What Happened Today?
Friday April 17, 2026
MACRO:
The Trump Administration is attempting to distract the world from the situation in Iran (which is completely under the control of Iran at this point) by announcing it is going to release UFO documents.
There is zero percent chance any other life form has visited Earth. If you believe this you have the intelligence of a Koala and should have to wear a special hat on your head to protect yourself from drowning in the shower.
China is beginning to posture over the Taiwan now. I think it’s just a matter of time. The US looks completely incompetent and flaccid at this point and war (an actual war) looks ever more plausible. It’s curious that this possibility is not being discussed.
China looks to be setting up Japan as the fall guy:
“Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun slammed the move as a serious threat to China's sovereignty and security at a press conference the same day, and said China lodged a strong protest with Japan.”
Back to Iran, Trump lied again today. Then Iran called bullshit. I don’t see how the oil dislocation unwinds without a massive shock to traders. All China has to do is keep Iran in the game long enough for American’s to tire of $5+ gas and then take Taiwan.
MICRO:
Intel shot up. I am drawing attention to this because the stock’s gain since 2020 is the same as the gain since January 2026. Who says timing isn’t important? And to just remind people that the market did spend over a decade going absolutely nowhere.
I get it though.
We just had Artemis II fly around the Moon and everyday we get shown videos of robots running really fast or falling over while attempting to run really fast. Or videos of robots very slowly julienning carrots. Because, that’s what we all want. A robot to run for us and take twelve hours to make stir fry.
NASA moved forward the delivery schedule a few years and the internet went ape-shit over a nuclear reactor on the Moon.
NuScale (NASDAQ:$SMR) recently returned to the channel. It’s amazing how that happens. We still own Terra Innovatum (NASDAQ:$NKLR.)
There is this general feeling that we are about to live in the era of the Jetson’s amongst market participants.
So I started rolling IWM 0.00%↑ Puts again. I bought around 1pm and just sold them as the market turned. Just going to ease back into the trade I had been running since January.
Market strength. Buy Puts. Simple.
Happy thoughts aren’t a viable long-term business model.
What is a very via business model is manipulating the float to sell shares. Now that a hedge fund has demonstrated how effective that can be using Avis (NYSE:$CAR) I wonder how many more funds will run the same gambit?
What is most interesting about this is the number of pundits and hedge fund managers (some really famous ones) that have made a comment that demonstrate they lack understanding of some basic market mechanic.
I have run out of popcorn. Must solve this problem.
— AJ