Screwball

Today was fun to watch. Incoming chart porn; The chart above showed the 4953.56 level to look for in the S&P chart for today. It opened at 4953.79 which made for a huge gap down (which was filled by 11 minutes after 10 or 41 minutes into the trading day). Chart from December going back far enough to see the S/R levels. Also notice in the above chart the range of that candle. High of 5246.57 (around 10:15) and a low of 4835.04, which was at 9:44. That's a spread of 411.53 points on the S&P - in about a half hour. And the gap is also closed. Once it recovered early it got above the 4953 area and stayed above that for the rest of the day while producing some wild volatility, especially in the morning, then banged off some resistance around 2:00 a couple of times. Fun to watch. As I type this the S&P futures are up slightly.

I spent a month one week in Salt Lake City. What I remember most was the street naming convention they used. Once you figured it out, it was kinda neat. Until then I was lost all the time.

500 billion is nothing in the big picture, but this is kind of funny anyway

The Nikkei didn't open well. Down about 6%. E-mini futures have erased half their overnight loss. S&P chart going back to the beginning of 24. Watch the $4953.56 level if this keeps going down. The same chart also shows the carnage of the last few trading days - so it's due for a "dead cat bounce."

Futures markets opened at 6. E-mini (S&P futures) down close to a couple of hundred. You can find it if you look, but Jim Cramer said this could be Black Monday version 2. Gap down open but not doing much after that. If Cramer said that, and I"m not going waste a millisecond on that idiot to find out, the S&P will probably be 1000 points in the green tomorrow.

Wild stuff, no? The market takes a **** and all of a sudden the economy is the market. I'm sure the 40% of our population who don't have $1000 gives one good **** the DOW dropped 2200+ points. But I digress... Let's look at a few charts - because I love charts - and charts give us a visual history. As we all know, the last few days have not been pretty. First chart is today with a one minute candle. Gap down open, drifted up and down all day, but mostly down, then tanked in the last half hour. It was close to hitting the circuit breakers but didn't and after 3:30 they are shut off. Let's put this in a little more context. This is one day. Let's look back 20 years. This little "correction" doesn't look so bad in this context - or does it? Let's take a longer look. Going back to before the Dot-Com bubble of 2000. Where do we go next? Here's a two year of the S&P. The huge gap down and then blowing through some potential support makes one think the 4950 level is in play. Not much underneath until you go back to late 21 and the 4800 level. Then there is NVDA. I posted some chart porn a while back on them and thought a $97ish number might be a buy point... Maybe not. $90 might be in play, and that gap will eventually fill. Do the math. And a look at INTC. If you had the balls and played the volatility in this one you could have made a killing. They were green yesterday but got jackhammerd today. The price swings are wild - and you could trade that and make a killing. I should have drawn the red box way back in November. 19 to 25 ish... Then to get some more funny into the massive chaos we are living in. I used to watch Bubblevision years ago. Some of the same people are still there. Two of the most entertaining people were Steve Liesman and Rick Santelli of Tea Party fame. Especially when they fought like cats and dogs Today was another example. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/04/03/liesman_vs_santelli_trump_tariffs_confronting_the_dark_side_of_everyday_k-mart_low_prices.html Wild stuff that exchange. It took years to export our jobs all over the world to take advantage of wage and environmental arbitrage along with the skills it took to be the manufacturing leader of the world. But it's all good, we replaced it with easy and cheap credit instead of a skill. Cheap isn't always good. Neither is credit. It's all ****ed up. Where is it all going to go? How are you positioned? Are Trump and his tariffs the pin to blow this prick all to hell? Looks like a bubble waiting for a pin (charts would agree) - and it has to happen under someones watch - why not him? The most hated guy in the world. Blame this asshole. The 40 percent of our population who don't have 1000 bucks probably won't notice or care. He don't give a ****, he's in on the scam. Just like the rest of these worthless ****s. They are laughing at us, and should be. We ain't too smart. Cheap and easy money isn't the answer unless you get it first like the people in the big club do. We learned nothing from 2008/2009. Voluntary abandonment requires a plan - not rapid unscheduled disassembly. Giddy up!

Note to the **** for brains that run this country; crude got hammered today too (down to 66 and change), so now might be a good time to start refilling the SPR. We probably won't see that at the pump.

INTC was one of the few stocks up today. Not much other green. Giggle. This is why I hate the market, and myself. All this was well known a week or so ago, and what did I do - nothing. Could have bought a VIX ETF about a week ago and got a 50% rip in a week. Pull the rip cord, laugh, and thank you very much. The everything bubble has been looking for a pin since the swine bankers blew up the world in 2008/2009 and now we have one. Trump = pin. It will be interesting to see how far this goes. They are laughing at us. Wait till we bail out the banks - again. Long toilet paper. JNJ? They were green today too.

No, I used a computer and excel. 😉

My first car was a 65 Buick Skylark. I put a standard transmission in it and ran the snot out of it until I had it about wore out and a skirmish with tree ended it. I had a really cool Mustang T-top and rolled it down a hill on a winding road having only owned it for two weeks. A Vega that went through a stop sign and a tee road that ended up 300 feet across some farmers yard into his bushes. The cops were really impressed with that one. One truck (S-10) got T-boned by a fireman who was running to a call and drove me into a 10 foot ditch, so that one wasn't my fault. Another pickup head on into a telephone pole (ice problem). That one should have done me in. Left front tire was under my seat. Hurt too. I knew my insurance lady really really good.

