 The following is a presentation of TFNN. The morning markets kickoff with your host, Tommy O'Brien. Good Wednesday morning everybody. I'm Tommy O'Brien, coming to you live from TFNN. We kick off the trading day and you got markets pretty calm to start things off. You got the S&Ps right now, negative by just one point. How about this price tag, man, $5240, $5,240 in the S&Ps right now, negative by one point, quite a charge higher in the markets yesterday. NASDAQ 100, we're negative by just 47 points. That's about a quarter percent. We hit a high overnight, $18,506, we're sitting at $18,430. Dow and positive territory by about one-tenth percent, you're positive by 38 points this morning. We're coming up to that $40,000 mark, almost about one percent away from $40,000 in the Dow in the future. It's a pretty remarkable Dow. Up 38 points, one-tenth percent in the positive, $39,518, you're at the Russell this morning. Negative territory by about just two points. You see the trade though. Earlier this morning, we were at 2,094, the Russell, particularly volatile. You're talking about volatility, how about Bitcoin, it's not stopping, man. The run yesterday down to almost $69,000, boom, just like that, you make a new all-time high, $74,365, we're just off that price level, you're up by $1,665 on the session. That's 2.3 percent. Bitcoin continues to charge higher, you jump over to Ethereum, not quite above where you were on the Monday overnight session, nonetheless, you make a high above $4,100. Right now, you're sitting at $4,049. We take a look at Crude, how about this one? I got one of the articles I got pulled up here talking about maybe we get a potential Crude spike over the summer, and boy, you're up almost $2 from where you were at $430 in the morning. Crude, trading at $79.40, we're approaching $80, you're up by $1.82 this morning and the price of Crude, you jump over to gold. Quite the pullback yesterday in gold, what do we have? We got higher yields, right? Excuse me, you have a stronger dollar, that. Putting some weakness into gold yesterday on that volatility following the CPI number. Gold, up $2 this morning at $2168. Not that bad when you take a look at the 10-year, which is continuing to drop in price. We got the 10-year yield, where are we sitting right now? Let's check it out. 4.18 percent, approaching 4.19, just like that, we're almost at 4.2 percent. We're approaching 4 percent when you're coming into Friday's number for the jobs number when we're at 1.1204, just like that, you give up a whole full point. This morning, you're negative by almost six ticks on the 10-year. As I said, that's correlating to a yield of 4.18 percent on the 10-year. As we have higher yields in the 10-year treasury, the dollar's not catching quite the bid that it did yesterday, which is interesting, right? Look at where the dollar is. You've got to keep track of this stuff, all right? So what is that saying? You're not getting dollar strength. Even at the time that you're getting, higher yield right now, okay? The dollar's right back to where you were on Monday. And for some correlation there, the 10-year yield was trading at 1.30 almost. You back it up to where it was on Friday, right? We have pulled back in price. We've risen yield, the dollar holding on to where we are right now. We'll see where that goes. The VIX right now, back to a pretty reasonable 13.77 after spiking to 16.04 earlier in the week with some fears of that Tuesday CPI number. Nonetheless, seems like the market was not as freaked out as it may have been on that CPI number, right? We are getting slightly higher yields this morning. But nonetheless, the dollar not reacting, the market higher, the VIX trading lower. Everything seems like we're hunky-dory, everything. And we got the yen back to 148, which is remarkable, man. You put this thing on a daily, a little bit of a bounce off that pullback. But nonetheless, we'll see where the dollar yen goes in forward territory from here. All right. Where are we going to kick things off this morning? How about the dollar stores, dollar tree? This is not correlating to the action this morning. You got a bid ask of 126 right now, folks. I'm going to put it on the chart before we even pull up the 15 minute. This has a bid ask of 126. Do you hear me? 126, my goodness, they're going to lose some capital overnight as you're talking about a hit to the tune of $23 to the downside out of curiosity. Yeah. They were only priced at about a $10 move in either direction. This thing is going to move $23 to the downside. And yeah, they got some issues, man. And you jump over to what they're talking about here. Let's do it on this article. I had the Bloomberg, I had the journal I was reading about this morning. They're going to close a thousand stores, 1,000 stores in a bid to shore profits. Now they have, yeah, 13,000 or something. Let me see if this headline says it. How many they got? Yeah. One of them says it. They got like 13,000 stores or something like that. They're closing 1,000 of them, 16,000. Operate 16,770 stores across 48 states and Canada. They're closing 600 family dollar stores. They're closing in the first half of this year. They're closing an additional 370 as their lease expires, less cost doing that. And then they're closing something like $30 tree locations as their lease expires. Yeah. So they're trying to make sure they're doing 600 of them right away. And then they're doing 400 of them, 370 family dollar, 30 of them when the dollar trees, when the lease expires. Yeah, they get some issues here. Now they jump to a loss. And that's because you got about $2 billion in charges having to do with this restructure that they're going to. I'm going to jump back to this journal here. Yeah, they report a loss of $1.71 billion or $785 a share for the three months, okay, compared with a profit of $452 million a year ago, $2 billion more than charges tied to the portfolio review. Now what's interesting here is how they break it down. Is this the article that does it? Yeah, here we go. The companies in payment charges include a $950 million trade, name and payment charge, $594 million in charges tied to the store portfolio review, $600 million to do a store portfolio review, and $1.07 billion in a goodwill charge. Add them all up. That's