• Monday-Friday: We've got Fed Presidents speaking all over the place.  Just look at calendar and expect one of them to go off script and the news to pick it up with a fun headline.  JPow on Monday and Wednesday.

• That happened!  JPow came in with quite a hawkish tone at his 12pm conference today - cnbc.com/2022/03/21/powell-say... 
• I wasn't expecting that kind of tone from him, but as I said...somebody was going to go off script this week - and it's only Monday.  He took a tougher line on inflation than his FOMC speech, mentioned 0.50% hikes as possible (needed, in my opinion), and the market was caught off guard.
• The QQQ went from 351 to 346 in minutes - tech will get punished the most by rate hikes.  SPY went 446 to 440.
• In no surprise to anybody, the QQQ/SPY recovered almost all of it by end of day. Bulls are running right now...
• Trade: Speaking of which, my overnight hold on $QQQ puts went poorly.  I sold the initial pop in the morning (high of day) just before it jumped off a cliff.  Ah well.  Puts are always my toughest plays.  I'm a calls guy at heart.  Which makes it tough with my bearish stance at the moment!
• Trade: I cleaned up on $AMD calls intraday, though.  It's a powder keg.  I couldn't resist holding some overnight, as well, headed into the NVDA Investor Day tomorrow.  I'll be out before the event, though, because these things are normally sell the news events, regardless of what magic they unveil.
• Trade: Added some $LAC to hold long-term (we'll see how long that actually is) at 30.17.  Big fan of this one.  Coming off that 24 bottom which I've been staring at for days.
• Trade: I exited $IPI disgustingly early at 14.25 (from 13).  It went to 26 by end of day, just didn't stop moving up.  It had no exposure to Canada, so it was 'the' fertilizer play.
• Ukraine/Russia - I didn't see any improvements here.  Same situation, though I'm sure we'll hear about more 'talks' this week.  I think the market is losing interest on this topic - for now.

• We've got three Fed presidents talking at various times on Tuesday.  No JPow.
• I'm primarily focused on AMD tomorrow.  The NVDA event is at 10am PST (1pm EST). I will be out well before that.  I also need to check on when they actually release information for the event.  Before? During?
• I'll be sitting back and waiting for a pullback on $MOS and $IPI - both are in overbought territory now - but there's an overriding, major fundamental event in progress.  So I might be waiting for a while.  I'll do it, though.  When the technicals kick in, it's fierce.
• Chart: That JPow dip worked out some overbought conditions.  While it didn't feel like it, we did close red today on both SPY/QQQ.  That was needed.  I think we see more consolidation on Tuesday with a bend towards upside, especially on QQQ.  
• We are right at the 200 on the SPY -- 446.  Once that breaks, we're going right to 450.

• I don't see anything on Earnings calendar that's interesting except some companies I didn't even realize were public (GitLab, SmartSheet) and FedEx reporting on Friday after the close

• On Tuesday, the PPI is likely to cause a 1-2 point move on the SPY at 0830 EST
• It's all about Wednesday, though.  That's JPow day.  The FOMC minutes will be released at 1400 EST and JPow will hold a news conference at 1430 EST.
• The market is expecting a 0.25% interest rate hike.  If it comes in as expected, we'll probably do a small move up.  If it comes in with 0 rate hike, it will rally pretty strongly.  If it comes in 0.50% or higher, it's going to knock the market down pretty hard.
• Besides the rate itself, keep an eye out on two other items: the planned frequency of hikes and any direction on balance sheet reduction
• Both of these watch items could swing the event as well, especially if they take an aggressive stance on the balance sheet (I don't think they will in light of current events, more kicking the can down the road).
• I doubt I'll trade ahead of this, but will ride the wave, whichever way it goes, after JPow starts talking.

• As noted above, the event of the week is obviously the FOMC moves on Wednesday.
• I know that Ukraine has tweeted out today that they have talks scheduled on Monday, but while I hope they reach a resolution very soon, it looks unlikely to me.  I watched some documentaries on Putin this weekend and I just don't see him backing down on this until he gets what he wants (or is stopped by a bigger adversary). His ideology is just flat different from what the West thinks is right.
• Russia is getting very close to hitting NATO ground.  I sure hope it doesn't, but it's inching ever closer to what we don't want to happen.
• Grim: I saw this list of mostly tech stocks showing % change from their 52 week high: i.redd.it/n6ufsiqp11n81.jpg
• It just goes to show you how much the SPY/QQQ are held up by a very small handful of mega-mega caps
• TRADE: I am still keep an eye on $MOS but I am adding another fertilizer play to the watchlist that I'm late on: $IPI -- it does fertilizer inputs so it's one step earlier in the process.  It's US based and it's moving quite quickly for obvious reasons (84.19 right now).
• I am almost entirely cash at the moment.  I need to do a bit more scanning the market instead of playing the same old few (MOS, SPY, QQQ).  That said, if you look at the image I posted, I might be doing so bad keeping it boring for now.
• Futures are currently up just a little as I write this: +0.32 (or +1.3 on SPY)
• I remain bearish on the general market and think we've still got a ways to go down.  I'm keeping an eye out for another bear market rally and going to try not to miss the one. 🤦

• Looking just at the SPY, we're slowly trodding toward oversold technicals again - but we're not there yet.  I want to see it go way oversold again before I go in.
• I still see nothing to be positive about.  Ukraine/Russia remains (I hate to keep repeating myself) the driving market factor + Wednesday's FOMC.  Calling it on a Sunday, I'd say we overall continue the slide down Mon/Tues - slowly.  Wednesday...we'll see when we get there.
• I'll probably play the QQQ on my next trade - it's been quite good to me and I'm starting to get used to how it moves and grooves.  I prefer tech anyways, as I understand it better and it doesn't have the counterbalance of the Dow/Oil stuff of the SPY.  So as long as you're right on QQQ, you're very right.