Overthinking the Rally – Two Data Points – Taxes and Easter

by

Happy Tax Day!

We can launch into our old hobby of “Top Calling” now.

Our Easter Rally showed up – and was all over the place Monday.  The early Futures were showing a slight increase at the open but quickly pulled back to flat.

The problem in the charts goes like this:

As you can see, we are not above the previous little squiggle higher – and it would be dandy to not over-think this move.  But, I tend to do that a lot.

Overthinking 101

I do this all the time – and if there is a single reason for not owning my own island to retire to, it is that I am almost always right – but way too early.  See, back in September of 2024 I was convinced the market would collapse in March 2025.  Bought a pile of put options (S&P 4700 strikes).  Kissed off a good used car doing so.  Close, but no cigar.

What I got wrong?  My timing is not the Market’s timing.  End of this month – after Easter?  Maybe a better call.  Still, I make enough genius calls that we won’t be starving any time soon (or even in the next half century…).

I can’t be alone in this hyper-active, ADHD trading mindset, so I asked this AI stack I’ve built to give me some pointers – which you may find useful as well:

Overthinking in trading often stems from fear of missing out, perfectionism, or lack of confidence in your strategy. Here’s how to curb it:

  • Set Clear Rules: Define your trading plan with specific entry and exit criteria based on technical or fundamental analysis. Stick to it religiously to avoid impulsive decisions. For example, only enter a trade when a stock hits a predetermined support level or indicator signal.
  • Limit Information Overload: Reduce the noise—avoid obsessively checking news, X posts, or market chatter. Choose 2–3 reliable data sources (like price charts or economic reports) and ignore the rest during trading hours.
  • Practice Patience: Train yourself to wait for high-probability setups. Journal past trades where waiting paid off to reinforce this habit. Remind yourself: missing a move is better than a bad move.
  • Use Timeframes: If you act too early, shift to longer timeframes (e.g., daily instead of hourly charts) to slow your decision-making and focus on bigger trends.
    Automate Decisions: Use stop-loss orders, trailing stops, or alerts to execute your plan without second-guessing. This removes emotion from the equation.
  • Mindset Shift: Accept that no trade is perfect. Overthinking often comes from wanting 100% certainty, which doesn’t exist. Aim for consistent execution over flawless trades.
  • Routine Check-Ins: After each trading session, review what triggered overthinking—fear, greed, or doubt? Address it by tweaking your process, not your trades.

This was somewhat useful. But not nearly so much as a new process I call “Trajectorized thinking…” We’ll do that topic over on the Peoplenomics  side one of these days, though, because no point in overpopulating the world with billionaires…

Meanwhile, though, the over-thining and logic chains just keep pouring out.  Today’s goes something like this:

  1. The market should go up (pre-holiday week optimism bias).
  2. There is a wave count that allows for a slowing in here in the chart above – which we think is still likely to go up and “kiss the trend line” denoted by the faded, washed-out, left outside in the sun too long yellow arrow.
  3. We are down a fair bit from options last month, so a move higher to keep from paying off all the greedy Bears would reduce the pain level for commercials…
  4. But then – after the rally winds up Wednesday, would could see some weakness into the 3-day weekend with markets close Friday for Good Friday – but they all are…
  5. Then the market will be  cleared to rally higher Monday (if Iran is now glowing by then) OR – if Iran is smacked – then we will likely see a lower week next week.
  6. And from there we fall on our asses and by the end of the month my (one month too early) options play could-have,-should-have,-would-have hit the 4700 level by the end of this month….
  7. Not last month – and you seeing how this “overthinking” shit works, now?

Mucha-Buncha Data Day

Yes, the Empire State and Trade Price numbers  are interesting.  But, to make sense of these it helps the hyperactive to remember the word hysteresis.

“In trading and markets, hysteresis refers to the phenomenon where the price or behavior of an asset doesn’t immediately return to its original state after a change in market conditions, due to lingering effects or delays. It’s like a lag where past events (e.g., a price shock or trend) continue to influence current prices, even when the initial trigger is gone.”

Made more complicated (for our dining and dancing pleasure)  by the delay in getting the data together.  See in the Import-Export Prices, today’s data is from March, not April, so tariffs jumping around like a fart on a hot skillet doesn’t matter – that WILL matter next month, but today’s not-co-secret word is hysteresis.

