To catch the wave, you’ve got to be in the water – Just don’t forget the leash, time to don the trader hat?
Valuations are getting torched — and suddenly, a lot of quality names are starting to look flat-out cheap.
This is when you sharpen the pencil and lock in. Yeah, this will pass — they always do. But sitting out one of the fastest, most brutal repricings of the modern era? That’d be a serious miss, assuming you’ve got the liquidity, the patience, and the time horizon. This is how real positions get built — quietly, while everyone else is losing their mind.
The problem is recency bias. The headlines are still screaming peak panic, but let’s zoom out — we’re barely in Act I of the tariff negotiation saga. Trump’s playing hardball in front of the cameras, but let’s be honest… he wrote the playbook on fake walkaways. The “no-deal” noise? Pure negotiation theater.
A few folks got bold once the market priced in five Fed cuts — that flipped the entire risk-reward for anyone paying attention. Layer in the political pressure to roll back tariffs and what you’ve got is a macro setup shifting toward reset, not collapse. If the Fed even winks, or Trump signals a tactical retreat, this isn't a doom loop. It’s a re-rate in disguise.
And I’ve lived through this before. I was trading during Lehman. Everyone expected a bailout by Friday. Then: radio silence. Monday? Total Luna Negra. But by that Friday, the pivot rumors started flying, and the tape bounced hard. That’s how quickly the story can flip when liquidity hits the system.
Tonight? Stay nimble. Tight stops.( in either direction) Clean entries. If we get another Wile E. Coyote air-drop, you're covered. But the strategy remains — rinse and repeat. Nibble the dip, manage the risk, stay close to the tape. One dovish whisper from the Fed or a tariff tweak from the White House and these oversold levels vanish fast.
You’ve got to be in the water to catch the wave — just don’t forget the leash.
Author
Stephen Innes
SPI Asset Management
With more than 25 years of experience, Stephen has a deep-seated knowledge of G10 and Asian currency markets as well as precious metal and oil markets.