not more than $2.5 billion in charges, man, absolutely remarkable. For fiscal year 2024, they're targeting earnings of $670 a share to $730 a share. The market was looking for $704. So pretty much right around that, and they're looking for full year sales of $31 to $32 billion. The market was looking for $31.68. Seems like they might be slightly on the downside in terms of where they're looking and what the market was looking for. Yeah, they get some issues. They're trying to write the ship there for the current quarter. They're looking for $1.33 to $1.48, and the market was looking for $1.70. And the market is reacting this morning in epic fashion. We jumped to the 15 minute, and it's not stopping. You drive lower on their earnings earlier, the conference call begins, and you get a second leg lower, man. Not sure what they're saying on that conference call, but the dollar trees are in trouble. Yeah, as you're trading down to $1.28 right now from $1.49, and as I mentioned, man, you're backing things up on this chart. Maybe that's an area, because what do we have for earlier in the year? $1.2877 was the low. You're trading basically right at that price point right now. You back it up to the lows in June of 2023. If you're looking at $1.28, you back it up to that spike low on their earnings in May of 2022, yet a low of $1.26, so you can see it's at a critical area here, and then you back it up to the beginning of 2022, yet a low of $1.23. So what do we got? $1.23, right? $1.24, $1.28, $1.28, and this morning, we're trading at $1.28 right now, and we'll see where we go from there. Pretty interesting. Here are the action flies, S&P so far flat this morning, and we got the Nasdaq 100, negative by 40, Dow and positive territory, and how about that crude contract, man? Crude, rocking and rolling $79.19 right now, up a buck $63, up 2.1%, and the day is young. We got 15 minutes to go until the opening bell. Stay tuned, folks. We'll be right back with our man, Kevin Hinks. We got our man, Teddy Kegstad, coming up at 40 past the hour, great day to have Teddy on. We'll talk some forex, we'll talk some Komalis, we'll talk some crude as we always do with Teddy as well. Stay tuned, folks. We'll be back in three minutes. If you're looking for potential trading setups in the stock market, then Rocket Equities and Options Report is a newsletter you should try. Tommy O'Brien delivers options and equity trades when the markets present them, using a combination of fundamentals and technicals. Sign up for Rocket Equities and Options Report today with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to risk. For all the details and to start your subscription today, visit the front page of TFNN.com, TFNN Educating Investors. Everything in the universe is governed by the Fibonacci sequence. This mathematical principle is responsible for everything, from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market. To stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of, sign up for the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter at TFNN.com. When you subscribe, you'll get a weekly report from Veteran Day Trader Larry Pezzavento on stocks you need to pay attention to, and you can trust Larry's analysis. After all, he's got 45 years' experience as a day trader. Larry will also provide daily charts, videos, and data on the key markets that he's tracking. Expect notifications from Larry on market movement you need to act on at any time. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. Subscribe to the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter today, TFNN.com, Educating Investors. Steve Rhodes started his trading career as a student almost 20 years ago, and the student has now become the master. Steve won the prestigious Timer of the Year award in 2018 and barely missed that mark again in 2019, finishing at number two for the year. An amazing accomplishment. Steve Rhodes is committed to sharing his techniques and knowledge with anyone who wants to learn, and he shares his vast amount of trading knowledge every day in his Mastering Probability newsletter. Steve's award-winning newsletter, Mastering Probability, is delivered every trading day with updates throughout the afternoon. Sign up for Steve's market newsletter, Mastering Probability, and you'll receive access to seven of Steve's educational webinars absolutely free. At TFNN, all our newsletters come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Visit TFNN.com and try Mastering Probability 30 days risk-free today. TFNN, Educating Investors. This portion of the morning market kickoff is brought to you by Directions' daily leveraged and inverse ETFs. Whether you're a bull or a bear, you choose the direction. Visit Direction.com. Investing in the funds involves significant risk and should only be utilized by investors who understand the impact of leverage and actively monitor their portfolio. They are not designed to track the underlying index or security for more than a day. Before investing, carefully consider a fund's investment objective, risk, charges, and expenses contained in the prospectus available at Direction.com. Read carefully. Distributor, Foresight Fund Services, LLC. Welcome back, folks. We have the S&P Futures up by one right now, NASDAQ 100, slightly in the red. We got the Dow up by 33, and we got our man, Mike, from Selmaville on the line, Mike. Good Wednesday morning. What's happening, man? All right, Tommy, first of all, I have to ask you one question. I'm listening to The Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers. Have you ever heard of it? Have you ever listened to it? You know, I bet I've listened to it. I'm horrible with names of songs. But, of course, I know Kenny Rogers. The first son, his father told him, don't do what he's done his whole life, and at the end, he kicked the crap out of the Gatlin boys in a bar because they did something bad to his girlfriend. Listen to that song, everyone. That is an awesome song. I love it. Great life lesson right there. The Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers. The Coward of the County. I'm going to check it out at 10 o'clock when I get off the air, man. I'll rock it out with Tommy Jr., man. We'll play some good tunes. We'll have a dance party. How about it? The