Markets don’t wait for news to act.
They respond to flows, constraints, and imbalance.
Charts don’t forecast headlines.
They reveal where pressure is building.
When news finally arrives, it often confirms what price had already been signaling — not because price is magical, but because capital was already leaning.
Which is why we went long $XOM ( ▲ 1.92% ) ExxonMobil calls in early December. (Post linked below)
Not because we expected a headline —
but because price, positioning, and volatility were already compressing in a way that made time asymmetry cheap.
That isn’t hindsight.
It’s process.
For those who acted, the $XOM calls discussed should now be meaningfully higher from entry, in many cases multiples of cost.
The goal isn’t to predict shocks.
It’s to already be positioned before the narrative arrives.
What happened last night doesn’t change that framework.
It clarifies it.
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