JustDario on Slice

All those who are in the PR trade with me should be keeping a close eye on GEX this week

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 03:26:39 GMT

All those who are in the PR trade with me should be keeping a close eye on GEX this week

JustDario Live Stream #13 (7th October 2026) - SUMMARY

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:25:25 GMT

JustDario Live Stream #13 (7th October 2026) - SUMMARY

JustDario - Live Stream #13

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:59:00 GMT

Live replay

Dear all, I just published "THE DIESEL PROBLEM NO POLITICIAN SEEMS TO UNDERSTAND" on my public blog

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 03:15:18 GMT

Dear all, I just published " THE DIESEL PROBLEM NO POLITICIAN SEEMS TO UNDERSTAND " on my public blog Feel free to let me know what you think and any question about it in the comments of this post

JustDario - Live Stream #12

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:00:03 GMT

Live replay

Here you go guys, the crude oil crush continues and they are trying to push CL all the way down to 90$ as I felt it would occur

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:53:03 GMT

Here you go guys, the crude oil crush continues and they are trying to push CL all the way down to 90$ as I felt it would occur

MARKETS & TRADE IDEAS UPDATE - 22nd September

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 22:14:48 GMT

In case you had any doubts about whether or not something very wrong was going on in the energy markets today (Monday), just take a look at the TTF Natural Gas benchmark for Europe, down ~7% in a day, while Cheniere Energy (LNG), whose revenues are highly correlated to TTF, closed the day ~2.5% higher in the last session. We know Europe is entering the winter season with dangerously low stockpiles of Natural Gas, and we know that supply from Russia or Qatar is going to be close to zero, which is why TTF has been steadily rising since August. However, in the past 7 days, the TTF benchmark is down ~13%. Strangely, the WTI price (including the reference contract roll from October to November) is down ~13% as well over the past 7 days. Another very odd thing that happened on Monday: despite the sharp drop in crude oil and natural gas, gold and silver not only haven’t experienced much volatility, but even closed slightly red. What was surely very bullish was the price action of “RISK ON” assets like stocks and crypto. What triggered that? Trump's latest TACO, definitely. Is there a silver lining connecting all of these? Trump calling off the strikes on the Houthis? Reuters claiming, based on Kepler data on “non-observable ship traffic”, that Saudi ARAMCO is exporting, so far in September, 4 times the amount of crude oil per day it exported on average in August, while Kepler itself stated SOH transits dropped from 35 to 13 a day (118 the pre-war level FYI)? According to Kepler, again, STS oil exports in Hormuz are ~2.5mb/day currently, HIGHER than the crude oil amount they claimed ARAMCO ALONE has been exporting through Hormuz. Objectively speaking, there are quite a few inconsistencies in the last Kepler report that allegedly triggered Monday's sharp correction in energy prices, which followed a correction that started exactly a week prior. Some people argue the market is already pricing a new SPR release from G7, forgetting that in the ongoing IAE plan agreed in March, there are still ~100mb of crude oil left to be dumped in the market. But that argument still would not explain the move in the Natural gas market. Sorry to make you feel dizzy, but I have one last thing to share. While Energy futures have been crashing in the past 7 days, Diesel and gasoline prices at the pump across the globe have been going UP. Diesel in the US is up ~5% in the past 7 days in particular. While the market was making many heads twist today, I shared already in the general chat my findings about the options activity on CL that, combined with the futures tape, strongly suggest an effort to trigger a reverse gamma squeeze in the market. I suspect something very similar has been happening across other major energy benchmarks. During my flight to Europe, I had a lot of time to think and could not get my head away from going back to 2020 when the whole market was heavily long oil, assuming the COVID crisis would have been temporary and not shut the whole global economy for months, as in reality occurred. Because of that particular setup, on the 20th of April those who were long futures received so many requests to deliver, rather than cash settle the contracts, that the market quickly realized there was not enough storage available, and longs started panic selling, ultimately driving crude oil prices all the way to minus 30$ that day. Can the exact opposite occur? The exact opposite can occur, in theory, and the market has already shown smaller versions of it whenever Cushing inventories approached the operational floor in 2000, 2008, and 2023. The only missing ingredients for a mirror-image “plus $30 or $40 in a single session” event would be an unusually large remaining short open interest into expiry coinciding with a genuine inability to source barrels at the hub. In practice, those who are short have the option to decide whether to cash settle or deliver. Is the reason why the crude oil price has been slammed so hard into tomorrow's WTI Oct contract last day of trading to reduce as much as possible the cash bleeding of short positions as much as possible? That’s my strong suspicion. Hilariously, so to speak, last week in the Markets chat I flagged that the options positioning suggested an extreme scenario where CL could be pushed all the way down to 90$. Those options expired on Thursday, but nevertheless, the crude oil price is still being pushed all the way down to 90$. Shall we prepare for another big crude oil slam tomorrow, then? I am afraid that is a strong possibility. But at the same time, the US just announced that on Wednesday it will sanction all Iranian airlines, aiming to restrict them from flying across the globe. Iraq already said it will comply and close its airspace to Iranian planes starting on Wednesday. So far, Iran has not said anything on the matter, but I doubt they won’t retaliate from their side. How? I cannot think about much else than going after the STS oil transfer system in the SOH. Because of the UN General Assembly starting in NYC and Chairman Xi's visit to DC starting right after, another reason why Trump decided not to order an attack against the Houthis was also not to spoil the diplomatic agenda. But I still believe there are the perfect conditions for this week's actions in the market to be very messed up, and the Monday session somewhat reinforced my belief. Now you understand why I am sitting tight on my PR trade expiring in less than 4 weeks. Especially when crude oil inventories across the globe are not only making new multi-year record lows, but at this time of the year they are supposed to be rising, not still trending lower. On the contrary, after mulling quite a lot over it, I decided to exit the CRAK trade because I think that even if refineries still have potential to go higher, the large part of their move because of the oil crisis has occurred, and their margins are now heavily squeezed by skyrocketing shipping costs and soon potentially by crude oil repricing higher. It was hard not to notice the strength in Sugar today; that should have gone lower big following crude oil, but it did not. Why? Because, as I said earlier, the prices of gasoline and diesel in the real world are going higher, with France being the first G7 country already reporting widespread shortages of fuel. This is pushing the price of ethanol higher, and the costs of shipping Ethanol are also a fraction of crude. The combination makes it very attractive for sugarcane refineries in Brazil to shift a significant amount of refining of sugarcane to Ethanol versus sugar and potentially suddenly impact the price of sugar in the market in the near future. I am still monitoring the LNG trade, especially when TTF is being pushed down so much at the moment, but I believe we are not the only ones who are increasingly aware of this opportunity, considering the strong bid for Cheniere on such a bloody day for the energy space.