Coward of the County, and then he kicked the crap out of the Gatlin boys in the bar again, three of them. All right? So there you go. You got to love it, man. You got to love it. All right. So let's get the stocks down. All right. Number one, Eric stayed in Oracle, and I did. Oh, thank goodness. Going to earnings. Okay. Congratulations. More power to you, Mr. O'Connell. Believe me, I was thinking about you guys, and, you know, listen, I'm just giving you my best take, and that was not the best take that day, man, Oracle. Those are some numbers. They got quite a backlog. Well, Tommy, you didn't say anything, buddy. There's nothing about you. You gave us the parameters, buddy. That's all you did, buddy. Well, I'm happy to hear it, because, of course, you guys were on my mind. So I'm happy to hear it. Thanks for the update, because, boy, that was quite a move, man. No, no, no. You didn't say anything, buddy. You give me update, and we make our own decisions about it. That's it. I love it. I love it. So where are we going to next, man? What do you got on you? New York City Bank, because Eric's mad gambler, and he's in there right now. Hey, listen, risk reward, you know. I mean, if you're willing to risk the $3.44 that's trading out right now, OK, you know, you got Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, right? He put in a ton of money into that bank. He's probably a reasonable fellow that is making a reasonable wager with a risk reward proposition. That's one side of the things. The other side of the things, though, is this chart just looks like an absolute mess, man. Right? What did I mean? When Mnuchin put that billion dollars into there, they were losing something like 7% of their deposits over the period of last, like month, six weeks to the beginning of the year, something like that. You know, this one's a tough one, man. You know, it's the thing that worries me about this, Mike, right? Is that when they took over signature, which was a year ago, almost to the day, which is remarkable right now. It was March 17th was a Friday and they made it happen over the weekend. In March 20th, we came back and supposedly everything was fine. I don't know why everything was so rosy and why, you know, the Fed would allow this bank to take over troubled assets if within 12 months all the stories are getting written that they were in trouble themselves, which just makes me worry a bit. You know, as in what don't, you know, it's very hard to get into the fundamentals of a bank like that. And when you go back, not even 12 months ago, they were supposed to be one of the ones that were strong enough to absorb some of those assets. I remember that, Tom. I remember like a year ago, they were like, they were like the Dowling New York City Bank. Listen, we thought they all got a deal and a half. That stock was at six dollars on that Friday. And by the time you got into August, it was at 14 and you opened on the Monday at eight, nine. You know, the stock popped 40 percent over the weekend, Mike, when they bought those signature bank assets. Right. So it's like you can't quite believe what's going on, because boy, it seems like they shouldn't go back to below where they were prior to buying those assets. They were supposed to be the ones that kind of had the strength, right? A strong bank, New York Community Bank, they come in, they pick up some of the assets of a troubled bank. They get a little bit of a bargain for taking that risk. The banking sector gets saved. They trade to 14 bucks. But then all this stuff comes out. Well, back it up. We already knew that commercial real estate was a problem a year ago, right? We already knew that. We already knew that people were working from home. We knew that the mark to market on some commercial properties were going to be an issue if they come up for getting those loans refinanced. And then I'm hearing all these articles written about the rent regulations that got passed in New York, right? That affected so many of their banks. Well, the market knew that a year ago. So where was that conversation, if they were the darling, like you're talking about? Because it seems like everyone now is saying, oh, well, this is because of the law that got passed in 2019, which made it difficult for the rent, regulated properties, which they are hugely into. So I think they got an issue, man. And I don't know how they get out of it. And I don't have a deep enough understanding of their fundamentals. But, you know, listen, risk reward wise, you know you're going to get some huge volatile moves on this equity, right? You know what's going to happen. So if you're looking for some volatility, I can understand it. And again, just make sure that the money you're playing with is some risk capital because they're losing 7% of their deposits. Go for it. Can I say one thing, please? Please, tell me, go for it, please. All right, listen. This is why I want you to know this, buddy. I can do three hours of research or I can call Tommy O'Brien and I can get all of that in frigging three minutes. You see what I'm saying, buddy? You make my morning, Mike. Buddy, you're an encyclopedia, buddy. I'm shocked. You are amazing, buddy. You and Mr. O'Connell, you got to keep calling with those earnings plays when we're coming into some of those earnings events, all right? Keep us abreast with what you got going on. And you know, listen, you're not the only one looking. Just be careful. I will, Mike, have a great morning, man. Always appreciate the call. Good to hear your voice, man. All right, go. Take care. Yeah, we'll see what happens with New York Community Bank, but it is pretty wild, right? That they were the darling, they were the savior, they come in, this stock trades from $10 when the banking sector had a problem to begin 2023, as in, you know, no problem. The problems start to surface, right? Silicon Valley Bank has issues. Signature Bank has issues. All the banks with the whole to maturity securities on their balance sheet, we actually figure out that, guess what? They're actually worth nothing because their assets on their balance sheet aren't real assets because they're not being marked to market because you do not have to mark to market them. When you hold those securities to maturity, well, guess what? That doesn't