How I am Positioned For This Market | Jason Shapiro and Jimmy Connor
Summary
Silver Setup: Guest is constructive on silver, citing rising short positioning (COT) and a clear news-failure reversal that improves the long risk-reward.
Precious Metals: Warming up to metals broadly; if silver rallies, gold likely follows, potentially signaling improving risk appetite.
Equities & Oil: Neutral on the S&P 500 and crude oil due to balanced positioning and unpredictable Middle East outcomes; no edge to act.
Bonds & Liquidity: Emphasizes bonds as the key macro tell amid liquidity drain from deficits, AI capex, private credit, and war, with QE/inflation dynamics a central risk.
Process & Risk: Contrarian approach using COT and news-failure confirmation; low win rate but high payoff, with stops at the news-failure day’s low.
Other Commodities: Softs (sugar, coffee, cocoa) already ran; soybean complex looks crowded long; copper’s AI-driven narrative overextended earlier, now neutral.
Crypto View: Skeptical on Bitcoin due to grifter risk and polarized sentiment; not shorting, expects it to behave like other assets over time.
Single-Stock Focus: No specific company tickers were pitched; the discussion centered on commodities and macro futures positioning.
Transcript
Jason, thank you very much for joining us today. How are you making out during these crazy times? >> Yeah, you know, we're getting by. >> Loving these markets. >> I'm not really doing a lot. This isn't my uh it's not really my uh my time, I don't think. You know, um I think it's probably great day trader, short-term trader times, but this isn't really my environment. Although I think that's changing possibly as soon as today. But yeah, things are starting to change a little bit. So hopefully, you know, but but I'm doing all right, you know, haven't lost any money, so that's always a gain. >> That's good. That's good. Well, the volatility is insane. And it's not often you see an asset move up or down 10% like we've seen with oil and n gas. So I want to get your views on how you are navigating this current environment. I recently watched one of your interviews with Linda Rashki and I enjoyed it very much and I would encourage our viewers to check it out and on your channel which is crowded market report and Linda's strategy is very short-term in nature. She puts a trade on for one or two days and her motto is I don't predict I react and this is a little bit different from your strategy. How would you characterize your trading approach? um contrarian, you know, I I'm looking to basically find what the masses are doing and try and go the other way. Um but again, I don't predict. I react. I don't just do it because the masses are going one way. I do it because the masses are going the one way and then the market starts to react in the opposite way that the masses would expect. Um and I call that market confirmation. So once I have some market confirmation, then I go with it. So, I'm really picking turns, you know, medium to long-term turns in the marketplace. You know, we know the market bottoms when everybody is the most panicked and the market tops when everybody is the most euphoric. So, I'm trying to measure when they're the most euphoric and when they're the most panicked and then not just get in the way and buy the falling knife, but wait until the market sort of confirms that that's the case and then I go with it. >> And what indicators do you use to give you that confirmation? The confirmation is all about what I call news failure. So, I'm trying to if I find a market that I think is very one-sided positioning wise, let's say everybody I think is super short, I'm looking to get long. Well, I'm I'm looking into why are they getting short? What's the narrative behind it? What's the news flow behind it? Um because the war in Iran is causing those straits of war moves to shut down and therefore oil prices are going up and therefore the stock market's going down. Okay, that's the narrative. So what I'm looking for then is and don't take this the wrong way. I'm not looking for this to happen or hoping for this to happen. But just in this example, what I'm looking for would be that narrative to be confirmed. So worst news coming out of Iran, worst news coming out of the straighter form moves, oil prices continuing to go up and then the stock market can no longer go down on that. Um that's when I will then get long. >> And you've told me before one of the tools that you use to determine this is commitment of traders. Maybe you can just talk about that. >> Yeah. So when I say I'm trying to judge where positioning is and where people are are overly positioned, that's where I'm looking towards because that is data that shows actual positioning in uh in the futures markets. Um you know, it's one thing to say, oh, everyone's bullish, everyone's bearish. Well, okay, maybe, maybe not. People talk, people say a lot of things. Sometimes you get biased as to what you want to hear. If you want to hear everyone's bearish, that's what you'll hear. And if you want to hear everyone's bullish, that's what you'll hear. But this is actual data showing where people are positioned. So there's no arguing with that, right? Just because they're all short doesn't mean the market can't keep going down. But this is data that's showing that rather than my interpretation of of what I think, you know, oh my friend is long, therefore everybody's long. Maybe, maybe not. You know, do I even know if my friend is long? You know, he says he is, but you know, it's what they're actually doing rather than what they're talking about. And where do you find this commitment of traders? If somebody wants to access it, where do they have to go? >> I mean, you can get the data for free right off of the CFTC website. It's released every Friday. Um, there are places on the internet. Uh, most of the charting services are free. We'll uh we'll chart that the commitments of traders data for you. Um, we of course create our own commitments of traders data um that is available to our our members. We I I really personally never liked the free charting that was uh that was out there. So, we developed um a much better charting. It's a lot more interactive and you can do a lot more things with it than what's out there. But, you know, it's all over the place. If you want to get it for free, it's it there's plenty of free commitments to traders data out there. >> And another characteristic of your trading style is that you are not an active trader. And I want to put this into perspective. How many trades did you do in 2025? >> Around 20, I'm guessing. >> And we're already through Q1 of 2026. How many trades have you done thus far? >> Two, three, four. Four or five. >> And so what percent of your trades are profitable? Historically, it's been somewhere around the 30 somewhere between 35 and 40% number are profitable. But, you know, it tends to be about a 4 to one. So, if I can make $4 30% of the time and lose $1 the other 66% of the time, then, you know, make four, lose one, lose one, make four, lose one, lose one. That's kind of the game that I'm playing. >> And you only trade the futures markets. You don't touch bonds or equities. I mean, I trade the futures, S&P, Dow, Russell, NASDAQ. I trade bonds, 30s, fives, tens, twos, you know, the futures on them, though, but just not the cash market. >> So, why don't we take a look at the markets now, and I want to get your thoughts. And when you look at the markets overall, whether it be the S&P, the bonds, precious metals, oil, whatever, how are things setting up? >> Where do you see the most potential? The things that are starting to set up now are the metals, you know, because people have gotten out of so many of the longs at this point. They're starting to set up as a possible good long. Uh, and silver in particular is what I'm looking at. Um, some of the other stuff, well, they've run away already, but some of the softs were the things that were setting up the most in the last few weeks, like sugar and coffee and cocoa, but they've already kind of started to run away. um and the grains um you know which people have now been piling into because of the whole issue in the straits and they've come to the conclusion it's not just an oil thing it's also a you know a fertilizer thing and therefore grain prices should go up and they have piled into those in particular the the soybean um area so I'm looking at uh at people being way way too long the soybean complex at this point too those are the major you think I wish I could tell you I had some great thing in stocks but I don't they're neutral some great thing in bonds I don't um it's really those areas right now and I was going to ask you if the market if you think the market's transitioning from financial assets or paper assets to one more focused on hard assets like metals and like other commodities and I'm not talking about short term I'm talking longer term >> yeah I mean I wish I had an ability to forecast where we're at with a case. Um, we could certainly sit here to make the argument that they are doing that. Um, you know, we can sit here and make the fundamental case for it. You know, the whole AI thing and they need all these things for that to happen, the copper and the silver and the whatever else. Uh, I don't know if that's a secret at this point. Therefore, I don't know where the extra returner comes from. Um, I think most people probably know that at that point. But at the same time, you could also argue that the world, whether they know it or not, is is underweight. These things relative to what they are in in equities. You know, certainly, right? They might be a little bit overweight gold than they were three or four years ago. But as compared to the money in equities and all that, clearly it's uh it dwarfs, right? um the world is arguably probably overweight, but you could be saying that you be saying that forever, but arguably they're overweight equities, you know, um because of what's gone on and the bull market that's gone on here. Um but, you know, there's probably plenty of times you could say that and there's a reason for it, you know. >> So, let me get your thoughts on the S&P and you said right now you think it's neutral and when you look at the S&P, I'm I'm very surprised it's where it's at. like it's only down 5% on the year, give or take. And we just saw oil rip from 60 bucks to $100 a barrel. Maybe now it's trading at 90, but gas at the pumps is up 30%, diesel's up 40%, ura fertilizers is up 40%. And you were alluding to earlier how this is all going to trickle down through the whole supply chain. It's going to lead to higher prices right across the economy, higher inflation, and eventually it's going to lead to a slowing economy. But the market is like Kohham. It doesn't care. is there's like a real sense of complacency. That's how I'm I see it anyway. But what are your thoughts? Do you see that? Is that why you're neutral? I'm neutral because the positioning is neutral, which indicates that there were some longs earlier in the year. They got a bit long, but those longs have come out, but they're not super short either, right? They're just neutral. So therefore, for my process, there's no edge. It clearly doesn't mean the market's not going to go or down. The market is going to go up or down. Okay. But for my process, it's not showing me where the edge is. So therefore, I'm not doing anything in that market. Do I think that it has been done very well relative to what we would expect? Um, you can make that argument. Is that what you're saying? It's done well relative to what we would expect given what's gone on. Right. I think that's what you're saying. So is that because why is that? Is that because people are stupid and they don't know what's going on in the Middle East or is it because the market's actually telling you something? Right? And most of the time, 98% of the time, I would go with the second one. I would go with the market's telling you something, right? Um, which is that it's not getting weak. If it's not getting weak on such bad news, then when the hell will it get weak, right? That's what I would normally say in this situation. I have been interpreting it as a little bit different which is that I think people are suffering possibly from recency bias you know um they're expecting taka they didn't expect taco last April and they got very short and then it tacoed in their face and their shorts got squeezed um Iran we had a 12-day skirmish with them last year it ended very quickly we had a thing with Venezuela that ended in a day, right? So, I think people came into this saying, "Oh, well, this is just going to be one of those again. I'm not going to get short this, so I'm not going to sell this." And so, therefore, the market has not gone down a lot because people have not been panicking. They have been caught panicking the last few times and it cost them. So, they don't want to panic this time. So, they are holding in. That that's how I see it. Um, which is why the market has just been dripping down. It hasn't they they wish that they did sell. we are lower than we were um when the war broke out. If you sold when the war broke out, you're you're pretty happy, right? But it's just been a drip and a very hard short to hold because you know, we've had these just incredible ripbacks all the time. Um and that's usually how shorting is. It's very hard to hold shorts because you get these squeezes. And then there's also the anticipation of this is going to end. And when it does end, oil prices are going to come down. And when oil prices do come down, the stock market is going to rip higher. So why do I want to be short if that's going to happen? And why do I want to sell if that's going to happen? Hell, we all know now, everybody knows that you don't sell weakness, you buy weakness, right? So I think that's why it's not going down because people are probably using this as a chance to buy weakness so that when the war ends be it in a week in a month in 3 months whatever they will be long when we rip higher when all of that ends. I think that's what people are doing. That's the expectation. I'm not seeing a huge amount of buying here. So I um I question if my interpretation is correct but um you're certainly not seeing a huge amount of selling. Um and and I do think it's because of those other reasons. Nobody wants to be caught short um on what they were caught short on before and and got and regretted doing. Right. So I think it's an