PUBLIC · A dashboard for the liquidity regime

The cross-asset reaction to Treasury's expanded long-end liquidity-support buybacks was immediate. Long-end yields fell sharply, DXY dumped, USDJPY faded, and XAUUSD, XAGUSD, and B** rallied.
As I have said repeatedly, Trump cares about only four things: 1) equity-market performance; 2) inflation prints; 3) Treasury yields; and 4) approval ratings. Of the four, yields matter most. He has struggled to keep oil contained, and oil staying elevated for longer has continued to push inflation expectations and long-end yields higher. As the US30Y yield reached a new 20-year high, he was forced to have Bessent pull a TACO on long-end yields by expanding Treasury's long-end buyback support.
The move immediately relieved pressure on long-duration assets, but I would not mistake it for a change in the underlying trend. As we have seen repeatedly in USDJPY, temporary policy measures rarely reverse a fundamentally driven move. Reversing the rise in long-end yields would require either normalization through the Strait of Hormuz or a stringent budget. I see little prospect of either.
Gold delivered a decisive break above 4.4K as long-end yields and the dollar fell. The inverse relationship between long-end yields and precious metals remains intact. My concern that yields and precious metals might continue rising in tandem has not materialized, at least for now. Had that regime taken hold, real equity returns would have moved deeeeeep into negative territory. For gold bulls, I would prefer an entry on a pullback toward 4.4K, where the risk is clearly defined against the breakout level. Silver also bounced from our 63 support.
On equities, SPX retraced from the ascending resistance line as expected, while NDX is still wrestling with the descending trendline. Bears need a decisive break below that line before the next leg lower can develop. Otherwise, NQ could again lead a broader equity-market bounce.
BTC1! also responded strongly to the long-bond rally, bouncing from the lower boundary of the ascending channel.

DX1!

Yesterday's FOMC proved to be a non-event, as we expected, especially compared with the previous two meetings. NDX's intraday range was just 0.78%, versus 2.81% on July 29 and 1.67% on September 16.

AMZN, INTC and SNDK report after the close today. So far, all the major tech earnings have been met with negative reactions regardless of the numbers reported, except MSFT, whose gains are already fading in premarket.

Despite the NDX selloff over the past two to three weeks, SPX remains only about 1.5% below its ATH. This is consistent with my call for a bond rebound that would support equities in the ST. As I have mentioned several times in previous Tactical Positioning, I do not expect a large selloff into the election. I think the market is underpricing the risk of a large selloff after it. At the same time, there is a small chance of an explosive post-election rally, as we saw in 2016, though I put very low odds on that outcome.

Months ago, when oil rebounded from our pivot levels around 70 into triple digits, I outlined the path into the election. The broad framework was the 70s on the downside and 100-120 on the upside, with 100 as the normal upper bound and 120 if the situation got out of control. That has largely played out.

Once again, there has been no progress whatsoever toward a peace deal. Traffic through Hormuz has improved significantly, but as I have said, keeping oil prices high is in Tehran's best interests. It does not need an explosive spike. As long as oil stays elevated, time is on Tehran's side, not Washington's.

Oil inflation generates second-order effects that can make inflation very sticky. We are now eight months into the war, and those effects have yet to materialize. I expect them to emerge next year.

The bond rally is technical rather than fundamental. I called the yield tops weeks ago, and Treasuries have since rallied hard across the curve despite no visible drop in oil prices. I expect this rebound to end in the coming weeks as the positive correlation between oil and yields reasserts itself. Unless we see a material change in the Middle East, rising yields across the curve seem to be the only path forward.

This technical bounce has been among the most lucrative trades this year. Congrats to those who took it. As always, trail your stops to protect your gains.

NQ1! was rejected at the horizontal resistance following the earnings releases. I would have shorted that rejection had it happened during RTH. ES1!as been trapped in a very narrow range between 7,660 and 7,840, which I expect to break as soon as Election Day.

AMZN continues to trade within our LT rising channel. ST resistance sits around 290, with an extension toward 302, while ST support is around 225. I doubt tonight's earnings will take it to either end of that range, whether in after-hours trading or by tomorrow's close.

INTC's generational channels capped its upside a few months ago. Given the cyclicality of the industry and where we are in the broader cycle, the odds favor tests of support at 67 and 52 in the coming months. That is consistent with our expectation of a selloff after the election.

I have received a lot of feedback over the past few weeks, and based on that feedback, there will be major changes to the content I provide to this community.

Tactical Positioning will cease, as the majority of you fail to appreciate the finesse behind these charts and their predictive power. That does not mean all the content from Tactical Positioning is going away.

Future content will focus primarily on trades, setups and the analysis behind them. Subscribers who were here in 2024 and 2025 will find this familiar. This is a return to the classics. Shorting near the top ahead of the tariffs in Q1 2025, going long near the bottom and shorting gold near the top are just a few examples.

Charts and analysis from Tactical Positioning that are relevant to a trade or setup will continue to be provided. Updates will come when I think they are needed, rather than on a weekly schedule that can be untimely and contain more irrelevant information than relevant information. This post is an example of what future content will look like.

I also want to align expectations. I do not like regularly scheduled updates because sometimes there is simply nothing to update. No significant price action is expected, and the best thing to do is step away from your screen and enjoy your life.

When significant moves are happening, I could publish several posts in a single trading day, as I did ahead of Liberation Day and during the first few days of the Iran war. That is how it should be.