Crude Rips 5.5%, Everything Else Gets Hit — Energy Was the Only Trade
A nasty risk-off session with gold dumping 2.4%, BTC sliding, and tech getting crushed -1.6%. Crude oil was the lone bright spot at +5.56% and GPRO somehow ran 35% post-catalyst.
Live tape — what this brief is about
September opened exactly how September usually does — ugly. Broad risk-off, precious metals getting hammered, and the only sector with a pulse was energy. Not a great day if you were long anything except crude.
On my radar
- GPRO $1.18 — up 34.71%, RVOL 16.9x, float 173M. Missed this one entirely today. Too extended now but watching for a morning flag setup if it holds $1.05 overnight. Float is too big for me to chase at open.
- FRVO $19.79 — up 28.67%, RVOL 7.0x, float 294.6M. Float is way too heavy for my taste. Watching only if there's a clean catalyst follow-through pre-market and it holds $18.50.
- EMPD $3.62 — cleanest float on the board at 28.1M, RVOL 4.3x, no catalyst. I want a morning consolidation above $3.40 before I touch it. This is the one I'm actually building a watchlist entry for tomorrow.
Levels I care about
- SPX $7,600 is now the line — we closed at $7,624 and I expect a test of that level at tomorrow's open. Below $7,600 and I'm looking at $7,540 as the next magnet.
- Gold $4,374 broke hard today, down 2.4%. My line in the sand was $4,400 and it sliced through it. Next support I'm watching is $4,320.
- Crude $90.53 is the story — a 5.56% single-day rip tied to supply headlines is not something I want to chase, but $88 becomes support if it holds tomorrow morning.
How I'm positioned
Grade for today: C-minus. I was long gold going into the session and got hit. Stopped out of my silver position at $65.80 which saved me from the worst of the 3.38% drop — that was the right call. Still holding my core bullion position but it's underwater short-term and I'm not adding here. My stop on gold is $4,300; below that I reassess the whole thesis.
BTC at $77,210 is frustrating — Crypto Fear & Greed sitting at 69 (Greed) while price drops tells me that sentiment hasn't caught up to the selling yet. I'm not adding to my BTC position tonight.
Energy is the trade I missed. XLE and crude caught the only real bid all session. Tomorrow I'm watching the pre-market open on EMPD above $3.40 — if it flags cleanly in the first 15 minutes, I'm taking a small position sized at half my normal risk until SPX proves it can hold $7,600.
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