interesting place where we're at here. >> So you're neutral on the S&P. What about bonds? This 10-year keeps ticking higher. The 30-year >> The 30-year was um right before the war hit. Um, I was showing the 30-year positioning chart was the most crowded that it's possibly ever been. Um, I thought 30 years were due for a drop. Um, and in fact, they did have that. You can say it wasn't because of positioning. It was because of the war. Okay, we can say that it's never because of the positioning. The positioning just exacerbates the move when it starts, right? That's all it does. you know it the market doesn't go down because people are pushing into long. It starts going down for a reason and then people are so positioned long they have to start getting out of it and that's why there can be a big move and that's why my you know 4:1 winner to loser thing comes in right um they've come off of those a little bit but really not a ton. So, um, I personally think from the macro point of view, if that's what we want to get into, I think the bond market is without a doubt the the single most important place to be looking, you know. Um, because it's a liquidity thing. Um, we know that the bull market really since '08 has been very much a liquidity thing. You know, a QE thing and all the different ways that they provided liquidity. um a lot of that money went into the equity markets and um and it ballooned this whole thing and if that goes away then then there's a problem. I don't know if that's going to go away. Even if it does go away, they're going to come in and QE again, you know, um which is also a problem with trying to get short because if you get if you're short and they come in and QE, then you're going to get squeezed again, right? So everybody's so scared of this. But in my view, um, the stock market was going down, starting to go down before this war hit. I think that was because liquidity was drying up. I think that is proven by the fact that stocks, bonds, gold, Bitcoin, they're all down a lot this year, right? To me, that's liquidity drying up. Um, and the best place to look for that is in bonds. And, and it kind of makes sense because you have governments running huge deficits that need to be funded. You can't not fund that. You have to pay that interest, right? Um you have an AI situation that is requiring the most money that the world has ever seen so much that we had these huge companies. The problem they always had was they were making so much cash and they had so much cash on their balance sheet they didn't know what to do with it. Well, now they found what to do with it. That cash on their balance sheet is drying up massively and now they're going to the market to borrow tons of money. So, you've got the government borrowing tons of money. You've got the AI people borrowing tons of money and that has to be done because we can't live without AI because otherwise China is going to take us over and you know that's the future of even national defense. So, you have to get that money out there. You have of course the private credit situation which everybody's you know aware of. That's a liquidity problem. And now you have a war that from what I understand wars cost a lot of money, right? So all of these things suck up liquidity. Um there's no real way to know what what the limit is. It is a percent of GDP. Is it a percent of this? What? There's no real way to know what it is. Um or if we're even close to what the limit is, but without a doubt, we're getting closer. Um, I was speaking to a guy last week who made a very good point. My my point has always been if that's the case, the markets will tell us, right? They'll come in and they will print more money. They will do more QE and the markets will reject it because now we've reached the limit. The dollar will go down, bonds will go down even though, right? And I wait for the market confirmation like that. But, you know, I had a conversation with a macro guy last week who said that that is going to happen next time in his view because all the other times we had no inflation problem. You can print money all you want as long as there's no inflation. Now, we're at a point where we can't get rid of the inflation. They can't no matter what they're doing. They they can't get this stuff to go to their 2% target. Even with QT, they can't get it to go down. So, if they're going to QE again, it's going to cause inflation and the markets are going to not like it. Maybe. I I never really take the point of this has to happen because I've been around too long. And it's one thing to be a macro analyst and take a this has to happen point of view. It's another thing to be a trader and have money at risk here and take the this has to happen point of view because that's the one that will kill you. Nothing has to happen. Um so I wait for the market to confirm that idea, but I think it's a valid idea and I think it's something to watch out for. It doesn't mean it even has to happen. I mean things have to go first. If they're going to have to print money again, bonds are going to have to keep going down, right? Assets are going to have to keep going down and then they're going to be forced to do something, provide some liquidity. That has to happen first. Let that happen first. And once that happens and they they do do it and they print money and they provide liquidity, then let's see how the markets react to it. But until then, it's all just speculation. >> Well, you mentioned one of the reasons why gold went down and Bitcoin went down. they were liquidity issues and isn't it just because there's maybe not a liquidity issue it's just a transfer of liquidity or transfer of money into other assets. So for example, well once the once the yeah once the war started okay that's it the whole narrative changed before we thought the Fed was going to cut rates right the the US government wanted to cut rates that was going to lead to higher inflation higher in um so lower lower interest rates uh lower dollar higher inflation and that was good for gold and other similar assets and we saw that but now with oil up at a 100 bucks or wherever it is um infl inflation's going higher. That means they can't cut rates. They're going to have to lift rates. >> No doubt. No doubt. That could be the very the very reason and the only reason um is exactly that. We went very quickly from they're definitely cutting rates in 2026 because they're bringing in a new Fed chair who's going to be Trump's buddy and he's going to do what what Trump wants, right? there was no doubt that they were going to be cutting rates and now we've gone to the possibility of them raising rates very we did that pretty quickly. So yes, in that quick transition, you could see why these other assets are going down. The ones that were expecting lower rates have now had to adjust to not expecting lower rates. So yes, I think that's a very valid point and it could be the very simple answer of exactly why this is happening. >> So let's discuss oil. Now I did an interview recently with Rory Johnson. He's an oil analyst and he said what's happening in the Persian Gulf right now in the Middle East, it's more significant than when during COVID when we had total demand destruction and we saw the price of oil drop 30% in one day in March of 2020. And what are your thoughts on on oil here? because he Rory actually thought his uh I think his target price on oil was 200 bucks if this continues on for another month and but yet it really got up to what 100 105 and now we're trading in the low 90s. So what are your thoughts on oil here? >> Yeah, I mean it's great that all these macro people are saying this. It's all about the Straits of Formoose and if the Straits of Formoose situation gets worse then oil's going to $200. Okay, great. But what I need to know is is this straightforward situation going to get worse? Okay, I don't need to know what oil is going to do if it gets worse. Obviously, oil's going up. If the situation gets worse, yeah, I get it, right? But I don't need to know if it's going to get worse. And nobody knows that. Nobody, I think, on Earth knows that. Okay. So, you know, it makes sense. And like I say, from an analyst point of view, yeah, I I get it. If the situation gets worse, oil price is going up. And if oil price is going up, then bonds are probably going down and stocks are probably going down. Inflation expectations are probably going up and and and the whole show is going to happen. Yes, I get it. If the war in the Middle East gets worse, those things are probably going to happen. Okay, am I supposed to pay you for that analysis? Like, you know, like, oh, I get it and everybody agrees with it and everybody I talk to and all the macro people I listen to, they all say it and and that doesn't make it not true. It's true. But the issue is h there's no way to know. And the other issue is the guy in charge o of it all has some funny uh personality quirks, you know. Um he likes to throw out there in the middle of nowhere and you know what I mean? So, we could be a month down the road from now and and the situation could be a lot worse and oil could be at 200. But that didn't stop you from getting your ass squeezed on your shorts yesterday when Donald Trump woke up at 7:00 in the morning and decided to have some fun, you know. Um, so, you know, yeah, like I say, the guy you're talking about that is he right? Sure, he's right. If it gets worse, oil's going to 200. Okay, we can say that. But we don't know if it's getting worse. So, I don't know where the edge is there. I'm not really here to make geopolitical predictions of the future. You know, I'm here and that is what some people are here to do. It's not what I'm here to do because I first of all, I have no edge in doing that. I've never even been to the Middle East. The hell do I know? You know, um I'm here to make money in the markets, you know. So I need to therefore I can only read what the market is saying rather than make a prediction as to how the straight how and when the straightfor situation is going to end and and and you know I just have no edge in doing that. >> And so what are your indicators telling you about oil when you look at the commitment of traders? >> They're all pretty neutral there too. >> No kidding. >> Yeah. And and what about now I'm curious when you go back to January, early Feb when oil was 60 65 bucks, what were your indicators? >> They were a lot more friendly. Yeah. A lot more a lot more bullish back earlier in the year on on the energy stuff. Totally a lot more a lot more bullish than I mean cuz clearly people have gotten long or if nothing else less short oil. you couldn't have stayed short oil from $60 to $110, you know, because you'd be forced out whether you want to or not, right? So, there's clearly less shorts in oil now. Um, again, I think the reason they haven't gotten massively long here is for the same reason we were talking about before. I don't think anybody believes it, you know, um, you know, because Trump will taco and, you know, and and in a way he did taco yesterday, you know, and the analysis that I kept hearing all weekend this weekend was there is no taco, you know, because this isn't, you know, something, it's not trade deals or anything like that. This is a war. There's a lot of people involved. He can't just taco because if he tacos, he looks weak. can't look weak in this war. You know, that was the big analysis this weekend. And once again, Donald Trump proved us wrong because he did taco. He came out on Saturday and said, "These guys have 48 hours and the markets opened very weak and we're trading very weak on Sunday night because of that." And then he came out right at the bottom and said and tacoed and said, "Ah, it's not two days, it's actually five days." Right? um because we are negotiating with them and we're making great strides to which we have no idea if that's true. They come out and they say we don't even know what this guy's talking about. Do we believe him? Do we do we believe them? Who do we believe? I don't know. You know, as an American, I would like to say I should believe my president faster than I believe the people that run Iran. But is that necessarily true? Donald Trump doesn't have a great history of being the most truthful person out there, you know, like him or hate him. You know, he he does tend to play the uh the bluff game a lot, right? Um, so I don't I don't know who to believe. I don't know what to believe. I I I always believe the market. That's what I believe because that's what I'm trading. So, >> so let's talk uh let's do a deeper dive on uh precious metals. Okay. And you mentioned earlier that the one thing that you you're starting to warm up to are the metals, gold, silver, copper, I guess. And you have a preference for silver right now. >> Silver's been extremely volatile this year. got up to 120 bucks, went down to 70 and down 40% just like that. But why you like silver in here? >> It's showing that people are starting to get get short, you know, relatively relative to where they've been to history in particular. Um, that's it. That's why I like it because that's what it's showing. It it just makes the riskreward to me better to be on the long side. Um, and today, you know, yesterday was reversal day, but yesterday should have been a reversal day because everything reversed yesterday. Today I thought was interesting. Everything is now sort of reversing, but silver was the first thing to reverse today. It was the first thing up on the day today and now it's really kind of starting to make a good move higher, I see. Um, so today I think is a very interesting day for for silver. Good place to probably be long against today's low, I think, would be uh would be the trade. >> And Jason When you put a trade on, how long do you keep it on for? So, let's just say you get long silver at 70 bucks. Do you have a target in mind? Do you say, "Okay, I think it goes to 80. I think it goes to 90." How do you determine your exit point? >> I get out for the same reason I got in. You know, I got in because people were too short. I get out when people are no longer too short. You know, that's what I'm trading is is that that movement of money, right? So I have an index on the coot data tells me okay they're maximum short I get in. When that index goes to neutral meaning a reading of 50 I get out because then there's no edge to me. Doesn't mean the market can't keep going up you know it just means my edge or what I believe is my edge is gone. They