Market analysis for Jan. 23rd, 2025

Welcome back traders! I had a lot of gratitude in my heart yesterday. I had an eye appt. that took up a good part of the trading day. As I was sitting in the waiting room another patient complained that they had to take off work to come to their appt. and they were losing money. We had a $3,000 profit day, mostly while I was getting my eyes poked. It doesn't always work that way and stock/option trading is anything but "passive" but it's still a great opportunity for all of us. 
I also want to mention that I think I'll be adding a short video commentary each day to the blog. Sometimes a verbal report can provide better insight than text. It will take a bit to get the "video studio" back up and running so hopefully next week.
I can't even express how happy I've been with our risk management this year. It may seem strange to get so excited on certain days where we trade all day and deploy 30K-40K of capital and make $300 bucks but its not about reward soley but rather risk/reward. Our goal this year is consistency. We are on track this month for $8,000 of profit in our scalping program, which is great and right on track with our annual goal of $100,000 of income but I'm most proud of the consistency of our results. A lot of this comes from LOWERING our profit goals. Hitting singles and doubles vs. aiming for home runs.
Here's our results from yesterday.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out our 1HTE results as well. If you want results that are different than the masses you need to do something different. I'm super proud of the fact that we do trades and setups that no one else has.

Let's take a look at the market.
Bullish bias is continuing with three strong days in the books.

SPY and QQQ are fast approaching their ATH's.

"Every trade makes money"! That's a bold statement but it's factual. The market is a zero-sum game. For every winner there's a loser. If you lost money in a trade you can assure yourself there was someone on the other side of that trade that made what you lost. In this sense, every trade makes money...for someone. Credit trades are tough today. I.V. is low. Generally you want to buy options when they are cheap and sell options when they are expensive. The problem with debit trades is they are directional in nature. You have to pick a direction and then you need to be right! Broken wing butterflies are a nice mix and have worked well for us. Here's a look at our SPX from yesterday.  We made $800 profit on $3,000 of buying power. Now that's great but it would actually have been a better example if it would have lost money. Our risk was about $80 dollars in this trade. It also clocked in at about 93% POP. Focus on risk management first and let the profit (or loss) fall where it may. 

​March S&P 500 E-Mini futures (ESH25) are down -0.20%, and March Nasdaq 100 E-Mini futures (NQH25) are down -0.49% this morning, taking a breather after a strong rally this week, with investors turning their attention to U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos and a new round of corporate earnings reports.
In yesterday’s trading session, Wall Street’s main stock indexes ended higher, with the benchmark S&P 500 rising to a new record high and the blue-chip Dow and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 notching 5-week highs. Netflix (NFLX) surged nearly +10% and was the top percentage gainer on the S&P 500 after the streaming giant reported stronger-than-expected Q4 results, raised its 2025 revenue guidance, and announced a $15 billion boost to its share repurchase program. Also, Oracle (ORCL) climbed more than +6% following the announcement of the $500 billion “Stargate” AI infrastructure project. In addition, Procter & Gamble (PG) gained over +1% after the company posted better-than-expected FQ2 results. On the bearish side, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) fell nearly -2% after reporting weaker-than-expected Q4 MedTech sales.
Economic data released on Wednesday showed that the Conference Board’s leading economic index for the U.S. fell -0.1% m/m in December, in line with expectations. 
Meanwhile, market participants are looking ahead to U.S. President Donald Trump’s keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later in the day. They will listen closely for further details on Trump’s plans to introduce tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. 
“Markets are reacting positively to the initial wave of Trump policies, with investors showing enthusiasm reminiscent of the run-up to the election as they breathe a sigh of relief over the tariff announcements and the early stages of earnings season,” said Mark Hackett at Nationwide.
The fourth-quarter earnings season picks up pace, and investors await new reports from notable companies today, including GE Aerospace (GE), Texas Instruments (TXN), Union Pacific (UNP), American Airlines (AAL), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Elevance Health (ELV), and CSX Corp. (CSX). According to Bloomberg Intelligence, companies in the S&P 500 are expected to post an average +7.5% increase in quarterly earnings for Q4 compared to the previous year.
On the economic data front, investors will focus on U.S. Initial Jobless Claims data, which is set to be released in a couple of hours. Economists forecast this figure to arrive at 221K, compared to last week’s number of 217K.
U.S. Crude Oil Inventories data will be released today as well. Economists estimate this figure to be -0.1M, compared to last week’s value of -2.0M.
U.S. rate futures have priced in a 99.5% chance of no rate change at next week’s monetary policy meeting.
In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note is at 4.632%, up +0.72%.

I also want to spend some time today in our zoom talking about our weekly trades. Not everyone can or even wants to day trade. We've got you covered. Each week we put up a bunch of weekly trades that can generate 4% or better returns each week. Let's spend some time today going over them.

Trade docket has been super heavy the last two days so we are pretty loaded up. Today I'll focus on our scalping with /MNQ, /NQ. /MCL, /NG, AA, NFLX, UNP, TXN, VZ, 1HTE, 0DTE's.

My bias or lean yesterday was spot on. I was looking for a bullish day with the potential for a retrace later in the day. That played out to a T and allowed us to score an above avg. return on our SPX setup. Futures are down this morning but I'm still going with a very slight bullish bias which will be reflected in our first tranches in our 0DTE's.

​The stock market's CAPE ratio is clocking in at 37.0. It has only been higher than this twice in history. Good luck out there. We may be holding near ATH's but this market ain't cheap.

Let's take a look at our intra-day levels:
​/ES: Levels have slid up just a bit with resistance now at 6134 and resistance at 6080.

/NQ: I've got three critical levels today. 21,870 is right below current levels and could be the "trigger" for todays price action. Above is bullish. Below is bearish. Resistance is at 22,099 with support at 21,745.

BTC: Bitcoin continues to offer us some great opportunities. We've brought in almost $8,000 in profits this month with our 1HTE setups. Thre key levels for me today. $101,255 is a key support we are sitting on right now. If we lose this level the next level down is $99,838 which would be a signal for me to long again. Resistance is all the way up at $107,700. We are working 4DTE swing trades currently using IBIT. This trade gives us a 7% a week potential gain. This, ontop of our 1HTE's means we have enough weekly profit potential just in bitcoin to make a nice living. 

I look forward to seeing you all in our live trading room shortly! Let's see if we can put a four figure profit in our pockets, once again but more important. Lets keep risk in check and take a profit (or loss) as it comes.