Market analysis for Jan. 24th, 2025

Welcome to Friday! I need to go to the DMV, take my dog to the Vet and pay bills so the weekend is welcome!
Yesterday was sooooo good. I'm starting to sound like a broken record but our focus on "consistency over profits" has been spot on. Focus on risk management and let the profits (or losses) fall where they may. Here's our results from yesterday. Of special note are the scalping and 1HTE results of almost $16,000 profit month to date. That's a run rate of $200,000 profit per annum. It's unlikely we hit that but our results are above our expectations. 

Fridays focus is #1. Locking in gains for the week. #2. Freeing up buying power for next week. #3. De-risking the portfolio. /MNQ, /NQ scalping, /MCL, /SI?, /ZN, /ZW, DJT, GE, IBIT, NFLX, TXN, UNP, VZ, 1HTE, 0DTE's.

This is a trading room. We do a lot of "day trades" or "0DTE's". They are flashy and get a lot of attention but not everyone is able (or wants) to stare at a screen all day. I make a focused effort to make sure there are profit opportunities for everyone, regardless of what you're looking for. I wanted to highlight some of our longer term, weekly trades for this past week.
We had five weeklies on oil, silver, 10yr. bonds, wheat and bitcoin. They yielded 6%, 7%, 4%, 4% and 7% returns for us this week. I'm super proud of those results and that fact that we are putting up these opportunities each week is something you should take a look at if you haven't yet. 

​March S&P 500 E-Mini futures (ESH25) are trending down -0.21% this morning, taking a breather after the benchmark index scaled a fresh peak, while investors geared up for U.S. business activity data.
In yesterday’s trading session, Wall Street’s major indexes closed in the green, with the benchmark S&P 500 notching a new all-time high and the blue-chip Dow posting a 6-week high. GE Aerospace (GE) climbed over +6% after the maker of jet engines posted upbeat Q4 results, issued solid FY25 adjusted EPS guidance, and announced a $7 billion stock buyback plan. Also, Union Pacific (UNP) advanced more than +5% after the railroad operator reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS. In addition, Netflix (NFLX) gained over +3% after Wolfe Research upgraded the stock to Outperform from Peer Perform with a price target of $1,100. On the bearish side, Electronic Arts (EA) tumbled more than -16% and was the top percentage loser on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 after the company reported weaker-than-expected preliminary FQ3 results and cut its full-year net bookings guidance. Also, chip stocks lost ground, with Arm Holdings (ARM) slumping over -7% and Micron Technology (MU) sliding more than -4%.
The Labor Department’s report on Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing for initial jobless claims in the past week rose +6K to a 6-week high of 223K, compared with the 221K expected.
“Jobless claims may have surprised slightly to the upside, but they were well within the modest range established in recent months,” said Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. “Employment continues to highlight US economic outperformance.”
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. President Donald Trump called on OPEC to reduce crude prices and said he would push for interest rate cuts. Trump stated he would demand an immediate reduction in rates, which he claimed had increased deficits and led to what he described as economic calamity under the Biden administration.
Meanwhile, U.S. rate futures have priced in a 99.5% chance of no rate change at next week’s monetary policy meeting.
On the earnings front, notable companies like American Express (AXP), Verizon (VZ), NextEra Energy (NEE), and HCA Healthcare (HCA) are slated to release their quarterly results today. 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.
Today, all eyes are focused on the U.S. S&P Global Manufacturing PMI preliminary reading, which is set to be released in a couple of hours. Economists, on average, forecast that the January Manufacturing PMI will come in at 49.8, compared to last month’s value of 49.4.
Also, investors will focus on the U.S. S&P Global Services PMI, which stood at 56.8 in December. Economists expect the preliminary January figure to be 56.4.
U.S. Existing Home Sales data will be reported today. Economists foresee this figure to stand at 4.19M in December, compared to the previous number of 4.15M.
The University of Michigan’s U.S. Consumer Sentiment Index will be released today as well. Economists estimate this figure to arrive at 73.3 in January, compared to 74.0 in December.
In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note is at 4.635%, down -0.04%.

We've got a modified theta fairy working order going into PMI release. Normally we need to deploy 15K of capital to get our $100 profit. This one is only using $850 dollars. We'll know about one half hour after the open if we get a fill.

My bias or lean: I nailed it again yesterday. It looked like a much lower open but volume profies and high node areas suggested we would go higher. We did and that helped us nail our profits. Futures are slightly lower as I type but it will most likely be PMI and sentiment readings 30 mins. after the cash open that determine our movement today. Barring any surprises I'm more neutral today. 

Small speculators or what is commonly referred to as "The dumb money" are all in! Generally a sign of a top. 

Conversly, insiders or "The smart money" is showing the lowest buying interest in quite a while.

​Warren Buffet indicator hits AN ALL-TIME HIGH US stock market to GDP ratio reached 207%, exceeding the previous record of 200% set before the 2022 bear market. The ratio is also WELL above the 2000 Dot-Com Bubble top. By comparison, 20-year average is 120%...

What do I take away from all this? There's nothing to imply a crash is coming. (There rarely is). I do think it implies that returns may be muted this year. That's amazing for us. In particular I think our A.T.M. passive asset allocation portfolio has a great chance to vastly outperform the SP500.

Let's take a look at the key intra-day levels for us today. 
​/ES:  We are building a little bit of lopsided risk to the downside. Our upside resistance is back at ATH's at 6156. It's close. I believe even with bullish price action today our upside may be limited. Downside is plentiful. 6102 is the biggest support zone.

/NQ has been a bit more subdued than /ES. 22,100 is resistance with 21,876 working as support.

BTC: We had one of our biggest profits yesterday with our 1HTE. I can almost guarantee you that will NOT happen today. It was a confluence of price action and Trump signing an executive order to establish a crypto strategic reserve. Things are much calmer this morning. $107,520 is resistance with support at $103,000. We'll see what we can find but I won't push it today if we can't get a clean entry with a decent risk/reward.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all in the live trading room. We've got a lot of profits we need to lock in today.