Feb

13

6950, from Ani Sachdev

February 13, 2026 | 1 Comment

I counted the number of crossings of the ES future past 6950. I counted the using the nearest expiry future. I counted using 30 min increments. Since October 29, 2025:

ES crossed from close to close across 6950, 78 times. 39 times up, 39 times down - true Logbola.

ES traded through and touched 6950 at any time at least 154 times (counted when there was low < 6950 < high).

Curious if any specs have used data like this to predict future prices.

Feb

11

New Fed Chair Not So Bearish

…we present the S&P 500’s performance following a change in leadership at the Fed. Historically, performance is not all that bearish. Aside from the 3 months later interval, all other interval’s frequency of advance (% Higher) are above our standard 60% bullish threshold and average performance is positive.

Going one additional step, let’s say Eugene Meyer was not responsible for the Great Depression and Alan Greenspan probably did not cause the market’s crash in 1987. Bad timing, perhaps? Removing them from the data essentially removes the most bearish data. Average performance across all intervals goes up and is positive while frequency of gains also improves noticeably and performance 1-year later jumps to an average gain of 12.7%, with the S&P 500 higher 90% of the time.

Feb

10

We should never get stopped out of a trade just because we have lost money. We exit trades if we no longer like them—losing money, while deeply unpleasant, should never be the sole criterion for exiting.

Peter Penha responds:

The last stop I left was a stop loss in Platinum futures sub $800 and the market took the contract down $65 and stopped me out, made one lower print $5 below me, and then came back up. Probably was the low print post March 2020.

I have had horrific experience with Schwab/thinkorswim…they once sold me out (partially) of calls on Sugar that were deep in the money at a make believe bid price way off market and below intrinsic value. When I challenged them noting that equity markets were open and they could easily have raised cash in many liquid ways - they told me they reserve the right to do what they want. I have multiple snapshots of them marking positions below intrinsic value, and lately while I was long silver futures they would mark my long Sugar contract to zero (I would see a negative futures cash position equivalent to the notional value of my long position).

I have been thinking of Marty Zweig and how he did very well leaving trailing stops on individual stocks and need to find my copy and revisit Winning on Wall Street and see how he did it (successfully).

Rich Bubb writes:

I AI'd trailing stops info thru Gemini.

The rule-of-thumb I currently/usually use is 8%-15% TSL% (trailing stop loss %). And typically use a lower-is-better TSL%. The volatility and economic tea leaves divination determine the TSL%. If I have less conviction in a position, I'll reduce TSL% to (sometimes) let the Market tell me how wrong I initially was.

And I got burned at the start of Great Recession, where I had TSL%s way-too relaxed; upper teens TSL%. The TSL%s all worked, but by then I'd lost about 15%+. Painful lesson.

Feb

8

Expect Equity Markets to Broaden in 2026, Led by Small Caps, International

Both fiscal and monetary stimulus should boost earnings in the U.S. and abroad, with dollar weakness continuing to underpin international stocks.

Nils Poertner comments:

Back in High School, they gave a 1 pager of Latin and we had 1 hour to translate it (since it is an ancient language I was spending a lot of time to see what this all meant.) We all know English more or less. These days, I read a 1 pager in English (like this page) in 1 minute. My modern brain actually agrees with the whole article. Yummy. In reality there are probably a lot of cliches in it….

Zubin Al Genubi writes:

AI is about training data otherwise it gets stale and cliched. Like a person reading the same newspaper every day. Google has lots of data. Musk is merging SpaceX with AI because as internet provider he will have access to unlimited global data. I wonder what their contract disclosures say about data privacy.

Steve Ellison responds:

"Expect"? I have seen the broadening occurring since November. There was an extended non-confirmation of Dow Theory last summer into fall as the Industrials were making new highs, but the Transports remained below their November 2024 high. Not only did the Transports finally make an all time high, now they are making new highs before the Industrials do. Similarly, the equal-weighted S&P 500 ETF RSP, which was badly lagging the cap-weighted SPY in the 2025 rally off the "Liberation Day" tariff lows, made a new high yesterday while the cap-weighted index only partially regained some of its losses from earlier in the week.

I said on X [6 Feb.], "Lots of strength in the broader market. While technology stocks were selling off the last few days, the Industrial, Materials, Consumer Staples, and Energy sector ETFs all made new highs".

Feb

7

Veritasium: Filming Electrons at 1 Quadrillion FPS

Explore slow motion like never before, from century-old strobe techniques to a quadrillion FPS camera. Witness light's journey through objects and the movement of electrons within molecules. Discover how scientists use sound and incredibly short laser pulses to capture these breathtaking moments.

Feb

5

The last few down swings each had 6 new lows before a bottom. Today, marking a new low for this swing after hours will end up a new low number 5 by the end of tomorrow.

Steve Ellison writes:

Interesting. I have been experimenting with multi-level point and figure charts. Using a box size of 1.4% (a long-term average true daily range) and a 3-box reversal, SPY is still within 4.2% of its all-time high and hence in an uptrend. Drill down with smaller box sizes and shorter time intervals, and interesting price structures appear. At a 1/4 ATR box size, today's close was at a similar level to the Jan. 20 low.

