Macro Outlook: Hosts see a resilient Goldilocks backdrop but warn of an AI-driven bubble creating left-tail risk, favoring hedged exposure over delta-1 longs via collars.
Semiconductors: Group price action will determine the next leg; Nvidia and AMD weakness sets up a tactical buy-the-dip window that could validate or refute the AI-led bull case.
Uranium (URA): Constructive view with added URA call positions; term prices firmed, carry trade supports spot, but thin-liquidity volatility remains a near-term risk.
Gold: Bullish bias with a potential breakout above key resistance; prior consolidation patterns suggest timing could stretch, but the next major move is expected higher.
Crude Oil: Tactically cautious as prices trend below key averages with potential political pressure into the 2026 election; geopolitical shifts could still disrupt the downtrend.
US Dollar: Trend remains higher above the 50-day; further upside hinges on euro breakdown while USDJPY trades near highs.
US Treasuries: 10-year yields are in a downtrend with rising odds of a near-term rate cut, biasing toward lower yields into year-end.
Risk Management: Preference for S&P collars to stay invested while hedging against an AI-froth unwind or holiday thin-liquidity shocks.
Transcript
[Music] This is Macrovoices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high- netw worth individuals, family offices, and other sophisticated investors. Macrovoices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics telling it like it is. Bullish or bearish, no holds barred. Now, here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Serezna. Eric, it was great to have Lack back on the show. Now, listeners, you're going to find the download link for the postgame trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, that means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, and click on the red button over Lax's picture saying looking for the downloads. Patrick Lock's view is that cycles and liquidity still support macro resilience, but at the same time, we're dealing with AI bubble dynamics, and that means being delta-1 long the market carries a lot of left tail risk. So, the question in my mind is, how do you design a trade that expresses lock's constructive macro outlook view, but do that in a way that's riskmanaged and doesn't expose you to the full downside if the bubble finally cracks? Eric Lack's view is that the macro backdrop remains the resilient Goldilocks economy where growth is steady, liquidity is supportive, and there's no immediate catalyst for a downturn. But that doesn't mean equity markets have explosive upside from here. Instead, it may suggest a slow grind higher with meaningful left tail risk because of the AIdriven froth. So being outright delta 1 long doesn't offer great riskreward. You want to stay invested, but you also want to hedge the downside. That's why a traditional S&P 500 collar makes sense here. Now, if your view is that the upside here is limited, selling a bit of it to finance the downside protection is a good trade-off. The call premium subsidizes the put, giving you a more defensive posture while still participating in a stable or modestly rising market. It keeps you aligned with lacks resilience view but with defined risk if you get a volatility shock or the bubble unwinds. With the S&P 500 trading near 6750, the structure I'm looking at is a 5% out-of-the-oney collar using the January 15th, 2026 expiration or about 50 days at the time of recording. On the downside, I'd buy the $6,400 put for about $54. And to help finance that protection, I'd sell the $7,100 call, which brings in roughly $36. That leaves you with a net debit of around $18 for the entire structure. This gives you a very clean riskmanaged profile. You stay along the market in line with LAX's macro resilience framework. The opportunity cost of the call cap is likely low. But if you were to get a volatility shock or an unwind of the AI froth, the long put kicks in and materially limits the damage. It's a simple, elegant way to stay invested without carrying the delta 1 downside risk. Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now, let's dive in to the postgame chart deck. Eric, let's take a look at those equity markets. What's your thoughts here, Patrick? I've noticed a lot of people scratching their head the last couple of weeks saying, "Okay, what the heck caused this downside correction in the markets? What was the catalyst? It's not really clear what the problem is here." It's actually crystal clear to me. Now, that doesn't mean I'm right, but I'll tell you what I think. I think this is entirely about hot money fund managers protecting their tear sheets into year end. This is something I didn't really understand until I ran a small macro hedge fund myself. The the way the market works is real money basically stays in their positions, doesn't trade in and out of them. So, they're not who's affecting the market. It's the hot money that affects the day-to-day moves in the market. And the way these guys think is when everybody has had a fantastic year, which is where we stand right now, if you've already up 60% on the year, fantastic numbers, there's really not a lot of incentive to try to get to up 65% or up 70%. You've already had a fantastic year. When people look at that tear sheet three years from now and they say, "He had a 60% year." That's going to sound great no matter what. On the other hand, if you go, as happened to a lot of people in 2018, and you turn that plus 60% into plus 12% by the time you get to year end because the last few weeks were the beginning of