“U.S. import prices decreased 0.1 percent in March following an increase of 0.2 percent in February. The March decline was the first monthly drop since the index decreased 0.4 percent in September 2024. Prices for U.S. imports increased 0.9 percent from March 2024 to March 2025.

We would expect the Empire State Manufacturing Outlook from the NY Fed to be a little closer to the mark, but there’s Congress – which abdicated its Constitutional duties on Money creation, then there’s the Federal Reserve, and then (location, location) there’s the New York Fed.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, the Minneapolis Fed matters, too.  But, er….you wanna break it to them?

After dropping steeply last month, the headline general business conditions index rose twelve
points but remained below zero at -8.1. New orders fell modestly, and shipments edged lower. Delivery times held steady, and supply availability worsened. Inventories continued to expand.

After the numbers, markets turned lower, so we will have to reponder and figure an overthink into the Thursday close…

With a few dollop of data, we can now happily rollypolly our way into what’s left to get done before the long weekend….

What in Thundering Trumpnation?

A hit off the oxygen bottle (you can get ’em on Amazon) to assist the one ultra-cogent brain cell that has survived the mass casualty event called Life, so far:

China bouncing Boeing: China tells airlines to suspend Boeing jet deliveries: Report – CNA   And as if that’s not taking trade to the MAX… In latest salvo against tariffs, China assails ‘peasants in the U.S.’ Remember what day it is?  Tax Chattel day!

We’re getting tired of all this Trade crap.  In the latest: JD Vance Sees ‘Good Chance’ for US-UK Trade Deal Soon.  In time for us to get a close-out on a Bentley, perhaps?

And we always enjoy a good statement of the obvious: China’s Xi says no winners in tariffs and trade war during Southeast Asia visit.

Harvard is being “taken to school” as we read Trump’s Demands to Harvard, Analyzed.  Erudite, academic assholes in higher ed are easily confused.  Trump is perfectly willing to let Harvard (and whoever) have all the free speech they can handle (yes, you may still be able to get a PhD in Bugravian gender counting).  Just don’t stick America for the bill.  That’s where most of the US Population is also swindled, though.  There’s no more right to study (functionally useless things like gender-counting) than there is for degrees in arson.  The Rational Middle just watches, appalled, but at some level, it is entertaining.  Core American concepts (melting pot, genuine actual goose and gander equality) have taken refuge from the national discourse.  Everyone wants to be “special” and get their own Power and Payday without the sweat equity.  If Harvard can’t grasp it, maybe  U Penn’s an option.  Your call. Depends on whether you’re goal is functional intelligence (and a billion) or you’re after the theoretician mantle.  Choices, huh?  While Harvard ponders “dismantle its diversity programming, limit student protests, and submit to far-reaching federal audits in exchange for its federal funding” – we think it’s a great move.  China grows engineers.  America’s growing sex-change advocates and BBQ police, and coal killers.  See the type-mismatch? Oh, wait…math is racist here…so pardon us!

Left-to-Marxist judicial overreach continues, too: Jesse Watters has Pam Bondi on to explain in a fast clip about MS 13 gang member…  (There’s a reason why since 1971 I have referred to the 9th Circus, lol…)

Liberal media is still covering for the commies, near as we can figure.  On word how Media Working Overtime to Distort the Politics of Alleged Arsonist Who Burned Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion.  Was he really a BLM-supporting lefty?  (Is there another kind?)

Another shot in the arm? Here we go again – and Bill Gates financed it of course – WHY IS THE FRIGGIN FDA fast tracking this thing? WTF? And it has a carcinogen too…  Hmm…we liked the maraschino with a side of nanobots better, but wouldn’t be the first time beta testing on the world for Gates, would it?

Justice Delayed is?  About typical, anymore: Senior FBI Official Tied to FISA Abuse and Hunter Biden Cover-Up Suspended.

Around the Ranch: Taxes and Easter

My buddy the Major will be filing his taxes today.  He had to pay this year.  And in our regular phone calls to keep up on things, we both came to the idea that eventually, the goal is to get the tax code down to where only 10 percent, or less, of people will be filing.

And it’s really smart on the part of the Deep State Bureaucracy. They will be able to do less work with more people and that’s the whole point, right?

