The market is a jack-in-the-box right now

The whole market is a jack-in-the-box right now.

Wound tighter and tighter, ready to explode. And anybody who tells you they know which way it pops is guessing.

I do not guess. I read what is in front of me. So let me show you what I am looking at.

Pull up SPY and QQQ, the funds that track the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. They are running the exact same pattern. A big move higher, then a breath, and now they are coiling into a pennant.

A pennant is just price squeezing closer and closer together into a point, like the shape of a little flag. The tighter it gets, the bigger the move when it finally lets go.

That is the jack-in-the-box.

It is winding up, and when it pops, it pops hard.

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I cannot tell you the direction, and I am not going to pretend I can. What I can tell you is the move is coming, and it is coming soon.

Now, which chart do you watch? The Qs.

When it comes to SPY versus the Qs, the Qs are the dog and SPY is the tail. The Qs are where the real information lives.

They already tried to break down out of the pennant on the Iran news, while SPY snapped right back inside. So watch the Nasdaq. It moves first, and it tells you the truth first.

Then there is the semiconductors. Oh, the chips.

I pull up SMH, the semiconductor fund, and it is a mess. Up, down, hungry, not hungry, crying, laughing. There is no clean pattern to trade here at all.

I read a chart like it is a personality. This one does not have its own personality right now.

It is being shoved around by everything outside of it, the leveraged players, the oil pop, a rebalance. It is the puppet, not the strings.

Here is the part I want you to sit with. Everyone thinks the market hates uncertainty. That is not right.

The market can love uncertainty, if it is positive uncertainty. What the market cannot stand is negative uncertainty.

So the game is not to guess the news. The game is to watch which kind of surprise shows up, and let the break tell you.

And Iran? I know that is what everyone is staring at. I think the shock and awe of that is already over.

The market has seen this movie. Tit for tat, threat for threat, and then it recovers.

That story is out of style now. It is like wearing white after Labor Day in New York City. Not cool anymore.

The thing that moves this market is the surprise we have not heard about yet.

So here is where I land. Do not sit there trying to call the top or the bottom. The market is in discovery mode, searching for its next catalyst, and it will show its hand.

Watch the Qs. Watch that pennant. When the jack-in-the-box pops, you want to be reading it, not guessing it.

Rock On,

Voz

P.S. While the market spent today guessing, my Game Plan members had a plan. And they cashed in. Just look at the room after we closed it out.

Denny: "MADE 102% ON THE SPY PUT. BEST TRADE EVER VOZ. THANK YOU!"

tiina s: "113% on that one."

oldmholland: "Hit the put then turned around and made even more on the call. Great day, Voz!"

Violet, Kiwi Dave, Goss2Go, David S, Scavenger, JoseN51, the whole room was green. That is what happens when you stop guessing and start following a plan. If you want to be in that chat with us tomorrow, come join Game Plan.