Jobs Miss, SCOTUS Ghosting, and $200 Billion of Copium – Market Breakdown #156
The December jobs report missed, SCOTUS punted on tariffs, and the President ordered $200 billion in mortgage bond purchases via Truth Social. Record highs anyway.
📊 THE MARKET BREAKDOWN
Weekly market intelligence for traders who think in systems, not headlines.
Issue #156 – January 9, 2026
🔥 Headlines & Hysteria (powered by Forked Feed)
Jobs Report Shows 50,000 Added in December, Below Expectations
Forked Feed says: Economists predicted 73,000 jobs. We got 50,000. That’s a miss rate of 31%, which coincidentally is also the accuracy rate of economists predicting anything since 2019. At this point, we should just replace the BLS with a Magic 8-Ball that only says “Ask Again After Revisions.”Supreme Court Declines to Rule on Trump Tariffs, Schedules More Suspense for Wednesday
Forked Feed says: SCOTUS treating the tariff decision like your situationship treats making plans: “I’ll let you know, maybe Wednesday, depends on vibes.” Meanwhile, importers have set up ACH accounts for potential refunds like hopeful lottery ticket holders. The Court’s silence is worth approximately $200 billion in anxiety.Trump Orders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Buy $200 Billion in Mortgage Bonds
Forked Feed says: “Instructing my Representatives” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It’s giving “my dad works at Nintendo” energy, except the dad actually does work at Nintendo and just nationalized the controller market. Homebuilders jumped 8%. Rocket Companies is up 9%. The housing affordability crisis is officially being solved by vibes and a Truth Social post. The Founders would be so proud.Iran Protests Escalate as Government Imposes Nationwide Internet Blackout
Forked Feed says: The rial has lost 56% of its value in six months. The inflation rate is 42%. The government’s response to people chanting “Death to the Dictator” was to offer $7 a month in food subsidies, which is somehow both too little and exactly as tone-deaf as you’d expect. Meanwhile, Trump is “locked and loaded,” which historically means absolutely anything between a sternly worded tweet and regime change. WTI doesn’t know what to do with itself.S&P 500 Closes at Record High for Third Time This Week
Forked Feed says: The stock market looked at 50,000 jobs, a deferred Supreme Court case, Iran on the brink, and $200 billion in unorthodox mortgage intervention and said “this is bullish, actually.” The VIX is at 14.49. Volatility is a myth. Fear is a construct. We are all going to die at all-time highs, which is honestly the most American thing possible.
🔎 Today’s Focus — “The Mortgage Intervention That Changed Everything and Nothing”
In approximately 280 characters, the President of the United States decided to become a one-man quantitative easing program.
The directive for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds is, depending on who you ask: a masterstroke of housing policy, an unconstitutional overreach of executive authority, a savvy midterm election play, or all three simultaneously. What it definitely is, without question, is unprecedented in peacetime.
The mechanics are straightforward enough. Fannie and Freddie have been accumulating cash in conservatorship. That cash will now be deployed to buy their own MBS, increasing demand, pushing up prices, and theoretically lowering the spread between Treasuries and mortgages. TD Cowen thinks this could knock 25 basis points off mortgage rates. Others are less convinced, noting that $200 billion into a $9.26 trillion MBS market is significant but not transformational.
What’s more interesting is what this signals about the administration’s approach to markets. The Fed spent years as the buyer of last resort, then stepped away. The vacuum has been felt in every basis point of the elevated mortgage spread. Now the executive branch is filling that role directly, bypassing the independent central bank entirely.
Homebuilders love it. D.R. Horton, PulteGroup, and Lennar all jumped 7-8%. Mortgage lenders went vertical. Rocket Companies hit levels not seen since 2021. The market is pricing in lower rates and stronger demand, consequences be damned.
The consequences, of course, are worth considering. Using the GSEs as a “funding arm for Presidential policy,” as JonesTrading’s Mike O’Rourke put it, probably means the long-discussed privatization IPO is dead. You can’t simultaneously use these entities as policy tools and release them into the wild. Pick one.