I wrecked every car I ever owned until I was about 30, off and on the streets. I shouldn't be here.

Jesus H Christ Doesn't anyone remember when the wankin ****in bankers blew up the world financial system back in 2008/2009 and NOBODY went to jail? Only to see the same swine pricks who caused the entire mess which cost people billions and lose their homes get bailed out to the tune of Trillions over the next 10-15 years (yes, with a T)? WTF. Wake the **** up.

I don't know if they sound dubbed it or not, and it really doesn't matter. As far as the engines, I don't remember the RPM of the 390, and it would depend on how it was built. I'm guessing that car didn't have a stock engine. I know iron blocks back in that day got quite a bit more than that. I had a Chevy 350 that could get upwards of 7500 (but built to do so). The 390 was considered a big block back then and they were heavier than the small blocks. I had a Ford 455 in my race car (65 T-bird). Generally, they couldn't get the RPM like the small blocks. Once you got them wound up though...hang on... There is no substitute for horsepower.

1968 was the muscle car era. Mcqueen got more credit than he should have for doing the driving stunts, but he was into racing so that probably helped spin that. It was a 390 Ford so it would make plenty of noise (with headers), but you wonder what technology back then they had to record the sound. At the time it was a neat movie for car guys. The 68 Camaro was my favorite car. So many cool cars back then.

Here is how I used to make money with the lottery. A local speakeasy I used to frequent had two lottery machines (Ohio) where you could buy all sorts of tickets, including Keno. Beside the two machines (which could also check for winning tickets by reading the bar code) was a trash can. Or, you might say, the pot of gold. I would grab a handful of tickets when I was there and scan the ticket (losing ticket) into my Ohio Lottery phone app. Each ticket was 5 points for the most part. You could scan 1200 points a month. I used two phones so I could double up. Once I got to 10,000 points I would redeem them for a $100 gas card. So about every 4 months I got a hundred bucks in free gas. Some thought I was nuts for diving in the trash but I could care less. Free money is a good thing. 🙂

That was a good game. I think he traveled.

He doesn't play the game the way we do.

I found this interesting. From Feb 24, 2025; Berkshire Hathaway’s Cash Pile Swells To A Record $334 Billion - Yahoo Finance About a half hour ago from Barchart Twitter; Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B is now outperforming the Magnificent 7 since the start of 2024!  King Buffett does it again I'm no fan of Buffet, but it makes me wonder why so much in cash - if true.

Jack Bogle and Vanguard are a quality brokerage, with a solid plan and product for masses of people. That doesn't mean they are the holy grail. At the end of the day it's all about timing. Sometimes you are lucky enough to be born at the right time and hit the greatest bull market in history - example; starting after the depression until the dot-com bubble blew up in 2000. It took 8 years for the market to recover but the swine bankers blew up the world financial system in 2009. Those scheduled to retire shorty after that got ****ed after the S&P went from 1500 to 666 in March of 2009. And then swine pricks got bailed out to tune of trillions of dollars - thank you very much. Volatility is where the money is made. Wall Street owns that - they don't care if it goes up or down - they make money both ways. Welcome to the world of heads they win, tails you lose.

The ultimate irony of the Troll Tesla™ scam would be if done from work. What a ****ing world we live in.

But there are political points to be made. That's more important. That's why we tried to keep this thread separate from all the other stupid horse**** posted elsewhere. Look at that cesspool of slop. This is the third iteration of this board. At one time it was good place for intelligent conversation, both political and investment (although filtered from the first). How far it has fallen. It has become aisle lunatic and mostly unreadable, which is why hardly anyone posts here anymore. The investment thread in particular had some really good participants - all gone now. A fish stinks from the head down.

People don't realize how good these guys really are. It's off the charts incredible how they can hit a golf ball. Larger and more fit players along with advances in technology has made the game much longer. That matters, but at the same time, what really matters is not ****ing up. You can't **** up. Hitting a little white ball over 300 yards, iron shots into impossible greens, chip, putt (on greens the ball wants to roll of of) - and not **** up? Sammy was right - a 5 is a lot closer to a 15 than a 2. These guys are machines playing the game to the highest level ever achieved. Then there is bowling. I used to work in a bowing alley. I still follow it to some extent. This sport, unlike golf, has went the other direction. I see videos of people throwing 800 series that wouldn't have averaged 170 30 years ago.

Drivers are like bowling balls (a mostly dead sport). People spend tons of money on their shovels and not get any better. It's the Indian, not the arrow. I think it was Sam Snead who said "a 5 handicap is a lot closer to a 15 than it is a 2." So true.

There is nothing wrong with a 9° driver. Actually, it might help some people. The less loft on the clubface, the easier it is to move the ball right and left (hook or cut). Some/many go with a higher loft to help get a higher trajectory of shot to help distance. A nice draw will do that too. You can always move the ball forward or backward (slightly) in your stance, or vary how high you tee the ball to hit a lower or higher shot. Whatever works seems to be the best way. The tee shot is the most important shot of the hole. Trees are 90% air until you try to hit a golf ball through one.