Happy New Year Folks, we've got a lot to get into in today's video. You are not going to want to miss this one if you're going to be trading or participating in the stock market in any way. In 2024, let's go ahead and get right into it. So 2023 was an insane year by every stretch of the imagination.

For starters, the S&P 5 Hundo ran 24.73 the NASDAQ 100 symbolized by triple Q ran 54.8 4% Bitcoin The Coin of Bit ran 156% year to date, even Kathy Woods Arc a Rkk ran almost 72% by every stretch of the lovely imagination. despite record high rate increases and a lot of pain for everyday Americans Well markets Rose and they Rose substantially and a big chunk of this run happened in the last couple of months. So now the question that we are facing heading into 2024 is will this rise continue? You know I Know your neighbor knows that the economy itself is not so great. Main Street has been suffering and this isn't the opinion of just a few people either.

CNBC Ran a survey just just a few weeks ago and the number of Americans optimistic about the economy is 15% whereas the number of Americans pessimistic about it is 66% Charlie How can that be? We have record low unemployment and inflation is down. What is there to be upset about? Well, despite what politicians and Wall Street tell you? Well, it turns out that the quality of the job that is created matters, how much that job pays, how much that job is able to upkeep with inflation even though inflation is down. While a lot of these jobs don't pay more when adjust for inflation, when you look out the last 5 years when you go 5year period over 5year period, a lot of these are paying way less. so people are doing worse than they were pre pandemic.

but at the same time today, house prices are way higher, interest rates are way way way higher. Everything costs a lot more. so people feel really bad about the economy. Despite the fact that you have such low unemployment, this economy, of course, has done a phenomenal job.

One of the best jobs in history at creating low paying jobs in mass of course, jobs that have replaced much higher paying jobs. but it hasn't done a great job job of upkeeping with inflation, so it makes a ton of sense for the vast majority of Americans to be upset right now. They have to live and work in this economy every single day, and they aren't insulated by millions of dollars or stock market gains, so they're very, very upset. But of course, markets and Main Street are two completely different beasts.

Markets, of course, can rally huge at the same time as Main Street suffers a fact we saw time and time again during the Co shutdowns in 2020. Right now, Wall Street of course, does not care about Main Street. They just see the trend to be accelerated as up, which is both exciting and terrifying. It's exciting because that means markets are going to pump huge, but it's terrifying because it means the inevitable rug pull is going to be that much more painful at the same time.

Right now, what markets are playing off of is momentum that has been trying to preactor in the coming rate cuts for months and history backs this up. Right now, we're in what's called a buy the rumor, sell the new cycle. You see this a lot in terms of individual stocks in the stock market, but when it comes to the overall Market What you're seeing right now is a lot of anticipation heading into eventual rate cuts. And this is exactly what has happened throughout history when you go from a Fed pausing cycle after a massive hiking cycle and then you wait for that cut and then all of a sudden you get the cut.

You have a lot of opportunity in between those two folks. It's been 5 months since the last rate hike which was in July and since 1974 the average return over the next 12 months for the S&P 500 when rate Hik stop is 88.1% So how far have we risen since rate Cuts have started? well about 9% So we're already above average here. At the same time, the average S&P 500 e ratio during a rate cut is 14.2x Right now, at the end of December, it's about 26.4 3x so we are much much frothier. which means net And in effect, we're on the much more expensive side.

historically for valuations after a rate hike cycle is over. On the flip side, average core inflation is 5.1% Right now, it's 4% so less frothy in inflation. Unemployment is an interesting one. The average is 5.5% Right now, it's at 3.7% so we have much higher Stock Market valuations Today lower inflation and lower unemployment employment than we usually do when the FED Cuts rates and markets have looked at this data for a while and the takeaway that they are having is buy Byy Buy.

The question though, is how long is that going to last? Well again, right now, we are still in the buy the rumor stage. Buy. The rumor turns into sell the news eventually. and if you look at the stock market performance after the first cut, the average six-month performance is only 3.4% With cuts during the more severe economic conditions resulting in more massive dipping and nearly all, Cuts inevitably resulted in a big decline within 1 to two years, averaging around 20.5% a 20.5% peak to trough drop.

So in English what does this tell us? Charlie Charita. Well, it tells us that markets like to buy up until the point where the FED Cuts rates. They slow their buying afterwards. but oftentimes continue buying.

but then they start selling. The news and markets just completely dump. Now there's a few big variables like If The Fed is cutting into a big recession. How much the FED is cutting Where markets were trading when the FED started cutting? But overall, the story is that markets right now are position to rally through the first Cuts, maybe slightly after them and then start their next take-profit cycle.

Here's an analyst take from Business Insider Quote: Ubs's chief Us: Economist just said that the Federal Reserve will likely bring interest rates below 3% by next December as a pullback in consumer spending will trigger a mild recession in 2024. Now, with this logic, it actually backs up what we just said. Markets can continue to pump equities and expand multiples until consumer spending dips. And that's when you're going to see the next correction that either gets bailed out by the fed or continues to worsen.