For now, the market has picked “rates going lower” and is running with it. Whether that thesis survives contact with the Supreme Court tariff decision, the February jobs print, or the next Truth Social post remains to be seen.
⚡ The Setup
SPY ~ 694.07 | BTC ~ 90,585 | US10Y ~ 4.17% | DXY ~ 99.14
The S&P 500 rose 0.65% to close at 6,966.28, a fresh all-time high and the third record this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 238 points to finish at 49,504, also a record. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.81% to 23,671, led by semiconductors catching a bid after Meta announced nuclear energy deals with Vistra and TerraPower. Vistra ripped 14% on the news. The Russell 2000 climbed nearly 1%, bringing its weekly gain to over 4% and outpacing the S&P by a wide margin. Small caps are having their moment.
The December jobs report landed soft but not scary. Nonfarm payrolls came in at 50,000, below the 73,000 consensus, while the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4%. Revisions to prior months were negative. The market’s interpretation: the Fed can stay patient, no January cut needed, maybe not March either. Homebuilders exploded higher after Trump’s mortgage bond directive, with D.R. Horton, PulteGroup, and Lennar all jumping 7-8%. Rocket Companies hit levels not seen since 2021.
Bitcoin hovers at $90,585, clinging to the psychological $90K level like a climber who just realized they’re afraid of heights. ETF outflows are swelling, whale addresses are at January 2024 lows, and on-chain analysts are using words like “hesitation” and “liquidity drain.” Ethereum sits at $3,083, down slightly. TOTAL3 (altcoin market cap excluding BTC and ETH) is at $875.5 billion, down fractionally as risk appetite for alts remains muted.
Gold trades at $4,509, bid on Iran tensions and general geopolitical anxiety. Silver is at $79.90, approaching that zone where silver bugs become intolerable at dinner parties. WTI crude jumped 3% to $58.80 on Iran headlines, because nothing says “supply concerns” like a nationwide internet blackout in a major producing nation. The 10-year yield eased to 4.17%. VIX collapsed to 14.49, down over 6% on the day, suggesting the market has achieved a state of calm that feels almost insulting given the news flow. MOVE is at 61.5, bond vol equally comatose.
🧩 Market Archetype — “The Narrative Surfer”
This is a market that doesn’t trade fundamentals. It doesn’t even trade technicals. It trades narratives, hopping from wave to wave with the agility of someone who has realized that being right matters less than being positioned for whatever story is currently winning.
Today’s narrative: soft landing confirmed, rates heading lower eventually, housing about to get help from an unexpected source. Yesterday’s narrative: tariff clarity coming, position accordingly. Tomorrow’s narrative: who knows, but the Narrative Surfer will be ready, board waxed, wetsuit on.
The Surfer doesn’t ask whether the $200 billion mortgage buy makes sense. The Surfer asks whether other Surfers will buy the news. The Surfer doesn’t care if SCOTUS upholds or strikes down tariffs. The Surfer cares which outcome has been priced in and which will cause the bigger move.
It’s an exhausting way to trade, but it’s working. The S&P is at record highs. Volatility is dead. And everyone who tried to trade “fundamentals” in 2025 is still explaining to their clients why being early is not the same as being wrong.
🧭 Flow Pulse
Options flow leaned cautiously bullish into the jobs print, then leaned harder after the number came in soft but not scary. The put-call ratio suggests hedging is minimal, which makes sense when hedges have been a waste of premium for six months running. Weekly expiry positioning was balanced around spot, with no strong downside skew near the money. The implied move of roughly 0.6% was realized almost exactly.
Equity inflows continue their January surge. Money is rotating into small caps at an aggressive pace, with the Russell 2000’s 4%+ weekly gain attracting momentum chasers. IWM saw heavy buying throughout the week. The “Great Rotation” narrative that started in early January is now a self-reinforcing trade. Large-cap tech outflows moderated but remain a theme.
