this does sometimes form a basing structure in markets. And interestingly a lot of people it looks like a lot of hedge funds were trying to short energy. I'm not sure about that guys. Uh we've obviously been more long on the technical potential side here from what we've seen on the charts and it has been blitzing. Of course, energy stocks, oil services, gas, any of those things before even any of these geopolitical conflicts were already breaking out. And I think that's important to note and something that most people don't talk about. If you see the flows, often the smart money will actually be moving in there. We talk about smart money a little bit and the dumb money tends to come in when everybody's already talking about it. So you can kind of go with two/irds of the move generally happens before everyone talks and then the last third is when everybody starts discussing.
Speaking of discussion, let's have a look now at the charts. It was getting dicey out there, guys. We actually saw the advanced decline line go down for a little bit, which was the first time in a while. But more importantly, we almost lost the zone. In fact, during the start of the session, we literally dropped all the way down to almost 6,700 and then spiked, creating a bit of a bullish hammer by the end of the session and just maintaining the 6,800 base. So, this really shows you the power of the puts and also the power of the closes on markets. Now, will bulls be happy with this? I think they may be. I think it also could be, you know, a really good sign to set up 6950. But you can see that of course the risks are starting to go up there. I mean, you know, most people, I guess, were looking at the market and looking at this geopolitical conflict and saying, well, it might just stop, you know, in a few days. That's often what happens. It kind of, you know, escalates, deescalates, escalates, deescalates. Could this time be different? Are we just going to see consistent escalation? And what's that going to do to, of course, the energy prices and all of these types of disruptions that can happen in the world? You know, it's u it could get very, very big. And obviously, the market is trading off that risk.
So what about this 100 simple moving average? One of the most popular indicators to have on the S&P or really any particular chart. For the first time in a while, we closed underneath it. But the good news is is that the market did rally back to holding the horizontal support. And I think this is the key whenever you're looking at markets. A significant close below it, such as what we saw back in February and March of 2025, did end up spurring a pretty big sell-off. But like any indicator, you want to be looking at whether it's been consistent for a very long time. And whenever we have closed underneath it and rallied straight away, it's actually held up. So, does the 100 SMA matter? Yes. Are we going to monitor it? Yes, of course, we all will together. But realistically, by gapping down and finishing in a nice green kind of pattern, it reminds me a little bit more of what we saw back in that July into August period of 2024. So for now guys, don't worry too much about that one, but you will see a lot of information being shared about it. But for now, technically wise, we actually held and the main thing is that we held that 6770 6800 zone. You'll see in a moment. Big volume on the day as well. So obviously a lot of liquidations did occur as markets went underneath some of the lows, but we didn't expose the breakout. And do remember because this is a range market. Basically, if it does break out, you're going to have to expect the move, which is effectively around a 200 point plus move to either the upside above 7K or the downside. For now, though, still a rangebound market, no breakouts, guys. So, of course, it's proceed as usual, I guess, in terms of single stock selection and all of the normal risk management parameters that you would use. Plus, of course, uh make your own decisions, work all that type of stuff out. But, it's still a rangebound market technically holding barely onto a bull trend. You'll see why it's barely holding in a moment.
The S&P 500 also showed itself to have tons of puts. People were stacking yesterday. Look at the 6780 for the 5th of March. Look at the 4th of March, guys. That is a ton of puts. Now, if we do drop the level, this creates what we call a waterfall or cascade event. So, you guys can see here this 6,800 comes up a lot and it's because this is a major zone for markets. S&P also has 7,000 on the call wall for all expirations. So again, you can see the importance of that and the Q's. Well, we know it's all about 600 595 and we closed at 601. So again, the market's held onto those zones. And this is why it's important to look at these puts. 170 for Nvidia, still holding above that. So the main stock of the market is still holding. And we do know 170 is the most struck put zone. So again, the all important areas. You can see how they all synergize together. If we drop 170 on Nvidia, then we're dropping S&P and Q's at the same time. We've got problems at the moment though. We don't in terms of the price action hasn't shown it. I can see why fear could be in the street. No doubt the VIX is up. It's actually interesting we haven't dropped these levels considering how high the VIX has gone. So yeah, it's I think it's going to be a big wild 2026, guys. Just going to keep being one of those markets that you're going to learn some new things on.
