Stocks are heading for a higher open Friday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are poised to post winning weeks. Retail traders will check their accounts seventeen times before noon and still manage to lose money on green candles.
The market gives you ten things to watch. Ten. As if anyone watching has the attention span to track more than three tickers while simultaneously refreshing their Robinhood app and ignoring their day job. The list exists because financial media needs to fill airtime between pharmaceutical ads and that one guy who won't stop yelling about gold.
A winning week means nothing. The S&P could close up 2% and some guy named Derek still blew up his account shorting NVDA at 9:31 AM because a Discord moderator told him the top was in. Derek didn't watch any of the ten things. Derek watched a YouTube video titled "Why the Market Will CRASH This Week" that had 847 views and a thumbnail of a flaming chart.
Heading for a higher open translates to gap up at the bell, fade by 10 AM, chop until lunch, then drift higher into close on volume so thin you could read through it. None of the ten things to watch will explain why. None of them ever do. They'll mention jobs data and Fed speakers and earnings beats, and the market will move on nothing or everything or just because it felt like it.
The Nasdaq posts a winning week while someone somewhere definitely bought puts at the exact bottom after reading that the tech bubble was bursting for the fourteenth time this year. That person will watch all ten things this weekend. They'll take notes. They'll feel prepared. Monday will not care.
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
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