Hope you enjoyed your long weekend, but if you thought the slow summer drift was going to stick around, think again.
Tuesday morning hit like a slap to the face. Futures were red across the board before the bell.
QQQ and SPY both took a gut punch. Nvidia and Palantir got smoked — right down to major support zones.
Bonds sold off, yields jumped, and oil pushed higher. Gold hit record highs.
Not exactly the gentle re-entry traders were hoping for after a quiet August.
A federal appeals court lit the fuse by ruling most of Trump’s China tariffs are unconstitutional. (We’ll see where — or if — that goes.)
It’s a lot of noise with potentially larger implications, and the market did not like the uncertainty one bit.
Now traders are left wondering: Are we heading into a major policy shift?
Will the current administration respond? How does this impact inflation? Global trade? Earnings?
You can already feel the volatility waking up.
This is how you take advantage of it while it lasts.
Blood in the Water
September is rarely a sleepy month, and all of the above supports that theory.
Back on the trading desk at the start of my career, we used to call this “shark season.”
Everyone comes back from the beach, back from Europe, back from pretending they care about anything besides markets.
And they’re hungry. They’ve got trades to make. Big money starts moving again, and that means real opportunity for those of us paying attention.
But that doesn’t mean you can throw darts, either.
This is when discipline starts to separate the pros from the tourists.
Take Tuesday’s action.
The kneejerk selloff had a lot of people panicking, but if you’ve been trading long enough, you know the drill.
Headlines like the tariff ruling create chaos, but chaos breeds setups. When you see QQQ down 2% premarket, don’t just freeze. Ask yourself: Where’s the opportunity?
Nvidia and Palantir were two of the hardest-hit names.
But both are sitting right on key support levels.
If those levels hold, we might be looking at bounce trades. If they fail, it could be the start of a deeper correction.
Either way, it’s actionable.
YOLO = No-No
The key is to let the market tell you what it wants to do — and be ready to act.
That means watching levels, staying nimble, and using strategies that give you leverage with defined risk.
Options let you do that better than anything else.
This kind of environment is built for smart options trading.
Volatility’s rising, which means premiums are fatter.
You can get paid more for selling spreads. You can take shots on breakout plays without tying up a ton of capital. And you can hedge your book without nuking your upside.
But if you’re out here YOLO-ing weekly calls because you saw a headline on X … you’re toast.
I’ve been trading professionally for over 20 years. I’ve seen these cycles come and go.
And the one thing I’ve learned — again and again — is that the traders who win in volatile markets aren’t the ones with the most ideas.
They’re the ones with the most clarity.
They’ve got a clear system and rules. They know when to press and when to chill.
They don’t panic.
They position smart and keep showing up.
So if you’ve been sleepwalking through summer, now’s the time to snap out of it.
The markets are waking up, and fall trading season is officially here.
Stay street smart,
Jeff Zananiri
P.S. Want to see how we’re trading? Today at 2 p.m. ET, join Danny Phee live for a no-BS breakdown of how he’s using short-term options to crush this market.
Plus: Don’t miss our Labor Day weekend deal — 12 months FREE for Annual and Platinum members.
Show up, lock it in, and start trading like a machine.
*Past performance does not indicate future results