play if you get a run on the bank. And so this stock trades from $10 down to $6. They buy signature, you pop up to $8.75 the next day, you drive up to $14. And since then it's been a one-way trip down to $3.44. And just for a little bit of correlation in terms of what happened indeed. This action that happened a week ago, okay? News comes out that they're trying to raise capital. The market says, oh man, they're really in trouble if they're trying to raise capital. Stock dives down to a $1.70. News comes out that they've actually secured that capital. Okay? They've secured that capital. You spike up to $4.50, you give it up in no time. We're trading at $3.46, which is right basically where you were coming into that. They have to stem the deposits. That's the big issue. They're losing 7% of their deposits. And once you reach a point that people like your depositors are saying, you know what? It's just not worth it to keep my money in this bank because I'm not getting a real advantage for being with this bank versus being with a competitor. When it seems like the likelihood that they go BK and I have to go through the process. And they're gonna get their money back, folks, okay? People are gonna get their money back, but it still doesn't mean that they're not gonna take it out just to avoid the nuisance almost of having to deal with that even if they think they're getting their money back. But yeah, can they turn it around? Of course they can. You know, if you're willing to risk everything you got in there. There's no such thing as a stop on an equity like that when you could be at zero in no time. Mike, thanks so much for the call. Stay tuned, folks. We're coming back for the market open. Don't go away. Are you ready to take charge of your financial future? TFNN is your gateway to the world of trading and investing. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, TFNN empowers traders and investors of all skill levels with top-notch investing systems, strategies, and techniques. It's time to protect and grow your money with insight you can trust. Join us live Monday through Friday during market hours for exclusive content that moves with the markets. At TFNN, we bring the trading floor to you. Our seasoned hosts are here to answer your calls and questions live on the air. Check out the Tiger's Den for just $1 and follow us on YouTube and become part of our vibrant community. And remember, at TFNN, we're so confident in the value we provide that we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new premium newsletters, subscriptions, and services. You have absolutely nothing to risk, so why wait? Tune in live to Tiger TV and transform your trading journey because when you know better, you invest better. Join us and experience the difference today. TFNN, educating investors. Currencies, commodities, and bond markets are as important as ever right now with how they're driving the volatility in equity markets across the globe, which is why it's a great time to try out Teddy Kegstad's Tiger Forex Report. Teddy Kegstad breaks down the Forex markets every Monday using his 30-plus years of experience as a trading veteran of futures, forex, stocks, and options. Teddy releases his weekly Tiger Forex Report every Monday morning with coverage of all the major currency pairs, including the Dollar Index, the Euro Dollar, Pound Dollar, Dollar Swiss, Dollar Yen, as well as many more, and he also has weekly coverage of the crude oil market and the 30-year T-bonds as they both influence forex markets tremendously. When you sign up for the Tiger Forex Report, you also gain instant access to Teddy's 60-minute webinar archive. He just hosted Forex Strategies and Fundamentals, What is Behind the Tiger Forex Report. For all the details and to start your 30-day Tiger Forex Report subscription today, visit the front page of TFNN.com. TFNN, educating investors. Are you ready to take your trading to the next level? Introducing Tom O'Brien's award-winning newsletter, Market Insights, your key to successful active trading. Tom O'Brien, renowned for his expertise in the financial markets, has designed Market Insights to be your daily guide to profitable trades. Tom publishes his daily Market Insights newsletter every market day before the market open, along with updates when warranted. Stay ahead of the game with Tom's real-time analysis and trade recommendations delivered straight to your inbox. Whether you're a seasoned trader or just starting out, Market Insights provides the edge you need to navigate the markets with confidence. Ready to join the ranks of successful traders? Head over to TFNN.com and subscribe to Market Insights today. Don't miss out on this opportunity to supercharge your trading results. Market Insights comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee for all new subscribers, so you have nothing to risk. Don't miss out on this opportunity to revolutionize your trading game. Head over to TFNN.com right now to join the thousands of traders who have already experienced the power of Tom O'Brien's award-winning newsletter, Market Insights firsthand. TFNN, Educating Investors. Don't forget, you can listen to TFNN live on your mobile device 24 hours per day. Go to TFNN.com and hit Watch Tiger TV. That's TFNN.com and hit Watch Tiger TV. Welcome, folks. We get the markets open. You're looking at an S&P, basically flat to the tick right now, trading at $52.41. We get the Nasdaq 100, slightly in red territory. You get the Dow right now, slightly in the positive and the Russell flat as well. Bitcoin, $73,300, quite a price tag. And how about crude? Drive-in higher, $79.42 for the price of crude. We hit a low of $76.79 earlier this week. Yeah, we got a couple of articles up there in crude. Pretty interesting when you take a look at the price action here. You jump over to Bloomberg, first oil climbs as industry report points to falling U.S. stockpiles. So you got crude inventory sliding by 5.5 million barrels last week. That's from the American Petroleum Institute, the API. Now that is ahead of the number that we get from the government later today. I think that number's out at $10.30, if I'm not mistaken. But you have crude rising higher on the potential that we got to pull back in the inventories. You have the American