Homebuilder and mortgage lender flows exploded higher. D.R. Horton, PulteGroup, and Lennar all saw their largest single-day volume in months after the Fannie/Freddie mortgage bond directive. Rocket Companies printed levels not seen since 2021. The trade is straightforward: if government-sponsored enterprises are about to become the buyer of last resort for MBS, mortgage rates fall and housing demand rises. Whether that thesis survives contact with reality is another question.
Rate expectations shifted meaningfully. Fed funds futures have basically given up on a January cut and are now debating whether March is even on the table. The jobs report sealed the “higher for longer” narrative. Powell’s replacement will be named soon, likely at Davos, and the market is pre-positioning for whoever it might be.
Crypto flows remained weak. Bitcoin ETFs posted modest outflows as BTC tested $90,000 support. Fear & Greed sits at depressed levels. The $460 million in liquidations earlier this week cleared out leveraged longs, but the bounce has been anemic. No signs of institutional bottom-fishing yet.
Treasury flows picked up modestly ahead of the weekend. The 10-year yield fell to 4.17% as the soft jobs print gave duration buyers some cover. Money is hedging against a potential growth scare, but the conviction isn’t high.
Forked Feed says: The real flow story today was homebuilders discovering that the President can move their stocks more with a Truth Social post than a full quarter of earnings. Rocket Companies gained 9% because a 78-year-old man typed in all caps about mortgage bonds. This is the market now. Your sector’s beta to policy tweets is more important than your fundamentals. Meanwhile, Bitcoin ETFs are bleeding while the S&P prints records, which is exactly the kind of divergence that makes crypto Twitter write twelve-part threads about “decoupling” before BTC drops another 5%. The VIX at 14.49 suggests nobody is worried about anything, which historically is when everyone should be worried about everything.
🔮 Forked Forecast
Base Case (55%): Grind Higher Into Tariff Decision
The market has absorbed today’s news and decided it’s bullish. Monday opens flat to slightly green, and we drift higher into Wednesday’s potential SCOTUS opinion day. The soft jobs number keeps rate cut hopes alive without sparking recession fears. Any dips get bought. VIX stays suppressed. Bitcoin continues its $90K purgatory, neither breaking down nor breaking out. The narrative remains “soft landing confirmed” until proven otherwise.
Bull Case (25%): Breakout on Tariff Reprieve
SCOTUS rules against the IEEPA tariffs or issues a narrow decision that triggers refunds. Market explodes higher on the removal of uncertainty. Dollar weakens, gold rips, and every importer in America simultaneously exhales. Consumer discretionary stocks lead the rally as tariff costs evaporate. Bitcoin catches a bid on risk-on sentiment, finally breaking above $95K. The January trifecta completes and we’re off to the races.
Bear Case (20%): Tariff Chaos or Iran Escalation
Either SCOTUS upholds tariffs and the administration declares victory, causing a selloff in consumer discretionary and import-heavy names, or Iran’s situation deteriorates into something that actually spooks oil markets. The 3% WTI move was a warning shot. The real move would be double digits. Bitcoin breaks $90K to the downside on risk-off, testing $85K support. VIX wakes from its coma and spikes above 20.
Triggers to Watch:
Wednesday SCOTUS opinion day for potential tariff ruling
Any weekend developments in Iran protests
Fed speaker commentary Monday/Tuesday
Bitcoin $90K support level
Truth Social for additional policy announcements
💬 Final Thought
There’s a Douglas Adams quote about the art of flying: you throw yourself at the ground and miss. That’s what this market feels like. Every day, it throws itself at some catastrophe—tariffs, jobs misses, geopolitical crises—and somehow misses the impact. Just keeps floating.
At some point, presumably, the ground will make contact. But for now, we’re flying. The S&P is at records. The VIX is asleep. And everyone who bet against American exceptionalism is explaining to their risk manager why they need more runway.
Maybe the ground doesn’t exist. Maybe we’ve collectively decided that stocks only go up and consequences are for people who read history books. Maybe the $200 billion mortgage buy will work, the Supreme Court will thread the needle, Iran will sort itself out, and we’ll all retire at ATH.
