The company reported $54.2 billion in quarterly revenue — a 379% jump from last year — thanks to the AI-driven memory boom.

Management expects the good times to continue, forecasting roughly $61.5 billion in revenue next quarter, well ahead of Wall Street estimates.

It was one of the most remarkable earnings reports I’ve seen from a major American company.

So what I’m about to say might sound crazy. But here it goes…

I believe Micron stock could lose half its value (or more) sometime over the next 6 to 24 months.

Let me be clear. I’m not predicting that the stock is due for an immediate crash.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see MU continue climbing over the next six months if excitement around AI picks back up.

I even like the company long-term. I'm bullish on Micron looking three, five, and even 10 years out.

It’s the period in between that concerns me.

After three decades of watching Wall Street cycles, Micron is showing me some very familiar warning signs.

And what happens to Micron could eventually happen to other AI leaders like Nvidia or Broadcom.

What’s Behind the Micron Hype in the First Place

First, I want to make something clear. Micron is an incredible company.

It’s one of the world’s leading memory manufacturers, and AI has completely transformed its business.

Micron’s revenue for fiscal 2026 reached $133.2 billion, up from $37.4 billion the previous year, while adjusted earnings jumped from $8.29 to $75.52 per share.

And the stock has followed. Shares are up over 450% in the past year.

Wall Street now increasingly believes AI has permanently changed Micron and broken the cycle that has defined the company for decades.

That’s where I disagree.

Memory has always been cyclical.

When chips become scarce, prices rise, and manufacturers make enormous profits.

Those profits encourage companies to build more capacity. Eventually supply catches up, prices fall, margins shrink, and profits follow.

You can see it in Micron’s earnings.

Adjusted EPS reached $11.95 in fiscal 2018, then fell to just $2.83 by 2020. Earnings surged again to $8.35 in 2022, only for Micron to lose $4.45 per share the following year.

The same boom-and-bust pattern shows up in Micron’s margins.

Micron Gross Margin, 2012–June 2026

Source: Macrotrends

Look closely, and you can see the same cycles.

Gross margins climbed to around 50% in 2018, fell below 30% by 2020, recovered above 40% in 2022, then plunged below zero in 2023.

Each major swing roughly tracks the earnings cycle we just described.

And the latest upswing has been extraordinary.

The chart only runs through June, but Micron’s gross margin has since reached an astounding 87% in the quarter it just reported, while adjusted EPS hit $33.42.

AI has produced a historic memory shortage, with demand overwhelming supply and allowing Micron to raise prices and earn extraordinary profits.

But shortages have a funny way of creating their own cure. High prices encourage more supply, and right now everyone is spending.

Will We Really Build All This?

You may have seen this chart circulating lately. It shows some of the biggest infrastructure buildouts of the past 200 years and the spending as a percentage of GDP.

The estimate for AI is staggering. But there’s an important caveat buried at the bottom of the chart…

AI spending is estimated.

These are projections of what could be built, not money already spent.

My prediction is that we don’t see even half of it.

We’re already getting reminders that announcing a data center and actually building one are very different things.

Oracle recently invoked a force majeure provision tied to potential power delays at its massive Project Jupiter development for OpenAI in New Mexico.

The project hasn’t been canceled, but it shows how real-world constraints can interfere with even the biggest AI projects.

Then there’s growing public and political resistance.

More than 100 proposed data-center moratoriums are now being considered around the country as concerns grow over electricity, water, land, and infrastructure costs.

That doesn’t mean America stops building data centers.

It means investors shouldn’t confuse planned spending with guaranteed spending.

The same caution applies to Micron.

Bulls point to $32 billion of customer commitments and roughly $150 billion of “remaining performance obligations” as evidence that demand is locked in for years.

Those numbers matter, but they aren’t $150 billion sitting in Micron’s bank account.

Revenue still has to be earned as products are delivered and contractual obligations are satisfied.

Meanwhile, Micron and its competitors are spending billions to add capacity to meet both those commitments and anticipated future demand.

However, if new supply arrives just as some of today's projected AI demand gets delayed, reduced, or disappears, the equation changes quickly.

And here’s the key: Micron’s business doesn’t need to collapse.

An 87% gross margin could become 80%, then perhaps 75%.

Pricing power weakens, and Wall Street cuts future earnings estimates.

Investors suddenly remember that memory is cyclical, and a stock valued for extraordinary conditions begins discounting ordinary ones.

That’s how cycles turn. Which brings me back to Micron’s earnings report last week.

The Market Is Trying to Tell Us Something

Micron didn’t merely beat expectations. It demolished them.

Revenue more than quadrupled, margins reached record territory, and management's next-quarter revenue forecast came in roughly $4.5 billion above Wall Street expectations.

Yet the stock initially fell after the report.

Shares recovered Thursday and gained roughly 3%. But compare that with June, when another blockbuster Micron report sent shares soaring about 17% in a single session.

Then came Friday. A soft jobs report sent stocks higher, with the Nasdaq jumping more than 1% to a new record and Nvidia gaining nearly 2%.

