 Hello there, everyone, and welcome. This is Melissa Armo with the Stock Swishing Today. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what happened a few days ago in the market, which was rent. Excuse me, it was from Friday to Monday. So from Friday to Monday, the market had a gap down. It was a fairly significant gap down for the market because it happened unexpectedly as often gaps do, which is one of the reasons why plain gaps is very powerful. Gap trading is a very powerful way to trade. That's what I've done now for 13 years. And it's extremely powerful. It's powerful because it's unexpected, usually, okay? So what happened on Friday is, I'm just looking at the spot. I'm not gonna look at 10 different charts, but we closed at 431, 34, that was the close on Friday, and then we opened at 426, 19. And I'm just gonna look here because I don't think that we really moved Friday night. What's Friday night? We didn't, we didn't really. So we pretty much, we didn't sell off after the hour, it's Friday night. Here, you can see the gap. So this is Monday morning. So we went Friday night, four o'clock, boom, after hours, and then boom, Monday morning. So anyways, the market had a nice sell-off from Friday to Monday, and then of course on Monday as well. We shorted and we did puts, and it was a nice bearish move. However, then we rallied back. So we rallied Tuesday, we rallied Wednesday, and we rallied today slightly. We'll see where we end the week. But my point is though that a few things. One, I don't think that this is the end of the uptrend of the market. Or that that was the gap on Monday was. I did say that an email to clients. You can see that even here now the last three days of trading, we flipped back around, we didn't make new highs yet. Remains to be seen if we will or not. We have significant earnings in the next few days, we'll see. However, the reason we gap down from Friday to Monday was discussions about another COVID lockdown in the United States. Okay, because they're doing some sporadic in other countries, LA now has a mask mandate. It's law, you have to wear masks. So I think the market was spooked from Friday to Monday, the possibility of another lockdown. Now here's my take on this. What happens if there is another lockdown? Like what would happen in the market? First of all, if it would happen it would happen unexpectedly. You wouldn't know it's gonna happen before it does. And we would have another gap down in the market 100%. You would not know when that's gonna happen before it does. Okay, you just wouldn't. So you gotta know that that could happen is what I'm saying. Do I think it's gonna happen? I said this the other day on TV. And I said it's a 50-50 chance it could happen. So 50-50 is a possibility it could happen. The fact that they're discussing it is concerning enough that it could happen which means that they're discussing it. Do you understand what I'm saying? That it's a possibility, they're discussing it. And in my mind, they're taking the temperature of the country to see if the country would comply with another lockdown because they need compliance for people to do it. Just like last year. Last year, the country complied. Everyone stayed at their homes. Fauci came on news and said two million people are gonna die if you don't stay in your homes. Everybody did it. All right, the country complied. We did it for two weeks, then extended to 30 days. The bottom line is that they're gauging the temperature of the country to see if people will comply. And the more they talk about it, they're almost talking people into compliance in my opinion. So I think that would be devastating for the economy. All across the country, certain industries specifically travel, entertainment, airlines, cruise lines, cities like New York, we've never fully opened. We have not fully reopened in New York. It is almost August. So March, April, May, June, July, August, September, September, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, no, 19 months, 19 months and we have not fully reopened in New York City. Major city in the country. We have not fully reopened. Cases have gone up. I've been watching it in New York. The cases have gone up. That's true. But I think that shutting the country down is not gonna stop the virus and I think it's gonna really devastate economies like New York and certain industries. However, we will see what happens. And what I'm saying to you is, what would happen if we had another shutdown? Well, they would most likely do another round of PPP. So it'd be a third round of PPP. They would un-extend unemployment benefits. They would extend the unemployment benefits for the extra federal aid. They would extend them. And they would extend the eviction moratorium and the foreclosure moratorium. Now that has varied from state to state, but there would be extensions on that, okay? Or it would come back into play. So, in fact, let's look at the banks here a minute. That was felt today. Apple came out and said they're extending and pushing back for employees to come back to work in the office. That was bad. That happened in the last few days. So JPM's red today. This was red, flipped around. This is Goldman. Wells Fargo fell today. So, that's my take. Okay, my take is these things would happen if we had a shutdown. We will gap down. We will sell off. How long they sell off last? I don't know. It would be crushing to some of the sectors that have already barely, barely tried to turn around in 2021. And it would be really crushing for cities like New York City, which is responsible for a large percentage of GDP of the country. And we're now still not back up. Like for example, the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City has not reopened yet. Has not reopened. So they're definitely not gonna reopen by September 1st because they would have announced a reopening. Maybe they're gonna reopen by October 1st for the holidays. I don't know. I think everyone is a little bit on edge now since the last, this discussion in the last week. And, you know, this fell to a look. And in my opinion, I think that the administration is gauging the temperature of the company for another lockdown because they need compliance. They don't want people riding in the streets. They want people to comply if they wanna do one. And so that takes, you know, that takes talking to. So they've gotta get the information out there to kind of talk people into wanting to comply. So, you know, everyone has their own opinions on this but I say we're all adults and we need to get on with our lives. And if people are concerned, they get vaccinated, they wear masks, they do what they need to do. Personally, I have been wearing gloves ever since last year, since COVID hit. I will probably never