some kind of market crash, well, that's when you're really in trouble and you really regret the riskmanagement decision you should have made. I think that memory of 2018 has got a lot of fund managers saying, "Look, if I just cash out, risk off, derisk my portfolio right now, I'm still up 60% on the year. I don't want to take the chance of losing half of that. And it's not worth it to stay fully reinvested into year end when I'm not sure what's going to happen next." And that means that holiday thin liquidity could take the market on a big move in either direction. Now, at the moment of recording, it looks like that direction is up. It seems like we've reversed the downtrend and we're bouncing really vigorously here. We're back above the 50-day moving average. Things are looking great. But remember, thin liquidity is when market manipulation tactics are most effective and easiest to perpetrate. So, it's easy to see how someone could engineer a big stop clearing run to the downside and that in turn could poison the market and spook everyone into year end just into bailing out in order to protect their tear sheet. Conversely, a sustained rally above the 50-day moving average, and it looks like we've got one in play, at least as of recording time, before the market open on Wednesday, that could bring on a bigger thanex expected Santa Claus rally. is everybody says okay the market's sounding the all clear we're back above the 50-day this rally looks great RSI hasn't improved stochastics have improved let's get back in let's not wait till year end that could give us a really pronounced move to the upside so I think the name of the game into year end when everybody's P&L resets is try to figure out which way the trend is running and stay with it into year end for the moment I think it's reversing to the upside but you know knock on wood anything could happen in thin liquidity over the holiday. So, let's wait till we get through this thin liquidity holiday weekend before we reach any final conclusions. Well, Eric, for me, this uh price action is very reminiscent of January at the start of the year. We started the year below the 50-day moving average, a quick selloff that got us to about 5% off of the highs, then a rip that had the market go and retest its highs by the end of January. and we're creating what was essentially a double top at this moment with the fact that we've recovered above the 50-day got away from all the trigger points for CTA selling uh with the shortened holiday period low volumes. It's entirely possible that this market could have a short-term rally up to the highs and allow the upcoming Fed meeting to be the catalyst for the next major move in the markets. And so at this stage market is out of the danger zone. Now, Eric, I want to step back and really size up this correction because we've been talking for months about that this has been one of the longest and one of the largest in magnitude rallies that we've had this decade. Actually, the 100th percentile without a 5% correction. But this market correction from peak to trough has now been a 6% correction and therefore qualifies as a correction. So this idea of waiting for a correction, well correction has happened. And so now the question is, is this enough to resume a new bull phase of a market or is this market in a bigger distribution cycle that much more mimic a topping formation in the market? A lot of that is going to be decided with how semiconductors behave here. We're actually at a very key level. Nvidia broken to a lower low. A lot of the semiconductors like AMD have retraced more than 50% of their previous rallies. This is actually a tactical buy on dip window where if the AI bubble was to continue and these semiconductors uh are going to be bought on dip, this is actually a level where that should happen. And so whether these semiconductors get bought on dip here and resume rallying, I think will play an incredibly important part in determining whether there's another full bull leg ahead or whether this is just going to be a seasonal period where uh the markets rally up to their highs and get sloshed around in a trade range going into the holiday period. So a lot to be discovered. On the short term, it would take a breakdown below 6,600 at this moment to reopen a floodgate. So, the market's got a little bit of wiggle room here to stay in this trade range definitely throughout the uh Thanksgiving holiday and certainly potentially towards the Fed meeting. All right, Eric, let's uh touch on the dollar. Patrick, we're still flirting with upside breakout territory as of recording time before the market open on Wednesday. We were well off the highs and flirting with channel support actually. So, maybe we're about to see the next move up. On the other hand, a sustained move below 99 and a half, that's just about where we are right now on the Dixie chart, would suggest at least a swing reversal to the downside, is in play, but it's too early to call that yet. Let's see what it looks like after the holiday weekend. Well, Eric, for me, the dollar chart is very simple. We've been 2 months above its 50-day moving average. Uh higher highs, higher low sequences occurring and uh every potential for the dollar to squeeze a little bit higher here. But to me that really now falls upon the euro breaking down in order to play out. The the US dollar yen has already had a rip is a stone throw away from its year highs. And so at this stage it's going to take the big kahuna currency pair of the euro to actually break down in order to see that upside on the dollar really accelerate. The euro