But Micron traded lower.

That gets my attention because after 30 years on Wall Street, I’ve learned to notice when a stock stops reacting to good news the way you’d expect.

Early in a cycle, good news can send a stock soaring. Later, it takes great news to produce the same reaction. Eventually, even great news isn’t enough.

Sometimes the stock is already looking toward what comes next.

That brings me to the real reason I'm writing this today. Micron may be an early warning for the much larger AI trade.

Nvidia alone is worth around $6 trillion.

Cut that stock in half and roughly $3 trillion of market value disappears!

Now imagine Micron, Broadcom, and several other AI leaders falling 40% or 50% as investors reset their expectations.

We’re talking about trillions of dollars disappearing from the stock market.

We’ve seen what happens when a technology boom reverses. The Nasdaq lost nearly 80% during the dot-com bust.

I’m not predicting anything remotely that severe. We don’t need anything close to it to do enormous damage.

In 2022, for example, the Nasdaq fell roughly a third.

With today’s market so dependent on a small group of enormous technology companies, I could easily envision another 30% or greater decline if the AI trade unwinds sharply.

And because these companies dominate major indexes, the damage wouldn’t stop with investors who own AI stocks. It will hit index funds and retirement accounts across America.

Watch What Stocks Do

None of this means AI is going away or Micron stops selling memory chips. And it certainly doesn’t mean MU can’t climb higher first.

That’s what makes this moment so interesting. Micron’s numbers still look fantastic, demand remains strong, and its margins are extraordinary.

But after three decades of watching markets, I’ve learned that stocks often begin telling you the story before earnings do.

That's why I'll be watching how Micron, Nvidia, Broadcom, and the other AI leaders react to their results over the coming months and reporting back to you here.

If spectacular earnings keep producing increasingly disappointing stock reactions, I'll take that as another warning that the cycle is turning.

Remember, great companies don’t have to fail for their stocks to get cut in half. Expectations simply must change.

Micron is a great American company, and I believe it will remain one for decades.

But that doesn’t mean I want to own it at every price and at every point in the cycle.

If I personally owned MU today, I’d rather take profits while the numbers still look this good than wait around to find out what happens when they don’t.

I can't blame them. Unless you've spent 2026 under a rock with no internet connection, you've seen the power of the chip trade firsthand.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) is up nearly 70% year-to-date, leaving the Nasdaq in the dust, while a rabid hunt for memory has launched Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) and SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) into the stratosphere.

But here's what that crowd is missing.

While everyone stares at the chips, a group of stocks left for dead for the better part of a decade has quietly begun putting up gains of 150%, 200%, even 300% this year. Nobody wanted these names.

That's exactly why they're moving.

I'm talking about biotech — genomics, specifically. And if you know what a change of character looks like on a chart, this group is flashing the same signal the semis flashed before they became the most important trade on the market.

The next "memory trade" is right under your nose. Here's how to take advantage.

Slowly… Then Suddenly

One of the biggest clues we look for when hunting for big winners is a change in character of a stock or sector.

The semis are the textbook example.

They weren't always the dominant sector they have blossomed into during the artificial intelligence boom. I'm old enough to remember when the semis were considered boring, cyclical businesses — nowhere close to the must-own market leaders they've become.

The narrative started to flip about a decade ago, as global demand for mobile phones and crypto mining pulled in more chips than anyone expected.

Then AI poured gasoline on the fire. We've seen the memory shortage play out in 2026 as investors fight over shares of Micron, Sandisk, and the newly US-listed SK Hynix Inc. (SKHY).

But here's the part most people miss: that change of character showed up in the charts first.

Long before the financial media begins publishing daily stories on the new trend, the next big winner always tips its hand. Early buyers step in — and an unloved asset that had been stuck in neutral begins to rally.

This is exactly what we're seeing in another group of stocks right now.

The Proof Is Already on the Tape

Genomics meets every requirement for a major change in trend. These stocks are hated, ignored, and — most importantly — breaking out on both an absolute and a relative basis.

The ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG) is the perfect basket to measure the group's progress.

While many genomic leaders enjoyed strong rallies during the COVID boom that ended in 2021, these stocks then endured a brutal bear market that dragged well into 2025 — more than two years after the new bull lifted most stocks off their lows.

Then ARKG turned. The stocks that no one wanted for years staged their initial breakout in May, and have rallied more than 50% over the past four months to trigger a significant base breakout.

A 50% move in four months is impressive for any asset — for an entire ETF, it's a signal.

More importantly, ARKG is still in the very early innings of a potentially massive move. Even if it were to double from here, it would still have work to do to overtake its 2021 highs.

As the semiconductor trade consolidates, we could be looking at the next AI mega-theme unfolding right before our eyes.

And the news is only starting to catch up to the price. Just last month, Moderna's AI-designed cancer vaccine for late-stage melanoma cleared a key regulatory milestone.

Now we're hearing rumblings of other personalized cancer vaccines in development.

