Why 2026 rhymes with 2008 when it comes to deflation
Why a new T3 Live contributor is saying the ‘crowd’ noise’ is different than what the market is saying I’m not saying 2026’s setup is similar to 2008’s. I’m saying it’s exactly the same. The crowd is shouting again. It’s shouting about inflation — the same way it shouted in 2007 and 2008. And just like back then, the market is whispering something else entirely. After almost two decades in this trading and investing game, I’ve come to accept that winning in the markets is a choice. You show up regularly, you practice with intention, and you execute your plan on game day — no different from winning at anything else. But the first thing you have to choose is who you listen to: the crowd, or the market. They’re rarely saying the same thing. My 2008 story of using vegetable oil for fuel… because the ‘crowd’ said to When I first started trying to operate in the stock market back in 2007, I knew none of this. I treated it as a hobby, not a profession. Hobbies cost you money; professions earn you money. My hobbyist approach cost me embarrassing amounts of both time and money. Back then, I was fresh out of college, working my first “real job” as a telephone salesman for a big tech company. The cubicle is a miserable environment — they couldn’t have invented a more sorrowful place to spend your waking hours. I saw trading stocks on the internet as a way out, and it became a mental escape more than an income stream. And those were crazy times. Crude oil was pushing through $120… Cars were a way of life for me and my friends back then — building them, racing them, buying parts for race cars and 4x4s — so we felt the looming gas shortage in our bones. Building a car was already expensive, and driving one was getting worse by the week as China bought up every commodity on the planet to pull its population out of poverty and into a middle class. We started making biodiesel out of vegetable oil and lye, because we knew — we just knew — we were only months from running out of crude and gasoline. We just knew the trucks would stop delivering and the grocery stores would empty out. We knew all of it because we were listening to the shouting. The media. The politicians. The people around us. I was learning to be a trader, and instead of listening to the deafening noise of the crowd, I should have been listening to the whisper of the market. Gold can predict the future of inflation… and it’s doing it again Here’s what I didn’t know then but know now: gold front-runs the money printing. It starts moving 18 months to two years before the central banks do. By 2008, gold, wheat, and crude had already priced in the inflation before it ever entered public awareness — and as they topped out, they began whispering what came next. Not more inflation. Deflation. The most violent deflation to wash over the money system since 1929. Gold’s four-year run from autumn 2004 to autumn 2008 looks awfully similar to its run from autumn 2022 to now. It was a deflationary bust that dragged gold down into October 2008 as the financial crisis hit: Back then, it was the fertilizers running geometrically as China bought up all the potash and nitrogen in the world. Today, it’s the hyperscalers buying up all the DRAM. Here’s $MOS then versus $MU now: This is where it gets uncomfortable. Almost no one who was warning about deflation during the 2008 top could be heard over the shouting. Home prices — and the property-tax receipts riding on them — were ratcheting higher, and we were told they always would. By the end of 2009, property taxes were slashed across the country. Homeowner’s insurance cost a fraction of what it had a year earlier. Getting work done on your house in 2006 and 2007 came with an astronomical price tag, if you could even find someone to do it. By the end of 2009, the market was flooded with contractors looking for any project at all. It’s the exact same story, repeating verbatim, today. The signs were everywhere in 2008, but they didn’t boast… Frantic road-construction projects as towns rushed to spend every last tax dollar that had come in the year before. Look around your own town — see anything similar? The social excesses, too: the Hummer H2, a beefed-up Tahoe built for suburban moms who wanted to feel like they were on patrol because the drive to the grocery store had gotten too mundane. Nothing marked the top better than that thing. Are you seeing this in your town? Now look at your streets. I’ll bet you can’t drive across town without passing two Hummer EVs. The auto industry is writing off its wasted EV capex as we speak — Honda’s just the latest. None of those signs announced themselves. The astute speculator had to watch for them and listen to the quiet voice within — the one that whispered: sell. I’m watching, and I’m listening. Being 90% long gold miners from 2023 until autumn of 2025 got me to where I am today, and I’m always hunting the next high-probability position to size into. Right now, that position is cash. My current portfolio holdings I’m in 75% cash, with about 15% in gold miners left over from my last big trade, plus small trading positions in $ATUSF, $DAC, and $FTK after peeling some off over the past few weeks. I’ve also got a small long-term hold in $VITL and a bigger one in $EPD. As long as $SPY stays below its 8- and 21-day moving averages, I’m not taking on any new breakout trades. I’ll keep what I’ve got, trail my stops, stay in the upside, and run my game plan into August 2026 — when I
Continue Reading -->The SpaceX IPO Was Boring?