Petroleum Institute reporting a 5.5 million barrel weekly slump in inventories. That would be the first drop in seven weeks if confirmed by government figures later this week. This later today, I believe that says later Wednesday. Yeah, later today. We get those numbers at $10.30, I think. Elsewhere, you had a drone attack hitting one of the biggest refineries in Russia. The latest of a slew of strikes on the country's oil processing facilities, okay? So you take that article, and then what you also have in there. So one more, we're gonna have to find it. Yeah, we'll find the second article in there. I'll have to. All right, but just talking about the potential that we maybe get a little bit of a higher crude prices. Here we go, this was the second one. And again, just an opinion piece, okay? But when you're talking about the potential here, we are coming into the summer season and you have different amounts of strategies. Now talking about that maybe we see a little bit of a spike here, okay? Investors could be caught off guard by the strength of an oil price rally this summer. That's a Morgan Stanley analyst, Martin Ratz. Yeah, he was on SquawkBox Europe this morning early. Talking of that from Morgan Stanley, his comments came as we have a little bit of a supply disruption with the drone attack we're talking about. We have the API numbers this morning. We have the government numbers, crude inventories this morning as well. But yeah, he's talking about, we get the rally in December, January, first half of February, but the last couple of weeks we've been shopping around. There's a view in this market that the non-OPEC producers can meet all the demand growth this year and therefore there is not much incremental room for OPEC oil. And that means you rely on continued OPEC cuts, okay? Now they are doing that, but people think that that dynamic for now puts a little bit of a cap on the price. We've had a good amount of spare capacity. I think the summer could be tighter than people expect, but this is the dynamic that currently exists. So that's where we'll find out where go things go. On the supply side, we're seeing a slowdown in US shale. We've seen a wobbly start in Brazil. We've seen the wobbly start in Canada. Always so interesting, especially in commodity markets where supply and demand are just everything. You start seeing disruptions in the potential of the supply of something like that. Then yeah, you could see a price spike, man. In the first quarter, inventories are flat. Then they can draw possibly quite significantly during the summer period, right? Yeah, so we'll see where they go but crude getting a little bit of action this morning. All right, we jump around to some other news events on the morning. This one's interesting. We talk about Disney occasionally. You got Jamie Dimon in there adding his two cents. The endorsing CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, in the proxy battle with Trion partners out there. And this is the statement that he's given. Okay, and it's an endorsement for Iger. It's an endorsement for not doling out more board seats to the battle that he's got with Nelson Peltz going on. Bob's a first-class executive, an outstanding leader who I've known for decades. He knows the media and the entertainment business cold. Yada, yada, yada. But he goes on to say people putting, people putting on a board unnecessarily can harm a company. I don't know why shareholders would take that risk, especially given the significant progress the company has made since Bob came back. As a Disney investor myself, folks, you know, and there's a pop for you. You got to like that. You pop to 1.13.24. They have some turnarounds to be going on. But Chappick was the problem there. And Iger's facing some heat but I think he's doing a pretty good job first thing around at turning that thing around. I mean, some of those things that come out. Do you remember the conversation we had about She-Hulk? I think they spent $250 million for She-Hulk. And yeah, they're not making more of that because why would they? Nobody even watches the show practically for $250 million, where nowadays you can make a blockbuster for $200 million that grosses billions at the box office. And meanwhile, Chappick was just going all out spending with an NA, so it goes, right? Nonetheless, you get Disney popping a bit up about three quarters percent today on that news. All right, staying with the movies. Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers did well and they're gonna do it again, man. Nintendo and Universal, they're gonna co-finance the film with the latter distributing a theatrically worldwide. Nintendo plans a new Super Mario Brothers movie. I tell you with kids in the house, folks, we got a six-year-old, we got a three-year-old. They love this movie, six-year-old especially. Tommy loves it as well. We actually have a Nintendo Switch in the household now. We play some Mario Kart. We play some Mario vs. Sonic, et cetera. Screen time, we keep it to a reasonable nature. But yeah, they're gonna come out with this movie April, 2026 in the US and many other markets globally and you're gonna see this happening more often, man. Yeah, as you talk about the Barbie movies, right? Taking toys, merchandising them, making them into movies and then you get to sell even more toys on the back heels of that. Nonetheless, that's coming down the line. All right, what else do we got going on? Let's talk a little bit of mortgages. Where's my mortgage article in here? We gotta find it. Here we go. So we got a little bit of a pullback in yield and the 30-year mortgage rate drops below 7% and we got more purchases. It's that related. The contract rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage decreased 18 basis points, the biggest decline in three months, 6.84% in the weekend in March 8th. Now we've had a little bit of a reverberation since then, but nonetheless, you get the mortgage index of mortgage applications, okay? Increased 4.7% to a four-week high of 147.70. You can see how you get dips in this line in terms of where you are on the 30-year, you get rises in the index of mortgage applications for purchases and yeah, it is interesting how you come down the line where we're now approaching the area where the market's