Image Source: Pixabay

Welcome to the jungle, folks — no, not the Guns N' Roses kind — I mean the Wall Street jungle, where it's triple witching Friday, and what you see is not what you get. We're neck-deep in what I call the “Season of the Witch,” and make no mistake: this isn't folklore, nor a Hollywood fable with Nick Cage slinging a sword. No, this season is pure financial theater — scripted, rigged, and executed with surgical precision by the market's most elite players.

Here’s the deal: we’ve been up all month, and as much as Don wants to call for a selloff, I’m telling you flat-out — not happening. Not today. Not tomorrow. The market is propped up by performance gaming, institutional window dressing, and an unrelenting tidal wave of call buying. Algorithms are programmed to buy strength, chase momentum, and keep the optical illusion of a healthy market alive for just long enough — say, until June 30th — so bonuses get padded and shame gets deferred.

We’re not trading on fundamentals anymore — throw that concept out the window. This market is being manipulated… 

…by the likes of Citadel, BlackRock, and JP Morgan. These players must keep the illusion intact. If this market had rolled into June looking like a dumpster fire, they would have torched everything and blamed macro. But instead, we rallied. And that means they’re stuck defending the narrative until the calendar resets.

Case in point: CarMax. Great earnings, good multiple, stock gets a modest bump. Why? Because it's not sexy enough. The hedge fund managers who botched this trade at $91 are dumping at $68 just to erase the mistake from their portfolio. It's optics. Nobody wants to end Q2 with a turd on their books — even if that turd is wrapped in gold-plated fundamentals.

Or take Darden. I call it “Hunger Games,” because it's a proxy for discretionary spending. If Darden is ripping, it tells you the consumer still feels rich — not from wage growth or lower inflation, but from tech stock gains and crypto FOMO. It's the wealth effect in action. And when that fades? That’s your real warning signal — not CPI print, not Powell’s pressers. Darden rolling over means Main Street’s finally tapped out.

And don’t get me started on Powell. The guy who held ZIRP too long and ignited a historic inflation cycle now gets paraded around as if he’s a hero for not cutting rates. He’s not a maestro — he’s a janitor mopping up his own mess. And now, the market’s banking on not one, but two rate cuts — even when inflation metrics like GMS are screaming the opposite. That’s not price discovery. That’s delusion.

So what do you do in a market like this? Nothing. Wait. Let the quarter end. The market right now is a spinning top — directionless, overbought, and artificially elevated. But make no mistake: when the algos flip, they won’t give you a second chance. You won’t get out. You’ll blink and find yourself a thousand points lower. Fundamentals will matter again — just not today.

Until then, it’s all smoke, mirrors, and gamma squeezes. Welcome to the Season of the Witch.

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