January 13, 2026

Three Thoughts:

• The market selling JPMorgan Chase and Delta following solid results and decent guidance tells us what we already knew: high prices = high expectations.

• If an Adobe downgrade is enough to punish all the favorite SaaS names, these are not names we want to be buying (yet). Especially with retail sentiment remaining positive on many of them due to valuation.

• Crypto is finally waking up. Short-term momentum remains intact, but crypto still has to prove itself to more intermediate- and long-term trend followers.

Two Charts:

#1 Bitcoin has broken out in the short-term. After bears failed to break the “bear flag” pattern following Bitcoin’s initial decline, prices stabilized and formed a trading range between 84.5k and 95k. That range is now broken to the upside, signaling a renewal of near-term momentum and a potential retest of the ~110k area. My thesis for “why” this could be happening is that Gold/Silver/precious metals prices are getting too expensive and margins are too high, causing a rotation into other “debasement trade” assets like Bitcoin. In the near-term, momentum is intact, but the real test will be whether Bitcoin can reclaim 110k and Ethereum 4k to confirm that the intermediate-term trend has shifted back to the upside and that a test of new highs is in the cards.

I’ve been looking for this crypto move for a couple of weeks now, so I’m already long 3 $BMNR Feb 35/40 call spreads for $1.05 each and sitting on a little profit. I’m also long $ASST via 5 June $2 strike calls at $0.09 per contract and 6 June $2.5 strike calls at $0.08. Overall, this is about 2% of my portfolio, so I may look to add more direct Bitcoin or crypto exposure if we pull back towards 90k and 3k in Ethereum. I also have 5 ORBS April 5/10 call spreads for $0.25, but we don’t talk about those. 😬 A yolo trade gone bad.

#2 taking an interest in Indonesia. I was doing a quick review of international equity ETFs, and the theme was clear: lagging markets continue to play catch-up… we are in a global bull market, after all. As such, Indonesia could be next as it pressed up against resistance near $19. A close above $19.50-ish is needed to confirm the breakout, but given what we’re seeing elsewhere, I think it’s not a matter of if, it’s when. Unfortunately, the options chains for this vehicle are illiquid, so I won’t be playing it, but I may look for any ADRs or correlated options to get exposure to this market.

One Trade Idea: A leveraged bet on Bitcoin garbage catching a bid.

I’m a bit pressed for time and finishing this at the airport, so this trade idea is gonna work off the crypto market improvement discussed above. Strategy has been on my radar as a mean-reversion play ever since momentum began diverging, and it has stabilized above its former breakout area near $160-$190. Given this week’s action, I think we’ve seen enough to suggest that this mean-reversion thesis is valid and in motion.

A close below $155 would invalidate this bullish momentum divergence and recent upside momentum, leaving about 20 points of downside from current levels. With that said, I do think prices can get up toward $300 over the coming months if crypto really catches a bid, so there’s enough reward potential to get involved here.

My struggle with this trade construction is that implied volatility is relatively low (IV Rank is currently 27), so I don’t really want to buy a spread here. But I also don’t want to be long a ton of premium in expensive options for a speculative bet. I also think we need a few months for this to play out to its full potential. So my initial thought is buy the MSTR May 250/315 call spread for about $5.00. My problem is this would only give me a net delta of about 0.13 per contract and will cap my upside if this trade really starts working (especially if my PT occurs well before expiration).

I could buy the $250 strike calls outright for about $10. With a delta of 0.27, my stop loss for this trade would result in about a 40%-60% loss depending on where volatility is at the time. Not terrible, but to buy two contracts and have flexibility to adjust the position as it starts working/pulling back, I’ll need to allocate 10% of my total portfolio to this one trade. And a 50% loss on 10% of my portfolio is a max risk of about 5% of my portfolio.

The cheapskate in me wants to buy the spread, but I think the better trade is just owning the 0.27 delta calls outright for about $10 if I can get them. Then, if the trade starts working, I can lock in some profits around breakeven by selling an upside call near my price target of ~300.

I don’t think I’ll actually put this trade on, so I won’t figure this out right now. But as I board my flight, if you have suggestions on how you’d structure this trade, please send them my way!

End: Traveling for a work conference Wednesday-Friday, so no promises on posts here. I will catch up this weekend and share my trading plan, current portfolio, and “bigger picture” outlook.