pretty sure the Fed's gonna be cutting in June or July. And if that's the case, where do rates go from here? Where does the housing market go from here? And we will find out, but nonetheless, we get a little bit of a spike right there. Yeah, the MBA survey uses responses from mortgage bankers, commercial banks, and thrifts and has been conducted weekly since 1990. The data covers more than 75% of all retail residential mortgage applications in the US. All right, and this one's an interesting one, man. Nope, that's not the one I was talking about, excuse me. There it is, this one. Gold medalist coders build an AI that can do their job for them. This company, 10 people, folks, 10 people, all right? I was listening to Sam Altman the other day and they were having conversations about, he's talking about that in his group chat of probably billionaire tech CEOs, right? Some type of group chat that he's got with other CEO tech industry titans, okay? That they have kind of running wagers right now of who's gonna be the first person to build a billion-dollar company by themselves because AI can do so much that you already have these companies that are gonna be 10, 20-person companies, they're gonna be billion-dollar companies, but who's gonna be the first person to actually do it all and do it in a one-person entity because it's doing so much and this gets pretty close. When I read this, you got 10 people, man. 10 people, 10-person staff, okay? There's split in time between Airbnbs and Silicon Valley and home offices. They just raised $21 million from Peter Thiel and yeah, they're just automating programming, man. You're not gonna have to program anymore. That's their business, pretty remarkable. Stay tuned, folks. We're coming back with our man, Teddy Kegstad. We'll be back in three minutes, don't go away. Are you ready to take charge of your financial future? TFNN is your gateway to the world of trading and investing. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, TFNN empowers traders and investors of all skill levels with top-notch investing systems, strategies, and techniques. It's time to protect and grow your money with insight you can trust. Join us live Monday through Friday during market hours for exclusive content that moves with the markets. At TFNN, we bring the trading floor to you. Our seasoned hosts are here to answer your calls and questions live on the air. Check out the Tiger's Den for just $1 and follow us on YouTube and become part of our vibrant community. And remember, at TFNN, we're so confident in the value we provide that we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new premium newsletter, subscriptions, and services. You have absolutely nothing to risk, so why wait? Tune in live to Tiger TV and transform your trading journey because when you know better, you invest better. Join us and experience the difference today. TFNN, educating investors. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks, and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at TFNN.com. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices. Get the opening call newsletter by Basil Chapman in your inbox every day. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know, and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. TFNN.com, educating investors. For traders who crave risk, directions daily leveraged and inverse ETFs provide opportunities to magnify short-term perspectives with up to three times a daily leverage, utilize bull and bear funds from both sides of the trade and trade through rapidly changing markets. These are highly leveraged ETFs with daily resetting designed for short-term trading, not long-term investing. Whether you're a bull or a bear, you choose the direction. For up-to-date pricing and performance, go to direction.com. Investing in the funds involves significant risk and should only be utilized by investors who understand the impact of leverage and actively monitor their portfolio. They are not designed to track the underlying index or security for more than a day before investing carefully consider a fund's investment objective, risk, charges, and expenses contained in the prospectus available at direction.com. Read carefully. Distributor, foresight fund services, LLC. This program is brought to you by Vista Gold. Trade it on the NYSE American and TSX under the symbol VGZ. Back folks, we have the S&P Futures, negative price action just by four points. We're trading at 52.37. And folks, we're gonna jump over and talk to our man, Teddy Kegstad, as we do every Wednesday at 40 past the hour. You can check out Teddy's outstanding Tiger Forex report, folks. He puts that out weekly, Monday mornings, updates throughout the week when warranted. You can check that out right under the newsletter tab on the front page of TFNN. You hit subscribe. You can sign up for $97 a month, folks. It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Okay, you subscribe. You get it for 30 days. If it's not something you think that is, you know, you're gonna keep for whatever reason, you cancel it, you get a money-back guarantee. You can't go wrong and don't forget he's got a couple of outstanding webinars under the services tab as well. Whether you're talking about capitalizing on time with calendar stock option spreads or Japanese candlestick pattern stock and option strategies, check those out as well at $97 under the services tab, and let's jump into it. Teddy Kegstad, good morning. Good morning, Tommy. So we got a little bit of a hot CPI number yesterday. We have yields rising a little bit. It seems like the conversation persists, Teddy, as where does the Fed go from here? Are they gonna give us the cuts that the market thinks in every time? It seems like this inflation presses on. And again, we look forward into the market, but the market rising a little bit, what's your take kind of maybe on the heels of that CPI number yesterday, just some of the action that we have chopping around in this market? Well, you know, from unemployment to CPI really, once again, just reinforces what I've been saying for a year now is that the economic numbers really are gonna be the drivers for direction when it comes to yields especially. I mean, you saw Friday unemployment, it ticked up just slightly higher, which