has bounced back toward its 50-day moving average, but has been over a month trading below that 50-day. Will we see the euro remain below the 50-day moving average? I think is a key technical thing to watch uh in determining whether this dollar is going to have another leg up. All right, Eric, let's touch on oil here. Front of curve time spreads on the WTI market are starting to soften again, even as flat price mostly holds its ground. Now, I'm still very, very bullish crude oil and commodities in general after the 2026 election season, but until the election season is over, until we get to midterm elections, I I think invisible hands could push this market considerably lower. President Trump definitely desperately needs lower oil prices. He's got a lot of political capital with Saudi Arabia right now. He's got plenty of room to negotiate some kind of secret deal behind the scenes in order to keep energy prices lower. On the other hand, I think the fundamentals are in the opposite direction. Very bullish. Which one's going to win out? Boy, tough call for now. I would say that the seasonal low is in February. I definitely don't want to be long before then. At some point between February, which is seasonal low, and November, which is end of election season, depending on how things are playing out, I'm going to want to get back long and long in size. The question is how things are going to play out. How much political power does President Trump have? Uh what is the outlook for the midterm elections? Those are the things that I think are going to determine the direction of the market between February and November of 26. Well, Eric, we have crude oil deteriorating below a fib zone. It's been trading consistently below the 50-day moving average and has weakened now to being a stone throw away from all of its major lows of the year, which lie in the $55 to $56 range. At this moment, we're weakening into this uh key support line at a time when uh news catalysts such as potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and a potential uh start of a military operation against Venezuela could be disruptors in oil trends. And so at this juncture, uh we have to respect that the prevailing downtrend is intact, but it'll be interesting to see whether one of these catalyst shifts or pivots this uh prevailing downtrend. All right, Eric, let's talk about gold. Well, Patrick, in Tuesday evening after hours futures trading, a formative upside breakout from the penant or symmetrical triangle pattern that began on October 21st appears maybe hopefully, cross your fingers, knock on wood, to have begun to the upside. But it's still early to call an upside breakout until we've seen a daily close above 4200. So what? Let's wait for that closing print above 4200. Right now though, the chart's looking really bullish. And remember, thin liquidity holiday periods are when fake breakouts are most likely. So, let's not read too much into this potential formative upside breakout until we see confirmation in liquid market hours. Eric, I'm also watching that same 4200 level. So, now that we've seen uh a correction in gold and it now making a higher low, if gold can get above that 4,200 level, then a retest of its previous highs could be in play and certainly would uh ask the question as to whether we're going to have a resumption in the bull trend. Now, I want to highlight one important observation. Of the last four gold market corrections that were relatively sideways in that pennant formation, they've all lasted anywhere from 2 months to 4 months in length. This current market correction in gold is just over 30 days old. And so, the question here is, is this going to be the shortest correction of all these sequences? And will the bulls just be able to resume the upside immediately? Or is this going to still stall out on overhead resistance and come back to retest some key levels as it kind of continues to base for another month in line with previous lengths of corrections before it technically breaks out? Our main overall bullish gold. The bigger question is is this going to be the start of the next leg or not? Uh and overall I don't see any reason why this can't wait till January to start. But I do think that the next key break in gold will be to the upside. All right, Eric, let's get your update on uranium. Patrick, I added considerably to my longs on both URA50 and 55 strike calls on this dip. Our friend Justin Hune over at Uranium Insider nailed this bottom at least so far. If that was the bottom uh in UI's newsletter and me members webinar, Justin perfectly to the day nailed that bottom if it was the bottom. But of course, he qualified that to say he wasn't calling a bottom, but he thought it could be the bottom. Looks like it may have been. Uh, we still need to see the spot price move, though. Now, we are seeing action in the uranium physical market. It's just not visible to most people. There was $2 of upside in this month's monthly term price report, which comes from UXC. That's a special subscription uranium market data that most traders don't have access to. What most people are watching is the spot price. That's what's going to move the market. We haven't seen spot move yet. But we do have a new floor on spot price because spot is so far below term price now that the carry trade is in place. So if spot trades much lower, carry traders are going to step in. This is however a famously volatile market and we're coming into thin liquidity holiday trading. So, all it would take is some broad market weakness, somebody getting spooked out of their S&P position to slam the