Okay, now if you look at bigger Banks This is what we're seeing. And as a reminder, the S&P 500 today is trading in the 4700s. Well, Goldman Sachs's 2024 year end Target is now 5100 Deutsche Bank y y Deutsche 5100 City Group 5100 BFA 5,000 UBS 4700 Jeff 4700. These two are flat with the current market trading basically.

And then you go to the ones below current pricing: Wells Fargo the Fargo of Wells 4625 Morgan Stanley 4500 JP Morgan Chase 4200 the biggest, most powerful bank is at a low. Interestingly enough, now you could say Charlie This is a pretty fair split of banks that think markets are going to go up, banks that think things are going to be flat and banks that think things are going to go down. But here's the thing when you're seeing stocks in the overall S&P 500 rally Banks Get their hands forced and have to upgrade the market which further pumps it. There's a reason why, if you look at bank price Target 6 months ago, 12 months ago, 18 months ago for the same year end 2023 and year 2024 well, the numbers were way way lower.

Banks Like to look at markets and they see them rallying and all of a sudden they're like, okay, we're going to upgrade some of the ones that are more laggy. They might take longer to upgrade, but they get there eventually because if you're a bank, major hedge fund, major investment house, and you're telling your clients that stocks are going to go down year after year after year when stocks continue rallying. well, that's not so fun for you because guess what? Your fee is based on a percentage of assets. So if people are being super duper conservative with you for years, well, you're going to get gutted and all your competition that thinks markets are going to go up well, they're going to get all your clients money.

So what ends up happening is you get a self-fulfilling prophecy where you have the first more risk on banks upgrading and then all of a sudden the rest join going as markets continue to go up to newer and newer high. It's all Again, there's not a lot of math or analysis that goes into this. It's all just the basic oh, stocks are going up. upgrade upgrade upgrade stocks are going down, downgrade, downgrade, downgrade, and then of course it creates a self fulfilling prophecy.

Okay, moving on. how do you play off all this? Well, it's pretty obvious at this point that we are going to be starting very early on in the year by breaking over all-time highs in the S&P 500. We've already broken all-time highs in the other major indices. the S&P 500 is just another 1% gain, And of course, januaries and februaries tend to be some of the best months for the markets anyways.

So words we are right now: entering a year in a period before rate cuts, a period where we've already had huge, consistent momentum, and the beginning of a year where you tend to start off on the right foot. Anyways, it's a pretty pretty awesome combination for more rallying. All of this, in my opinion, sets us up for another 3 to four week rally, which will likely be bludgeon by the end of Q1 or early Q2. But what does this all mean in effect? What? Charlie Charlie Toe.

Well, it means playing off the run while it's here and then flipping the script. My favorite way to do that is by playing spy Spy tracks the P 500 and while it's already up a lot once it breaks out into all-time highs, you should see a massive fomo wave as fund managers get a wave of calls from retirees and others trying not to miss out on the breakout. Of course, if these fund managers had called the retirees like seven months ago and said you need to buy or two years ago or in the middle of 2022 and said you need to buy the fund managers would have laughed in their faces I Also probably would have laughed in their faces, but this is from a trading perspective. A lot of these people like to invest longterm, but they only tend to invest longterm at all-time highs and all of a sudden aren't long-term investors anymore when you get a dip.

So obviously Kind of a Funny situation there. But anyway, since my thesis is that January is going to be an overall bullish month, while you want a contract that encompasses that entire time frame you see all-time Highs are at $479.99 February Second expiring calls at Strike 480 are dirt dirt cheap and have ample liquidity. and in order for you to be profitable on those you don't even need markets to go above 480 markets could literally just go a few points up and fail to break out to all-time highs. And as long as the time value on your contract hasn't eroded your gains, you're good to go and can resell.

But I believe you're going to see a breakout and Fumo rally on top of that 480 level. And that means that these calls should go up a lot more. My guess is that maybe in the fourth week of January or early February you start seeing a bit of a breathing cycle and then things start slowing down and then maybe at that point we can come back and reassess if it makes sense to do puts or it makes sense to just stay out. But right now the game in my view is with these cols.

Another play that is key right now is Mara Lovely Mara Full context: We called out the Lovely Mora on December 5th when it was trading when she was trading at just under 15 bucks. My thesis was you'd see her break out of her resistance at $20 before year end, but she actually ended up not just breaking out to $20 but also breaking out to $31.97 as of a few trading days ago. Pretty pretty damn fantastic play, especially for folks who are playing those call options on them. Those call options went up 7 8X at some points.

but anyway, she took a nice dive and now we are in the situation where she's trying to find support before her next run. In terms of why she's dropping, it's a case of momentum that went too far too fast without break breathing. This is a pretty common situation if you look back at Mar's long-term chart. this stock was the most traded stock of the day a few days back, and when you're getting that much volume all in one sentiment: Direction you're going to get a breathing cycle.

