EB Daily Market Report - Friday, October 17, 2025

Dear Members.

A few things had the bears feeling a bit better this morning including a VIX in the mid 20's and a market that has at least stalled after hitting record highs just a week ago.

Yet, even with some recent selling the bulls have not yet given up the notion of higher prices but they've got some work to do with all of the major indexes currently near or below their respective 20 day moving averages. And not that far below are the respective 50 day moving averages which will need to hold or we could see some additional selling.

In the case of the S&P the 50 day is currently at 6562. So, still a ways to go, but keep in mind that the S&P has not been below its 50 day since April of this year.

But right now traders have a few things on their minds including corporate earnings and ongoing relationships with China which have recently seemed to have deteriorated some. 

In the case of earnings, the banks have put up pretty decent numbers. But traders care mostly about the numbers the big tech firms put up which will be the focus the next few weeks. And we'll start to get some big ones next week, starting with NFLX on Tuesday followed by TSLA on Wednesday along with a slew of others that will begin to tell a picture. 

Remember also that today is monthly options expiration Friday so that is likely adding to the recent volatility. In fact, during our Max Pain webinar this past Tuesday, Tom Bowley pointed to two specific stocks that looked like they could pull back substantially including RGTI and OKLO. In the case of RGTI max pain was $43. Today it got as low as $43.50 compared to Wednesday's open near $58, so a drop of 25%. And OKLO, which almost touched $194 on Wednesday, moved just below $156 today, so a drop of almost 20%. 

It's worth noting that early this morning futures were down substantially, looking like the market could be in store for a very bad day. But then tweets from the president and news that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was going to have discussions with his Chinese trade counterpart turned the futures around. And as long as traders feel like progress is being made with China, that the Fed is going to continue to lower rates and that corporate earnings are going to be just fine, it's tough to bet against the market, even when it looks like a correction might be just around the corner.

Tom will be back with his Weekly Report on Monday.

At your service,

John Hopkins