were super short. They're now neutral. I'm out. That's what I take. Sometimes that takes a few weeks. Sometimes that takes a few months. Um, I had one trade last 19 months one time in my life, but typically they tend to be between like two and three months. >> What was that trade that lasted 19 months? >> Oh, it was a long uh 10 year trade. Um, I was long 10 years. This was like I don't remember what somewhere like in from 2009 if I'm not mistaken all the way through or like 2011 I think. I'm just looking at the chart now. I think it was like from 2011 to 2013. At the time, everybody was expecting rates to be raised or something. So, they just stayed short to 10 years the whole way. So, I just stayed long the whole way. It didn't didn't a great deal of money, but it went up the whole time and, you know, I slowly made money on it. >> All right. So, you like silver right now? Now, I'm curious. When I think it was late January when it got up to 120 bucks, did you get short? I did not. I wish I did. In fact, I was a lot of people that trade mean reversion, which I personally do not like over time, um, were talking about how silver was a short here, and I was mocking them. Um, and >> why? >> Because I didn't see silver as crowded long. So, I didn't see that it was going to h and I don't think that mean reversion, while it works sometimes, and it clearly worked there, I don't think it's a very good way to trade over time. price mean reversion. A and truthfully, if you were trading price mean reversion on silver, you probably would have started looking to short somewhere around 80 and then 90 and then 100 and then 110 and 120. And now you get to say, "Oh, I told you at 120 was a short." Sure you did. But my bet is if you were trading me immersion, you would have started telling me that at 80, right? >> So then you didn't sleep for two weeks. >> No, that Well, you got run over for two weeks. Okay. from 80 to 120 in two weeks, you get run over. So, but of course, no one talks about that. They talk about how they got the 120 short. They don't talk about they started shorting it at 80, right? But, um, I didn't see it as crowded, so I didn't think it was a sell. Hey, >> it was it wasn't crowded short. I wasn't long, fortunately. I was neutral. Um, I didn't catch a trade. There's plenty of market turns like that that I do not catch. you know, the market doesn't only turn because the coot is crowded. That's not the only times it turns. I'm not concerned with that, you know. I'm concerned with the ones that I do catch, you know. Um, but yeah, I was completely wrong on that. >> And the good news is I was completely wrong on it and the amount of money I lost was zero. So, that's really the important thing, right? But >> what about your indicators? The commitment of traders, what were they showing when it went through 100 bucks? neutral. >> Oh wow. Okay. >> Like I say, not every turn. Commitment to trade does not catch every turn. Um nothing is perfect. There's no indicator that's perfect. Um but doesn't catch every turn. Every time commitment trader says a crowded doesn't mean that it turns right. Uh all it does really it does two things for me I think. One, it it highlights some very good riskreward situation and two, it keeps me out of a lot of trouble, you know, because as someone who is always looking to fade everybody, I tend to be very early in my need to fade people. Whereas the commitments of traders will tell me, "No, not yet. The positioning is not there. So, don't do it yet." You're trying to be I always say there's a fine line between being contrarian and just being plain stupid, right? Um, and I have been on the stupid side many, many times. And so that's what led me to the the commitment of trader stuff. It keeps me out of being stupid. Does it mean that I'll miss some things sometimes? Sure. But that's okay. As long as I don't lose money on them, I don't care. It keeps me out of getting in the way just because I'm trying to be some wise ass contrarian. >> All right. Now, what about gold that's gone from 5,500 down to 4,400, down 20% from its peak? What are your feelings on gold here? >> Yeah, I mean clearly the it's better. The positioning is much better um than it was um earlier. It's not at the max crowded that I needed to be at to trade it, but if the silver trade ends up being right, pretty high probability that gold will go with it, you know. Um I don't get, like I say, every single trade. Um I don't need to get every single trade. four or five trades a year and um that's all I need, right? Um so, but that's one of the interesting things about the commitment traders is is you can then look at what is super crowded and then you can sort of go take it to the next level and say, well, if these things are crowded, what does it mean? you know, if these things are crowded and they're are going to flip and go the other way, given the environment we're in right now and given the correlations that we have right now, what does that mean for these other assets? Or what could that mean for these other assets? And like I say, I might catch silver. You might not trade silver. You might only trade gold. Well, if silver goes up, if I if this works for me and silver goes up a lot, I think there's a pretty good chance that gold's going up a lot, too, you know, or platinum or or whatever else, right? Um, and if that is the case, that's probably, if you want to take it to the next level, probably pretty positive for for assets because those have been acting like risk assets. So, if those risk assets start to go up again, it's probably good news for the other risk assets. And you want to take it to the next level. If risk assets are going to have a good run, then that probably means the worst situation's getting better. And if the worst situation is getting better and you're looking to get short crude, then maybe that's the time to short crew. Yeah, it can all start with just they're too short silver. Now, how do you determine if a trade's going against you or if it's not working out the way you think it should? Uh once again, are you still looking at your commitment of traders indicator? Like let's just say you get long silver at 70. Next thing you know, it's at 65 or 60. At what point do you say >> doubt I'm wrong? You know, like I say, I get trades wrong all the time. Um, just because it's crowded does not mean it's going to work. But, so I'm looking for the day where I get this news failure event. The market confirms it and I'm getting long that day and the low of that day. What it means is there was bad news that day. So, the market probably gapped down and then it reversed. It closed up even with the bad news. So, in other words, the selling pressure is all gone. there's no one left to sell, which is what the commitment traders is telling me theoretically, right? So, I buy it. Well, if it go and if it goes through the low of that day, well, then I was wrong. And that's where my stop is and I stop out, which is also really what's so good about this for me is I it doesn't necessarily give me an edge on getting the market right or wrong, but it gives me a great stop level, great entry level, and therefore I can figure out my sizing. Here's my entry. Here's my stop. I I only want to lose X percent if I'm wrong. So, I know how to size it. And if it goes through that low and then I get out, I get stopped. And it happens more often than I would like it to happen. But it but it happens all the time. >> And are your stops placed at a certain percent below your purchase price or >> No, it's all the low of that day that I'm buying. You know, the low of that news failure day. It's like this news was super bad. The bears should be winning on that. They're not. So therefore, the market's done going down. That's the theory. If it goes back through that low, well then clearly the market is not done going down. If we're making a new low, then by definition, the market's not done going down. So therefore, I don't want to be long. So I get stopped. It's not like some random amount, some random amount of points. It's actually a point on the chart where it's telling me this is wrong. Right? You are trying to pick a turn. the market closed on a new low. So, by definition, that's not the turn. If we're on a new low, the market hasn't turned. That's pretty simple, right? So, that's where my stop is. >> All right. Now, you put out a tweet uh recently. Um it said lumber is outperforming gold. >> What do you mean by that? >> I I was uh >> it was very cryptic. I was uh I was um making fun of of somebody else on Twitter. >> Oh. >> Who has this theory that he claims was an award-winning paper that he wrote that says when lumber outperforms gold, that's a good time to be risk. And when gold outperforms lumber, that's a good time to be risk off. And that's fine, except that this person in particular went after me at one point. So if you want to play that game, then let's play the game. You know, I'm fine. I get things wrong. You want to put it on somewhere, hey, I was wrong. I'm a fool. Go for it. I love it. But be ready for it to come back at you. Um, and what I'm trying to say is lumber has been, first of all, he had a fund that that traded this theory and and the fund blew out. Um but second of all Sasha dema alone at this point because the point is proven but second of all if you look the last few weeks lumber has way outperformed gold and it has not been good for for risk on it's been very poor. So his um his award-winning paper clearly uh was not that award-winning I guess. Um and really it points to the fact that you got to be careful when you do when you test things. All right. You know, this is a guy who tested uh a theory of that and and he said he he tested it from 1980 to 2000 and when lumber would outperform gold, he'd get long stocks and when gold out before lumber he get long bonds and that did great during that period. But let's think for a second. From 1982 or whatever to 2000, stocks and bonds both went up. So, I mean, you could do it like, you know, if I went outside today, I got long stocks, and if I didn't go outside today, I got long bonds. And no matter what you did from 1982 to 19 to 2000, that did great, right? Um, that doesn't do so well anymore, you know, because now we're in a situation where stocks and bonds go down together and they go up together. So that you have to be very careful is the point as to what you're testing and you have to be open-minded and honest about your results. You know, you can't be by you have to test them over different periods, right? You can't just test them when when everything went up. When everything went up, everything works. Every system works. So anyway, that's what that Twitter thing was about. >> What about copper? What are your thoughts? How's it setting up? >> Again, not really positioning wise. There's nothing major there, which like I say doesn't mean it can't go up or it doesn't mean it can't go down. It's going to go up or down. But, you know, clearly the copper story got a little bit uh out of control earlier in the year. You know, everybody uh came to the definitive conclusion that uh copper was the AI trade of the 206s or whatever, you know, um shortages of copper. there's no way we could ever have enough copper to meet all the demand that AI was going to get to. So, it was the no-brainer trade, right? And and it still might be. Um, but as soon as something gets no-brainer, it tends to get a little bit overdone and it it needs to shake some people out. You know, the market doesn't like to just give no-brainer trades. If you've been doing this long enough, you will acknowledge that the no-brainer trades are are very very very very few and far between. by the time they get to be a no-brainer to everybody, um, something seems to go wrong along the way. And, uh, I think that's what happened with Copper here. It got to the point where it was just the no-brainer thing. You just bought it and went away. Um, and therefore, it was probably time for it to, uh, for it to do something else, which it's done. So, what to do from here? If you still think it's the no-brainer AI trade, then you can start buying it. But for me again there there's nothing there there's nothing for my process to to do that with it. >> It's amazing how the narratives train changed so fast. Like a month ago we were all focused on the software stocks be getting beat up and data centers and and private credit. Now there's no mention of any of that. All we're focused on is the price of oil and what's happening in the street of Hormuse. >> That's all anybody talks about. and and it kind of, you know, I get that that's what you have to talk about if you want to sound like you know what you're talking about in the markets because that is what's going on. I just question the value at this point of saying that like am I going to pay you to tell me that what happens in the straits of for moves is going to determine what the markets are going to do for the next month? I don't really know that that I'm going to pay you to tell me that because if I can't figure that out at this point, well then I should probably should be doing something else, you know, with my life. I all I need to do is turn on the TV and listen to person after person after person come on and tell me that that's free, right? So what I try to do, which is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but I try to at least take another angle to it. You know, let's look at it from another angle. And this angle may be correct. anything incorrect, but let's at least get our brains going a little bit and and look at it from another angle. And I try to look at it from as many other angles as I can. Um cuz I feel like at least there maybe we're we're adding a little bit of value, you know, other than me being able to tell you what's going to happen in the straits, which I can't do and nobody can do. And anyone who tells you they can do to me is lying. So yeah, >> one other asset I want to get your thoughts on is Bitcoin. And I'm really surprised it's hanging in the way it has been during all this volatility. What are your thoughts on Bitcoin? The thing with Bitcoin to me is there's only two types of people in the world. Those who think Bitcoin is going to a million and those who think Bitcoin is going to zero. Would you agree with that? >> I would. I fall into the latter camp. >> Zero. >> I'd be totally wrong, but I applaud anybody who's made money on it. >> So, to me, that that's all there is. It's