we know the Fed wants. That would move them towards cutting rates sooner than later if employment goes up. So that was favorable for the trade on Friday. We saw the US dollar get hit and they really pressed the move going into Friday. And there was a lot of sell signals and buy signals that were triggered in a bunch of different currency pairs. And in the Tiger Forex report, I pointed out that we had this unemployment number that helped surge the dollar weakness, but we had CPI that was ahead of us. And I'm like, you have to be careful. We're either at a point where the market's gonna accelerate the trend or we're coming, because we were hitting key support and resistance levels going into Friday's close. That being said, CPI counterweighted what happened on Friday's unemployment number. And it puts us back into the inflationary trend, not to mention we know the crude is once again pressing resistance and fundamentals obviously are bearish or excuse me, are bullish for crude. Our technicals have been bullish for crude. We've been talking about that now for weeks, although slight and gradual, they have been bullish, higher move highs and higher move lows. So I think that in the inflationary environment is something we really have to key off of because like look at the Swiss, since Friday, basically even including Friday, it's been caught in a half a dollar range. It's one of the few currencies that has stayed pretty much static in the midst of a lot of volatility on Friday and also yesterday. I mean, if you wanna talk about some individual markets and some levels, like we can talk with that one, but I think you really have to watch any inflationary indicators that could push yields higher because right now I think that, for instance, like unemployment showed us that if you have just the smallest amount that looks deflationary or the Fed is going to cut, wow, what a move you're gonna get. It was barely a tick up in unemployment that caused yields to drop significantly. Then we have reinforcement of the trend which is higher inflation with the CPI bump in yesterday and look at what it's done, how it could easily pull back that excessive trend as what was leading into Friday into the new week. So and I think that we really have to be cognizant of that one and the fact that the Swiss has gone sideways. I mean, there's no real big breakout and look at what's happened to the US dollar yen, the balance they've had over the past couple of sessions. What is that related to? Obviously higher crude prices and the CPI number, meaning that the Fed is not going to loosen at least until June. If I think it's pretty solid now, that June for sure is the soonest that they're gonna loosen. And I think it's now looking more towards if we have even any more inflationary spikes of any kind that you're gonna see it pushed out towards mid-summer, maybe even the end of the summer. I appreciate the take, man. And yeah, I agree with a lot of what you said and it is pretty remarkable that it seems like every time we have these conversations, the market says, we're gonna be there in two or three months and then you get forward two or three months in data and over those two or three months, the market says we need to wait a little bit longer because the data is just not there. And here we are again, and I completely agree that we got a Fed meeting folks one week from today, of course, March 20th, we'll see, we get a new dot plot, we'll see what Chairman Powell has to say just about all that data that you kind of gave us some conflicting data in there. And they're not looking for conflicting data. And that's the problem, right? They're looking for a little bit of clarity. And I think we're all kind of finding out as time marches on that that clarity is a little bit tougher to come by, especially when you talk about getting back down to 2%. It's remarkable how we've kind of shifted back to the beginning of the conversation. I was doing this in my own head recently, Teddy, just even just as the data you were talking about, we said, this is what everybody talked about, man. We're stuck between two and four, right? We're stuck at two, you know, but at 3.5, inflation has gotten pretty sticky between three and four. Of course, you could go from 8% to 4%, but what's gonna happen when you gotta go from four to three and you gotta go from three to two. And we're right in that right now, and boy, it seems like it's pretty difficult. The market keeps getting ahead of itself, but yeah, and then you gotta reverberate when that data comes in. Yeah, where do you wanna jump around? Let's jump around to some of the individual ones if you can. You referenced some of them, but where do you wanna kick things off? All right, well, let's talk about the US dollar yen because I know that is something I know you guys like. All right, so Friday said a nice little, you know, we are coming down on some nice support. Obviously the trend is higher move highs, higher move lows. It was a nice corrective move that I think ended as of Friday. Reason being that with crude right now pushing, you know, up towards where we're gonna probably get into the $80 level and also with yields, as long as yields stay static to potentially getting higher, I can't see why you can't be a bull for the US dollar. Yeah, and I'd be buying, we were talking about this last week about it's a buy-break situation. And that was before they had the really big slide into unemployment. We had just broken out to the downside last week. The numbers helped to really, and that's the other thing, once again, exacerbating the move on Friday because of unemployment and that spiked low. Now, one thing I remember is being a bond trader for so long, you know, since, you know, 1990 is that unemployment is one of the biggest numbers of the month, no matter what for the interest rate market. I don't care if it's when the Fed is planning on doing anything, what stage the economy is or whatever, sometimes unemployment is a non-event. Nothing happens really, nothing. Just, and then all of a sudden it's a dead Friday. It means the only game in town is the S&Ps. But then you have days like last Friday where you have such an exacerbation of trend that you have spikes then. And it's really, you know, like on a day like Friday, going