It's going to be painful. It just is what it is. The question now is how far she'll drop and in my view, it's likely that she'll get back to that $20 support which was previous resistance and then bounce right off it. She could go below there, but I'd argue that's a more minority chance and I don't think it matters that much because if you see the overall trend of Bitcoin being up and you see that motivating Mora to the upside, it's actually a good thing if Mara goes below 20, but I don't see that happening I think that Mar is going to bounce right off that 20 and then you're going to see new cycle.

To the upside where you get past that previous cycle high at 3197. If you haven't been following my Bitcoin take I believe that over the coming months Bitcoin will continue to rally and drive pressure in Mara and that thesis is largely based on the impending Bitcoin ETF approval what that's going to mean for institutional adoption and of course historical positive performance before and after having which is coming in April So you got a pretty good q1 and Q2 coming for Bitcoin, especially when you consider those rate cuts and all that kind of stuff. So I believe accordingly that Mara is a great play. Mara Lovely.

Mara Now in terms of a new call option idea that stretches farther out, I would argue 35 strike calls expiring April 19th are the way to go. These have an Ask of about $410 right now, but why these? Why are you liking these? well April expiration gives Mara time to factor in the April Bitcoin having and allow for a buy the rumor, sell the news situation. The 35 strike calls specifically allow Mora to go back on its rebound cycle and result in a solid appr appreciation of those contracts while still having liquidity to get out early. As you can see, this does have a lot more open interest than the other nearby contracts at some 13,720 in open interest at the same time Mara just broke out to just under 32 bucks.

So the odds in my opinion of getting to 35 before April having is, in my view, very, very, very high. Just look at the historical data in terms of what happens to Bitcoin when you get a having every single time you've had a new high after that many times you had had a new high before that. And quite frankly, again, 32 to 35 is not much of a difference. Here's the thing, even if you're wrong, it doesn't even matter.

You can always sell Mora calls before expiration and as long as they've gone up and the contract has gotten some appreciation, well, you're going to make some Moola My guess is that Mara will get back to 32 and then into 35 probably in January and then dump massively a few times and then keep trying to break out, in which case these 35 strike calls can be resold in January and then you can buy other contracts to play the next moves. Perhaps it takes an extra couple of weeks, maybe you stretch into February mid-February But again, this is the overall view here. Overall uptrend for Bitcoin motivating Mara to the upside heading into having later on in Q1 or slightly after Q1 rather. Anyways, here's the note card on Mara so watch for a bounce on $20 Support prediction: $35 New cycle high in early 2024 probably in the next few weeks if I had to guess.

Option idea: Mara 35 strike calls expiring April 19th and a important warning Mara teases quite a lot. She's a dirty little tease. If you don't like teasing, Mara's not the place to go. Maybe you should buy gold.

Frequent 30 to 40% dips are to be expected in Mara's overall uptrend. If she goes further and longer without dipping, expect a bigger dip. That's just how it works. okay.

Lastly, Amazon so of The Magnificent Seven stocks Amazon has been very, very underwhelming. She's done well, but I mean come on. very underwhelming for Amazon However, if you look in 2024 and you look at the likely boom in Amazon web services and other sectors of their business and continued valuation pumping of big Tech. As more and more people go into the markets at alltime high as well, they over allocate into the big Tech plays.

Put all that together, it's very, very hard to imagine Amazon doesn't break out to a new all-time high within Q1. All-time highs for Amazon are at 188 and some change. So how do you play this? Well if you buy shares and it gets back to those all-time highs, that's about a 22% jump. That's great.

but if you don't have a huge account and you want to leverage your money way way further, in that case, it's going to make a lot more sense to buy calls. Calls would be a much better bet. Amazon 170 strike calls expiring March 15th 2024 are at an Ask of $2.7 Instead of buying each Amazon share for 151 bucks, you can buy a call option that represents the ability to purchase 100 shares for just $272 time 100 which is 272 bucks. And then if Amazon jumps towards an even better over that price, you start really leveraging those moves which is quite the beautiful process.

Now, why 170? Charlie Why would you choose a 170 strike price? Well, well, we've got ample liquidity there. prices aren't gouging you since you're far enough out of the money and 170 is much easier for Amazon to get near to and surpass than those all-time Highs at 188. which by the way, if it hits alltime Highs at 188, Well, those 170 calls are going to be way way way more profitable. Anyways, Anyways, let us know what your thought process is.

Do you see a roaring 20 sort of situation coming? Or or do you see maybe a massive pump in Q1 of 2024 that's going to lead to a massive rug pull? Because that's how Wall Street is going to take everybody's money. Let us know your thoughts down below. Also, Quick Plug! We just launched a sale on both of our programs, our ZIP Trader youu for stock trading and our morning briefings and price Target list and so on and so forth and our brand new zip Trader options program. If you type in coupon code hello 2024, you're going to get 50% off each of them.

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