one or the other. And therefore, I think it's probably neither, at least for a long time. I think that Bitcoin is probably just going to be like any other asset, which going to be times when it does well. There's going to be times when it doesn't do well. And we're always going to have, you know, we always had gold bugs and we're always going to have Bitcoin bugs. And the gold bugs looked like fools from 1980 to 2000. When stock market was going up and everything was going hunky dory and gold lost 40% during that period, the gold bugs looked like fools. And since 2000, I think gold has probably outperformed the stock market. Um, so the gold bugs since 2000 look like geniuses. The truth is they're neither fools nor geniuses. It's just that for everything there is a season and for a long time gold was not the season and now for a long time gold has been the season. Um and of course the gold bugs will play themselves out as geniuses now but in 2000 they weren't playing themselves out as geniuses. Nobody wanted to hear from them, right? And I think Bitcoin is going to be the same thing personally. you know, it may go to a million, I don't know, but it's probably 20, 30 years away and that would just be sort of a a return, you know, it may go to zero. Um, my bias towards it personally is more of the boomer bias, right, which is this thing doesn't have any value and blah blah blah. I certainly don't think that things like Farttcoin have any value. You know, I I can't be a believer in Bitcoin and all these other ones until those go to zero, right? Those have to go to zero in my eyes. And once they do, then we can see how Bitcoin has held up during that period and how these other ones have held up and we can get into those maybe. But um you know there might be some validity that that that Bitcoin is tied to the whole AI boom and when that the more that goes on the more Bitcoin is useful. It's above my head quite frankly um and always will be but there may be some validity to that but my problem I think with it is that most of the people not all most of the people who are the Bitcoin boomers are not people who have had a good history of being right about things not people who have a good history of being money makers in these It strikes me that to a lot of these people, this is their lottery ticket. And lottery tickets don't pay off for most people. So therefore, me being the fader of mass psychology, these tend to be people that I would like to fade. They tend to be there's a lot of grifters in this space. And grifters, I think, do not get markets right over time. They get them right for short periods of time and that's what allows them to be grifters, right? But over longer periods of time, they tend to not they make money off their grifting, but the people that listen to them do not make money. And so that's the main problem that I have with Bitcoin because it seems to be a very big grifting space. And therefore, and this just might be a personal thing, I'd like to see these grifters go down and they won't go down until Bitcoin, you know, goes back into, you know, single digits. Um, so I would like to see that happen just for that reason, but doesn't mean it's going to happen. If Bitcoin's legit, um, then its downside is probably probably limited here. So, we we'll find out if it's legit. People are like, "Oh, it's been holding well through this." Well, the thing did lose 50% in 3 months, you know what I mean? Like the fact that it's holding well through this, I think those who needed to get out of their Bitcoin have probably gotten out of it now, you know? So now they need to get out of their gold or their stocks or their bonds or whatever. So they've turned to that, I would guess. That's probably why it's holding well. And has it really held well? Okay, it's held well, but it hasn't done You know, the chart doesn't look very good to me, you know, at this point. It just looks like a big flag or whatever they call it of consolidation here um after a huge move down. And let's not forget the thing lost 50%, you know, from the mid October to to early February. The thing lost 50%. Is that looking good? I don't know if that's looking good, but certainly it's it's held better recently. Sure. So, if you are a Bitcoiner and you think that Bitcoin is the future, then here's probably a good place to be putting it on. Jason, before we had war break out in the Middle East, uh there was a lot of concern about private credit and a lot of people were calling for a total collapse in the markets, similar to what we saw back in 08 09 with the great financial crisis. And then there was a lot of concern associated with AI and data centers and this circular financing that was going on, right? And a lot of people were calling for a collapse in that sector similar to what we saw during the great the tech bubble of uh the early 2000s, >> right? >> Um I'm curious to hear your your opinion on this. Like do you see any do you see any warning signs at all that the market is close to having some major collapse that we saw back in 08 09 or similar? >> Yeah. So for I mean as as for the specifics of it, it's way above my head. because AI is way above my head. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I know what AI is going to look like in five years. I have first of all, I'll say it again. I don't think I think anybody that tells you that they can do that is lying, okay? Is selling something. And not only anybody can tell you that. But even if they could, one person who could not is me because I don't know how to program a computer. I do. I use AI. Yes. I'll get on chat GPT to tell me a few things nowadays, but am I getting like claw to do all my daily tasks for me and all that No, I'm not. And quite frankly, I probably never will because I'm too old for that Okay? I don't care. I don't have that many tasks that have to be done. All right? So, I don't mind whatever my daily tasks are. I don't mind doing them. It's not going to hurt me. It's not going to I'm not going to lose edge to people that are doing that because I'm not working in a corporation and I'm not you know I do my thing. So I'm not a good person to ask about that. Do I think it's valid? Yes. Do I tell my son that he better learn how to do this or else he's going to be falling behind and he's not going to be employable? Yes. But for an old fart like me that's on the brink of retirement, I could care less honestly. So therefore, I'm not the person to to ask as to whether the circular financing or whether You know, I have no idea. The second thing I would say about it is these people that are saying that this is 2008. These people that are saying this is 2000, were they right in 2008? Were they on this in 2008? Were they on this in 2000? That would be my first question I would ask them, right? And my bet is no, they weren't. Okay? They were probably on the wrong side of it. So now they want to get on the right side of it. Everyone's always trading yesterday's market, you know. um and therefore it doesn't happen again. That's how I see it. Now, do I personally see signs of something bad like that happening? Again, that comes down to my theory about the liquidity and the credit markets. If we are seeing these things, it's possible like I laid out the possibilities of that before, right? The fact that they need money for this, they need money for that and and money is not endless. It's not an endless commodity. Except it is because they can keep printing it and they can keep doing that until the market rejects that. That's what I think about that. If if something bad's going to happen, it's going to be because of that. And we're going to get the markets are going to tell us, okay? Because the markets will go down. They will force that new QE or whatever they do and the markets will reject that. So, the markets will tell us. So we don't have to necessarily speculate as to what's going to happen because the markets are going to tell us if that's going to happen. Um and that's what I to me what's more important is rather than say oh here's all the fundamental reasons why it's definitely going to happen it's more important to say what are the things in the market that would tell us that that is happening and to me that is the thing in the market that will tell us that's happening. the market will force QE. The markets will then reject rather than rip on the QE like they did in 2009. They will fail on the QE and then we can have another one of those situations. And let's not forget, I was in the middle of it. I worked at a a big hedge fund in in 0809 and we had a whole bunch of macro geniuses in there and we had a whole bunch of macro geniuses come and speak to us all the time about what was going to happen. Um when they did the QE in09 it was seen as negative. Okay, because no one had seen it before and they didn't like it. They they thought that it was going to be very inflationary and which is what economics would tell you, right? That printing money is inflationary. Um they thought it was going to be very inflationary and they stayed very bearish because of it. And quite frankly, they stayed bearish the whole way. the guy in my hedge fund who was bearish the whole way starting in about 2006 um was able to stay alive through 2007 through 2006 2007 and made a huge amount of money in 2008. Well, he stayed bearish the whole way. 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and he and whatever he made in 2008, he he gave back and then some to those other years. So, um, yes, I think there's a possibility. I have no idea if it comes true, but I believe that I know what the market re would look like if that were going to happen, which would be rejecting this QE. And my point about them being bearish in09 about the QE thing was it's just so funny to me how everybody was super bearish when they did QE in '09. They didn't see it as a savior to the world, which it turned out to be. Whereas now everybody sees QE as the savior to the world. Oh, it's okay because if things go down, if credit gets bad, if well then they'll just do QE and they'll save us. So that's a different place, you know, no matter what you want to say, that's a different place from a positioning point of view and from a psychology point of view. When nobody believed it and it worked, now everybody believes it. So I think the chance of it not working this time are probably better. And like I say, then you go to the fundamental thing, which is doing it when there's no inflation is very different than doing it when inflation can't get under control. There's that's two different things. So I think that's what to watch for. I would say rather than us sitting here and making a prediction that there's going to be another 2008, there's going to be another 2000, you know, let's look for the things that will tell us if in fact that is happening. So I I think those are the things that tell us what's happening. >> Great comments. Well, before we wrap it up, uh I just want to summarize a few of your thoughts. When it comes to the S&P now at wherever it is, 6600, let's say you're neutral on the S&P. Uh, you're warming up to all the metals. You you you like gold, but you prefer silver here at 70 bucks or wherever it's trading. Um, copper, I think you said you're neutral on it. Oil at 90 bucks or 100 bucks, you're neutral on oil. Uh, Bitcoin, you're just indifferent. >> I wouldn't call myself indifferent. If if I'm to be honest, just because of the grifter nature of it all, I'm rooting for it to go to zero. Okay. But I'm not shorting it because I'm rooting for it to go to zero. You know what I mean? I'm not a you know? And I can I'm open up to the idea that it could be whatever the people are saying it could be. It could be the future of of commerce because of AI or I don't know how to put those two things together, but there are plenty of people if you want to put those things together that you can go and listen to their videos and and they'll put it together for you. I I I don't get it. It's above my head. But anyway, yeah. So, not really indifferent. I'd like to see it go to zero, but that's just the silly bias. >> Well, this has been a great conversation and I want to thank you very much for spending time with us today and sharing your thoughts. If somebody would like to follow you online or learn more about your services, where can they go? >> Crowdedmarketreport.com is our web page. Um, it's usually easier just to go on YouTube and go to crowded market report because we have I don't know how many hundreds of free videos on there. Um, so that's usually the best place to go because it's free. What's better than free, right? So you go on there and you can listen to a whole bunch of this kind of nonsense that I just spewed for the last hour. You can listen to hours and hours and hours of it. And some of them will have will come across as, "Oh my god, he nailed that." And some of them will come across as, "Wow, is he wrong on that one?" But the major lesson that I'm trying to pass through as someone who's been doing this for 35 plus years is that it is not about being right or wrong. It is not about predicting the future. I am not here telling you I can predict the future. I am not here telling you how to predict the future. I'm here to say you have to make money without being able to predict the future. And the way to do that is to figure out how to get into things that are have riskreward skew over time and do that in a systematic way. and how you want to do that. I show how I do it. Doesn't mean that's how you have to do it. There's a lot of different ways to try and do that, but that's what you have to focus on. And that's what most of the stuff that I'm talking about is about. And I try to get that point across in a lot of different ways through the videos, you know, by showing how it's worked for me, by showing how sometimes it doesn't work for me, by showing how other people are doing it the wrong way. Here's an example of the wrong way to do it. and I show that um and people take that as I'm being personal, but I'm not. I'm just showing this is the wrong way to do it and here's the proof. Look at how bad this person's has been. All right. Um a lot of different ways I try to get essentially the same message across. >> Great comments and I will include links to both your website and also your YouTube channel in the show notes below. Jason, once again, thank you and good luck in the markets. >> Yeah, thanks for having me, James. Great talking again. Heat. Heat.