We’ll skip the preambles this week. You know what you want to hear about: 1. SpaceX IPO = Boring? The SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is a hit. The deal priced at $135, and the stock opened at $150 before hitting $176+. That was a sizable move, but it felt rather almost too orderly. Just boring. I expected more back-and-forth violence because of the crazy day-one action in Cerebras (CBRS) in May, along with the presence of Elon Musk cultists, and the huge valuation assigned to SpaceX. It felt combustible. But as of 1:25 pm ET Friday, this feels like an anticlimax in terms of volatility. It’s downright boring. I picked up a whopping 10 shares of SpaceX at the offering, so I’m not complaining. Every tick higher is good for me. Now it will be interesting to see if Elon’s true believers stick with the stock and hold it up. You can get our team’s full reaction to the IPO here: 2. SpaceX Sets a Hilarious New Mark for Leveraged ETFs This morning, Defiance ETFs relaunched their Defiance Daily 2X Space ETF (SPCL), saying this: “Effective June 12, 2026, all or a predominant portion of SPCL’s Target Portfolio consists of exposure to SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX), making SPCL the world’s first and only ETF to have 2X exposure to SpaceX on IPO day. The fund’s SpaceX exposure was established at the $135 IPO price.” So we got a leveraged SpaceX ETF the same day as the IPO. And it was trading before SpaceX opened at 11:46 am ET. Based on the Defiance website, it looks like the SPCL ETF went to cash before buying 52,888 shares of SpaceX at the $135 IPO price. That’s why SPCL has a trading history. And it had a notable price and volume explosion today: It traded just 49K shares Thursday, but was at 941K on Friday as of 1:42 pm ET. However, “normal” SpaceX leveraged ETFs will hit the market soon after the SEC delayed listings to avoid mucking up the IPO. 3. SanDisk Refuses to Stop On May 29, JR Romero predicted SanDisk (SNDK) hitting $2,000. And it crossed that mark today. Close enough for government work? The stock is now up 717% year-to-date, making it the #1 stock in the S&P 500 by a long shot. The #2 name Micron (MU) is up “only” 249%: And as you can see, the leaderboard is dominated by semiconductors and tech hardware names. Because it feels like there is near-unlimited demand for AI hardware, based on recent news like: Oracle (ORCL) raising $40 billion to help fund its AI buildout Alphabet (GOOGL) selling $80 billion in equity to expland AI infrastructure Super Micro (SMCI) raising $7 billion to buy components to fill new $39 billion in AI server orders And a lot of this money is going towards flash memory, DRAM, hard drives, processors, and all the other stuff that powers AI. 4. Higher Rates? The ECB raised rates on Wednesday and traders are thinking the US will follow suit following the hot CPI and PPI reports. The market is now pricing in a mere 39.4% chance of rates remaining unchanged for the rest of 2026. This is down from 61.8% a month ago. And now the following rate hike odds are being priced in: +25 bps: 41.0% +50 bps: 15.1% +75 bps: 2.1% +100 bps: 0.1% So in total: Traders are pricing in a 58.3% chance of higher rates by year-end. Remember when we debated how many cuts we’d get? Of course, next week we get the first FOMC announcement and press conference from new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. It will be interesting to see what tone he sets to kick off his term. And if he’ll signal he will go along with President Trump’s wish for lower rates. 5. Sentiment Is Bearish? The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 30.4% of investors are bullish. This is the lowest reading since March 18, when the S&P 500 closed at 6224. It’s also the fourth straight week of below-average bullishness. AAII says the #1 concern is “the economy and/or inflation.” That makes sense given this week’s hot CPI report, plus ongoing concerns about AI taking jobs. Meanwhile, the CNN Fear & Greed Index is at just 33, squarely in the “Fear” category. So the decline from the early June highs has taken a clear toll on the mood.
Continue Reading -->SpaceX: Pro Traders React
SpaceX (SPCX) finally came public on Friday and our team gave their instant reactions: Find out: Exactly how our team is trading SpaceX Why today’s rally was a sure thing Key levels SpaceX stock needs to hold now to stay alive If “data centers in space” even make sense What made this a generational event Our favorite names And more!