Easter roast will be unthawed shortly.   We like to do a prime rib every too often.  As a result, I have become an aficionado of electric carving knives.   The most practical are the little $21 dollar jobbies you can score from Amazon (one-day shipping for Prime).

I keep thinking about a higher-end electric knife – longer blade and cordless would be nice. But anything with a good review is over $50.  Anything above that, I can sterilize one of those baby chainsaws and have more cat scraps leftover, and come out money ahead.

I am on the lookout, though.  Also – a reminder from my consigliere – watch for deals on ham over the next week.  Oftentimes, there will be good sales around Easter of just after – and he’s been lucky enough to freeze a few at less than a buck-a-pound.  I don’ty see prime rib going that cheap, but I’ll be making a protein run next week…

Off to another exciting day of….where’s the list? Can’t do anything without my damn list…

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

32 thoughts on “Overthinking the Rally – Two Data Points – Taxes and Easter”

  1. When I got married at 20 we decided to invite my brother in law and his wife to dinner. I proudly made my first pot roast. It turns out that we owned no knives bigger than a potato parer. I don’t remember how we cut the roast but they gave us knives a week later.

  2. Chinese speaking of US peasants, I have to recount a feeling I had when all this Chinese business sort of started, maybe early 80’s? I went to the World’s Fair in Nashville with my daughter in 1982 and the Chinese exhibition sort of surprised me, lots of machinery well made, I’d never thought at the time they could do such stuff.

    Moving on, maybe dates mixed up, I remember buying a Chinese angle grinder. I was amazed I could afford one, it was probably around $80 but the US versions were, I don’t know, $239.95? Previously such a tool in my mind only existed in factories and maybe rich people’s workshops.

    And the grinder was well packed, worked well, and came with a wrench, and with TWO EXTRA BRUSHES! I’d never seen that sort of concern for the customer before. Now maybe it would need the brushes sooner than a US model, no lo se, but spare parts hoarder that I am/was, I got the feeling the Chinese were actually concerned about we “peasants.” In a different way than the US producers were.

  3. “but way too early”

    Same. I also try to will the market which doesn’t work.

    In the end I got a managed account over at BoA’s ML. I went with BoA because they’re always first in line for bailouts so I figure money will be returned from them.

  4. Bear-on-the-boat (Magic Elf) : so, you lead with “… What I got wrong? My timing is not the Market’s timing. …” and then? Assign upcoming days for the rally to fizzle, etc.

    Task your AI-bot to rewrite the forecast leaving out the “when” matey (OBSCON). Place bets accordingly, using direction of what instead of when (and why is irrelevant until later).

    Trading rules are no good if ignored. So sez me anyway. On using options: there is tremendous skew of late. I continue to have concern about -0- DTE (zero day to expiration options). Despite sliding scale of profit / loss, that’s total bet on red / black. It’s binary. Really?

    CNBC yesterday: 0DTE has accounted for 7% of total options volume in April. That’s a lot. Short time horizon is cheap but … it’s time that you pay for in the options market. In the money LEAPs (Long-term Equity Anticipation Securities) with a year to three years?

    Will you be right in three years? Or, even right for a while?
    Write when rich? I’m feeling poor today.
    Concluded LT negotiations.
    Wrote the check.
    Ouch …

    Egor

    • Sell that Premium (s), Calls that is..POS & NEG = Neg! Set Ure break even, put in Stops. Stops like Ure Mind, can and should change as mkt moves.

      I aint no expert, far from it – still get greedy holding profitable trades – violating 1st rule – Never let a Winning trade Turn into a Losing trade. And like like clock work, I usually end up eating it. I even have post-it notes on screen admonishing me to “take profits”..
      Must have been a Mule in a previous life..

      Finally ZH has article posted today about Zoltan Pozars work back in 22 when he analyzed what exactly would happen to World Finance after EU STOLE Russian reserves/assets/$$$$ – Three and half years later – that cat is dead balls ACCURATE- can only hope he is advising Team tRUMP nowadays. BCN been squawking bout that bullscheisse since they did it.

      Hear we are 3.5 years later – UST market is cratering, usD is wrecked/worthless, Bitcoin is BID, and Phyz Gold is SCARCE as hens teeth.

      Long the GOLD Equities – winning!
      just took a flyer on Ure Spoos 470’s 5/2 exp. @$1.25 – prolly gonna eat it all – but insurance aint cheap, is it necessary ? YRMV.

