This session opens with real movement for once: the Nasdaq is down over 500 points, the S&P over 50, and the Russell down 300, while the Dow holds up relatively better, which Bubba is quick to point out is actually a bearish signal rather than a bullish one, since strength concentrated in the Dow typically reflects a flight to perceived safety rather than genuine risk appetite. It’s a useful moment for viewers to see him separate headline price action from what it actually implies about market internals.
The bulk of the substantive discussion centers on crude oil, where Bubba lays out a pattern he’s been tracking since geopolitical tensions in the Middle East first flared: crude’s successive rally highs have been stair-stepping lower each time, from 120 to 110 to 100 to 90 and now toward 85, which he reads as evidence that each new spike is being sold with less conviction than the last. He discloses, again with full transparency that it’s a personal trade rather than a day-trading signal, that he sold crude that morning at 85, bought it back at 84, and plans to sell it again at 85 if it returns there, treating it as a standing thesis trade rather than a scalp.
Despite gold and crude both showing real movement early in the session, and despite Bubba repeatedly checking in on the S&P and Nasdaq for a potential trigger, nothing in his day-trading system ever actually qualifies. He’s candid about it as the session winds down, acknowledging that it looks like it’s going to be a shutout, but reframing that not as a failure but as evidence the system worked exactly as intended, since a shutout also means no unforced losses either. It’s a rare but instructive example of a full session where the lesson is entirely about restraint rather than execution.
Elsewhere, Bubba touches on a handful of broader market notes that don’t turn into trades but round out the session: the introduction of new nano futures contracts sized at a tenth of the existing micros, gold’s continued 24/7 trading following crude’s own move to round-the-clock trading in October, the yen’s post-intervention collapse as proof that currency interventions rarely hold, and copper sitting at what he calls a reasonable buy spot given AI-driven demand for the metal. He also flags that his notes and bonds levels from prior sessions (109 and 110, respectively) both played out exactly as expected.
By the close, the session nets out to zero day trades, a personal crude oil short still working, and a personal Apple long from earlier that morning that doesn’t qualify as an official signal. Bubba wraps by reiterating what may be the single most repeated idea across this channel: the decision not to trade is itself a trade, and on a day like this, with volume thin and no real trigger showing up despite genuine volatility elsewhere in the market, sitting on his hands was the correct call rather than a missed opportunity.
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.
