Craig Shapiro

The post-FOMC credibility rally lasted five days. PMI just made “rates have peaked” look ridiculous. Semis are trading the hike path, not AI. Brent Oil snapped back above $100. The $70B 5-year auction this afternoon is the first real test. Regime still Fragile. Here’s why.

QQQ vs IWM finally looking ready to breakout of 1 year consolidation pattern. Could get real sexy on the pair https://t.co/5RvR1N527T

2 year yields making highs Crude sticky strong and firming again USD strength continues 1+1+1=100 for me on IWM short call

Oil struggling for 6 Straight Days, Bond Yields Calling Bluff on the Diplomacy Trade TL;DR 1/ Oil's sixth straight decline on Iran-deal optimism is holding equities near all-time highs, but the bond market is not buying it: 10-year yields near 4.98% and the flattest 2s10s curve in eighteen months say any resolution will be fragile. 2/ The OECD upgraded inflation forecasts for every G20 economy except China and Saudi Arabia, explicitly flagging a response more aggressive than 2022, which kills any near-term dovish pivot story for the Fed, ECB, or BOJ. 3/ Trump's diesel export ban is no longer a tail risk: industry officials privately call it inevitable, and the downstream math points to nearly 2 million barrels per day in refinery run cuts and a ~25 cents per gallon gasoline shock that feeds straight back into the inflation problem. 4/ SPX is gamma-pinned between the 7,800 call wall and the 7,650-7,662 flip zone, and the real risk is not a routine down day but a gap in the eight mega-cap names holding implied correlation at record lows, because the other 492 stocks at sub-1 beta provide no cushion once that breaks. Regime: Fragile. Hold the range but do not chase the equity calm above 7,800, and watch the 7,650-7,662 flip zone as the line between stabilizing and destabilizing dealer flow into month-end.

Calm surface. Cracking foundation. Dealers are long gamma and the pin is working. The scaffolding is thinner than it looks. Buyback blackout just pulled the corporate bid. Record-low implied correlation means if mega-cap cohesion cracks, half the index offers no cushion. Don’t chase above 7,800. 7,650ish decides whether dealers are with you or against you. Regime: Fragile. Morning Brief next

Which part of the bread and circuses phase of societal decay are we at when we are offering leveraged margin trading for prediction markets? BBB https://t.co/2hPP4ZIqNs

Positive gamma is back. The floor is paper-thin. Buyback blackout beginning. Quarter-end selling. Friday’s pin already gone. That all points the same way into Sept 30. Vol looks calm. Hormuz is the binary. UNGA either cements $98 oil or blows the relief up. October can work. September flows still argue down. Regime: Fragile. Brief next.

Twist flattener. Long end rallying in reals and breakevens on oil. Narrow duration-led equity rally. Transports falling despite cheaper fuel. Regionals weak, partly on the curve. Credit flat. Headline risk-on. Composition cautious. Credit neutral. That’s not a regime shift. Fragile rally, visible weakness underneath, no systemic stress yet.

Gamma came off yesterday. Next week is flows and supply. They hiked. The market bought one-and-done. The dots didn’t. Warsh wouldn’t own the median. Bessent still has $211bn of notes to sell. Credit never confirmed the bounce. The pin is gone. The calendar isn’t.

Why BTC mooning? Rocktober still two weeks away @buyerofponzi