      Luv Game play – and the game is On as we approach “Ishtar Weekend”, and yes, Youse all been brainwashed into thinking its Easter Weekend -priceless.

      • Archaeologists Dr. Roger Bentley and Dr. Jud Bellamin find a race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth. They keep mutant humanoid mole men as their slaves to harvest mushrooms, which serve as their primary food source. The Sumerian albinos’ ancestors relocated into the subterranean after cataclysmic floods in ancient Mesopotamia. They believe the men are messengers of Ishtar, their goddess. Whenever their population increases, they sacrifice young women to the Eye of Ishtar.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mole_People

  5. (“A hit off the oxygen bottle (you can get ’em on Amazon) to assist the one ultra-cogent brain cell that has survived the mass casualty event called Life, so far:”)

    I don’t know if they stock the shelves the same in Texas…but at Wal-Mart here they have them on an end cap so does Walgreens… and they are cheaper!!!

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/267220611286?
    and a rescue tank. the units you are buying can be filled again but you have to buy the valve system that scores on top then put the clamshell back on.
    during the sixties they made home units exactly like them that screwed onto face masks..got one.. I am anal about fire protection because of what I went through so fire blankets rescue hoods and fire extinguishers are all over the Sam with aed’s .. what if someone has a heart attack in your home..what if its you!? its better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
    the kids go scuba diving so I have two compressors ..the filtration unit is so dam expensive.. but its worth it..

  6. ATL: Sunday / yesterday? Tempted to park winter duds and find some short pants. Today? Chill, windy, and it’s snowing again. So, I’m just list making. Where’s the damned list? They’re everywhere! Snow-gor

    ps – TNX still wobbly, watch the buck (King Dollar appears to be under attack all this year. It means something

    https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=DX&p=d

  8. Yo Loob –

    Aged divers like the NITROX blend -its easier on the body in general. Needz a little bit of Algebra – nah just kidding – they got reference tables for such exotic things as mixed gas diving. I have some experience with multiple “mixed gas” rigs – and not a one of em has any civilian use I can think of. But yeah all of my older Diver friends are on the NITROX, does well in standard scuba tanks, costs a lil more but certainly worth it..

    Picture a 76 yr old diver – trying to board boat up dive ladder who has been out for 20 minutes, heavy tank (s) strapped to back..will be struggling to carry his tired ass up that slippery, moving ladder as opposed to NITROX diver who has been effortlessly toodling around with the Hog Fish& Sea Turtles, no problema climbing up that dicey ass ladder, as he had plenty of NRG leftover frm NITROX dive.

    All about that GAS, you know..

  9. “There’s no more right to study (functionally useless things like gender-counting) than there is for degrees in arson.”

    i thought this was a free country. now y’all want to decide what people can study.

      • Cody Balmer did not have any BLM leftist leanings (like Ure’s truly claims, and if fact, echo chamber right wingers are trying to distort his true history):
        https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/apr/14/tweets/photo-of-pa-arson-suspect-cody-balmer-was-falsely/
        ‘The 2020 Facebook post did not include red, anti-Trump text, however. The only words that accompanied the photo were in the post’s caption, which read: “Stay safe out there.”

        Balmer’s political affiliations are unknown. The Pennsylvania Department of State website shows Balmer is an active voter but claims no party affiliation.’

        Hey whiney b.., nobody is ‘giving you a freaking tab’, Harvard tuition is now free for those making less than $200k (oh have a meltdown, what will those Liberals do next, find a way to stop the Billionaire Bonanza, on tax day?)
        https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/17/harvard-free-tuition

        • “…nobody is ‘giving you a freaking tab’, Harvard tuition is now free for those making less than $200k ”

          ROFL! Your lack of critical thinking skill is showing. Tuition may be free to the students, BUT… who pays the Professors? Who pays to keep the school running so they CAN provide ‘free tuition’ to the students. That would be Federal money… from us taxpayers. Duh!

        • huge tens of billions $ bailouts of farmers and ranchers (from us taxpayers, Duh!) because of trump’s self inflicted trade war is good while research grants into TB, ALS and Alzheimer’s is bad.

          hank you should be principled and refuse any medical treatment that has been discovered because of federal research grants. you may also want to get informed before opining.

          https://finance.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/fy24_financial_overview.pdf
          https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/16/us/als-research-harvard-funding-freeze-hnk/index.html

        • c,
          May I mention at this juncture my recent experience since the former head of Trump University wielded his scythe about the DoE. I have received an abundance of ads from well regarded American institutions of post-secondary learning. They are eager to welcome Canadian students into their hallowed real and virtual halls. Grant availabilities towards tuition are mentioned. My understanding is that Canadian student enrolments would aid an institution’s Title IV ratio.

