CL1! & 3-2-1 Crack, Monthly
Loading...
CL1! & 3-2-1 Crack, Monthly
CL1! & 3-2-1 Crack, Daily
XAUUSD
SOXX broke below 530 and the secular trendline from the 2008 low yesterday. A weekly close well below 530 today would confirm the break and likely mark the beginning of the end.
As I have said before, bubbles do not wait for obvious bad news. They do not need AI demand to collapse or hyperscalers to halt data-center construction. The final break often comes on a quiet day and catches bulls off guard. Amateurs look for a shocking headline and, with hindsight, always manage to find one that appears to justify the move. Remember, news follows price, not the other way around.
ES1! is also breaching the lower boundary of the ascending triangle. If it cannot close back above the trendline today, the path of least resistance shifts lower, confirming the immediate breakdown path I outlined on Wednesday View note.
Again, both breaks need confirmation before they signal a trend change. Until today's close, neither is confirmed. Key levels often take several attempts to break, and bulls will throw everything they have at defending them.
For anyone who has not built a short position and is feeling FOMO, do not worry. We are still somewhere between the bull trap and return to normal, perhaps only beginning to enter fear. The fat part of capitulation has not even started.
Trump's speech last night was also underwhelming. There was no material update on Iran, and equity bulls waiting for Trump to TACO got nothing.
U.S. strikes on Iran have now run for six straight nights. Weekend escalation risk remains high. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, while the SPR is still being drawn and now sits at its lowest level since 1983. If the fighting continues, oil is likely to keep moving higher over the coming weeks and months.
Continued U.S. involvement is not in America's interest. Looking back, the war may have initially served as a convenient distraction from the Epstein files. Trump should have pulled back. Instead, he has stayed in it for 4.5 months, with no sign of a near-term end. Perhaps Netanyahu has leverage over him, or perhaps the war is simply too profitable for too many people around him. Either way, this is increasingly looking like the long war I warned about when it began.
The longer this drags on, the more pressure it puts on risk assets. Higher oil -> higher yields -> lower multiples for long-duration assets.
I also want to touch on gold before the weekend. If the AI bubble bursts, investors will look for somewhere else to hide, and many will turn to gold as a safe haven during periods of uncertainty and equity drawdowns.
I repeated this every few days throughout Q1, and it is worth repeating now. Gold tends to outperform pre- and post-crisis but trades like a risk asset during a crisis. Once the floodgates open, nothing survives, including gold. If the AI bubble bursts, gold will likely fall with equities instead of acting as a safe haven.
This is especially true in the current macro setup. The SPR is still being drawn, Hormuz traffic shows no sign of normalizing, and the 3-2-1 crack spread continues to hit record highs. Oil and refined products are keeping inflation pressure alive and pushing yields higher, adding another direct headwind for gold.
As I said a few weeks ago, gold must decouple from yields and the dollar before it can stabilize and start grinding higher. This remains the most important signal for anyone eager to buy gold dips. Technically, 3.9K-4K remains solid ST support.
XAGUSD broke below the ascending trendline on Thursday, resolving the wedge lower.
The next support sits at 52-53, followed by generational support at 48.
BTC1! MSTR
Ponzi scammers always cherry-pick the window that flatters them, then call it proof. If you want to compare BTC with QQQ or SPY, include the growth those companies delivered before they went public. Their total value creation would dwarf both BTC and MSTR.
People keep giving me advice.
BTC1!
No, it doesn't. If inflation prints in the double digits, BTC will plunge back to 30K-40K in a swoon.
AI is great, but it does not protect you against inflation.
Bitcoin does.
ES1! rallied back above 7.6K after the geopolitical selloff, as expected View note Price has been compressing inside the ascending triangle for several weeks. This should resolve either this week or next.
I see two paths, but both end the same way. Current conditions increasingly point to an immediate break lower. The alternative is one final fakeout above 7.6K, taking ES to a new ATH before it collapses.
The market is still bid until the bellwether sector (SOXX) breaks. On the longer-term chart, the secular trendline from the 2008 low converges with ST horizontal support around 530.
