We did it! The trade war with China has been averted! Great work everybody!

Ahem. For the next 90 days we can live in a suspended reality where there are no tariffs!

Ahem. Well except there are still the 30% additional tariffs on Chinese goods which President Trump enabled shortly after entering office

A decrease from an absurd 145%, but a return to the previous absurdity, is enough to trigger Wall St. Stockholm syndrome and a pretty big rally today.

Despite how the market has rallied today, there is a lot of analysis and commentary on how nothing substantial has really been clarified.

The bull market has survived Trump's tariff onslaught. But stocks aren't out of the woods just yet.

Or as The Atlantic put it: Trump blinked

My gut feel is that savvy investors have realized that Trump not a deal maker, but a blustering loser who has coherent economic policies. Instead he seems to be very subject to pressures from other organizations and countries, making it a relatively straight-forward hedge whenever tariffs come up: they're not going to stick, so bet accordingly.

The question for my own trades is, how long will it take for any economic bluster to come unwound. The current run-rate is between 30-45 days, which makes monthly options perhaps a little more compelling than before.

This news not withstanding, I am expecting a relatively quiet week with responsibilities away from the terminal monopolizing my time. No put options today, only covered calls with some orders left in place so I can focus elsewhere.

Log

• Waking up to positive news about US/China tariff relations and pre-market holdings have skyrocketed up. The tariffs being ratcheted down from the triple digit numbers to ... still elevated levels.... for 90 days, has people going gang-busters?
• Waited until where I think the market would top out before selling some covered call options.
• Decided to line up all the expiration dates for the end of this week, makes managing things a little bit easier for me.