About Yesterday’s Slump

Markets soared over 1.8% at the open yesterday, buoyed by Nvidia’s strong earnings. But, the market closed lower by the end of the day by over 1.5%.

This type of strong reversal has only happened twice before:

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Markets dropped after opening nearly 2% higher, for only the third time. (Source: Subutrade via X)

In April, following the “Liberation Day” low, the indexes took off in the morning only to crash later in the day. The first and only other time in history we have seen a strong bullish opening followed by a sharp bearish close was during the 2020 recovery from the Covid shock.

In both cases, the markets were rebounding from exogenous shocks.

That’s not where we are today. The index-level charts may look composed, but underneath plenty of individual stocks are trading as if they’ve already slipped into a private bear market of their own.

We’ll see how the day unfolds. It’s options-expiration Friday — the monthly opex ritual when traders roll positions forward, unwind old bets, and generally yank prices around like terriers with a chew toy.

Volatility loves days like today.

For now, none of this should come as a surprise. If you have trimmed over-inflated high fliers when we first suggested it, you’ve insulated your portfolio from sudden selloffs. If not… well, markets have an efficient way of encouraging good habits.

~ Addison

P.S. Yesterday’s Grey Swan Live! with Mark Jeftovic and Ian King may prove one of our more timely episodes. Mark and Ian covered key developments in stablecoins and how the current selloff impacts our “Dollar 2.0” digital asset thesis. Including specific guidance on the stocks in your Dollar 2.0 research report.

Bitcoin, as a proxy for the crypto space, is in the midst of a 30% correction — a bit late in its historically predictable four-year cycle. While leveraged buyers have been knocked out, long-term investors are taking advantage of this early holiday deal.

Following the October 21st confab hosted by the Fed, stablecoins are gaining regulatory approval from the SEC, IRS and CFTC. We suspect as coins like Circle’s USDC soak up U.S. Treasury demand, the new digital asset space is going to be a leading headline grabber in 2026.

Program note: Don’t miss your tax planning event this afternoon (Friday, November 21, 2025 at 2pm EST/11am PST).

We’ve invited our friends Nick Buhelos from Prime Financial Services back to help you with tax planning for your investment portfolio ahead of the holiday season and closing out the trading year 2025.

Nick will walk you through the correct financial structure you need totake advantage of explicit IRS business rules that apply to individual investors, including the new tax structure from the Big Beautiful Bill that starts January 1, 2026.

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If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.

Markets soared over 1.8% at the open yesterday, buoyed by Nvidia’s strong earnings. But, the market closed lower by the end of the day by over 1.5%.

This type of strong reversal has only happened twice before:

Turn Your Images On

Markets dropped after opening nearly 2% higher, for only the third time. (Source: Subutrade via X)

In both cases, the markets were rebounding from exogenous shocks.

Volatility loves days like today.

~ Addison

Program note: Don’t miss your tax planning event this afternoon (Friday, November 21, 2025 at 2pm EST/11am PST).

Turn Your Images On

If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, it’s worth recalling that our first Revolution wasn’t waged to destroy an order — it was fought to preserve one.

Political philosopher Russell Kirk called it “a revolution not made but prevented.” The colonists sought not chaos but continuity — the defense of their “chartered rights as Englishmen,” not the birth of an entirely new world. Kirk wrote:

“The American Revolution was a preventive movement, intended to preserve an old constitutional structure. The French Revolution meant the destruction of the fabric of society.”

The difference, Kirk argued, was moral. The American Revolution was rooted in ordered liberty; the French in ideological frenzy. The first produced a Constitution; the second, a guillotine.

Two and a half centuries later, the argument continues — only now, the battlefield is financial. Who controls access to money? Who defines legitimacy? Can a citizen’s ability to transact depend on their politics?

Trump and Powell are no buddies. They’ve been fighting over rate cuts all year—Trump demanding more, Powell holding back. Even after cutting twice, Trump called him “grossly incompetent” and said he’d “love to fire” him. The tension has been building for months.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

Trump has been dropping hints for weeks—saying on November 18, “I think I already know my choice,” and then doubling down last Sunday aboard Air Force One with, “I know who I am going to pick… we’ll be announcing it.”

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Here we sit — investors, analysts, retirees, accountants, even a few masochistic economists — gathered beneath the leafless monetary tree, rehearsing our lines as we wait for Jerome Powell to step onstage and tell us what the future means.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

With U.S. stocks trading at about 24 times forward earnings, plans for capital growth have to go off without a hitch. Given the billions of dollars in commitments by AI companies, financing to the hilt on debt, the most realistic outcome is a hitch.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, it’s worth recalling that our first Revolution wasn’t waged to destroy an order — it was fought to preserve one.

“The American Revolution was a preventive movement, intended to preserve an old constitutional structure. The French Revolution meant the destruction of the fabric of society.”

The difference, Kirk argued, was moral. The American Revolution was rooted in ordered liberty; the French in ideological frenzy. The first produced a Constitution; the second, a guillotine.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.