The biggest week since I started the book. I shorted the largest IPO in history and have already banked most of it, a peace framework cracked oil and closed my crude trade at a loss, then the weekend un-did half of it. Here's everything that changed.
Two stories ran in parallel this week. On one side, a US and Iran framework to end the war cracked oil about ten percent lower and took my crude trade with it, before the weekend un-did half the peace. On the other, SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history and went vertical, so I leaned against it. One of those is already a booked winner. The other I took as a small loss. Here's the whole book, start to finish.
SpaceX went public on the 12th in the largest IPO ever, priced at 135, opened at 150, and ran almost vertical to an all-time high near 225 inside four sessions. It was a retail stampede, the kind of move where the story sets the price and valuation takes the week off. So I leaned against it with a small 3% short at a blended 203.
The setup is simple. The biggest, most hyped listings have a long history of topping out early and then fading. Facebook lost about half its value in the months after it listed in 2012. Alibaba ran higher for a couple of months in 2014, then spent the next year drifting back below its IPO price. Even Saudi Aramco, the largest listing before this one, popped on day one and then sank lower. The first week is usually the high, not the floor. On top of that, the chart ran straight into the round 200 and 225 numbers, exactly where this kind of move tends to stall.
It worked faster than I expected. SPCX rolled over hard back toward 150, and on the 23rd I covered 75% of the short at an average of 149.73, banking roughly +26% on the covered portion. I left a 25% runner on in case the post-IPO drift keeps going. The point was never to be clever about SpaceX the company. It was to fade a euphoric first week at the levels where these moves stall, and to keep the size small enough that a squeeze couldn't hurt.
I closed USO at 113.41 and the runner came off at a small loss. Crude was always the tactical, short-term leg, a way to get paid if the talks fell apart and the war premium kept climbing. A peace framework is the opposite of that, so with oil down about ten percent on the week and back below where I bought it, I took the loss and moved on. The plan always had two exits, sell into a spike or stop into a deal, and this was the second one.
One piece is still alive, on purpose. The small, defined-risk call I bought on the deal event stays on into Thursday's expiry, which is why the position still shows as open. It only ever risks its premium, and it pays if the talks break down and oil gaps higher. A week ago that looked like the long shot. By the Monday open, with the weekend re-escalating, it didn't.
After the framework, it began to wobble. Israel hit Lebanon, the planned Switzerland signing was cancelled, and over the weekend the talks that did go ahead pointedly left out the nuclear question. Iran demanded an end to the Lebanon fighting as a condition for going further, and said it had halted Strait traffic again, while the President spent the weekend threatening fresh strikes and floating tolls on the waterway. The clean peace narrative lasted about a week before it frayed. By the Monday open crude was back above seventy-eight dollars. This is exactly why I trade the oil story as a range rather than a forecast.
Away from the headlines, the quieter trades are the ones built to get paid for waiting. I sold the 80-strike put on STRC, one of Strategy's preferred securities, built to sit near its 100 par, for a 4.95 premium on a small notional. If it holds above 80 I keep the credit. If I get assigned, I'm long a discounted, income-paying preferred near a 75 basis that I can wheel back toward par. Under silver I rolled a fresh round of cash-secured puts on the same logic, taking in premium while I wait for a better level to add.
The safe-haven metals took the most direct hit from the peace headlines, but I'm carrying them anyway. The silver case is structural and far longer-term than one week of peace, the puts underneath lower the cost of holding, and the weekend re-escalation is a fair reminder that the safe-haven bid is only ever one headline away from coming back. McDonald's is still the quiet workhorse. I trimmed another half into the 289 target and I'm running the rest toward 295. With the SpaceX gain banked and the oil loss taken, realised P&L is up around +4%, and the book is now a short, a put-wheel, the metals, MCD, and a couple of small technical longs.
From here it still keys off the same two questions. Does the framework actually hold, or does the weekend's fraying turn back into escalation, and where does that leave oil. And does the post-listing air come out of names like SpaceX the way these listings usually do, which is partly why I left a runner on the short.
I'm set up for it either way: a defined-risk oil call that's still live into Thursday and pays if crude snaps higher, the SpaceX stub that pays if the IPO drift continues, and a core of income trades getting paid to wait in between. That's the nice thing about a week like this one. You don't have to know the answer, you just have to be set up so that more than one of them works. Reply any time, I read every single one.
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