into the close, you'd be like, how can you buy the bond market on a day like that? You know, especially like, we don't know what's gonna happen on CPI. Well, I'm not saying always fade that move, but historically that does happen a lot. And then when it gets confirmed with a counter number like we had where we had, you know, bullish, you know, one way and negative, the other way between the two numbers, that solidifies that bounce. And that's what we have going on in the US dollar yen right now, especially with the uptick and crude, you know, and we're still below the 150 levels. See right now the yen is trading now at what, 147.84. We're two dollars below the critical number that the BOJ doesn't like. So we know that right now, even though the BOJ is probably gonna start to do something eventually, we know that, but you know, two weeks ago, the market was going sideways where it was trading above 150. You're wondering, is the BOJ gonna intervene today on any given moment? You don't know. Now we're two and a half dollars lower until we get back above 150. I think there's no risk of BOJ intervention now. You know what I mean? So we should see it, you know, get back above 150 and then we'll have a nice conversation then. Can you hang with us through the break? Sure. Perfect. We'll finish it up. We'll do a couple of the currencies, folks. We'll take a look at that crude market one more time with Teddy when we get back. Stay tuned. We'll be back in three minutes. Don't go away, folks. The Gold Report. As a precious metal, gold is still king. It continues to hold the most effective safe haven and hedging properties across the global major trading hubs of the London OTC market, the US futures market, and the Shanghai Gold Exchange. The Gold Report. Tom O'Brien publishes his weekly gold report every Monday morning for subscribers, consisting of coverage of the XAU, HUI, GDX, the dollar, bonds, the South African RAND, as well as 25 different mining equities with specific buy-sell recommendations. The Gold Report. New subscribers get a 30-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to risk. Subscribe to Tom O'Brien's Gold Report newsletter now. At TFNN.com. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks, and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at TFNN.com. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices. Get the opening call newsletter by Basil Chapman and your inbox every day. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. TFNN.com, educating investors. The reality is that navigating financial markets can be risky. Markets can be chaotic and difficult to understand. Having the latest market advice can help you turn this chaos into a key for creating winning trades. At TFNN, we understand that it can be hard to find reliable market news. That's why each of our market experts offers their very own market newsletter. They must have tool for every trader out there striving to find an edge in today's markets. TFNN newsletters cover every aspect of the markets so you can analyze the market before you trade. Try any of our great newsletters risk-free with our 30-day money-back guarantee. Just visit the newsletters tab on the front page of TFNN.com. TFNN, educating investors. Don't forget, you can listen to TFNN live on your mobile device 24 hours per day. Go to TFNN.com and hit Watch Tiger TV. That's TFNN.com and hit Watch Tiger TV. Folks, we got the S&Ps off by eight points right now. You have markets slightly in the red, NASDAQ 100, your pod, negative by about 129. That's a slide of about seven-tenths percent. We're on the line with our man, Teddy Kegstad. We're talking some currencies. And yeah, that's quite, when you look at that yen, Teddy, I appreciate the take gold, of course, really reacting to the yen. But are there any other currencies you want to jump through in the final for a few minutes as we wrap up the program? Sure, why don't we talk about the British pound, US dollar, Tyler? Okay. They got anything going on in the tabloids over there in Britain recently? No, go ahead. No, you know what I think right now it's more of a technical trade than anything. What we did have nicely last week was we broke out to the upside. The market had been wedging and consolidating for the past few months. We've made a nice high or move high. We've exploded into unemployment. And once again, spiking high in the pound, US dollar. We had an upside target of the 2865 level, which it pierced through that last Friday. And then it fell back over the past few sessions. So right now I think that the trend, obviously, is broken out to the upside. So with this long sideways range trade that we've had has helped to press the bull, but it's a sleeping bull. It's not a very aggressive one. It's waiting for yields to show a sign that they're going to pull back sharply. So and right now I think that's what we have to watch is the yield. So let's say that over the next couple of sessions, like we don't really have any economic numbers now. We have Fed Day coming up next week. So it's very likely that we've set the high of the range or the low of the range from Friday going into the meeting, meaning now that we're going to start chopping around and find a median, and we're going to start narrowing our trade going into next week's meeting. The reason I say that is the Swiss is the biggest indicator. If all these currencies made these moves with interest because of the interest rate moves, because of the numbers on Friday and also Tuesday and the Swiss state static, that means they're really waiting on the Fed meeting. And they're a base currency. Like when they go flat line and the other ones are jiggling. That's when you know, unless that thing starts to move, the rest are coming back to a median. It's very odd or rare that they would really have an exacerbated trend when that one is trendless. And I think that's a nice indicator for you. That's some great, great information, man. That's some great experience. I'm sure we're talking. And I appreciate it. And I know the listeners do as well. Teddy, thanks so much, man. And we'll talk to you on Fed Day next Wednesday. I look forward to it. Sounds good. Take care, Tyler. All right, take care. Folks, thanks so much for tuning in. Stay tuned. Basil Chapman's up next.