How I am Positioned For This Market | Jason Shapiro and Jimmy Connor
Summary
Transcript
Jason, thank you very much for joining us today. How are you making out during these crazy times? >> Yeah, you know, we're getting by. >> Loving these markets. >> I'm not really doing a lot. This isn't my uh it's not really my uh my time, I don't think. You know, um I think it's probably great day trader, short-term trader times, but this isn't really my environment. Although I think that's changing possibly as soon as today. But yeah, things are starting to change a little bit. So hopefully, you know, but but I'm doing all right, you know, haven't lost any money, so that's always a gain. >> That's good. That's good. Well, the volatility is insane. And it's not often you see an asset move up or down 10% like we've seen with oil and n gas. So I want to get your views on how you are navigating this current environment. I recently watched one of your interviews with Linda Rashki and I enjoyed it very much and I would encourage our viewers to check it out and on your channel which is crowded market report and Linda's strategy is very short-term in nature. She puts a trade on for one or two days and her motto is I don't predict I react and this is a little bit different from your strategy. How would you characterize your trading approach? um contrarian, you know, I I'm looking to basically find what the masses are doing and try and go the other way. Um but again, I don't predict. I react. I don't just do it because the masses are going one way. I do it because the masses are going the one way and then the market starts to react in the opposite way that the masses would expect. Um and I call that market confirmation. So once I have some market confirmation, then I go with it. So, I'm really picking turns, you know, medium to long-term turns in the marketplace. You know, we know the market bottoms when everybody is the most panicked and the market tops when everybody is the most euphoric. So, I'm trying to measure when they're the most euphoric and when they're the most panicked and then not just get in the way and buy the falling knife, but wait until the market sort of confirms that that's the case and then I go with it. >> And what indicators do you use to give you that confirmation? The confirmation is all about what I call news failure. So, I'm trying to if I find a market that I think is very one-sided positioning wise, let's say everybody I think is super short, I'm looking to get long. Well, I'm I'm looking into why are they getting short? What's the narrative behind it? What's the news flow behind it? Um because the war in Iran is causing those straits of war moves to shut down and therefore oil prices are going up and therefore the stock market's going down. Okay, that's the narrative. So what I'm looking for then is and don't take this the wrong way. I'm not looking for this to happen or hoping for this to happen. But just in this example, what I'm looking for would be that narrative to be confirmed. So worst news coming out of Iran, worst news coming out of the straighter form moves, oil prices continuing to go up and then the stock market can no longer go down on that. Um that's when I will then get long. >> And you've told me before one of the tools that you use to determine this is commitment of traders. Maybe you can just talk about that. >> Yeah. So when I say I'm trying to judge where positioning is and where people are are overly positioned, that's where I'm looking towards because that is data that shows actual positioning in uh in the futures markets. Um you know, it's one thing to say, oh, everyone's bullish, everyone's bearish. Well, okay, maybe, maybe not. People talk, people say a lot of things. Sometimes you get biased as to what you want to hear. If you want to hear everyone's bearish, that's what you'll hear. And if you want to hear everyone's bullish, that's what you'll hear. But this is actual data showing where people are positioned. So there's no arguing with that, right? Just because they're all short doesn't mean the market can't keep going down. But this is data that's showing that rather than my interpretation of of what I think, you know, oh my friend is long, therefore everybody's long. Maybe, maybe not. You know, do I even know if my friend is long? You know, he says he is, but you know, it's what they're actually doing rather than what they're talking about. And where do you find this commitment of traders? If somebody wants to access it, where do they have to go? >> I mean, you can get the data for free right off of the CFTC website. It's released every Friday. Um, there are places on the internet. Uh, most of the charting services are free. We'll uh we'll chart that the commitments of traders data for you. Um, we of course create our own commitments of traders data um that is available to our our members. We I I really personally never liked the free charting that was uh that was out there. So, we developed um a much better charting. It's a lot more interactive and you can do a lot more things with it than what's out there. But, you know, it's all over the place. If you want to get it for free, it's it there's plenty of free commitments to traders data out there. >> And another characteristic of your trading style is that you are not an active trader. And I want to put this into perspective. How many trades did you do in 2025? >> Around 20, I'm guessing. >> And we're already through Q1 of 2026. How many trades have you done thus far? >> Two, three, four. Four or five. >> And so what percent of your trades are profitable? Historically, it's been somewhere around the 30 somewhere between 35 and 40% number are profitable. But, you know, it tends to be about a 4 to one. So, if I can make $4 30% of the time and lose $1 the other 66% of the time, then, you know, make four, lose one, lose one, make four, lose one, lose one. That's kind of the game that I'm playing. >> And you only trade the futures markets. You don't touch bonds or equities. I mean, I trade the futures, S&P, Dow, Russell, NASDAQ. I trade bonds, 30s, fives, tens, twos, you know, the futures on them, though, but just not the cash market. >> So, why don't we take a look at the markets now, and I want to get your thoughts. And when you look at the markets overall, whether it be the S&P, the bonds, precious metals, oil, whatever, how are things setting up? >> Where do you see the most potential? The things that are starting to set up now are the metals, you know, because people have gotten out of so many of the longs at this point. They're starting to set up as a possible good long. Uh, and silver in particular is what I'm looking at. Um, some of the other stuff, well, they've run away already, but some of the softs were the things that were setting up the most in the last few weeks, like sugar and coffee and cocoa, but they've already kind of started to run away. um and the grains um you know which people have now been piling into because of the whole issue in the straits and they've come to the conclusion it's not just an oil thing it's also a you know a fertilizer thing and therefore grain prices should go up and they have piled into those in particular the the soybean um area so I'm looking at uh at people being way way too long the soybean complex at this point too those are the major you think I wish I could tell you I had some great thing in stocks but I don't they're neutral some great thing in bonds I don't um it's really those areas right now and I was going to ask you if the market if you think the market's transitioning from financial assets or paper assets to one more focused on hard assets like metals and like other commodities and I'm not talking about short term I'm talking longer term >> yeah I mean I wish I had an ability to forecast where we're at with a case. Um, we could certainly sit here to make the argument that they are doing that. Um, you know, we can sit here and make the fundamental case for it. You know, the whole AI thing and they need all these things for that to happen, the copper and the silver and the whatever else. Uh, I don't know if that's a secret at this point. Therefore, I don't know where the extra returner comes from. Um, I think most people probably know that at that point. But at the same time, you could also argue that the world, whether they know it or not, is is underweight. These things relative to what they are in in equities. You know, certainly, right? They might be a little bit overweight gold than they were three or four years ago. But as compared to the money in equities and all that, clearly it's uh it dwarfs, right? um the world is arguably probably overweight, but you could be saying that you be saying that forever, but arguably they're overweight equities, you know, um because of what's gone on and the bull market that's gone on here. Um but, you know, there's probably plenty of times you could say that and there's a reason for it, you know. >> So, let me get your thoughts on the S&P and you said right now you think it's neutral and when you look at the S&P, I'm I'm very surprised it's where it's at. like it's only down 5% on the year, give or take. And we just saw oil rip from 60 bucks to $100 a barrel. Maybe now it's trading at 90, but gas at the pumps is up 30%, diesel's up 40%, ura fertilizers is up 40%. And you were alluding to earlier how this is all going to trickle down through the whole supply chain. It's going to lead to higher prices right across the economy, higher inflation, and eventually it's going to lead to a slowing economy. But the market is like Kohham. It doesn't care. is there's like a real sense of complacency. That's how I'm I see it anyway. But what are your thoughts? Do you see that? Is that why you're neutral? I'm neutral because the positioning is neutral, which indicates that there were some longs earlier in the year. They got a bit long, but those longs have come out, but they're not super short either, right? They're just neutral. So therefore, for my process, there's no edge. It clearly doesn't mean the market's not going to go or down. The market is going to go up or down. Okay. But for my process, it's not showing me where the edge is. So therefore, I'm not doing anything in that market. Do I think that it has been done very well relative to what we would expect? Um, you can make that argument. Is that what you're saying? It's done well relative to what we would expect given what's gone on. Right. I think that's what you're saying. So is that because why is that? Is that because people are stupid and they don't know what's going on in the Middle East or is it because the market's actually telling you something? Right? And most of the time, 98% of the time, I would go with the second one. I would go with the market's telling you something, right? Um, which is that it's not getting weak. If it's not getting weak on such bad news, then when the hell will it get weak, right? That's what I would normally say in this situation. I have been interpreting it as a little bit different which is that I think people are suffering possibly from recency bias you know um they're expecting taka they didn't expect taco last April and they got very short and then it tacoed in their face and their shorts got squeezed um Iran we had a 12-day skirmish with them last year it ended very quickly we had a thing with Venezuela that ended in a day, right? So, I think people came into this saying, "Oh, well, this is just going to be one of those again. I'm not going to get short this, so I'm not going to sell this." And so, therefore, the market has not gone down a lot because people have not been panicking. They have been caught panicking the last few times and it cost them. So, they don't want to panic this time. So, they are holding in. That that's how I see it. Um, which is why the market has just been dripping down. It hasn't they they wish that they did sell. we are lower than we were um when the war broke out. If you sold when the war broke out, you're you're pretty happy, right? But it's just been a drip and a very hard short to hold because you know, we've had these just incredible ripbacks all the time. Um and that's usually how shorting is. It's very hard to hold shorts because you get these squeezes. And then there's also the anticipation of this is going to end. And when it does end, oil prices are going to come down. And when oil prices do come down, the stock market is going to rip higher. So why do I want to be short if that's going to happen? And why do I want to sell if that's going to happen? Hell, we all know now, everybody knows that you don't sell weakness, you buy weakness, right? So I think that's why it's not going down because people are probably using this as a chance to buy weakness so that when the war ends be it in a week in a month in 3 months whatever they will be long when we rip higher when all of that ends. I think that's what people are doing. That's the expectation. I'm not seeing a huge amount of buying here. So I um I question if my interpretation is correct but um you're certainly not seeing a huge amount of selling. Um and and I do think it's because of those other reasons. Nobody wants to be caught short um on what they were caught short on before and and got and regretted doing. Right. So I think it's an interesting place where we're at here. >> So you're neutral on the S&P. What about bonds? This 10-year keeps ticking higher. The 30-year >> The 30-year was um right before the war hit. Um, I was showing the 30-year positioning chart was the most crowded that it's possibly ever been. Um, I thought 30 years were due for a drop. Um, and in fact, they did have that. You can say it wasn't because of positioning. It was because of the war. Okay, we can say that it's never because of the positioning. The positioning just exacerbates the move when it starts, right? That's all it does. you know it the market doesn't go down because people are pushing into long. It starts going down for a reason and then people are so positioned long they have to start getting out of it and that's why there can be a big move and that's why my you know 4:1 winner to loser thing comes in right um they've