Tesla 390. Interesting. We're under 400. That actually exposes more downside than upside. But I don't think the chart is that great on Tesla at the moment. And for IBIT, this is of course the big uh Bitcoin. You can see here guys, 37 12 kind of like the put wall and around 39 12 kind of the core wall. So we're really looking for 72K plus really on Bitcoin to show us that the bulls are back in any meaningful way.
All right, let's jump into the charts and have a look firstly at the VIX. The VIX hit plus 27 which obviously means that you know we're at those points that we've often seen bottomings of markets. It's a good little tip as you load up the S&P versus VIX. So you can kind of see whether these have marked like little by the dips. Remember they don't always the VIX can actually drop off. So the VIX can drop off yet the market will actually be still going down. So this often just marks like kind of like a little bit of a relief rally which we have to be careful of when we're looking at markets. But yes, this is often considered kind of like the buy the fear event kind of area. What makes this one a little different though is that the old dollar, the US dollar has come back up. And remember, we talked a little bit about this and we had some data on this today's video, which was that we've seen a market that is constantly trying to push underneath that multi-year trend line, but hasn't been able to do it. And for the first time, I mean, we're not through 125, but we actually made a slight higher high getting through 9930. And this is a fairly important thing. It's kind of suggesting that maybe we've actually seen the dollar base and if that's true especially with so many people trying to short the dollar it could create a squeeze event. So levels to watch in the future obviously things like 103 kind of 70 and of course this 130. So interesting to see the dollar becoming more of a safe haven as yields start to spike up big time.
UK oil also came back up to that resistance zone went a little bit higher and US oil also did something similar. We saw a big spike up in US oil and they're all around these kind of resistance areas. Of course, why? Well, everyone is going crazy. I actually went and filled my car last night with fuel and I can say, yeah, you can see the worst of humanity. I'm sure you guys put your comments down below. What have you seen in these fuel lines? Wow. People just yelling at each other about saving like 15 20 cents. I mean, I get it. I get it, but I don't really get it. You know what I mean? So, it's, you know, some courtesy, guys. Come some courtesy. be nice to people at the fuel pumps. But yeah, people are scrambling and uh everyone's their opinion was like fuel is going to go up and it's going to be like, you know, it's only $100 and you know, it's interesting to see how the panic spreads. It reminds me a little bit about CO when everyone was fighting over toilet paper. But anyway, the zombie apocalypse is here, guys, in terms of what we're seeing at the fuel bowser. Be careful out there. And uh yeah, people are heated for sure.
So what's this meaning? Well, we hit the technical level. This often is where I would expect kind of markets to slow down a little bit and then you know absorb these prices and then usually go sideways. Of course, geopolitical conflicts can continue to spike it up, but it has already gone up a lot. You've got to remember the percentage actually of increase just in the last week is 16%. Like is oil cheap still? Yes. When you put it out to a really high barrier, you're going to say, "Okay, what about 100? What about you know further further further?" And you can see what happened during 2022 as well where we got this massive spike in oil that went up. So are we at resistance? Yes. If we break this level then we can talk about 90 a barrel. But at this point uh we are at the resistance.
Let's now talk semiconductors because of course weakness in the backbone of the US market could be bad. Now I've done here semiconductors just generally. You can see the trend line coming up. And also if you look at semiconductors versus their performance of the S&P 500, you'll notice here again the 50 moving average daily here coming down. Little bit of a trend line here as well behind the back. Not exactly perfect, but you can see it. Is it holding on? Yes. Is it holding on for dear life? Maybe. Um, so you know, it's a very critical level. And again, we don't really want to see semiconductors under a 0.55 ratio because that's going to be telling us, hey, there's weakness in basically the most important sector of the market. Nvidia still holding above 170. So, no real concerns there just yet, guys. 170 is a big level. And funnily enough, software again managed to eek out again. Funny how that happens. Hey, you just get this uh it hasn't actually changed trend yet, but that was a nice little breakout above 83. And again, volume is big. And as I said last week and we talked about together, Nvidia might be used as a catalyst for other things. And so far, software's actually been picking up. And remember, that has really run a story because everyone said, "Oh, it's terrible. Software's gone. The market's over, etc., etc."