ES1! has largely followed my script and is once again struggling around 7.6K. I still expect a much larger drawdown, as I laid out here View note View note
KOSPI is collapsing and dragging NDX lower with it. Retail sentiment has also turned increasingly bearish, with 2X and 3X leveraged ETFs wiping out billions in retail capital over the past few weeks. Given how bearish sentiment has become, I think ES could run stops above 7.6K before the next leg lower begins.
BTC1! ETH
ETH (Ethereum) is testing the descending trendline. A confirmed break above it would open the door to further upside.
If ETH is rejected here, price is running out of room inside the descending triangle. A decisive break below 1.57K would likely come with BTC below 60K and probably below 58K. The resulting selloff could become self-reinforcing across both assets.
Chart: Binance ETH/USD · BTC Asset Tag: CME Bitcoin futures (BTC1!).
HSI extended the bounce from my 22.55K support but remains below 25.25K. A sustained break above that level opens the door to 27.3K. I would continue trailing stops here to protect the gains. 22.55K remains key support.
RUT pushed through 3K as expected. The latest pullback is testing the rising trendline, which has held so far. As long as the trendline holds, the path of least resistance remains higher and the recent highs stay in play. A sustained break below it puts 2.92K back in play.
HTI1! extended the bounce from my 4.2K-4.25K support and is now testing the descending trendline around 4.74K. A sustained break above 4.74K opens the door to 5.14K. If it fails here, price could pull back toward 4.25K. Price has reached my first target, so this is where I would start taking partial profits or tightening stops.
00700.HKTencent bounced from the long-term ascending trendline near 400 and has now broken above the descending trendline that had capped price since January. The wedge has resolved higher.
The breakout now needs to hold. As long as Tencent stays above the descending trendline, the path of least resistance remains higher. A sustained move back below it puts the long-term ascending trendline near 400 back in play.
If the breakout holds, Tencent will likely pull other old-tech names in Hong Kong higher with it, implying that the lows we saw in HTI and HSI two weeks ago were indeed the swing lows we expected.
RB1!Inflation has many drivers. The most dangerous and hardest to break is inflation expectations. Once consumers get used to prices constantly rising, they begin to expect more of the same. That can turn into a self-reinforcing spiral that is extremely difficult to stop. The post-COVID inflation cycle is the most recent warning.
If the war drags on long enough, sustained energy inflation will feed into consumer psychology and eventually inflation expectations. Gasoline prices have stayed elevated despite the sharp drop in crude over the past two months and are now back above the key 2.92 level.
The key difference between refined products and crude over the past two months is inventory. Refined-product inventories were depleted long ago, making product prices much harder to suppress through inventory releases.
Crude is different. A sizable SPR release can temporarily push futures lower and create a mirage that fools amateurs into thinking the war is over and the Strait has reopened.
XOP attempted to break above 161.6 on Wednesday following renewed geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, but the move reversed as the bombing largely stopped on Thursday and Friday. XOP led crude during the first half of the year. A sustained break above the descending trendline would signal that the market is starting to price a return to March-level escalation. Without that break, this may be another Trump escalation that gets walked back as quickly as it was announced.
METAWe first published this setup back in March. It has served us well ever since. META held 540-550 at the lower ascending trendline and has since bounced into the mid-660s. The next test is the steeper ascending trendline it lost in May, now around 680-690. A sustained close above it would put bulls back in control. Failure there puts 540-550 back in play.
Meta has now entered the paid LLM API race with Muse Spark 1.1. Its input-token pricing is roughly one-quarter of GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8, and output-token pricing is lower still. The launch has helped drive META higher over the past two sessions. If the market keeps buying into this narrative, we could see fresh all-time highs in META over the coming months—assuming semis do not collapse, of course.
BABA bounced from low-90s but remains below 120. A sustained move above 120 opens the door to 146.4. Failure at 120 shifts the path back toward the low-90s.
VIX is at its lowest level since January. Most summers are quiet. As long as the war does not escalate back to March levels and semis hold key support, this one could be no different. The 14 area is likely to be the floor for VIX.
EWY confirms the same deterioration. Price broke below the rising trendline and sold off into 173.6, which has held so far. A confirmed break below 173.6 could trigger a much larger correction. As long as 173.6 holds, the near-term path of least resistance remains higher.