come off of those a little bit but really not a ton. So, um, I personally think from the macro point of view, if that's what we want to get into, I think the bond market is without a doubt the the single most important place to be looking, you know. Um, because it's a liquidity thing. Um, we know that the bull market really since '08 has been very much a liquidity thing. You know, a QE thing and all the different ways that they provided liquidity. um a lot of that money went into the equity markets and um and it ballooned this whole thing and if that goes away then then there's a problem. I don't know if that's going to go away. Even if it does go away, they're going to come in and QE again, you know, um which is also a problem with trying to get short because if you get if you're short and they come in and QE, then you're going to get squeezed again, right? So everybody's so scared of this. But in my view, um, the stock market was going down, starting to go down before this war hit. I think that was because liquidity was drying up. I think that is proven by the fact that stocks, bonds, gold, Bitcoin, they're all down a lot this year, right? To me, that's liquidity drying up. Um, and the best place to look for that is in bonds. And, and it kind of makes sense because you have governments running huge deficits that need to be funded. You can't not fund that. You have to pay that interest, right? Um you have an AI situation that is requiring the most money that the world has ever seen so much that we had these huge companies. The problem they always had was they were making so much cash and they had so much cash on their balance sheet they didn't know what to do with it. Well, now they found what to do with it. That cash on their balance sheet is drying up massively and now they're going to the market to borrow tons of money. So, you've got the government borrowing tons of money. You've got the AI people borrowing tons of money and that has to be done because we can't live without AI because otherwise China is going to take us over and you know that's the future of even national defense. So, you have to get that money out there. You have of course the private credit situation which everybody's you know aware of. That's a liquidity problem. And now you have a war that from what I understand wars cost a lot of money, right? So all of these things suck up liquidity. Um there's no real way to know what what the limit is. It is a percent of GDP. Is it a percent of this? What? There's no real way to know what it is. Um or if we're even close to what the limit is, but without a doubt, we're getting closer. Um, I was speaking to a guy last week who made a very good point. My my point has always been if that's the case, the markets will tell us, right? They'll come in and they will print more money. They will do more QE and the markets will reject it because now we've reached the limit. The dollar will go down, bonds will go down even though, right? And I wait for the market confirmation like that. But, you know, I had a conversation with a macro guy last week who said that that is going to happen next time in his view because all the other times we had no inflation problem. You can print money all you want as long as there's no inflation. Now, we're at a point where we can't get rid of the inflation. They can't no matter what they're doing. They they can't get this stuff to go to their 2% target. Even with QT, they can't get it to go down. So, if they're going to QE again, it's going to cause inflation and the markets are going to not like it. Maybe. I I never really take the point of this has to happen because I've been around too long. And it's one thing to be a macro analyst and take a this has to happen point of view. It's another thing to be a trader and have money at risk here and take the this has to happen point of view because that's the one that will kill you. Nothing has to happen. Um so I wait for the market to confirm that idea, but I think it's a valid idea and I think it's something to watch out for. It doesn't mean it even has to happen. I mean things have to go first. If they're going to have to print money again, bonds are going to have to keep going down, right? Assets are going to have to keep going down and then they're going to be forced to do something, provide some liquidity. That has to happen first. Let that happen first. And once that happens and they they do do it and they print money and they provide liquidity, then let's see how the markets react to it. But until then, it's all just speculation. >> Well, you mentioned one of the reasons why gold went down and Bitcoin went down. they were liquidity issues and isn't it just because there's maybe not a liquidity issue it's just a transfer of liquidity or transfer of money into other assets. So for example, well once the once the yeah once the war started okay that's it the whole narrative changed before we thought the Fed was going to cut rates right the the US government wanted to cut rates that was going to lead to higher inflation higher in um so lower lower interest rates uh lower dollar higher inflation and that was good for gold and other similar assets and we saw that but now with oil up at a 100 bucks or wherever it is um infl inflation's going higher. That means they can't cut rates. They're going to have to lift rates. >> No doubt. No doubt. That could be the very the very reason and the only reason um is exactly that. We went very quickly from they're definitely cutting rates in 2026 because they're bringing in a new Fed chair who's going to be Trump's buddy and he's going to do what what Trump wants, right? there was no doubt that they were going to be cutting rates and now we've gone to the possibility of them raising rates very we did that pretty quickly. So yes, in that quick transition, you could see why these other assets are going down. The ones that were expecting lower rates have now had to adjust to not expecting lower rates. So yes, I think that's a very valid point and it could be the very simple answer of exactly why this is happening. >> So let's discuss oil. Now I did an interview recently with Rory Johnson. He's an oil analyst and he said what's happening in the Persian Gulf right now in the Middle East, it's more significant than when during COVID when we had total demand destruction and we saw the price of oil drop 30% in one day in March of 2020. And what are your thoughts on on oil here? because he Rory actually thought his uh I think his target price on oil was 200 bucks if this continues on for another month and but yet it really got up to what 100 105 and now we're trading in the low 90s. So what are your thoughts on oil here? >> Yeah, I mean it's great that all these macro people are saying this. It's all about the Straits of Formoose and if the Straits of Formoose situation gets worse then oil's going to $200. Okay, great. But what I need to know is is this straightforward situation going to get worse? Okay, I don't need to know what oil is going to do if it gets worse. Obviously, oil's going up. If the situation gets worse, yeah, I get it, right? But I don't need to know if it's going to get worse. And nobody knows that. Nobody, I think, on Earth knows that. Okay. So, you know, it makes sense. And like I say, from an analyst point of view, yeah, I I get it. If the situation gets worse, oil price is going up. And if oil price is going up, then bonds are probably going down and stocks are probably going down. Inflation expectations are probably going up and and and the whole show is going to happen. Yes, I get it. If the war in the Middle East gets worse, those things are probably going to happen. Okay, am I supposed to pay you for that analysis? Like, you know, like, oh, I get it and everybody agrees with it and everybody I talk to and all the macro people I listen to, they all say it and and that doesn't make it not true. It's true. But the issue is h there's no way to know. And the other issue is the guy in charge o of it all has some funny uh personality quirks, you know. Um he likes to throw out there in the middle of nowhere and you know what I mean? So, we could be a month down the road from now and and the situation could be a lot worse and oil could be at 200. But that didn't stop you from getting your ass squeezed on your shorts yesterday when Donald Trump woke up at 7:00 in the morning and decided to have some fun, you know. Um, so, you know, yeah, like I say, the guy you're talking about that is he right? Sure, he's right. If it gets worse, oil's going to 200. Okay, we can say that. But we don't know if it's getting worse. So, I don't know where the edge is there. I'm not really here to make geopolitical predictions of the future. You know, I'm here and that is what some people are here to do. It's not what I'm here to do because I first of all, I have no edge in doing that. I've never even been to the Middle East. The hell do I know? You know, um I'm here to make money in the markets, you know. So I need to therefore I can only read what the market is saying rather than make a prediction as to how the straight how and when the straightfor situation is going to end and and and you know I just have no edge in doing that. >> And so what are your indicators telling you about oil when you look at the commitment of traders? >> They're all pretty neutral there too. >> No kidding. >> Yeah. And and what about now I'm curious when you go back to January, early Feb when oil was 60 65 bucks, what were your indicators? >> They were a lot more friendly. Yeah. A lot more a lot more bullish back earlier in the year on on the energy stuff. Totally a lot more a lot more bullish than I mean cuz clearly people have gotten long or if nothing else less short oil. you couldn't have stayed short oil from $60 to $110, you know, because you'd be forced out whether you want to or not, right? So, there's clearly less shorts in oil now. Um, again, I think the reason they haven't gotten massively long here is for the same reason we were talking about before. I don't think anybody believes it, you know, um, you know, because Trump will taco and, you know, and and in a way he did taco yesterday, you know, and the analysis that I kept hearing all weekend this weekend was there is no taco, you know, because this isn't, you know, something, it's not trade deals or anything like that. This is a war. There's a lot of people involved. He can't just taco because if he tacos, he looks weak. can't look weak in this war. You know, that was the big analysis this weekend. And once again, Donald Trump proved us wrong because he did taco. He came out on Saturday and said, "These guys have 48 hours and the markets opened very weak and we're trading very weak on Sunday night because of that." And then he came out right at the bottom and said and tacoed and said, "Ah, it's not two days, it's actually five days." Right? um because we are negotiating with them and we're making great strides to which we have no idea if that's true. They come out and they say we don't even know what this guy's talking about. Do we believe him? Do we do we believe them? Who do we believe? I don't know. You know, as an American, I would like to say I should believe my president faster than I believe the people that run Iran. But is that necessarily true? Donald Trump doesn't have a great history of being the most truthful person out there, you know, like him or hate him. You know, he he does tend to play the uh the bluff game a lot, right? Um, so I don't I don't know who to believe. I don't know what to believe. I I I always believe the market. That's what I believe because that's what I'm trading. So, >> so let's talk uh let's do a deeper dive on uh precious metals. Okay. And you mentioned earlier that the one thing that you you're starting to warm up to are the metals, gold, silver, copper, I guess. And you have a preference for silver right now. >> Silver's been extremely volatile this year. got up to 120 bucks, went down to 70 and down 40% just like that. But why you like silver in here? >> It's showing that people are starting to get get short, you know, relatively relative to where they've been to history in particular. Um, that's it. That's why I like it because that's what it's showing. It it just makes the riskreward to me better to be on the long side. Um, and today, you know, yesterday was reversal day, but yesterday should have been a reversal day because everything reversed yesterday. Today I thought was interesting. Everything is now sort of reversing, but silver was the first thing to reverse today. It was the first thing up on the day today and now it's really kind of starting to make a good move higher, I see. Um, so today I think is a very interesting day for for silver. Good place to probably be long against today's low, I think, would be uh would be the trade. >> And Jason When you put a trade on, how long do you keep it on for? So, let's just say you get long silver at 70 bucks. Do you have a target in mind? Do you say, "Okay, I think it goes to 80. I think it goes to 90." How do you determine your exit point? >> I get out for the same reason I got in. You know, I got in because people were too short. I get out when people are no longer too short. You know, that's what I'm trading is is that that movement of money, right? So I have an index on the coot data tells me okay they're maximum short I get in. When that index goes to neutral meaning a reading of 50 I get out because then there's no edge to me. Doesn't mean the market can't keep going up you know it just means my edge or what I believe is my edge is gone. They were super short. They're now neutral. I'm out. That's what I take. Sometimes that takes a few weeks. Sometimes that takes a few months. Um, I had one trade last 19 months one time in my life, but typically they tend to be between like two and three months. >> What was that trade that lasted 19 months? >> Oh, it was a long uh 10 year trade. Um, I was long 10 years. This was like I don't remember what somewhere like in from 2009 if I'm not mistaken all the way through or like 2011 I think. I'm just looking at the chart now. I think it was like from 2011 to 2013. At the time, everybody