The big deficit bill passed the House of Representatives, following the weak US bond auction, the deficit is looking to even worse under Republican leadership. The overall market seemed surprisingly mixed today, but the 10 year yield took a noticeable slump as the trading session wore on. As one analyst put it:

"Investors are getting more reluctant to lend the US Government money."

I can certainly understand that, as I am also more reluctant to lend the US Government money after reading some of the highlights from the spending bill which Speaker Johnson has been rushing through the House.

Government spending can be beneficial. The Inflation Reduction Act represented a substantial investment in the US economy. I am not alone in believing that this one piece of legislation is largely responsible for the success of the "American Exceptionalism" trade over the last two years.

Tax cuts being paid for by punishing Medicare recipients is not as economically stimulating, and certainly will not be worth the deficit impact.

This won't end well.

The trading volume was a little on the lighter side today, I believe because lots of folks are planning on taking tomorrow off for a long Memorial Day weekend. Heading into the close there was a fair bit of selling which seems like traders wrapping up the week. Tomorrow would be a pretty funny day for some big economic news...

Log

• Missed the opening action due to other responsibilities
• Queued up some bets on Snowflake (SNOW) which had a big pop after market on earnings, the options volume wasn't there to go for some long puts
• Caught some trends on Nvidia (NVDA) which I'm pleased with.
• Seeing more "typical" semiconductor volatility today, which is a refreshing change!
• Accidentally swapped a sell for a buy order on a put option for AMD which put me behind on the position, oops!
• Definite movement upwards from the tech sector after the first 20 minutes of establishing, NVDA definitely seems to be everybody higher.
• Upcoming earnings announcement from NVDA next week has a lot of fluctuations going for them as the tug-of-war on pre-earnings pricing goes on.
• Interestingly SMCI has stabilized today, last I was paying attention they were much more volatile.
• Found some opportunities with Tesla (TSLA) after a couple oscillations of bidding.
• Took a smaller loss on some long puts on AMD that were not trending in the right direction, the challenge with put options is that their time-value deteriorates pretty strongly during the day if we're trading sideways.

Portfolio