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

1/x The window we have been targeting for 2 months has officially opened... i Can not imagine a more textbook display of the power of Vanna at expiration as we saw on Friday. The capital building was overrun by an insurrection, but all that that meant was a bigger late day rally.

2/x that ended at ATH on the close. Between Gary the 🦍 & his RVol suppression & his hand off to late day Ivol compression & the Vanna index bid, the 🐻’s never had a chance... but Gary’s getting tired after 2 months battling complacency & Vanna’s 2 week vacation, 1 of her only

3/x 2 week departures of the year (a 5 week OpEx) is quickly approaching on 1/15 morning. That means she’ll be increasingly absent as she prepares for her trip. W/ a $59 1 week straddle & $50 1 day range on Friday, & another $30 overnight drop, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t

4/x want to take a chance on a little long gamma at this juncture. Especially given the obvious warning signs coming from the steepening of the yield curve, underperformance of the Growth complex, complacency in sentiment & positioning, anecdotal signs of bubbles in BTC & TSLA,

5/x NTM the growing exuberance surrounding a fiscal stimulus deal near $2 Trillion. The wall of worry of 3 months ago is gone. The vaccine is being deployed, the election is resolved, fiscal stimulus was passed & w/2 Georgia 🍑 🍑, ever moar 🚁💰is on the way. But what happened

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

1/x ‘Twas the night before Christmas & all through the market not an order was stirring not even for $TGT.
The bonuses were entered into payroll with care,
In hopes that next year would bring a similar fare;
The Bulls were nestled all snug in their beds;

2/x While visions of $TSLA danced in their heads;
& Biden in his Covid mask, & Powell with his still flowing money tap,
Had just settled their brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the screen there arose such a clatter,
All sprang from their beds to see what was the matter.

3/x Away to their monitors they flew like a flash,
Tore open their Bloombergs & threw up the dash(board).
The S. Claus rally in markets, that all of us know,
Paired w/vaccine reopening, Gave a bid to the market, leaving old prices below,
When what to their wondering👀 did appear?

4/x But a Georgia runoff rushing up to them with complacency, not fear...
With once reliable Vanna flows no longer lively & quick,
They knew in a moment the markets might get quite sick...
Unexpected, 2 Georgia Dem peaches into Congress they came,

5/x Whistling & shouting they called for more fiscal, ‘CARES Too’ its new name:
"Now, Healthcare! Now, Infrastructure! Now Green Energy & Protectionism!
On, Labor rights! on, Minimum Wage! on, Basic Income & Populism!
To middle class households, To the poorest of them all!

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/

1/ How to review quarterly earnings 🧵

A step by step guide using $DXCM as an example

⬇️

2/ The BIG question: Is the thesis on track❓

Other question:

❓Is revenue growing?
❓Are margins stable/expanding?
❓Profits?
❓Balance sheet?
❓New opportunities?
❓New threats?

3/ I open 4 browser tabs

Tab 1 - Current company earnings report / shareholder letter

Tab 2 - Previous company earnings report / shareholder letter (check guidance)

Tab 3 - Analyst estimates

Tab 4 - Call Transcript

4/ Tabs 1 & 2 - Find the current & previous earnings report

I search "Dexcom Investor Relations"

I click on "press release"

Open the newest quarterly earnings report and last quarter

It can also be a shareholder letter/presentation

5/ Tab 3 - Find the quarterly analyst estimates

Open up $DXCM in yahoo finance

The "news" section usually has a link to reports on whether the company beat/met estimates

The "analysis" tab is a good source, but sometimes it updates to the next quarter too quickly

Some observations and thoughts on ZILSwap: What went well, its impact on the $ZIL ecosystem and where we need to improve with some concrete plans that are being worked on. A thread:

👇

1/ ZILSwap was launched by @SwitcheoNetwork on Oct 5, 2020 (~2 months old). Soon after, we noticed for the first time, a flurry of ZRC-2 tokens (equiv. of ERC20s on $ZIL) getting launched on the network (even though the fungible token standard had been around for a while).

2/ The ability to provide a marketplace for people to exchange tokens was the trigger for deveopers to start issuing tokens and developing a token economy. In fact, there was a token for which, the entire supply was put on a ZILSwap pool w/o any team withholding.

3/ This was an extreme example of why a DEX was needed and the role it played in bootstrapping several tokens and respective token economies. Over 25 tokens are available on ZILSwap in the form of liquidity pools. The total pool size across all tokens is over USD 1 million.

4/ ZILSwap also made it possible for the first time for anyone to get access to $XSGD (the Singapore Dollar Stablecoin issued by @xfers). In fact $XSGD and $gZIL contribute the greatest proportion of the total pool.

William's Alligator is probably the most underrated indicator in moving average category.

Alligator follows the premise that market is sideways for 70% of the time and trending only 30% of the time.

This is where William's Alligator can be a great tool for traders.

Why William's Alligator can be a great tool for traders?

It can identify Bullish, Bearish and Sideways market pretty easily. Problem is, traders don't know how to use it effectively. Alligator has three lines:

1. Lips - Fastest Line
2. Teeth
3. Jaws - Slowest Line

Book Interpretation is when Lips Crosses above Jaws, it's a buying opportunity and when below its a shorting opportunity. And when three lines are crisscrossing, instrument is sideways.

BUT this does not make it a tradeable indicator in practice. Here is what should be done.

Firstly, when all the Alligator lines are moving up or down and are widening, this phase is called "Alligator eating with its mouth wide open". When the lines are crisscrossing, this indicates the alligator is sated.

Now, how to use it? with Basic TA and Indicator like MACD

Rules to remember:
1. As long as price is above Alligator, BANKNIFTY is bullish.
2. As long as MACD is trading above 0 line, BANKNIFTY is bullish.
3. Horizontal Lines are the only S&R.
4. CONGESTION is followed by TREND is followed by CONGESTION.

A former CIA math genius built a quantitative trading fund that earned more than $100 BILLION for investors.

At 66% return/yr, his track record destroys that of Warren Buffet, George Soros, Carl Icahn, and every investor who ever lived.

The Smartest Billionaire in Finance:

1/28
If you'd have put $100 into Jim Simons' Medallion Fund in 1988, it would be $400M+ today.

By contrast,

$100 in the S&P 500 in 1988, would be $2,000 in 2022. (roughly)

Let that sink in.

2/28
Jim Simons's Medallion fund has had unreasonably high annual returns of 66% across 30 years.

For comparison, Buffet clocked in at about 20%/yr.

Many funds don't make that in a lifetime.

3/28
Even during the financial crisis of 2008, it made a net return of 82.38%.

They make so much money for their investors that they charge 44% in management fees.

The industry standard is 20%.

4/28
It uses math calculations to decide the bulk of its trades, & none of the market trends apply to how it performs.

It wins by finding order in chaos.

The fund is managed by Renaissance Technologies, the parent company founded by the mathematical genius Jim Simons.