uranium miners back down to new lows. But once liquidity stabilizes after the thin liquidity holiday weekend, my outlook is decidedly bullish. That's with the big caveat that that's barring a broad market risk event and particularly an unwind of the AI trade. Now, frankly, an unwind of the AI trade is pretty darn unlikely considering the uh US government, the White House just made one of the biggest, you know, Manhattan projects sized announcements in history, saying they're completely totally committed as a national matter of national security to uh to standing up AI in a in a battle with China. So, it seems very unlikely that we're going to see an unwind of the AI trade. And for that reason, I think that risk has come out of the nuclear market or should have come out of the nuclear market, but we haven't seen it in the tape yet. And we definitely haven't seen it in the spot price of uranium. Hopefully, that's what's coming next. Uranium stocks have gone through a one-mon correction now and have certainly mean reverted a very good chunk of that September October advance. Overall, we're clearly seeing some profit taking. But the bigger question I have on my mind is that how much are these uranium stocks correlated with the AI story? Uh have they been basketed with that? And if we'd see sustained selling in the AI story, will that put further pressure on these stocks as they may have been basketed into the same trade idea thesis? Nonetheless, the one thing to watch is whether or not that the uranium stocks can get back above their 50-day. Uh now that this correction is getting underway, that levels around the $47 level on the URRA. And uh a technical breakout back above there would certainly gain uh some traction uh on a potential new breakout. And so will the bulls be able to put that together is the thing to watch. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's show, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. We certainly have now seen us roll back down and trade towards uh the lows again. Uh we're now toying with this 4% level and overall we've now seen the odds of a December rate cut actually come right back in to like 80 plus%. And so if we see that generally uh we're talking about a dovish Fed and a and an economy that may be not as resilient, then the question is is will we see these yields break to a lower low, which is going to be a breakdown towards the 390 basis point level. Overall, uh this has been a general downtrend of lower highs and lower lows. And so no reason to see that there's some sort of imminent new phase where yields are going to materially rise. And so uh continuing to see whether or not they break down is the path of least resistance and the trend that uh will likely stay in place here going into the end of the year. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of BigPictur Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. That concludes this edition of Macrovoices. Be sure to tune in each week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds in finance and macroeconomics. Macrovoices is made possible by sponsorship from bigpicturrading.com, the internet's premier source of online education for traders. Please visit bigpicturetrading.com for more information. Please register your free account at macrovoices.com. Once registered, you'll receive our free weekly research roundup email containing links to supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research team could find on the internet each week. You'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and research library. And the more registered users we have, the more we'll be able to recruit high-profile feature interview guests for future programs. So, please register your free account today at macrovoices.com if you haven't already. 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Trade of The Week – MacroVoices #508
Summary
Transcript
[Music] This is Macrovoices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high- netw worth individuals, family offices, and other sophisticated investors. Macrovoices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics telling it like it is. Bullish or bearish, no holds barred. Now, here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Serezna. Eric, it was great to have Lack back on the show. Now, listeners, you're going to find the download link for the postgame trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, that means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, and click on the red button over Lax's picture saying looking for the downloads. Patrick Lock's view is that cycles and liquidity still support macro resilience, but at the same time, we're dealing with AI bubble dynamics, and that means being delta-1 long the market carries a lot of left tail risk. So, the question in my mind is, how do you design a trade that expresses lock's constructive macro outlook view, but do that in a way that's riskmanaged and doesn't expose you to the full downside if the bubble finally cracks? Eric Lack's view is that the macro backdrop remains the resilient Goldilocks economy where growth is steady, liquidity is supportive, and there's no immediate catalyst for a downturn. But that doesn't mean equity markets have explosive upside from here. Instead, it may suggest a slow grind higher with meaningful left tail risk because of the AIdriven froth. So being outright delta 1 long doesn't offer great riskreward. You want to stay invested, but you also want to hedge the downside. That's why a traditional S&P 500 collar makes sense here. Now, if your view is that the upside