One retail account, one frontier-tech thesis, documented in public. A new Fed chair tried to impose gravity on Wednesday. By Thursday's close the dip-buyers — and a signed peace deal — had already erased it.
For about one trading day, the bears finally got their story. Kevin Warsh held his first meeting as Fed chair, the dot plot turned hawkish — nine of eighteen officials now pencil in a hike this year — the easing bias vanished from the statement, and yields jumped. Wednesday the Dow shed 500 points off a record and the high-multiple growth names I own took it on the chin. My book slipped about 2% off its all-time high. I sat down to write this issue calling it my first real down week.
Then Thursday happened. The Russell 2000 — the small-cap, rate-sensitive index, the exact stuff that got hit hardest — ripped 2.12%. The Nasdaq jumped 1.91%. The dip-buyers went straight for the wreckage, and the U.S. and Iran formally signed their peace memorandum in France, draining the last of the war premium out of oil. By the closing bell my book was back at ~$7,860, +49.1%, right on the doorstep of the high it had set 48 hours earlier.
So the honest headline isn't "the first down week." It's: the Fed delivered the most hawkish surprise in months and the market overruled it in a single session. That tells you something real about this tape — and it's worth being careful about what.
The map before the positions. ● firing ● mixed/watching ● next-wave seed ● known headwind.
The number that drove Wednesday's drop was the dot plot, not the rate. The number that drove Thursday's recovery was the Russell — small caps leading means the dip-buyers attacked the most beaten-down, rate-sensitive corner first. When the most fragile part of the market leads the bounce-back, that's a tell about conviction. Just don't confuse one resilient session with a green light to ignore rates.
Trimmed: half the SPCX position into the parabola last week — and it cooled right after, so the call holds. Held: everything through Wednesday's Fed scare without flinching, and got paid for it Thursday. Watching: a real rate-driven pullback would finally hand me the Marvell ($230–250) and Dell ($400–420) entries I've been waiting on. Wednesday wasn't deep enough. Powder stays dry.
"A hawkish Fed is a multiple problem, not an earnings problem. The market figured that out in 24 hours. Don't let it convince you rates don't matter."
The whole point of Wednesday's selloff was that a new Fed chair signaled rates could go up, not down. That's a genuine headwind for richly-valued growth. But the market bought the dip in a single session — because Micron's memory is still sold out, the rockets still launch, and the AI buildout doesn't get cancelled because the year-end dot moved 40 basis points. The earnings are real; only the discount rate changed.
Here's the discipline, though, and it cuts the other way too: one bought dip is not immunity. The most dangerous thing I could take from this week is "see, it always comes right back." It doesn't. If May PCE runs hot next week and Warsh actually hikes, the rate-sensitive corner of my book — the eVTOLs, the pre-revenue moonshots, the high-multiple chips — gives back real money, and no amount of dip-buying saves it. So I hold the winners, I keep the powder dry, and I respect the headwind I just watched the market dismiss. The bears who called the top at 6,000 will call it again. I'll get cautious when the orders get cancelled — not when the dot plot gets grumpy, and not because one Thursday felt invincible.
Confession on process, because it matters. I drafted this issue Wednesday night calling it my "first down week" — book off the highs, gravity winning, discipline tested. Then Thursday erased most of the damage and I had to rewrite the whole thing. That's a small lesson worth saying out loud: never publish the market's story before the bell rings. A one-day snapshot of a selloff is not a week, and a week is not a trend. I almost shipped a narrative that was 24 hours from being wrong.
And the harder truth underneath the recovery: I'm right back near +49% in 80 days, and that is still not normal, still not repeatable, and now carries a headwind it didn't have a month ago. The Fed has flipped from "might cut" to "might hike." My book is concentrated in exactly the kind of names that hate higher rates. The market shrugging that off for one Thursday doesn't change the math — it just delays the test. The run-up made me look smart. The rate cycle is where I find out if I am.
You get the rewrite, the recovery, and the caveat in the same voice. That's the deal.
Eighty days. $5,270 deployed, ~$7,860 on the board, every position green, and a portfolio that took the most hawkish Fed surprise in months on the chin Wednesday and was back at its highs by Thursday's close.
That resilience is real and worth respecting — the dip-buyers and a signed peace deal overpowered the rate scare in a single session. But the rate headwind is now a permanent feature of the landscape, not a one-day event, and next week's MU earnings and May PCE print are where the market actually settles the argument. I'm holding the winners, keeping the powder dry for the Marvell and Dell entries a deeper dip would hand me, and refusing to mistake one resilient Thursday for immunity to a tightening Fed.
Issue #2 was the euphoric peak. This issue was supposed to be the comedown — and the market wouldn't even give me a clean one. That's a good problem. It's also exactly the kind of tape that lulls people right before it bites. I'd rather tell you that than pretend the line only goes up.
See you next Sunday, buddy. — Alo