TBubba opens this session the day before an FOMC decision, with Meta and Microsoft due to report the next day and Apple and Amazon on deck for Thursday. It’s exactly the kind of calendar that usually gets traders leaning forward in their chairs, but Bubba spends the first stretch of the show doing the opposite, walking through name after name on his board and finding almost nothing worth touching. Apple and Amazon are both off the table purely because of earnings risk, Meta and Microsoft the same, and even names without event risk, like Google, IWM, and Microsoft, are simply sitting too close to their means to offer any edge. It’s a useful real-time lesson in what he calls trading with a reason, rather than trading because the calendar feels exciting.
The macro backdrop gets real attention here. Bubba points to a cluster of credit-stress data points, zero-down mortgage financing creeping back into the market, stated-income loans making a comeback, and rising delinquency rates on credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages, as longer-term warning signs even though none of it changes what he’s doing that morning. He also flags a subtler signal worth remembering: even as stocks sold off intraday, the VIX barely budged, up only about 40 cents at its peak, which he reads as a sign sellers may already be running out of ammunition rather than kicking off something bigger.
The one name he does spend real time on is Palantir, which had been hammered that morning after a big rally the day before. Rather than chase the selloff, he sets a specific level, around 115, where he’d be willing to step in as a buyer, and otherwise leaves it alone. He does the same with IWM, calling out support at 290 and explaining that he wants to see a break below it followed by a rally back into resistance before he’d consider selling it, a patient, level-based approach rather than a gut call.
Where the action actually happens is in crude oil, which Bubba trades twice as pure day trades, buying a bounce, scaling out for a small profit, and then repeating the process a second time later in the session, both modest wins in the ten-to-hundred-dollar range depending on contract size. He also shares, with full disclosure that it’s a personal trade rather than a signal for viewers, that he bought Kimberly-Clark 115 calls for $1.30 ahead of Friday’s expiration, betting on a pop in an otherwise illiquid name.
The episode closes with Bubba reiterating a theme that runs through nearly every session on this channel: that patience is the actual skill being taught here, not any single trade. With bond and note futures rallying (which he reads as leaning toward lower rates) and a market that’s technically stretched enough to eventually need a real move in one direction, he’s content to let the crude scalps be the day’s business and wait for the bigger, more loaded names to actually report before getting more active.
About Trading Live With Bubba
Trading Live with Bubba is a live-session show on the Tradier Hub YouTube channel hosted by veteran trader Todd “Bubba” Horwitz. Airing Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Bubba scans markets in real time, calls out credit spread and day trade setups, and teaches trading discipline through live narration.
