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
6/x to antitrust fears, tax fears, & the fear of higher rates? 🦗 🦗 🦗... ‘The best lack conviction, while the worst R full of passionate intensity’ right now...Intraday Rvol is increasing as we break, The Generals are fading, & the market is increasingly kicking & trying to
7/x break free of what seems an impossible battle w/Gary the 🦍. Yet there is no fear... It almost always seems like the party will never end at the end. But I have exited from the back door. It’s never easy. It takes conviction and a willingness to miss the last hour of fun.
8/x But no one wants to be there when the 👮‍♀️ 👮‍♀️ show up. As we drag along a well defined floor in the VIX & approach an important inflection point. The Risk Reward is unmistakable. It is time to pull back on those incredibly successful dispersion trades & concentrate on the
9/x indices . It is time to opportunistically take a shot on a decline in the market at our levels...Our long held 3811 🎯has been met & though it’s possible for us to still see 3837 ***as the market attempts to shake the grip of IVol amidst a pain trade. Tremendous idiosyncratic
10/x risk sits around the corner, increasingly w/out the structural support it once enjoyed... A Classic correction this week would involve stair steps down with regular charm support flows struggling to underpin the increasingly negative flows. By Friday EOD, if we are to see
11/x anything more than a correction in time, we should at a minimum see a close below the 20 day. & by 1/22 we should see a close below the 1std dev of the 20 day, if we can’t manage a move at least close to this by then, the window will begin to close... look for narratives
12/x surrounding more domestic political unrest, potential geopolitical challenges in Asia, & the Middle East amidst political transition to percolate as the market inexplicably trembles. Keep an 👁 on p/c equity ratios on any rally, as well as NDX, TSLA & BTC weakness. Rising
13/13 Fixed strike vols, in the back will also be a canary in the coal mine. Vanna flows’ll continue to be concentrated around 1-3pm CST & increasingly in the mornings until 9am. It won’t be easy... Scalp from the short side & Take profits @ levels along the way. Good luck! 🍀

More from Cem Karsan 🥐

1/x Vanna joined the wheel of fortune on this day in 1982,& 38 years later she’s stronger than ever...Friday’s into the Mon of qrtrly OpEx in particular aren’t a time to trifle w/her...As called for, the market continues to try & shake out weak hands from overextended positioning


2/x by both HF & Retail, but ultimately these moves are no match for our fair lady’s charming flows during this window, & should continue to support this market through 12/16 w/ qrtrly Vixperation & the Fed upon us....As I highlighted Fri, the minor correction in price/time that

3/x we got down to the 20 day, w/precise technical support at that level, paired w/ increasingly positive Dark Pool (DIX) demand was a textbook buy signal, given the timing...Despite all of this, the real story is not these positive flows nearly as much as the continued reflexive

4/x IVol compression...This is the holiday gift that keeps on giving. Along w/ continued targeted short Vol, massive calendar expansion & dispersion opportunities continue to print $ with VRP >94th % of occurrences & post 1/8 Vol still at a floor... This $ train doesn’t show any

5/x sign of stopping yet, as I expect Ivol oversupply should continue to be the dominant force through at least 12/16 & once we get through 12/21 without incident, likely beyond...W/ lots of imbedded potential energy still in the VRP to fuel more vanna/charm flows in the month to

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MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (
https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

2. Sandu (三 毒), Jiang Cheng’s sword, refers to the three poisons (triviṣa) in Buddhism; desire (kāma-taṇhā), delusion (bhava-taṇhā) and hatred (vibhava-taṇhā).

These 3 poisons represent the roots of craving (tanha) and are the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain) and thus result in rebirth.

Interesting that MXTX used this name for one of the characters who suffers, arguably, the worst of these three emotions.

3. The Qian kun purse “乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài) – can be called “Heaven and Earth” Pouch. In Buddhism, Maitreya (मैत्रेय) owns this to store items. It was believed that there was a mythical space inside the bag that could absorb the world.” (TWX)