Continue Reading -->Sami and JR Agree on SpaceX
The SpaceX IPO is coming. Sami Abusaad and JR Romero have the same opinion on it: Find out: Why everyone is talking about SpaceX SpaceX’ connection to the broader market How SpaceX could create more volatility Why the deal is reminiscent of Coinbase (COIN) and Facebook (now known as Meta What Anthropic and OpenAI have to do with this P.S. Want to rock the market before 7 am ET? Then check out JR Romero’s new Premarket Pit VTF®.
Continue Reading -->SpaceX-Mania Is Here. So What’s the Problem?
Stocks hit record highs this week, but tumbled after a semiconductor giant inspired a sell-off to close the week. Meanwhile, the biggest IPO of all time is about to land right on our heads: SpaceX-Mania Is Coming The SpaceX IPO is next Friday, June 12. Elon Musk’s baby will trade under the ticker SPCX. Word on the street is the deal is oversubscribed, maybe thanks to brokers like Fidelity lowering account size requirements to get on the deal. I have my order in to buy 10,000 shares. Whoops, that was a typos. It’s actually 10. As in ten. Enough to give me a thrill, but not enough to ruin my life. But after hearing JR Romero and Sami Abusaad talk about it, I’m thinking about cancelling my order: SpaceX aims to sell 555.55 million shares at $135 to raise $75 billion. That’s a target valuation of $1.75 trillion, which would give SpaceX the 8th largest market cap of any publicly-traded US company. Bigger than luminaries like Meta (META), Micron (MU), and Eli Lilly (LLY). To put that in perspective, the entire US 2025 IPO market (including SPACs and other such vehicles) was $70 billion, according to the SEC. And with AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI also coming public this year, we’re on track for a blockbuster year for IPOs. If all three companies come public, 2026 will likely sport the three biggest IPOs of all time. Saudi Aramco holds the record at $29.4 billion in its 2019 offering, which should easily be dwarfed by The Big Three. But there’s a catch. The market tends to top out in years with surges in public offerings: It happened in 2021, 2014, 2007, and 2000. Why? Likely because we get surges in offerings when capital markets conditions can’t get any better. So call me a little cautious. Speaking of Caution… First Broadcom, Now Oracle? The AI/Storage/Semi stock boom was raging out of control, until Broadcom’s (AVGO) underwhelming AI chip forecast ended the party Wednesday. AI-levered companies have been knocking the ball out of the park, so Broadcom’s disappointment felt out of nowhere. Broadcom is indeed growing like a weed. Just not fast enough for the hungry masses. And there’s no evidence it means AI demand is slowing, let alone dying. But the stakes go up on Wednesday, June 10 when software giant Oracle (ORCL) reports earnings. Oracle is a major AI player, and the market may not react well to another AI-related disappointment, no matter how small it is in the grand scheme of things. Rate Hike Odds Are Going Up Following Friday’s strong job report, traders are pricing in increasingly higher rates. Right now, the market is pricing in a 28.5% chance of rates staying the same through year-end: That’s down from 54.4% last week. Meanwhile, these are the implied odds of each level of rate hikes: Odds of one 25 bps hike are at 42.9%, up from 36.4% last week. And odds of 50 bps in hikes are at 22.5%, up from just 8.1%. I bet new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is going to have some very interesting conversations with President Trump… What Happened to Bitcoin? I’ve heard people call Bitcoin a “store of value” and “a hedge against inflation.” But it’s one of the worst asset classes of 2026, dropping 30% in a banner year for risk assets. The bulls’ last hope is a double bottom at the $60,000 area: The big question is why? Some blame the US dollar and the prospect of higher rates. I think the problem is much simpler. People saw how fast semiconductor and AI stocks were rising, and took their capital elsewhere. Look at this Bitcoin vs. SMH chart: They were very loosely correlated until last November, when they took divergent paths. One to the promised land. The other to the wasteland. Sentiment Remains Neutral The latest AAII sentiment survey shows that 36.3% of investors are bullish on stocks. This is the second straight neutral reading in a market that’s made record highs. Meanwhile, the CNN Fear & Greed Index is 50, right in the neutral zone. This is healthy to see. Because it shows some caution out there, even with stocks blasting into orbit. Or maybe not everyone caught the hot semiconductor/AI trade, which was brutally strong up until Broadcom.
Continue Reading -->The Bull Market Got Weird
This is one of the most bullish markets we’ve ever seen. But there is something weird going on: Sami goes over: What makes this bull market a bit odd How to know if there will be a reversal Why he is being more cautious A defense name with an incredible monthly chart A drone name with a very hot weekly chart 5 attractive shorts And more!