was expecting rates to be raised or something. So, they just stayed short to 10 years the whole way. So, I just stayed long the whole way. It didn't didn't a great deal of money, but it went up the whole time and, you know, I slowly made money on it. >> All right. So, you like silver right now? Now, I'm curious. When I think it was late January when it got up to 120 bucks, did you get short? I did not. I wish I did. In fact, I was a lot of people that trade mean reversion, which I personally do not like over time, um, were talking about how silver was a short here, and I was mocking them. Um, and >> why? >> Because I didn't see silver as crowded long. So, I didn't see that it was going to h and I don't think that mean reversion, while it works sometimes, and it clearly worked there, I don't think it's a very good way to trade over time. price mean reversion. A and truthfully, if you were trading price mean reversion on silver, you probably would have started looking to short somewhere around 80 and then 90 and then 100 and then 110 and 120. And now you get to say, "Oh, I told you at 120 was a short." Sure you did. But my bet is if you were trading me immersion, you would have started telling me that at 80, right? >> So then you didn't sleep for two weeks. >> No, that Well, you got run over for two weeks. Okay. from 80 to 120 in two weeks, you get run over. So, but of course, no one talks about that. They talk about how they got the 120 short. They don't talk about they started shorting it at 80, right? But, um, I didn't see it as crowded, so I didn't think it was a sell. Hey, >> it was it wasn't crowded short. I wasn't long, fortunately. I was neutral. Um, I didn't catch a trade. There's plenty of market turns like that that I do not catch. you know, the market doesn't only turn because the coot is crowded. That's not the only times it turns. I'm not concerned with that, you know. I'm concerned with the ones that I do catch, you know. Um, but yeah, I was completely wrong on that. >> And the good news is I was completely wrong on it and the amount of money I lost was zero. So, that's really the important thing, right? But >> what about your indicators? The commitment of traders, what were they showing when it went through 100 bucks? neutral. >> Oh wow. Okay. >> Like I say, not every turn. Commitment to trade does not catch every turn. Um nothing is perfect. There's no indicator that's perfect. Um but doesn't catch every turn. Every time commitment trader says a crowded doesn't mean that it turns right. Uh all it does really it does two things for me I think. One, it it highlights some very good riskreward situation and two, it keeps me out of a lot of trouble, you know, because as someone who is always looking to fade everybody, I tend to be very early in my need to fade people. Whereas the commitments of traders will tell me, "No, not yet. The positioning is not there. So, don't do it yet." You're trying to be I always say there's a fine line between being contrarian and just being plain stupid, right? Um, and I have been on the stupid side many, many times. And so that's what led me to the the commitment of trader stuff. It keeps me out of being stupid. Does it mean that I'll miss some things sometimes? Sure. But that's okay. As long as I don't lose money on them, I don't care. It keeps me out of getting in the way just because I'm trying to be some wise ass contrarian. >> All right. Now, what about gold that's gone from 5,500 down to 4,400, down 20% from its peak? What are your feelings on gold here? >> Yeah, I mean clearly the it's better. The positioning is much better um than it was um earlier. It's not at the max crowded that I needed to be at to trade it, but if the silver trade ends up being right, pretty high probability that gold will go with it, you know. Um I don't get, like I say, every single trade. Um I don't need to get every single trade. four or five trades a year and um that's all I need, right? Um so, but that's one of the interesting things about the commitment traders is is you can then look at what is super crowded and then you can sort of go take it to the next level and say, well, if these things are crowded, what does it mean? you know, if these things are crowded and they're are going to flip and go the other way, given the environment we're in right now and given the correlations that we have right now, what does that mean for these other assets? Or what could that mean for these other assets? And like I say, I might catch silver. You might not trade silver. You might only trade gold. Well, if silver goes up, if I if this works for me and silver goes up a lot, I think there's a pretty good chance that gold's going up a lot, too, you know, or platinum or or whatever else, right? Um, and if that is the case, that's probably, if you want to take it to the next level, probably pretty positive for for assets because those have been acting like risk assets. So, if those risk assets start to go up again, it's probably good news for the other risk assets. And you want to take it to the next level. If risk assets are going to have a good run, then that probably means the worst situation's getting better. And if the worst situation is getting better and you're looking to get short crude, then maybe that's the time to short crew. Yeah, it can all start with just they're too short silver. Now, how do you determine if a trade's going against you or if it's not working out the way you think it should? Uh once again, are you still looking at your commitment of traders indicator? Like let's just say you get long silver at 70. Next thing you know, it's at 65 or 60. At what point do you say >> doubt I'm wrong? You know, like I say, I get trades wrong all the time. Um, just because it's crowded does not mean it's going to work. But, so I'm looking for the day where I get this news failure event. The market confirms it and I'm getting long that day and the low of that day. What it means is there was bad news that day. So, the market probably gapped down and then it reversed. It closed up even with the bad news. So, in other words, the selling pressure is all gone. there's no one left to sell, which is what the commitment traders is telling me theoretically, right? So, I buy it. Well, if it go and if it goes through the low of that day, well, then I was wrong. And that's where my stop is and I stop out, which is also really what's so good about this for me is I it doesn't necessarily give me an edge on getting the market right or wrong, but it gives me a great stop level, great entry level, and therefore I can figure out my sizing. Here's my entry. Here's my stop. I I only want to lose X percent if I'm wrong. So, I know how to size it. And if it goes through that low and then I get out, I get stopped. And it happens more often than I would like it to happen. But it but it happens all the time. >> And are your stops placed at a certain percent below your purchase price or >> No, it's all the low of that day that I'm buying. You know, the low of that news failure day. It's like this news was super bad. The bears should be winning on that. They're not. So therefore, the market's done going down. That's the theory. If it goes back through that low, well then clearly the market is not done going down. If we're making a new low, then by definition, the market's not done going down. So therefore, I don't want to be long. So I get stopped. It's not like some random amount, some random amount of points. It's actually a point on the chart where it's telling me this is wrong. Right? You are trying to pick a turn. the market closed on a new low. So, by definition, that's not the turn. If we're on a new low, the market hasn't turned. That's pretty simple, right? So, that's where my stop is. >> All right. Now, you put out a tweet uh recently. Um it said lumber is outperforming gold. >> What do you mean by that? >> I I was uh >> it was very cryptic. I was uh I was um making fun of of somebody else on Twitter. >> Oh. >> Who has this theory that he claims was an award-winning paper that he wrote that says when lumber outperforms gold, that's a good time to be risk. And when gold outperforms lumber, that's a good time to be risk off. And that's fine, except that this person in particular went after me at one point. So if you want to play that game, then let's play the game. You know, I'm fine. I get things wrong. You want to put it on somewhere, hey, I was wrong. I'm a fool. Go for it. I love it. But be ready for it to come back at you. Um, and what I'm trying to say is lumber has been, first of all, he had a fund that that traded this theory and and the fund blew out. Um but second of all Sasha dema alone at this point because the point is proven but second of all if you look the last few weeks lumber has way outperformed gold and it has not been good for for risk on it's been very poor. So his um his award-winning paper clearly uh was not that award-winning I guess. Um and really it points to the fact that you got to be careful when you do when you test things. All right. You know, this is a guy who tested uh a theory of that and and he said he he tested it from 1980 to 2000 and when lumber would outperform gold, he'd get long stocks and when gold out before lumber he get long bonds and that did great during that period. But let's think for a second. From 1982 or whatever to 2000, stocks and bonds both went up. So, I mean, you could do it like, you know, if I went outside today, I got long stocks, and if I didn't go outside today, I got long bonds. And no matter what you did from 1982 to 19 to 2000, that did great, right? Um, that doesn't do so well anymore, you know, because now we're in a situation where stocks and bonds go down together and they go up together. So that you have to be very careful is the point as to what you're testing and you have to be open-minded and honest about your results. You know, you can't be by you have to test them over different periods, right? You can't just test them when when everything went up. When everything went up, everything works. Every system works. So anyway, that's what that Twitter thing was about. >> What about copper? What are your thoughts? How's it setting up? >> Again, not really positioning wise. There's nothing major there, which like I say doesn't mean it can't go up or it doesn't mean it can't go down. It's going to go up or down. But, you know, clearly the copper story got a little bit uh out of control earlier in the year. You know, everybody uh came to the definitive conclusion that uh copper was the AI trade of the 206s or whatever, you know, um shortages of copper. there's no way we could ever have enough copper to meet all the demand that AI was going to get to. So, it was the no-brainer trade, right? And and it still might be. Um, but as soon as something gets no-brainer, it tends to get a little bit overdone and it it needs to shake some people out. You know, the market doesn't like to just give no-brainer trades. If you've been doing this long enough, you will acknowledge that the no-brainer trades are are very very very very few and far between. by the time they get to be a no-brainer to everybody, um, something seems to go wrong along the way. And, uh, I think that's what happened with Copper here. It got to the point where it was just the no-brainer thing. You just bought it and went away. Um, and therefore, it was probably time for it to, uh, for it to do something else, which it's done. So, what to do from here? If you still think it's the no-brainer AI trade, then you can start buying it. But for me again there there's nothing there there's nothing for my process to to do that with it. >> It's amazing how the narratives train changed so fast. Like a month ago we were all focused on the software stocks be getting beat up and data centers and and private credit. Now there's no mention of any of that. All we're focused on is the price of oil and what's happening in the street of Hormuse. >> That's all anybody talks about. and and it kind of, you know, I get that that's what you have to talk about if you want to sound like you know what you're talking about in the markets because that is what's going on. I just question the value at this point of saying that like am I going to pay you to tell me that what happens in the straits of for moves is going to determine what the markets are going to do for the next month? I don't really know that that I'm going to pay you to tell me that because if I can't figure that out at this point, well then I should probably should be doing something else, you know, with my life. I all I need to do is turn on the TV and listen to person after person after person come on and tell me that that's free, right? So what I try to do, which is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but I try to at least take another angle to it. You know, let's look at it from another angle. And this angle may be correct. anything incorrect, but let's at least get our brains going a little bit and and look at it from another angle. And I try to look at it from as many other angles as I can. Um cuz I feel like at least there maybe we're we're adding a little bit of value, you know, other than me being able to tell you what's going to happen in the straits, which I can't do and nobody can do. And anyone who tells you they can do to me is lying. So yeah, >> one other asset I want to get your thoughts on is Bitcoin. And I'm really surprised it's hanging in the way it has been during all this volatility. What are your thoughts on Bitcoin? The thing with Bitcoin to me is there's only two types of people in the world. Those who think Bitcoin is going to a million and those who think Bitcoin is going to zero. Would you agree with that? >> I would. I fall into the latter camp. >> Zero. >> I'd be totally wrong, but I applaud anybody who's made money on it. >> So, to me, that that's all there is. It's one or the other. And therefore, I think it's probably neither, at least for a long time. I think that Bitcoin is probably just going to be like any other asset, which going to be times when it does well. There's going to be times when it doesn't do well. And we're always going to have, you