1/ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and face the strange)... as futures, sit pinned @ an odd elevated morning perch awaiting Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing & her call for the new admin to ‘act big’...this narrative has markets on high. But the truth is that it’s actually just Gary

1/x Vanna is back & ready to turn back on the charm! Overnight the market hit our weeklong target of **3705 and pulled back... We were able to take profits & play for a bit of morning digestion. It’s been a nice +3.5% in a week w/a few extra scalps along the way...But the best

2/x part has been the gift of Vol compression, which along w/ short Vol profits, has given us significant calendar expansion & dispersion opps, as predicted. I expect this to continue this week as well, as Ivol oversupply should continue to be the dominant force until 12/11.This,

3/x paired w/ the significantly increasing Vanna & Charm flows, will make it hard for any decline until 12/14 to catch meaningful momentum. This said, the narrowing of 20 day RVol as well as the 2 stddev of the 20 day just overhead should cap any rallies, given the dramatically

4/x overextended retail (8-day SMA of P/C equity is the lowest in 20 years) & institutional positioning. This push/pull, should ultimately keep the market fairly pinned this week...Jan 8th call’s on back are incredibly cheap w/ a GA runoff event straddle of only $55, which given

5/x the potential macro-cyclical consequences of the next 2 years of fiscal stimulus seems absurd...& In terms of a more short term trade,Tesla Vol is either too high or 12/18 on back calendar spreads in the SPX are too low, as there’s no premium being priced in for the inclusion

1/x The market continues to try & shake out weak hands from overextended positioning by both HF & Retail...After a strong Vanna run up overnight, as expected, retail exuberance exploded on the open in the form of retail call buying, this fragility, paired w/a)Mean reverting flows

2/x from pinned Index Vol b) well documented, risk parity rebalancing flows & c) selling flows tied to bank EOY liquidity constraints. In combination, these flows have together have amounted to substantive selling pressures, strong enough to counteract the positive vanna/ charm

3/x flows, & point to continued likely index RVol an IVol pinning...Historically, the week of quarterly OpEx markets are notoriously volatile intraday, but also mean reverting like we saw today. I think it is fair to expect continued IVol compression & more of the same underlying

4/x chop. Vanna/Charm flows will lose their oomph after Wed 12/16 vixperation morning. There’s a window of weakness which I’ve spoken to for a month that falls 12/16-12/23. That could open a brief window that could lead to revaluation of the real risk & short interest,post 1/6...

5/x but the overwhelming 10k 🦍 of index Vol compression should still hold any correction in time & price in check in the shortterm and it’ll be hard to have anything blow up too bad in SPX land given how cheap & abundant Xmas Vol is 12/23-12/24. NTM, a stim deal & potential Fed

4/x keepers are calling in the Fed(s) (Fed/sec) for some help getting the animals back under control, so they can feed Gary & get the zoo back under control. As they are likely giving guidance to the brokers to get this under control, as every major retail broker seems to be

5/x restricting trading in the short squeeze names to closing only. The Wheel of Fortune has a taping on Fri & w/out Gary at his best the show will be overrun by the animals. If they can make it to the EOM & keep Gary above the 20 day, calm him down & start feeding him,vanna will

6/x be back & should be able to nurse him back to his usual self & save the show. But there’s a lot of time between now & then & holding the animals @ bay until then seems like a colossal task. Given the pop in Ivols & backwardation of the curve, when vanna gets back she will be

7/x refreshed & in preelection form. The only question is will the animals be so out of control so as to not even be managed by Vanna in her best shape.. This decline fits into a narrative that I’ve had brewing for 4 months, that after a monster run since Sep this is a healthy &

8/x reasonable time to expect the animals to be tired of being caged up & want to blow off some steam. All the biggest wall of worry narratives have been solved 1 by 1. Sentiment & bullish positioning was at all time highs. Hedging activity was low. Breadth was deteriorating. W/

We are all products of our own environments. Our environments shape our character, our personality, our habits, our identity.

The environment that Ousmane Dembélé grew up in and the environment that FC Barcelona seeks to engulf its youngsters with could not be more different.