here is limited, selling a bit of it to finance the downside protection is a good trade-off. The call premium subsidizes the put, giving you a more defensive posture while still participating in a stable or modestly rising market. It keeps you aligned with lacks resilience view but with defined risk if you get a volatility shock or the bubble unwinds. With the S&P 500 trading near 6750, the structure I'm looking at is a 5% out-of-the-oney collar using the January 15th, 2026 expiration or about 50 days at the time of recording. On the downside, I'd buy the $6,400 put for about $54. And to help finance that protection, I'd sell the $7,100 call, which brings in roughly $36. That leaves you with a net debit of around $18 for the entire structure. This gives you a very clean riskmanaged profile. You stay along the market in line with LAX's macro resilience framework. The opportunity cost of the call cap is likely low. But if you were to get a volatility shock or an unwind of the AI froth, the long put kicks in and materially limits the damage. It's a simple, elegant way to stay invested without carrying the delta 1 downside risk. Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now, let's dive in to the postgame chart deck. Eric, let's take a look at those equity markets. What's your thoughts here, Patrick? I've noticed a lot of people scratching their head the last couple of weeks saying, "Okay, what the heck caused this downside correction in the markets? What was the catalyst? It's not really clear what the problem is here." It's actually crystal clear to me. Now, that doesn't mean I'm right, but I'll tell you what I think. I think this is entirely about hot money fund managers protecting their tear sheets into year end. This is something I didn't really understand until I ran a small macro hedge fund myself. The the way the market works is real money basically stays in their positions, doesn't trade in and out of them. So, they're not who's affecting the market. It's the hot money that affects the day-to-day moves in the market. And the way these guys think is when everybody has had a fantastic year, which is where we stand right now, if you've already up 60% on the year, fantastic numbers, there's really not a lot of incentive to try to get to up 65% or up 70%. You've already had a fantastic year. When people look at that tear sheet three years from now and they say, "He had a 60% year." That's going to sound great no matter what. On the other hand, if you go, as happened to a lot of people in 2018, and you turn that plus 60% into plus 12% by the time you get to year end because the last few weeks were the beginning of some kind of market crash, well, that's when you're really in trouble and you really regret the riskmanagement decision you should have made. I think that memory of 2018 has got a lot of fund managers saying, "Look, if I just cash out, risk off, derisk my portfolio right now, I'm still up 60% on the year. I don't want to take the chance of losing half of that. And it's not worth it to stay fully reinvested into year end when I'm not sure what's going to happen next." And that means that holiday thin liquidity could take the market on a big move in either direction. Now, at the moment of recording, it looks like that direction is up. It seems like we've reversed the downtrend and we're bouncing really vigorously here. We're back above the 50-day moving average. Things are looking great. But remember, thin liquidity is when market manipulation tactics are most effective and easiest to perpetrate. So, it's easy to see how someone could engineer a big stop clearing run to the downside and that in turn could poison the market and spook everyone into year end just into bailing out in order to protect their tear sheet. Conversely, a sustained rally above the 50-day moving average, and it looks like we've got one in play, at least as of recording time, before the market open on Wednesday, that could bring on a bigger thanex expected Santa Claus rally. is everybody says okay the market's sounding the all clear we're back above the 50-day this rally looks great RSI hasn't improved stochastics have improved let's get back in let's not wait till year end that could give us a really pronounced move to the upside so I think the name of the game into year end when everybody's P&L resets is try to figure out which way the trend is running and stay with it into year end for the moment I think it's reversing to the upside but you know knock on wood anything could happen in thin liquidity over the holiday. So, let's wait till we get through this thin liquidity holiday weekend before we reach any final conclusions. Well, Eric, for me, this uh price action is very reminiscent of January at the start of the year. We started the year below the 50-day moving average, a quick selloff that got us to about 5% off of the highs, then a rip that had the market go and retest its highs by the end of January. and we're creating what was essentially a double top at this moment with the fact that we've recovered above the 50-day got away from all the trigger points for CTA selling uh with the shortened holiday period low volumes. It's entirely possible that this market could have a short-term rally up to the highs and allow the upcoming Fed meeting to be the catalyst for the next major move in the markets. And so at this stage market is out of the danger zone. Now, Eric, I want to step back and really size up this correction because we've been talking for months about that this has been one of the longest and one of the largest in magnitude rallies that we've had