Or maybe we’re in the final act of something, and we just can’t see the credits rolling yet.
Either way, strap in. Wednesday could be interesting.
That’s all for issue #156. The markets, as always, remain undefeated at making everyone feel stupid. Enjoy Part 2 of Fibo’s Friday series below.
Issue #2 - Markets Don’t Clear
The idea that markets “clear” is one of the most damaging myths people carry into trading. It sounds reasonable. Supply meets demand. Price adjusts. Balance is restored. Everyone moves on.
That story works in textbooks. It does not survive contact with real markets.
Markets do not balance.
They overshoot.
If markets actually cleared rationally, trends would not exist. Price would hover calmly around some agreed-upon value. There would be no momentum, no bubbles, no crashes, and no reason to argue endlessly on social media about what something is worth. Reality looks nothing like that because markets are not built to find comfort. They are built to find stress.
Markets are not pricing engines. They are behavioral engines.
Their function is not to discover fairness. Their function is to push participants until behavior changes. Price moves until someone is forced to act, not until everyone agrees. Overshoot is not a flaw. It is the mechanism doing its job.
This is where social mood comes in.
When confidence is expanding, price moves further than logic justifies. When confidence contracts, price moves further than fear thinks is possible. In both cases, the move feels wrong while it is happening. That discomfort is not a signal that the market is broken. It is the signal that behavior is being tested.
Bitcoin makes this process impossible to ignore.
In traditional markets, overshoots can be blamed on liquidity, central banks, or policy. In Bitcoin, there is nowhere to hide. No committee steps in to smooth the curve. No authority declares a “fair” level. Price is free to move until people blink.
Sideways markets are where this becomes most obvious.
When Bitcoin goes nowhere for long stretches, people start saying the market is dead, manipulated, or broken. In reality, nothing is wrong. The market is simply applying pressure in a different direction. Instead of fear, it uses boredom. Instead of panic, it uses irritation.
That emotional shift matters.
Early in cycles, fear dominates. Later, frustration does. People stop selling because they are scared and start selling because they are tired. They don’t exit because the thesis failed. They exit because waiting feels pointless.
That is not clearing.
That is filtering.
This is why “nothing happening” is one of the most active phases in Bitcoin. Ownership is being tested quietly. Coins move from people who need movement to people who don’t. The price does not have to go anywhere to accomplish that.
Markets overshoot because humans don’t change their minds all at once. They change under pressure, at different thresholds, over time. The market’s job is to find those thresholds and lean on them until something gives.
Threshold Theory exists to observe that process, not explain it away.
You are not watching the price to see where it should stop. You are watching the price to see who is being forced to act. Overshoots reveal where conviction actually breaks, not where people say it should.
If markets really cleared, participation would be easy.
They don’t, because easy participation defeats the purpose.
Social Mood Read
Irritation is replacing fear, and people are confusing that discomfort with information.
Fear forces decisions. Irritation corrodes conviction. When markets stop scaring people, they start wearing them down. Sideways and overshoot phases feel wrong not because price is failing, but because patience is being taxed. The market isn’t sending new information. It’s applying time. Most participants don’t break because they’re scared. They break because they get tired of waiting.
What to Watch This Week
When price feels stretched, stop asking where it should reverse. Start asking who cannot tolerate more time at these levels. When nothing seems to be happening, stop assuming the market is quiet. That is often when the most important decisions are being made.
Mood Signal: Impatience masquerading as insight.
Markets don’t balance behavior. They expose it.
And Bitcoin does it without apology.
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The Narrative Surfer archetype nails whats happening right now. Markets are basically running on vibes and policy tweets instead of fundamentals. The $200B mortgage intervention is wild—using GSEs as a funding arm for executive policy pretty much kills any privatization hopes, but nobodys pricing that risk. Also the VIX being comatose at 14.49 while we're dealing with Iran tensions and SCOTUS uncertainty feels like a setup for something painful.