touch an elevator button in New York City again without a glove on. To be honest with you, summer gloves, winter gloves, I will never touch one again. I don't like wearing masks. I social distance normally. I'm not on top of somebody, you know? So that's my take. I do not like wearing masks. I have a hard time breathing a mask. Luckily, I've worked from home but the closing the gyms was really upsetting for me last year. And I'm considering ordering a Peloton just in case because if I don't order one now, and then guess what? They shut down and it'll be like two months to get one. So I'm thinking about buying a Peloton. I have to call about it, having a time this week. I have to figure out where I'd even put it in my apartment and look at the specs but I'm considering doing that in case it happens because I wanna be ready. I even ordered more paper goods, paper towels, tissues, those Lysol wipes, toilet paper things that it was difficult to get. And I will say this, I have not been able to get an Amazon delivery from Whole Foods this entire week. So since this news came out, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I, in fact, was checked right now. I can't get a delivery all week. So what does that mean? It means people are not showing up for work. The drivers, the people that do put the grocery orders together at Whole Foods, the Amazon employees, they're not coming to work or they're scared or they're quitting. I mean, it's, they don't have the employees. It's not like there's not food in New York. I just keep looking at this every hour. This is what, last year when this happened, I had to, I was like, I had to look all the time to try to get orders in. I mean, it was just annoying. I don't wanna go back to that. I mean, I just cannot even believe that we might go back to that. It's unbelievable to me. Delivery may be limited, that's it. I can't book a spot. I have not been able to get a delivery this entire week since we're talking about Shedtowns. Un, fa, li, fa, vol. And I've been, I've been, I've said this before in TV as well that the cabs aren't running. A lot of the cabbies went on unemployment and they haven't come back. I mean, there were people here to transport around but people have come back to the city now. A lot of apartments have rented. There's still a lot available to rent and a lot for sale. So it's nowhere near normal market and the city has been back to normal. I sent some pictures of some places to people they couldn't believe friends that have not been in New York for years. And I said, oh my God, there's new people in the street. I said, I know, I know there's, I mean, it's like if people are back, I don't know, they're not going out. They're not going out. So people are concerned now. They are scared about this new variant and again, the rising cases. We cannot live our lives in fear and it is terrible what the shutdown did to some of these industries last year. Many, many restaurants in New York City never reopen and will never reopen. And that doesn't even include retail. What's happened with them? I mean, obviously everyone knows by now and heard the story about Neiman Marcus closing a housing yards. Well, they signed a 50 year lease. That was not a good decision. I don't know why they agreed to sign a 50 year lease. If they hadn't agreed to a 50 year lease, maybe five or 10 years as a commercial lease, maybe they would have been able to stay in New York. They've come out of bankruptcy but I think a 50 year lease, that was too much. But anyways, they're gone. That space is still empty. Still empty in housing yards. So I mean, New York City can not go through another shutdown. And I think the administration is testing the waters to see if we are gonna have another shutdown. It is very interesting times people. In my opinion, if we had one, it would be between now and the end of the year. Although I think more realistically, they're not gonna shut people down over the holidays. So it probably would be between now and September. So probably between now and the end of September, if the administration was gonna have a second shutdown, it would be during that time. That's my opinion. It's a 50-50 if it happens. So we'll see. But expect a gap down in the market. If it does, you will not have any indication that's gonna happen beforehand. We were short the market before the last shutdown. I saw a short that we did. I did not know we were gonna shut down but I did see the market was gonna continue selling off. So we were in puts. We were in puts. Again, I did not know we were gonna have a shutdown but for the Gap Options newsletter subscribers, we were in puts when that gap down happened, when the shutdown happened. We were already in them because I had seen something in the chart and it called the trains. I did not know they were gonna close the country but of course that created then that massive sell-off that we had. But we captured that move. It was a great move and it was really, really a nice period to trade. If you're interested in learning how to short, I think you've gotta take the opportunity to do it. Many traders do not know how to short well. In fact, quite frankly, many traders stink at shorting. Don't understand it and don't do it well. It is important to learn how to short before the shutdown happens. If it does, if it does, you don't wanna not know what to do before that happens. You do wanna look at your long-term investments as well to figure out your time horizon and things if you're long. The market's been very, very strong so people are up. People are up money. I mean, the other day, people just took profits. That's what it was, it was profit taking. We flipped around. I knew that wasn't the end of the move and again, they haven't announced a shutdown but there's a lot of propaganda out there now. A lot of articles, a lot of people talking about on TV. It's almost so much now in the last few days that it's making me think that it really could happen and I'm preparing myself but what am I gonna do? I've been shopping for apartments. I didn't commit to anything yet. I didn't buy anything or rent anything and I'm sorta like, well, let's just maybe wait and see here. Let's just maybe wait and see. It's kind of like a wait and see period and I think if we get busy and we end up having another shutdown, it's gonna be a busy time to trade so I wanna take advantage of that opportunity. So if you're interested in learning from me, then email me at Melissa at thestockswish.com for upcoming class dates. Watch where my TV appearances. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I'm Melissa Armo and go to the website, www.thestockswish.com to see what the upcoming classes are and stay safe everyone and be prepared in case there is another lockdown.