What Happened Today?
Wednesday April 8, 2026
I mentioned yesterday the world has too much money. And today was a full demonstration of that in effect.
It is sort of hard for people to understand just how much money is just sitting in cash accounts right. Not in terms of percentages but in nominal terms.
Let me give you an example, in 2008 the average billionaire had maybe $20M in “cash.” Today, there are 3 or 4 times as many billionaires and they are still fully exposed to the market and have $200M in “cash.”
Even if the average mega-wealthy is leveraged there really is no concern. Even a 30-40% draw-down in ALL asset evaluations doesn’t wouldn’t move the needle much for the top 1% who hold 60% of US securities. They have enough cash to hedge and/or to dip buy.
The system is broken. And by that I mean there is no price discovery in markets anymore. In bull markets, price discovery is flawed because there are always shares that have never been priced at-the-market. But, with healthy shorting and periodic crashes this momentary price inflation corrects.
But, we haven’t had a crash, a real crash in 18 years now. COVID’s crash was met with the total cessation of gambling at the same time, so new money entered. There was really no wealth lost. Just momentarily deflated.
Or you could say the system has reached nirvana. By the way nirvana means “blown out” ironically.
I don’t need to tell you what happened in the Middle East today. More stuff exploded, only Iran and sanctioned cargo floated the Strait. Same as every other day.
MACRO:
The FOMC meeting notes came out today. Rate cuts seem a real possibility. If we get a second bout of inflation as long as I get credit for inventing the term “bactrian” inflation I will be happy.
Tomorrow, PCE data comes out and Friday CPI. For the last three years social media is full of predictions but now that we are two mini-crises removed from inflation it seems no one is paying attention.
MICRO:
The FDA removed the partial clinical hold on MacroGenics (NASDAQ:$MGNX) after-hours today. We have been buying this for quite awhile and will hold at least through the clinical update period sometime this Summer. Probably the most obvious chart you can get. Fell completely below the channel, tripped BOB three times and the ACC/Consolidation right before doubling.
Quince Therapeutics (NASDAQ:$QNCX) took off. Likely because of speculation it would make a good shell for some better company to slide into. This is the same play as IO Biotech, which didn’t work at that well and declared bankruptcy. But, QNCX did move 100% this morning. What likely matters here is if the debt is convertible and if the debt holders a banks (like in the case of IOBT) or shady guys who collect Rolexes.
I did restart rolling PUTS today again. Just bought them this morning and took 25-40% intraday. Repeat.
I am still carrying hedges (which are obviously getting destroyed.) The reason is because whenever the S&P reclaims the 50 and 200 DMA it usually means you’ve got a 10% haircut coming in the next 30 days.
That is dead cat signature. Being hedged just makes comfortable.
As always, if you think there are spelling errors update your dictionary to the latest version. Happy speculation!
— AJ