          However Canadian universities already offer free undergraduate course tuition to the age 65 and over demographic who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Perhaps some provinces even set the tuition-free bar as low as age 55. One could well begin to imagine a pursuit of study combining a ‘Charts’ major matched with a ‘History of Rock & Roll’ minor.

          Speaking of rock & roll, Canadian born but long since decamped to the USA “Godfather of Grunge”, Neil Young, has spoken. He believes Mr. Carney is the best election choice to be PM. Wow, thanks America; thanks a lot!

          Let’s join DJ George who hopefully has a bootleg of last Saturday’s Neil Young and friends gig at LA’s Gloria Molina Park. According to ‘Soap Central’, 36,000 fans welcomed the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour stop headlined by Senator Bernie Sanders with AOC as support!

  10. I took a flyer on puts @ 500 exp 5/2 @$3, not taking a chance that you might be late this time. Not letting a winning trade become a loser, I got stopped out on my calls last week 2 minutes before Trump announced tariffs on hold and then my once-owned calls jumped $1500 each. OUCH!!

  11. re: Easter Eggs
    feat: British Steel

    Folks,
    Sunday saw word of a Texas turf war erupt about the steel blade of a Kubota (“sunken rice paddy”) tractor steered by the determined “Urbansurvival” publisher. Meanwhile across the pond, a co-leader of the Coalition of the Willing issued a rare summons to a Saturday sitting of Parliament at Westminster Palace.

    Subsequently British Steel is under new emergency orders by government decree. Coking cole and iron ore raw materials are understood to be enroute by sea that will keep the last UK steel blast furnaces at Scunthorpe in operation. The company’s Chinese parent Jingye (“Dedication”) had refused a British government offer of £500 million to keep the blast furnaces functioning according to the “Daily Mail”. Threatened US tariffs apparently sent British Steel over the precipice.

    British Steel had been rescued from the brink 9 years ago with a £1 investment by a UK private investment company situated at Sloane Street, London. The then-rescuer’s co-founder is of a Sephardic Jewish family from Paris. As an aside his sister is a digital artist with a series of 3,291 well-received nft works collectively known as “Bitchcoins”. The artist bundled some of those nfts in 2021 as a “Cloud of Petals” and sent them to auction as a “feminist appropriation” against patriarchal dominance. Yesterday “Artnet” published a review of her new 2025 digital work brought to physical life in the California’s Desert X entitled “Truth Arrives in Slanted Beams”. Here is a link to the “Artnet” report:

    https://news.artnet.com/art-world/sarah-meyohas-desert-x-nft-2630818

    Let’s join DJ George ready to drop a sharp stylus on a heavy metal classic album from 1980, “British Steel”. Recorded at the home of former Beatle Ringo Starr, here’s a Youtube link to “Steeler” by Judas Priest –

    https://youtu.be/bRTUZ2sS1D8

  12. “Liberal media is still covering for the commies, near as we can figure. On word how Media Working Overtime to Distort the Politics of Alleged Arsonist Who Burned Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion. Was he really a BLM-supporting lefty? (Is there another kind?)”

    He could have been a “Jew-hater,” an ANTIFA anarchist, or antiauthoritarian hardcase.

    I suspect he was just a nutjob who couldn’t handle his house being “liened-on” and sold in a tax sale, and he simply wigged-out. The media marveled at how quickly the Governor’s Mansion caught fire and burned. This is because they’re stupid. When you have wood that’s 200 years old and been dried & sheltered for all that time, it’s probably pretty combustible.

  13. I’m convinced the market will trend one way until it goes the other. No point in overthinking it, unless you got money riding on a bad bet, and need to change the market direction by force of cogitation.
    Treasury rates spiked up, but are trending down again. Most of the carry trade angst has gone back under the institutional rocks it crawled out from under. Bad bets are still in season.

  14. I’m off to the Bionics Factory to become a new, old ‘hippie’. Back in a few daze… when the meds wear off.

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