Continue Reading -->SanDisk Can Hit $2,000
JR Romero has nailed SanDisk (SNDK) over and over again in 2026. But can it hit $2,000? Yes, for the simplest reason possible: Also learn about: The unique supply-demand dynamics pushing SanDisk up Why SPX can hit 8,080 Why he shorted Dell (DELL) early today The red-hot action in software Why JR does not dabble in prediction markets And more! P.S. Want to rock the market before 7 am ET? Then check out JR Romero’s new Premarket Pit VTF®.
Continue Reading -->Dell Is Partying Like It’s 1999
The stock market hit record highs again this week as AI-mania won’t stop. And the funny thing is, the tech highflyers of the late 1990s are dominating 2026, led by names like Dell (Dell). Yes, Dell. Dell Is Partying Like It’s 1999 It’s 1999 all over again. The New York Knicks are in the NBA finals. Kids across America are wearing Doc Martens. And Del is once again a stock market darling. On Thursday after the close, Dell dropped a huge earnings beat with shocking forward guidance thanks to momentum in its AI server business. And now the stock is up 234% year-to-date, making it the 3rd best name in the S&P 500. Furthermore, look at this list of the best-performing S&P stocks: Many were late 90s dot.com favorites, including Ciena (CIEN), Texas Instruments (TXN), and NetApp (NTAP) in there. What goes around comes around. Turns out that AI is driving demand for memory, processors, and networking tools. Just like the Internet explosion did. And on a random note, I looked up what happened to JDS Uniphase, another 90s superstar. In 2015, it split into networking names Viavi Solutions (VIAV) and Lumentum Holdings (LITE). Both are AI monsters, up well over 100% this year: The Software Short Squeeze Software has made a massive rebound from the April lows, when the “AI will eat software” theme caught fire. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) is now up 29% from its 52-week low on April 10. And interestingly, the average individual name in IGV is up a whopping 65% from its 52-week low. Some examples: D-Wave Quantum (QBTS): +133% Datadog (DDOG): +133% Palo Alto Networks (PANW): +84% Oracle (ORCL): +51% ServiceNow (NOW): +34% And interestingly, it looks like the software rally was at least partly a short squeeze. Of the 106 stocks in IGV: 30 have short interest over 10% 75 have short interest over 5% And because of heavily shorted individual names like SoundHound (SOUN) and MARA Holdings (MARA), the average stock has short interest of 8.9%. For comparison, the average QQQ name has short interest of just 3.4%. Remember Rate Cuts? Seems like just yesterday we were thinking about how many times the Fed would cut rates in 2026. But the CME’s FedWatch tool shows traders are now pricing in a 0% chance of rate cuts until July 2027. So presumably, the market does not believe new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh will automatically cut rates as President Trump wants. Today’s PCE Price Index Report showed that inflation accelerated for the 3rd straight month to 3.8%. Excluding food and energy, it rose 3.3%. Because everything is more expensive. Oil, imports, insurance, healthcare, etc. No wonder consumer confidence is in the dumps. The Bulls Are Not That Bulled Up The $SPX just hit a new record high at 7565, but are investors euphoric? Nope. The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that just 35.6% of investors are bullish. This is the 2nd straight week of below-average bullishness. Meanwhile, CNN’s Fear & Greed Index is at 61/100, showing modest greed. However, the options market is showing elevated bullishness. The CBOE equity put-call ratio was just 0.43 Wednesday, which shows low demand for puts. But add it up, and it’s hard to say sentiment is anywhere near euphoric.
Continue Reading -->SWMR: Up 100%, What’s Next?
Two weeks ago David Prince told us Swarmer (SWMR) was finally at a buyable level. The stock was trading under $27 at the time… and this morning it hit $60. A 122% move! David explains what he sees next for this name and the broader drone space: David also covers: Why “management is everything” for the SWMR story What’s next for chip stocks like AMD, SNDK and NVDA If this week’s AI news changes the future for META Why he likes ORCL here Whether quantum stocks like IONQ and INFQ can keep going higher Why he believes you shouldn’t “marry” stocks And more! Apply to work with David inside the Inner Circle VTF® now.
Continue Reading -->I Love This Rotten Shoe Stock
Nike (NKE) is down 30% year-to-date, making it one of the worst names in the market. But Sami Abusaad likes it. And in a major surprise with Sami, it’s not about the chart alone: Sami shares: What could create a double top in the market Why the semis may have topped out What he likes about Nike 2 software names he likes A solar name with a phenomenal setup A class of financial names that look sloppy across the board And more!
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