Afternoon Notes - 3/18/2022 | Archimedes Methodologies

Good Afternoon:

Caveat: I am not anti-Biden and want him to succeed and unite the country as he promised. My “politics” strictly relate to financial market stability, no matter which politician or political party threatens it.
Roughly 90% of high-end computer chips come from Taiwan. Any disruption in those chip flows threatens our financial and economic stability. These thoughts have pre-occupied me all week.
Biden’s unbelievably pathetic Afghanistan withdrawal, along with George Soros, U.S. Diplomat Victoria Nuland, and their Deep State Color Revolution to oust the democratically elected Ukrainian government in the early 2000s to seat Klaus Schwab protege President Zalensky, has many of us on edge.
Biden’s hands have been all over Ukraine for at least 10-years and he laid the groundwork for the Russian invasion, not to mention China taking Taiwan.
If Putin is bold enough to take Ukraine, why wouldn’t President Xi and China complete their long-held plans to forcibly reunite Taiwan with the mainland?
And assuming we have a fair mid-term election or one at all this November (if the left can manufacture another good crisis to cancel it), why would Xi wait for a potential Republican sweep of Congress to take the independent island nation?
Well, fear no more. A groveling President Biden just handed Taiwan over to Xi today on a silver platter if the call transcript is even close to accurate.
“Biden further assured Xi that the U.S. does not seek to “change China’s system,” does not support “Taiwan independence,” and “has no intention to seek a conflict with China.”
According to the Chinese readout, Biden repeated these pledges to Xi twice during the call. Just imagine Biden groveling and selling these concepts to Xi. “I take these remarks very seriously,” Xi responded.
Xi then proceeded to lecture Biden about the “predicament created by the previous U.S. administration,” especially the problem that “some people in the U.S. have sent a wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence forces'” that is “very dangerous.”
In the most poignant statement relating to the true purpose of the call, soliciting China to stand down on their support for Russia, Xi told Biden he could not expect any help from Beijing in cleaning up the mess he [referring to Biden personally] made in Ukraine.
Recall that Biden was in charge of Ukraine as Vice President under Obama. Hunter Biden was paid $1 million per year to serve on the Board of Ukraine gas company Burisma. And then there is this:

The political thread runs deep, no pun intended. Recall that the Deep State conspired to impeach President Trump for the second time over a phone call with Ukraine President Zalensky when Trump asked him to look into Biden family corruption in Ukraine.
Apparently, Ukraine was another Deep State graft and money-laundering operation similar to Afghanistan. Ukraine involves a very familiar cast of characters – Biden, impeachment witness Nuland, George Soros, Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum, and even Fauci (with the 36 Biolabs in Ukraine). All of this is surreal, and it feels like we are in multipart television series.
When you observe our $30 trillion deficit, realize that a large portion of it is attributable to kickbacks and payoffs to American politicians, their supporters, and their children and extended family to keep the transactions opaqe. That is how it works in Washington D.C. these days and how these politicians become uber-wealthy.
Graft and corruption are also why a billionaire President, who could not be bought off, was such an existential threat to the Deep State gravy train.
And that brings us full circle to Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s Ukraine connections and corruption.
Hunter Biden is apparently on the verge of being indicted for tax fraud.
Trying to get ahead of the story, the New York Times now admits that the Hunter Biden laptop documenting the Biden family corruption in Ukraine, with “10% for the Big Guy,” and millions in payments from China is authentic.
Of course, Big Tech and the Deep State Media interfered with the 2020 election by suppressing and banning the story to swing the election to Biden. By the way, that was illegal before we became a banana republic.
Would things be different in Ukraine today if the Deep State had failed in its efforts to throw the election to Biden and unseat Trump? Common sense and every poll on the subject says so.
Think of the thousands of people now dying due to all of the nefarious corruption, subversion, treason and incompentant decisions. Sure, Putin is a tyrant but he simply does what tyrants do. Biden and his minions purport to be better than Putin, but in reality they are not.
And who would know better than Xi, who has the Biden family on his payroll – according to information sourced from Hunter Biden’s laptop?
The narrative that Biden warned Xi about interfering with Russian sanctions today belies the transcript and Biden’s subservient posture.
Biden was the beta with Xi as the alpha in this humiliating turn in world affairs. Our country is practically lost at this point, as will be Taiwan and much needed premium computer chips with these charlatans in charge.
Biden and his minions appear to be hopelessly corrupt, not just incompetent.
Thanks to the Deep State and their media allies, we may have elected one of the most corrupt Presidents in modern history.
I am asking myself this too, why is nobody from the Unitied States in there trying to negotiate peace? Why is all we here about escalating tensions and sanctions? Why woundn’t Biden ask Xi to help broker peace? For heaven’s sake, Henry Kissinger has been a personal advisor to Putin over the years, why isn’t he asked to help?
None of this is normal. It is as if the Biden regime wants a war with Russia. Respecting Biden’s China deference, his attitude underscores the success of the China “Elite Capture” program.
Strap in – we are in for a rough ride ahead.
On a more comical note, Congresswoman Sandy Cortez (“AOC”) takes the cake this week.
Today, she warned us that “Fossil Fuel extraction” is correlated with “abduction and murders of indigenous women across the United States.“
I think she was on one of my favorite websites, “Spurious Correlations.” It reminds me of the correlation between “cheese consumption and the number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets.”

The S&P 500 decisively broke the primary downtrend today, but I am trying to understand the pathetic volume considering this was quadruple witching expiration. Usually, the volume bar spikes above all others. I will get to the bottom of this over the weekend.

That is what Vanna looks like. It is the dealer’s unwinding a plethora of short positions over the last few days. It has been painful to be a dealer lately.
Notably, this is also one of those rare occasions where the S&P 500 left the Weekly Expected Move at 4318 in the dust. Of course, that made the Vanna worse as dealers raced to buy futures to try to minimize the damage from closing outside the WEM range.

In addition to breaking the downtrend, the price finished above the Volatility Trigger, Hedge Wall, Call Wall, and both Delta and Gamma neutral. That means that the market could now reverse into more of a mean reversion pattern, where dealers sell rallies and buy dips. Under the Volatility Trigger, they sell into dips and buy into rallies, exaggerating the moves.
Volatility will now contract, but we should be buying dips as long as the market maintains 4400.
From an options perspective, should participants add to their exposure at higher strikes, further out in time, option activity will confirm the rally.
On the other hand, below 4,400.00, there is the potential for a “slipstream” lower according to options guru Brent Kochuba. Removing a large swath of put hedges may put the market back into an underhedged position.
If selling surfaces, the lower-bound for the S&P should move down back down from 4100 to 4,000.00. In such a case, increased customer demand for negative delta and positive gamma options exposure will coincide with added dealer pressure that “flattens” out near 4,000.00.

I will expand on all this in the weekly outlook on Sunday.

A.F. Thornton

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Afternoon Notes – 3/18/2022

Afternoon Notes – 3/18/2022

AF Thornton

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Afternoon Notes – 3/18/2022

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