The Great Gatsby starts with a life lesson.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

Ousmane hasn’t had the advantages that La Masia youngsters have had. That’s why he’s Ousmane.

Like every La Masia youngster, Ousmane grew up with a dream: playing for Barça.

Like every youngster, he fought to stand out amid a talented group of players, the majority of which would fail to go pro.

However, his football education was the polar opposite to that of La Masia.

Ousmane did not reside in one of the most expensive academies in Europe: he lived in a low-cost public housing unit in Normandy. He did not play in the well-trimmed pitches of La Masia, he played in the concrete jungles of Évreux. These disadvantages made him the man he is today.

While street soccer encourages individuality & creative freedom, academy-based training like La Masia encourages unselfishness & teamwork.

That’s why Barça produce certain types of 20-year-olds like a factory line. It’s also why Barça spent €145m on a 20-year-old Ousmane.

Human, local, oriented, taken, and iterative, these are the change-harvester's bywords. In iterative change, we not only accept the reality of gradual stepwise refinement -- changing what we've already changed before -- we actually anticipate it and take advantage of it.

Before we begin: Folks, I know many are celebrating last week's results . I see them as one small pass towards the change I seek. Take a short break, then it's back to work?

Black lives matter.
Voting rights matter.
Women matter.

Stay safe, stay strong, stay angry, stay kind.

(And a *second* prefatory note: I've been not writing for six weeks. It was a combination of several factors, including illness, distraction, and the need to finish a gig. I'm happy to be back at content, now, but also very nervous. Bear with me while I regain my sea legs.)

With iteration, I think a great starting point for the concept is to watch just about any youtube video where a skilled artist draws a realistic rendering. What you will see almost inevitably is a direct implementation of iterative change.

The strokes begin quite broadly, faintly indicating the broad contours of the subject. Experience is relevant here: those who are most familiar with drawing that particular kind of subject, will make contours that seem "right" more quickly than those less experienced.

The numbers on their face for the @FCC RDOF auction are exciting - lots of Gigabit winners. But it’s important to remember the job is just starting. These rural areas don’t magically get Gig today or tomorrow. 1/

The job is only done and the celebration can really only begin once we see that rural Americans are actually going to get the broadband they’ve been promised. 2/

And that’s the rub here - at least from preliminary indications, there are LOTS of question marks clearly hanging out there once you look past the gloss and proclamations. And since we won’t know for maybe 5 years if it worked, due diligence is essential now. 3/

A number of big winners have offered some service but never done Gig. This would be like giving hundreds of millions of $ to firms that have repaved residential streets to now design & build our interstate highway bridges. 4/

A number of big winners are using tech that has done Gig (maybe) only in tightly controlled applications that don’t look anything like rural America. This would be like giving interstate highway $ to firms who’ve built lots of scale models but never actually built a bridge. 5/

If you often procrastinate, open this

Stop being a perfectionist.

The root of procrastination for most people ain't laziness, it's anxiety.

I know your anxiety will tell you the worst case scenario. It’s a damn liar.

If you're a procrastinator, you will find every excuse not to do what u need to do. But here's an advice: DO IT FIRST, I call it reverse procrastination.

In the 90s I was a host on a talk radio station in LA, the same that aired Rush. I was president of LA NOW, & the liberal wkend host when he visited the station. He was so vilified by my then-crowd, I expected a monster. Instead, I met a remarkable, kind and encouraging man... 1/

He was gregarious & generous when we met. He shook my hand & I was shocked that he was nice & genuinely curious about my radio work and activism. I realized I was going to have a fascinating conversation 2/

There were many events during this time as a radio talk show host that changed me. It was my first job in the medium starting in 1993. My meeting Rush & our conversations made me realize the left had been lying to me about many things... 3/

Rush was not a monster, he wasn’t evil, he did not mean people harm, he wasn’t a bigot, or any of the other smears lobbed against him by my leftist associates. I liked him very much, and while we disagreed on many things (then) he was nothing has he had been painted 4/

In my conversations with him, we talked about the issues and despite the disagreements, he also took time to give me advice about hosting, style, connecting w the audience, etc. He encouraged me and gave me advice that made a huge difference in my career… 5/