this decade. Actually, the 100th percentile without a 5% correction. But this market correction from peak to trough has now been a 6% correction and therefore qualifies as a correction. So this idea of waiting for a correction, well correction has happened. And so now the question is, is this enough to resume a new bull phase of a market or is this market in a bigger distribution cycle that much more mimic a topping formation in the market? A lot of that is going to be decided with how semiconductors behave here. We're actually at a very key level. Nvidia broken to a lower low. A lot of the semiconductors like AMD have retraced more than 50% of their previous rallies. This is actually a tactical buy on dip window where if the AI bubble was to continue and these semiconductors uh are going to be bought on dip, this is actually a level where that should happen. And so whether these semiconductors get bought on dip here and resume rallying, I think will play an incredibly important part in determining whether there's another full bull leg ahead or whether this is just going to be a seasonal period where uh the markets rally up to their highs and get sloshed around in a trade range going into the holiday period. So a lot to be discovered. On the short term, it would take a breakdown below 6,600 at this moment to reopen a floodgate. So, the market's got a little bit of wiggle room here to stay in this trade range definitely throughout the uh Thanksgiving holiday and certainly potentially towards the Fed meeting. All right, Eric, let's uh touch on the dollar. Patrick, we're still flirting with upside breakout territory as of recording time before the market open on Wednesday. We were well off the highs and flirting with channel support actually. So, maybe we're about to see the next move up. On the other hand, a sustained move below 99 and a half, that's just about where we are right now on the Dixie chart, would suggest at least a swing reversal to the downside, is in play, but it's too early to call that yet. Let's see what it looks like after the holiday weekend. Well, Eric, for me, the dollar chart is very simple. We've been 2 months above its 50-day moving average. Uh higher highs, higher low sequences occurring and uh every potential for the dollar to squeeze a little bit higher here. But to me that really now falls upon the euro breaking down in order to play out. The the US dollar yen has already had a rip is a stone throw away from its year highs. And so at this stage it's going to take the big kahuna currency pair of the euro to actually break down in order to see that upside on the dollar really accelerate. The euro has bounced back toward its 50-day moving average, but has been over a month trading below that 50-day. Will we see the euro remain below the 50-day moving average? I think is a key technical thing to watch uh in determining whether this dollar is going to have another leg up. All right, Eric, let's touch on oil here. Front of curve time spreads on the WTI market are starting to soften again, even as flat price mostly holds its ground. Now, I'm still very, very bullish crude oil and commodities in general after the 2026 election season, but until the election season is over, until we get to midterm elections, I I think invisible hands could push this market considerably lower. President Trump definitely desperately needs lower oil prices. He's got a lot of political capital with Saudi Arabia right now. He's got plenty of room to negotiate some kind of secret deal behind the scenes in order to keep energy prices lower. On the other hand, I think the fundamentals are in the opposite direction. Very bullish. Which one's going to win out? Boy, tough call for now. I would say that the seasonal low is in February. I definitely don't want to be long before then. At some point between February, which is seasonal low, and November, which is end of election season, depending on how things are playing out, I'm going to want to get back long and long in size. The question is how things are going to play out. How much political power does President Trump have? Uh what is the outlook for the midterm elections? Those are the things that I think are going to determine the direction of the market between February and November of 26. Well, Eric, we have crude oil deteriorating below a fib zone. It's been trading consistently below the 50-day moving average and has weakened now to being a stone throw away from all of its major lows of the year, which lie in the $55 to $56 range. At this moment, we're weakening into this uh key support line at a time when uh news catalysts such as potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and a potential uh start of a military operation against Venezuela could be disruptors in oil trends. And so at this juncture, uh we have to respect that the prevailing downtrend is intact, but it'll be interesting to see whether one of these catalyst shifts or pivots this uh prevailing downtrend. All right, Eric, let's talk about gold. Well, Patrick, in Tuesday evening after hours futures trading, a formative upside breakout from the penant or symmetrical triangle pattern that began on October 21st appears maybe hopefully, cross your fingers, knock on wood, to have begun to the upside. But it's still early to call an upside breakout until we've seen a daily close above 4200. So what? Let's wait for that closing print above 4200. Right now though, the chart's looking really bullish. And remember, thin liquidity holiday periods are when fake breakouts are most likely. So, let's not read too much into this potential