Lots of sector rotation under the surface. If 2025 was the year of the magnificent 7 and the flatlining 493, this year may be the opposite. While technology was getting beaten down this week, the Industrial, Materials, Consumer Staples, and Energy sector ETFs all made new highs.

Zubin Al Genubi adds:

Lots of late night shenanigans going on. Asian markets trading open in late thin US futures creating imbalances. Price action appears algo driven.

Nils Poertner comments:

I like the pattern with 6 new lows. Well spotted. Otoh, if the pattern does not repeat the surprise for mkts is bigger. nature offers "patterns" and "break of patterns" and both are relevant - else it would be a museum.

Cagdas Tuna predicts:

Then it is going to be a rough year for market cap weighted indices in US.

Peter Ringel writes:

While I would always give a study, like Big Al‘s more weight to remove opinion. I wonder, if there is a January effect regarding regime type or sector or general trading type. Not necessary % performance. Will the rest if the year trade like January? Would give a 2015 type year.

Nils Poertner responds:

yes. for practical purpose, it may be easier to trade mkts which receive less attention by the wider financial community /media.

Feb

5

Liv Boree, poker pro, interviews Deep Mind guy:

Why Google Made ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude Play 900,000 hands of Poker…

Liv Boree

…before going on to earn a First Class Honours degree in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. During this time she played lead guitar in heavy metal bands Dissonance and Nemhaim and modelled for a number of alternative clothing brands such as Alchemy Gothic.

Victor Niederhoffer comments:

especially if you live in denmark

Feb

4

Yale Hirsch and his son Jeff have shown that a positive change, from the last trading day of the year to the 5th trading day of the new year, portends a bullish year (positive first 5-day percent change).*

Consider this … in the last 76 years of trading, the S&P 500 has declined for the year 20 times or 26% of the time. In other words, 74% of the time, there has been a yearly gain.

Jeff’s numbers show that in those last 76 years, 49 years showed a positive first 5-day percent change. Only 8 of those years went on to close down for the year. That’s an 84% bias for the year to close higher when we have a positive first 5-day percent change.

My add-on to Yale’s and Jeff’s work was to look at the years that gained 1.2% or more in the first 5 days of trading. There were 28 such years. Of those years, only 2 were down for the year. That’s a 93% bias for the year to close higher. What an improvement from the average 74%!

In 2026, the first 5-day** change for the Dow Jones 30 was +3%.

In 2026, the first 5-day** change for the S&P 500 was +1.6%.

Those 28 years had an average annual return of 14%. The remaining years had an annual gain of 5.3%. I see this as excellent confirmation of the bullishness of my Forecast 2026 Report.

Cagdas Tuna writes:

There is no need for a statistical analysis to assume any given year will be positive for US indices. It is almost guaranteed to be positive every year. No offense to any list member.

Larry Williams responds:

Wrong 24% of time we close down for the year.

Michael Brush is surprised:

Wow did not know it was that high.

Larry Williams agrees:

I was taken back by it as well.

Asindu Drileba asks:

2026 is bullish? But Senator, you said you expect a recession in 2026 with 100% certainty. Is this a contradiction? Or maybe its possible for the market to be bullish even during a recession?

Larry Williams answers:

Yes, there was a projection made a year ago for a 2026 sell off —in the last 12 months data changed—large improvements in fundamentals and hopefully I got a little better understanding of long term cycles. New Data matters.

Nils Poertner writes:

Asindu- there would be simply too many variables out to make that statement with such a certainty in advance. Just impossible. It remains a probability game. Used to subscribe to some cycle research that claimed to have things figured out yrs in advance. quite pricey subscription. it was HOOK, LINE and SINKER (for me).

Denise Shull comments:

New Data matters.

Indeed it does. Wonder why it’s challenging for many to incorporate?

Nils Poertner responds:

Good question. On this note… (Pure) data analysts believe pattern matching on large datasets will solve our problems. But what if the really vital information isn't being collected? What if it's invisible to our trained systems?

Feb

3

The Autobiography of Mark Twain contains a litany of people who cheated him and losses on his investments near the end of his life.

Nothing ever happened to Mark Twain in a small way. His adventures were invariably fraught with drama. Success and failure for him were equally spectacular. And so he roared down the years, feuding with publishers, being a sucker for inventors, always learning wisdom at the point of ruin, and always relishing the absurd spectacle of humankind, which he regarded with a blend of vitriol and affection.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Feb

2

For decades, US dollar dominance rested on a simple but profound foundation. Predictable institutions made the dollar stable, on the belief — sometimes overstated — that the United States would not deliberately undermine its own currency. That belief is now visibly eroding.

The dollar has fallen to its weakest level in nearly four years, not because of a recession or crisis at home, but because investors are increasingly uneasy about the direction of American policy. Against a basket of other currencies, the US dollar is approaching the lows seen during the COVID pandemic as markets are beginning to price in something more corrosive than cyclical weakness. Political and institutional risk is emanating from Washington itself.

Dollar Weakens as Markets Reprice US Political Risk

Feb

1

In this quick study the answer is no.

Jeffrey Hirsch has a different take:

From my newsletter issue published last night:

January Barometer Rules

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