Let's have a look now at Tesla. Tesla, of course, sitting around that 390 to 400 level. Yes, this is a major support for it. Yes, it is continuing to make a series of lower lows and lower highs. So, of course, we don't really want to be thinking about that as a market that uh that is strong right now. It's not daily 20 in particular. This red line is holding it down. So, of course, we continue to watch that and see whether anything really changes. For now, not that much.
And when we go to China, we actually see that China just hit major support. So, it hit the 25,000. Unfortunately, when it dropped 26 and a bit, that became a head and shoulders. And if we take the distance of the head and shoulders to the downside, we're kind of hitting into that area right now. So, a nice spike up, a nice buy bid off that that may have liquidated a little bit. We'll have to see how the structure plays out here, but uh certainly an interesting chart in terms of world markets as well. I just wanted to bring up some of these. We've got German 30 hitting the most traded area. Obviously, some big volumes there and it did drop off. But, uh maybe more interesting than any of this is, uh these really expensive markets. So this is the Cosby. This is the Korean market. Now I would argue volatility has entered the room on this one guys. Now just remember the Cosby is up since March. So it's one year60%. Yeah, that's insane. Uh and this is huge volatility. So the the actual index just dropped 14% in a few days. And this just shows you this is an unwind of of a very extended position. So, is this around the area that you'd usually see bid buyers? Sure. Has it happened? No. But be careful out there, guys. This is an unusual market, as is Japan, as is parts of Asia. A lot of these hardware um manufacturing kind of businesses are really extended. I mean, I'm just going to show you here just so you can see it. If we load up SanDisk for a second, look at this. Look at this. $46 last year and look at it now. So, kind of reminds me a little bit of Zoom and stuff. I mean obviously it's not but you know these are this is what happens. You know markets can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent and they can create some serious risks if you don't know what you're doing.
Uh gold and silver u we'll actually just go well, we'll just do gold here for a second. So gold um hit the resistance. This is pretty much where I'd expect technicals to to to um find some some targeting. It's come back down to the daily 20 which where it's bounced a few times before. You can see the daily 20 is quite respected on gold. So interesting little uh level to see whe the buyers come back in and silver being the half precious metal, half commodity kind of metal. Um it fell down now. Too early to tell on silver, but just remember we did share some charts from Nautilus a little while ago which were excellent and that kind of showed that this is the type of thing that happens after silver went ballistic and it did go ballistic this year.
Ethereum and Bitcoin still stuck within a range guys. We haven't seen Ethereum break the 2150 level and we haven't seen Bitcoin break 70 or 72, but it is holding and there was a little bit of a bid coming through. So, some confidence I guess in that demand is very strong on the left hand side in my opinion and we are still waiting for further confirmation.
Guys, I hope you have a good day. If you enjoyed today's video, then please remember to subscribe and smash that like button. Check out also our courses if you're interested. And of course, check us out over on X at FXEolution and follow the guys that we've shared the charts on in this video. Um, and basically, yeah, I I guess the thing here is, you know, is summary of this video, was yesterday a bit of a sign of a wake up in the markets? Yes. Are we seeing bonds start to spike out? Yes. There's definitely more risk in this market than we've seen in quite some time. We have been saying that for a while. The risk exists. We just don't have the breakdowns of some of the majors yet. So, if we lose semiconductors, if we lose Nvidia, if we lose the S&P, then we could be looking at a further 200 points down before finding any real base structure. And I think that's the kind of point we're at. For now, though, the bid did come in. So, if it keeps bidding and it makes a higher high, then of course there could be a massive squeeze as well, as I'm sure some people entered massive hedges the last 24 hours. Good luck, guys, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye for now.