formative upside breakout until we see confirmation in liquid market hours. Eric, I'm also watching that same 4200 level. So, now that we've seen uh a correction in gold and it now making a higher low, if gold can get above that 4,200 level, then a retest of its previous highs could be in play and certainly would uh ask the question as to whether we're going to have a resumption in the bull trend. Now, I want to highlight one important observation. Of the last four gold market corrections that were relatively sideways in that pennant formation, they've all lasted anywhere from 2 months to 4 months in length. This current market correction in gold is just over 30 days old. And so, the question here is, is this going to be the shortest correction of all these sequences? And will the bulls just be able to resume the upside immediately? Or is this going to still stall out on overhead resistance and come back to retest some key levels as it kind of continues to base for another month in line with previous lengths of corrections before it technically breaks out? Our main overall bullish gold. The bigger question is is this going to be the start of the next leg or not? Uh and overall I don't see any reason why this can't wait till January to start. But I do think that the next key break in gold will be to the upside. All right, Eric, let's get your update on uranium. Patrick, I added considerably to my longs on both URA50 and 55 strike calls on this dip. Our friend Justin Hune over at Uranium Insider nailed this bottom at least so far. If that was the bottom uh in UI's newsletter and me members webinar, Justin perfectly to the day nailed that bottom if it was the bottom. But of course, he qualified that to say he wasn't calling a bottom, but he thought it could be the bottom. Looks like it may have been. Uh, we still need to see the spot price move, though. Now, we are seeing action in the uranium physical market. It's just not visible to most people. There was $2 of upside in this month's monthly term price report, which comes from UXC. That's a special subscription uranium market data that most traders don't have access to. What most people are watching is the spot price. That's what's going to move the market. We haven't seen spot move yet. But we do have a new floor on spot price because spot is so far below term price now that the carry trade is in place. So if spot trades much lower, carry traders are going to step in. This is however a famously volatile market and we're coming into thin liquidity holiday trading. So, all it would take is some broad market weakness, somebody getting spooked out of their S&P position to slam the uranium miners back down to new lows. But once liquidity stabilizes after the thin liquidity holiday weekend, my outlook is decidedly bullish. That's with the big caveat that that's barring a broad market risk event and particularly an unwind of the AI trade. Now, frankly, an unwind of the AI trade is pretty darn unlikely considering the uh US government, the White House just made one of the biggest, you know, Manhattan projects sized announcements in history, saying they're completely totally committed as a national matter of national security to uh to standing up AI in a in a battle with China. So, it seems very unlikely that we're going to see an unwind of the AI trade. And for that reason, I think that risk has come out of the nuclear market or should have come out of the nuclear market, but we haven't seen it in the tape yet. And we definitely haven't seen it in the spot price of uranium. Hopefully, that's what's coming next. Uranium stocks have gone through a one-mon correction now and have certainly mean reverted a very good chunk of that September October advance. Overall, we're clearly seeing some profit taking. But the bigger question I have on my mind is that how much are these uranium stocks correlated with the AI story? Uh have they been basketed with that? And if we'd see sustained selling in the AI story, will that put further pressure on these stocks as they may have been basketed into the same trade idea thesis? Nonetheless, the one thing to watch is whether or not that the uranium stocks can get back above their 50-day. Uh now that this correction is getting underway, that levels around the $47 level on the URRA. And uh a technical breakout back above there would certainly gain uh some traction uh on a potential new breakout. And so will the bulls be able to put that together is the thing to watch. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's show, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. We certainly have now seen us roll back down and trade towards uh the lows again. Uh we're now toying with this 4% level and overall we've now seen the odds of a December rate cut actually come right back in to like 80 plus%. And so if we see that generally uh we're talking about a dovish Fed and a and an economy that may be not as resilient, then the question is is will we see these yields break to a lower low, which is going to be a breakdown towards the 390 basis point level. Overall, uh this has been a general downtrend of lower highs and lower lows. And so no reason to see that there's some sort of imminent new phase where yields are going to materially rise. And so uh continuing to see whether or not they break down is the path of least resistance and the trend that uh will likely stay in place here going into the end of the year. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of BigPictur Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. 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