1. Fear and Greed Index Hits “Extreme Greed”
CNN
2. Another Stat on “Non-Profit” Stock Index
Retail vs. non-profitable Tech. “The 10-day average of retail participation in non-profitable technology companies reached 23% — the highest level since a Goldman Sachs trading desk began tracking it — and rose to 25% this week.”
Daily Chartbook
3. Memes are Back
Bloomber
4. Here’s The Meme Recipe -via Barron’s
Here is the meme-stock recipe for creating a gamma squeeze, which appears to be the case with Opendoor Technologies , which all saw similiar sharp moves the week. As you’ll see, options gamma—an obscure way traders measure changes in the value of an options contract and associated stock—plays a role, but the activity is far more coordinated.
The first ingredient: Find a stock that can be easily pushed around. A heavily shorted stock is often a great place to start because it means that many investors have borrowed shares from their broker and sold them short in the market in anticipation that the stock will decline.
It also means that many investors are painfully sensitive to the potential of a stock rally. If the stock advances, those investors who have shorted the stock must buy it back at higher prices. If those investors panic, they create “a short squeeze,” which means they are basically competing with each other to buy back their stock at ever-higher prices. Kohl’s short-interest ratio is about 49%, which basically describes a pressure cooker.
The second ingredient: Buy at-the-money call options on the targeted stock. Such calls are basically the same as stock, but they have a superpower. Calls with strike prices that match the stock price often force options market makers to buy stock to hedge the stock’s gain.
Why? Because dealers always hedge risk, and when customers buy calls in anticipation that the stock will rise, the dealers must buy stock so they don’t lose money. The combination of aggressive call buying and dealers buying stock is what makes a stock like Kohl’s surge. The phenomenon is popularly called a gamma squeeze.
The third ingredient: Use social media to create awareness of the unusual stock and options trading. Make as many people as possible think that something extraordinary is happening, and that they should buy calls and stock. The social-media activity tends to create a huge wave of stock and call buying that the engineers of the gamma squeeze need to take profits.
The activity has a certain odor. Market regulators have done little more than watch from the sidelines. Rest assured, what happened with Kohl’s, GameStop, and so many other stocks will happen again.
5. Options Volume is Booming Again in 2025
MarketWatch
6. Rolex Traded Watch Index Rising with Meme’s and Crypto
Zerohedge
7. ETHA ETF AUM Doubles
8. YouTube is King 12.5% of All Viewing Time
@CharlieBilello
9. Nashville Tops List of Favorite U.S. Cities
10. Ten Tips for Calming Your Mind
Via Mark Hyman Here is what we know about how to influence the mind-body and the body-mind system. Consider these essential survival skills. You cannot thrive without them!
1. Address the Underlying Causes of Stress — Find the biological causes of problems with the mind by working on the 7 Keys to UltraWellness. Mercury toxicity or a magnesium or vitamin B12 deficiency or a toxic gut chemical or a gluten allergy could be changing your brain. So, by changing your body, you can change your mind!
2. Relax — Learn how to ACTIVELY relax. To engage the powerful forces of the mind on the body, you must DO something — you can’t just sit there watching television or drinking beer.
3. Learn New Skills — Try learning new skills such as meditation, deep breathing, yoga, biofeedback, and progressive muscle relaxation or take a hot bath, make love, get a massage, watch a sunset, or walk in the woods or on the beach.
4. Move Your Body — Exercise is a powerful, well-studied way to burn off stress chemicals and heal the mind, so just do it! It has been proven to be better than or equal to Prozac for treating depression.
5. Optimize Your Nutrition — Clean up your diet from mind-robbing molecules like caffeine, alcohol, and refined sugars and eat regularly to avoid the short-term stress of starvation on your body.
6. Supplement — Take a multivitamin and nutrients to help balance the stress response, such as vitamin C; the B-complex vitamins, including B6 and B5 or pantothenic acid; zinc; and most important, magnesium, the relaxation mineral.
7. Try Herbs — Use adaptogenic herbs (herbs that help you adapt and balance your response to stress) such as ginseng, Rhodiola rosea, Siberian ginseng, cordyceps, and ashwagandha.
8. Use Heat Therapy — Take a hot bath or a sauna to help your body deeply relax and turn on the relaxation response.
9. Change Your Beliefs — Examine your beliefs, attitudes, and responses to common situations and consider reframing your point of view to reduce stress.
10. Find a Community — Consciously build your network of friends, family, and community. They are your most powerful allies in achieving long-term health.