MARKETS COMMENT - 17th September 2026

noreply@slice-app.io (JustDario) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 03:11:29 GMT

I just watched Kevin Warsh video a second time, just in case at 3am in the morning my brain was tired and I missed something. But no, I have not, because, as a matter of fact, he didn’t really say anything relevant, but one thing: “a fed hike won’t directly impact [crude oil prices], but aims at containing that inflation from spreading into other sectors”. When I heard that a few hours ago, I immediately took a look at oil futures and, to my surprise, saw no reaction. Question in my brain right away: “Why?”. I did not take long to find the answer: WTI futures options OPEX 1 trading session away. After that, I started to look at options market positioning across the board, and all the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Forget about the fake narratives and headlines; we can tell they aren’t working. When the headline of a “peace deal” between the Houthis and the US dropped - so fake that not even Trump dared to say a word about it when he usually loves to flex his “winnings” - oil futures did not move. Once the whole barrage of fake news and narratives across socials and MSM stopped, oil futures started to trend higher quickly, and 30 minutes later those busy manipulating the tape heavily left a huge fingerprint all over it, as you can see in the chart. The headline used as a cover-up? ARAMCO will be able to resume limited E-W pipeline operations in a few days and restore full operations in 6 weeks, “bypassing” the damaged sections. EXACTLY THE SAME SCRIPT US SECRETARY HASSET RECITED A FEW HOURS EARLIER, while he was also claiming 18mb of crude left Hormuz on Tuesday (that FYI is pre-war levels). Fun Fact: he claimed that AT THE SAME TIME Fox News reported Iran fired upon a vessel trying to transit Hormuz, also injuring US Military personnel ONBOARD the vessel. I don’t want to spend more words commenting on this whole garbage; all of you here are smart people who can complete the whole picture unless you already did so. Anyhow, back to the options market because the key to deciphering what moves the markets in the short term lies there more often than not nowadays. What was remarkably odd was Energy stocks opening, all deeply in the red. Why odd? Because it was disconnected from oil futures too much. An open slightly in the red would have been fair, but not deeply. Strong market shenanigans aren’t unusual around large OPEX, especially around quadruple witching, and it did not take long to complete the puzzle. Thanks to that timely dump at open, market makers GEX on Energy stocks and ETFs options expiring THIS FRIDAY across the board (See Chart2) flipped from positive to negative gamma. As I explained in the 3rd episode of “Options By Dario,” when GEX is negative, market makers have to “chase” the market to delta hedge, amplifying moves in the underlying asset. BINGO. I can list many firms I suspect could be behind that, either alone or coordinating, but I will keep it to myself since it adds no value to this commentary. Likely the same firms that have been supporting the government's efforts to suppress crude oil futures prices; this is my gut feeling. At this point, I believe it is clear how, when you are in a trade, it’s critical to always have in mind the fundamental, technical, and structural market picture to be able to manage your positions or catch an opportunity. The exact reason why, in the last minutes of trading, I decided to sell 50% of my deeply ITM CRAK calls and buy more PR 23$ Oct options. Not because I believe less in my Diesel analysis; as a matter of fact, a few hours later, pictures of US gas stations out of Diesel started even surfacing on social media, while ALL oil upstream companies were dumping on Wednesday, bids for refiners remained strong (VLO even closed green), and despite the heavy hand trying to crush futures, Diesel remained flat. But risk management discipline is key, and my STRICT rule is to never go beyond 2% high-risk options exposure in my investment portfolio. Since I saw in the chats that people shared interpretations about gold, silver, and stock moves on Wednesday that I agree with, I would not spend more words on that either. There is only one thing I already shared in the chat I would like to highlight here again: those very odd large SPY and QQQ puts, and VIX OTM calls trades right before the FED were incredibly timely and are now all in profit already. However, with the benefit of hindsight, considering that Warsh did a good job of delivering the most neutral possible message not to trigger a volatility event in markets, I believe those weren’t bets on the FED but on something whoever is behind it believes might occur in the near future; otherwise, they would have cashed out all those profits already rather than keeping those positions open at the close.