know, we always had gold bugs and we're always going to have Bitcoin bugs. And the gold bugs looked like fools from 1980 to 2000. When stock market was going up and everything was going hunky dory and gold lost 40% during that period, the gold bugs looked like fools. And since 2000, I think gold has probably outperformed the stock market. Um, so the gold bugs since 2000 look like geniuses. The truth is they're neither fools nor geniuses. It's just that for everything there is a season and for a long time gold was not the season and now for a long time gold has been the season. Um and of course the gold bugs will play themselves out as geniuses now but in 2000 they weren't playing themselves out as geniuses. Nobody wanted to hear from them, right? And I think Bitcoin is going to be the same thing personally. you know, it may go to a million, I don't know, but it's probably 20, 30 years away and that would just be sort of a a return, you know, it may go to zero. Um, my bias towards it personally is more of the boomer bias, right, which is this thing doesn't have any value and blah blah blah. I certainly don't think that things like Farttcoin have any value. You know, I I can't be a believer in Bitcoin and all these other ones until those go to zero, right? Those have to go to zero in my eyes. And once they do, then we can see how Bitcoin has held up during that period and how these other ones have held up and we can get into those maybe. But um you know there might be some validity that that that Bitcoin is tied to the whole AI boom and when that the more that goes on the more Bitcoin is useful. It's above my head quite frankly um and always will be but there may be some validity to that but my problem I think with it is that most of the people not all most of the people who are the Bitcoin boomers are not people who have had a good history of being right about things not people who have a good history of being money makers in these It strikes me that to a lot of these people, this is their lottery ticket. And lottery tickets don't pay off for most people. So therefore, me being the fader of mass psychology, these tend to be people that I would like to fade. They tend to be there's a lot of grifters in this space. And grifters, I think, do not get markets right over time. They get them right for short periods of time and that's what allows them to be grifters, right? But over longer periods of time, they tend to not they make money off their grifting, but the people that listen to them do not make money. And so that's the main problem that I have with Bitcoin because it seems to be a very big grifting space. And therefore, and this just might be a personal thing, I'd like to see these grifters go down and they won't go down until Bitcoin, you know, goes back into, you know, single digits. Um, so I would like to see that happen just for that reason, but doesn't mean it's going to happen. If Bitcoin's legit, um, then its downside is probably probably limited here. So, we we'll find out if it's legit. People are like, "Oh, it's been holding well through this." Well, the thing did lose 50% in 3 months, you know what I mean? Like the fact that it's holding well through this, I think those who needed to get out of their Bitcoin have probably gotten out of it now, you know? So now they need to get out of their gold or their stocks or their bonds or whatever. So they've turned to that, I would guess. That's probably why it's holding well. And has it really held well? Okay, it's held well, but it hasn't done You know, the chart doesn't look very good to me, you know, at this point. It just looks like a big flag or whatever they call it of consolidation here um after a huge move down. And let's not forget the thing lost 50%, you know, from the mid October to to early February. The thing lost 50%. Is that looking good? I don't know if that's looking good, but certainly it's it's held better recently. Sure. So, if you are a Bitcoiner and you think that Bitcoin is the future, then here's probably a good place to be putting it on. Jason, before we had war break out in the Middle East, uh there was a lot of concern about private credit and a lot of people were calling for a total collapse in the markets, similar to what we saw back in 08 09 with the great financial crisis. And then there was a lot of concern associated with AI and data centers and this circular financing that was going on, right? And a lot of people were calling for a collapse in that sector similar to what we saw during the great the tech bubble of uh the early 2000s, >> right? >> Um I'm curious to hear your your opinion on this. Like do you see any do you see any warning signs at all that the market is close to having some major collapse that we saw back in 08 09 or similar? >> Yeah. So for I mean as as for the specifics of it, it's way above my head. because AI is way above my head. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I know what AI is going to look like in five years. I have first of all, I'll say it again. I don't think I think anybody that tells you that they can do that is lying, okay? Is selling something. And not only anybody can tell you that. But even if they could, one person who could not is me because I don't know how to program a computer. I do. I use AI. Yes. I'll get on chat GPT to tell me a few things nowadays, but am I getting like claw to do all my daily tasks for me and all that No, I'm not. And quite frankly, I probably never will because I'm too old for that Okay? I don't care. I don't have that many tasks that have to be done. All right? So, I don't mind whatever my daily tasks are. I don't mind doing them. It's not going to hurt me. It's not going to I'm not going to lose edge to people that are doing that because I'm not working in a corporation and I'm not you know I do my thing. So I'm not a good person to ask about that. Do I think it's valid? Yes. Do I tell my son that he better learn how to do this or else he's going to be falling behind and he's not going to be employable? Yes. But for an old fart like me that's on the brink of retirement, I could care less honestly. So therefore, I'm not the person to to ask as to whether the circular financing or whether You know, I have no idea. The second thing I would say about it is these people that are saying that this is 2008. These people that are saying this is 2000, were they right in 2008? Were they on this in 2008? Were they on this in 2000? That would be my first question I would ask them, right? And my bet is no, they weren't. Okay? They were probably on the wrong side of it. So now they want to get on the right side of it. Everyone's always trading yesterday's market, you know. um and therefore it doesn't happen again. That's how I see it. Now, do I personally see signs of something bad like that happening? Again, that comes down to my theory about the liquidity and the credit markets. If we are seeing these things, it's possible like I laid out the possibilities of that before, right? The fact that they need money for this, they need money for that and and money is not endless. It's not an endless commodity. Except it is because they can keep printing it and they can keep doing that until the market rejects that. That's what I think about that. If if something bad's going to happen, it's going to be because of that. And we're going to get the markets are going to tell us, okay? Because the markets will go down. They will force that new QE or whatever they do and the markets will reject that. So, the markets will tell us. So we don't have to necessarily speculate as to what's going to happen because the markets are going to tell us if that's going to happen. Um and that's what I to me what's more important is rather than say oh here's all the fundamental reasons why it's definitely going to happen it's more important to say what are the things in the market that would tell us that that is happening and to me that is the thing in the market that will tell us that's happening. the market will force QE. The markets will then reject rather than rip on the QE like they did in 2009. They will fail on the QE and then we can have another one of those situations. And let's not forget, I was in the middle of it. I worked at a a big hedge fund in in 0809 and we had a whole bunch of macro geniuses in there and we had a whole bunch of macro geniuses come and speak to us all the time about what was going to happen. Um when they did the QE in09 it was seen as negative. Okay, because no one had seen it before and they didn't like it. They they thought that it was going to be very inflationary and which is what economics would tell you, right? That printing money is inflationary. Um they thought it was going to be very inflationary and they stayed very bearish because of it. And quite frankly, they stayed bearish the whole way. the guy in my hedge fund who was bearish the whole way starting in about 2006 um was able to stay alive through 2007 through 2006 2007 and made a huge amount of money in 2008. Well, he stayed bearish the whole way. 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and he and whatever he made in 2008, he he gave back and then some to those other years. So, um, yes, I think there's a possibility. I have no idea if it comes true, but I believe that I know what the market re would look like if that were going to happen, which would be rejecting this QE. And my point about them being bearish in09 about the QE thing was it's just so funny to me how everybody was super bearish when they did QE in '09. They didn't see it as a savior to the world, which it turned out to be. Whereas now everybody sees QE as the savior to the world. Oh, it's okay because if things go down, if credit gets bad, if well then they'll just do QE and they'll save us. So that's a different place, you know, no matter what you want to say, that's a different place from a positioning point of view and from a psychology point of view. When nobody believed it and it worked, now everybody believes it. So I think the chance of it not working this time are probably better. And like I say, then you go to the fundamental thing, which is doing it when there's no inflation is very different than doing it when inflation can't get under control. There's that's two different things. So I think that's what to watch for. I would say rather than us sitting here and making a prediction that there's going to be another 2008, there's going to be another 2000, you know, let's look for the things that will tell us if in fact that is happening. So I I think those are the things that tell us what's happening. >> Great comments. Well, before we wrap it up, uh I just want to summarize a few of your thoughts. When it comes to the S&P now at wherever it is, 6600, let's say you're neutral on the S&P. Uh, you're warming up to all the metals. You you you like gold, but you prefer silver here at 70 bucks or wherever it's trading. Um, copper, I think you said you're neutral on it. Oil at 90 bucks or 100 bucks, you're neutral on oil. Uh, Bitcoin, you're just indifferent. >> I wouldn't call myself indifferent. If if I'm to be honest, just because of the grifter nature of it all, I'm rooting for it to go to zero. Okay. But I'm not shorting it because I'm rooting for it to go to zero. You know what I mean? I'm not a you know? And I can I'm open up to the idea that it could be whatever the people are saying it could be. It could be the future of of commerce because of AI or I don't know how to put those two things together, but there are plenty of people if you want to put those things together that you can go and listen to their videos and and they'll put it together for you. I I I don't get it. It's above my head. But anyway, yeah. So, not really indifferent. I'd like to see it go to zero, but that's just the silly bias. >> Well, this has been a great conversation and I want to thank you very much for spending time with us today and sharing your thoughts. If somebody would like to follow you online or learn more about your services, where can they go? >> Crowdedmarketreport.com is our web page. Um, it's usually easier just to go on YouTube and go to crowded market report because we have I don't know how many hundreds of free videos on there. Um, so that's usually the best place to go because it's free. What's better than free, right? So you go on there and you can listen to a whole bunch of this kind of nonsense that I just spewed for the last hour. You can listen to hours and hours and hours of it. And some of them will have will come across as, "Oh my god, he nailed that." And some of them will come across as, "Wow, is he wrong on that one?" But the major lesson that I'm trying to pass through as someone who's been doing this for 35 plus years is that it is not about being right or wrong. It is not about predicting the future. I am not here telling you I can predict the future. I am not here telling you how to predict the future. I'm here to say you have to make money without being able to predict the future. And the way to do that is to figure out how to get into things that are have riskreward skew over time and do that in a systematic way. and how you want to do that. I show how I do it. Doesn't mean that's how you have to do it. There's a lot of different ways to try and do that, but that's what you have to focus on. And that's what most of the stuff that I'm talking about is about. And I try to get that point across in a lot of different ways through the videos, you know, by showing how it's worked for me, by showing how sometimes it doesn't work for me, by showing how other people are doing it the wrong way. Here's an example of the wrong way to do it. and I show that um and people take that as I'm being personal, but I'm not. I'm just showing this is the wrong way to do it and here's the proof. Look at how bad this person's has been. All right. Um a lot of different ways I try to get essentially the same message across. >> Great comments and I will include links to both your website and also your YouTube channel in the show notes below. Jason, once again, thank you and good luck in the markets. >> Yeah, thanks for having me, James. Great talking again. Heat. Heat.