Let me ask you something.

How many of you had energy on your bingo card today?

I'm serious. How many of you woke up this morning thinking "You know what, I'm gonna load up on Exxon call spreads"?

Probably not many. But somebody did. And they did it in size.

While everyone's reading Trump's Truth Social posts -- I dunno what that means, by the way -- I'm sitting here looking at my spreadsheet. This is something I do every single day, pulling up option trades that have been going on in the market.

And today? Man, this is setting up very bearishly…

Here's What Actually Happened (That Nobody Saw)

So I've been loading up this morning, really hitting it hard on the option activity. Today I had to get started early 'cause I got a busy afternoon.

UUP, IEF, APA, COP, Devon, CVX. Bullish bonds, bullish dollar, bearish ARK.

I mean, it doesn't get more of a defensive, warlike posture than that, right?

Take Exxon. The 27 June 117 calls -- about 4,400 contracts total for next week. Did anyone see this activity other than those that are in Ghost Prints?

'Cause you had a chance if you didn't see it. It's not my fault. It's been in there most of the morning.

They're buying the 117, they're selling the 120. Where do they expect Exxon to go by the end of the week?

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There's three pieces of information this gives us. It gives us a direction, it gives us a target, and it gives us a timeframe.

Direction is up, target is 120, timeframe is 10 days.

Can you structure a trade around that? Patrick says "yes, I hope so."

Okay, I hope so, right?

The SKEW Thing Nobody Understands

Rising skew means what? Increased hedging activity.

The last three sessions we're seeing the Skew index go from like 141 to 145 to 150, and now 156.

What does this tell you about how institutions are positioning themselves right now?

Why are they increasing their hedges?

Anything north of 130's high during the selloff. We never got down to normal levels at 115 to 120. There could be some substantial volatility this week.

But the point is that what's happening is we're seeing a significant increase in hedging activity. Why? Why?

The Reality Check Most People Miss

We've all heard the news, right? We've all been following stuff on Twitter, your favorite news source, whatever. We all know what's going on out there. We don't know what the result's gonna be.

But look -- the dollar was up yesterday. The dollar is strengthening today against the euro, against the yen, against the ossie. 

When gold goes down and the dollar goes up, that is the most bearish scenario as the market generally sells off.

UUP is up almost half a percent today. Right here we're seeing big time call buying. How do I know? It tells you right there. 85% of the calls traded today were at the ask or above.

They're buying calls big time in UUP. Why? They expect the dollar to strengthen.

If the market is turning bearish, the dollar strengthens. That is a very typical response.

Why This Changes Everything

And this also means especially more significant weakness in foreign companies.

Yes, there is exchange rate risk in China. Yes, there is exchange rate risk in Germany. Yes, there is exchange rate risk in Korea, okay? In Japan, okay?

If the dollar does strengthen, foreign stocks are gonna get hammered here.

But here's the thing about today's energy trades -- I actually don't mind them. I don't like 10 days though. I like to give myself some ability to be wrong in the short run.

If there's some resolution and we see a drop to 110 on Exxon, I'd love to be able to see a drop to 110 and get bid back up again.

So my thought process is why not give yourself an opportunity to be wrong?

The Daily Hunt Nobody Does

I have a saying, okay. Find 10 different interesting opportunities every day, narrow it down to two to three trading opportunities, and find two to three trading opportunities a week.

Most people can't find those 10 trading opportunities every day. They're gonna go back to the same tired stocks that they're typically looking at all the time. They don't wanna move on because they lack confidence in being able to do that.

But if you're looking at the pressure that's building in the market as a result of demand, you never run short of opportunities.

UUP, this may not have been on your bingo card coming in today. This is what I like about this -- it keeps you on your toes, it keeps you always looking.

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What Nobody's Connecting

So the idea is we have to consider the pricing of the options as well as any expectation we have for the stock.

Option pricing is always gonna be more important than your technical analysis.

Today we're seeing the triumvirate -- energy, bonds and dollar -- and that does not bode well.

IEF again being bid today in the options market, they're buying calls. Was going long bonds on your bingo card today? Well, I guess probably not.

But again, this is something we do every day in Ghost Prints. We're trying to find the money.

And today it's telling us energy higher, bonds higher, dollar higher. That's not your typical "everything's fine" setup.

How are you preparing? Is there opportunity?

Because while everyone else is debating Iran policy, the option flow is showing you exactly where institutional money is positioning for what they think happens next.

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