Evening Session Notes — 2025-11-14 PM
Macro Tape: Risk-Off, Not Quite Panic
Tonight’s tape had a familiar flavor: risk-off in growth and AI, quiet rotation into energy and defensive healthcare, and a volatility complex that’s awake but not screaming. The VIX pushed higher, confirming that nerves are fraying, but we’re still comfortably short of true panic. This is the kind of environment where news-flow matters more than neatly crafted macro narratives, and where swing traders get paid to be early, not perfect.
AI and high-duration growth names bled on the day as traders de-risked the most crowded corners of the market. Meanwhile, energy caught a bid on renewed supply jitters and positioning, and healthcare’s defensive subsectors quietly did their job: absorbing capital that’s tiptoeing away from the frothier parts of the tape.
Current Stance: Still Growth-Heavy, Adding an Energy Leg
The portfolio remains aggressively tilted toward growth and AI, anchored by longs in names and vehicles like $AAPL, $GE, $NVDA, and broad tech-heavy exposure via $QQQ. Financials exposure via $XLF stays on as a cyclical ballast, while $XOM is now the lead energy leg as that rotation theme builds out.
On the risk side of the ledger, $UVXY is in play as a tail hedge at roughly 3.25% of equity. The book is still net long and unapologetically growth-biased, but with a growing energy component and a volatility sleeve designed to soften the blow if macro shocks accelerate.
Evening Trades: Small Edge, Big Intent
Two notable moves this evening:
- Initiated / scaled into $XOM long – Opened a fresh stake in energy via XOM as a starter position, with room to build if the rotation continues to assert itself. The intent: turn energy from “nice-to-have decor” into a meaningful performance contributor if crude and related plays keep working.
- Modest $UVXY add – Added incrementally to the volatility hedge with a deliberate cap: keeping UVXY exposure at or below roughly 3.5% of total equity. This preserves the asymmetry (big help if volatility spikes) without letting bleed from the hedge become the main story of the P&L.
No profit-taking yet on the core growth names; the tape is weak but not broken, and stops remain comfortably below.
Risk Management: Floors, Not Feelings
The framework remains fully manual but rule-driven:
- Raise-only stop floors on equities – Once a stop is moved up, it doesn’t go back down. This keeps winners from round-tripping and forces the book to respect new information.
- Size-based rule on $UVXY – Volatility products are capped as a percentage of equity (currently targeting a band around the low single digits). The goal is shock absorption, not lottery-ticket behavior.
- Always fully invested (long / short / hedged) – Cash is a tactical pause, not a permanent home. The mandate targets high-velocity compounding; that means capital is constantly deployed, either pressing the long side, leaning into shorts/hedges, or some blend of both.
The result is a portfolio that can pivot quickly without abandoning its core aggression.
Playbook Into Next Week: Respect the Tape, Ride What’s Working
Going into next week, the game plan is simple:
- Respect the floors on growth and AI – If stops on leaders like AAPL, NVDA, or the broader QQQ exposure trigger, capital will rotate rather than re-enter the same names immediately.
- Lean into what’s working – Energy (via XOM and peers), obesity-related trades, and defensive healthcare remain the prime destinations for freed-up capital if the growth unwind deepens.
- Keep $UVXY as the macro shock absorber – If the VIX grinds higher or we get a sharp risk-off gap, the volatility sleeve should help offset damage on the long side. If the market stabilizes, UVXY exposure can be trimmed back toward the lower end of the target range.
This is a high-octane, news-driven swing strategy with an annualized return target that would make traditional allocators spit out their coffee. That only works by staying disciplined on risk, opportunistic on rotation, and brutally honest about what the tape is actually rewarding.
Sources & Data Notes
Market color and sector flows are based on today’s price action and sector performance as published via major market data providers and index-level moves (e.g., S&P 500 sector SPDRs, volatility indices like the VIX, and broadly traded ETFs including QQQ, XLF, and XLE). Volatility dynamics and hedge behavior are informed by historical performance patterns of short-term VIX futures products such as UVXY; see, for example, ProShares ETF documentation and volatility education resources from the CBOE (CBOE VIX Resources).