Moderna shares jumped 176% that day. Just imagine the excitement these stories will generate as they build — and the buying frenzies they could trigger.

The financial media is always slow to shift its coverage, especially on stocks that have been out of favor this long. But it's about to become impossible to ignore what these genomics names are doing, and I'd expect the narrative to flip hard over the next 6–12 months.

A Couple of Names to Watch

Smart money doesn't wait for the headlines. As the semiconductor and memory trades get overextended, watch for it to rotate into the highest-beta corner of healthcare — biotech and genomics.

When that rotation kicks in, you don't want to be the one chasing.

Two of ARKG's biggest holdings to keep in front of you as we start the fourth quarter:

10x Genomics Inc. (TXG) — one of ARKG's largest holdings, up more than 50% since it beat top- and bottom-line estimates last month. Shares are up more than 300% yearto-date, and — more telling — they recently cleared $65 to complete a four-year base breakout.

Twist Bioscience Corp. (TWST) — raised full-year guidance in August, and shares are up more than 60% since it reported. Another 300%-plus winner on the year, now closing in on its 2021 all-time highs near $215.

For now, both of these names belong on your watchlist.

With names like TWST and TXG already posting returns like these, the "Great Acceleration" is no longer a theory… It's a reality.

Remember, price leads the news. You're going to be hearing a lot more about these biotech themes as the news cycle sprints to catch up to the action.

No, I don’t mean that the technology is going away or the AI bubble is going to burst tomorrow.

I’m talking about the AI trade.

That moment in time when you could buy just about any AI-related stock and watch it go up. I believe that era is over.

Now, I understand if you’re skeptical.

After all, companies are still spending massive amounts of money on AI. It doesn’t exactly feel like anything has changed.

But the evidence is piling up fast.

So today, I want to make the case that the AI trade as we know it is dead.

Exhibit A: The Numbers Don’t Add Up

Let’s start with Anthropic, the AI company expected to IPO later this year at a valuation north of $2 trillion.

According to figures in its leaked IPO prospectus, Anthropic’s 2025 revenue came in at $4.6 billion and operating losses exceeded $8 billion.

The company also has an almost unbelievable $518 billion in future cloud, computing, and infrastructure commitments.

That’s more than 112x Anthropic’s entire 2025 revenue. And much of these commitments can't simply be canceled if business slows.

Yet Anthropic could reportedly seek a valuation above $2 trillion.

That would instantly make this five-year-old startup one of the most valuable companies on Earth. Worth more than Walmart and Berkshire Hathaway.

Now let me ask you this…

If I handed you those numbers without telling you the company’s name or what it did, would you want to own it at a $2 trillion valuation?

Common sense will tell you those numbers don’t seem right.

Exhibit B: Wall Street Is Starting to Push Back

The problem extends beyond Anthropic. Just look at Oracle.

Its massive AI buildout has pushed borrowing and spending sharply higher. S&P downgraded Oracle in July, leaving its credit rating just one notch above junk.

Meanwhile, $18 billion of loans tied to its Project Jupiter data center recently traded for just 89 to 91 cents on the dollar as banks struggled to sell the debt.

The project has also faced power delays that are affecting financing discussions for other AI data centers.

Other AI companies are running into problems too.

OpenAI spent much of this year moving toward what could have been one of history’s biggest IPOs. Now Sam Altman says it won’t happen this year amid concerns about AI safety.

SB Energy, a SoftBank Group-backed data center firm, delayed its IPO as investors questioned its valuation and OpenAI exposure.

And this week, data-center infrastructure company Accelevation priced its IPO below its expected range, then fell in its Nasdaq debut.

One problem means little. Several across the AI ecosystem start to look like evidence.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs estimates AI-related borrowing by low-rated companies has surged to $88 billion this year.

That’s up from just $20 billion in leveraged-finance issuance during the first 11 months of 2025.

Reuters reports that lenders are now becoming more selective and demanding higher yields.

With the 10-year Treasury recently yielding around 5%, why take the added risk of financing an AI project unless you’re paid substantially more?

The problem isn’t simply whether there’s enough money to finance the AI boom. It’s whether investors still want to lend it.

Exhibit C: The Money Is Going Around in Circles

“Big Short” investor Steve Eisman recently warned on his podcast that “off-balance-sheet techniques are back with a vengeance” in the AI boom.

That does not mean AI is Enron.

But Eisman points specifically to the return of special-purpose vehicles and off-balance-sheet financing.

And the web goes further.

Amazon and Google are Anthropic investors. They're also suppliers, distributors, and competitors.

Their cloud platforms handled 47% of Anthropic’s 2025 revenue.

And then there’s the matter of “circular financing,” which goes something like this…

Anthropic and OpenAI spend billions on computing power, feeding revenue and backlog to the hyperscalers.

That drives demand for Nvidia chips, Micron memory, data centers, and new power generation. And behind much of it sits another layer of debt.

It works beautifully as long as money keeps moving through the circle.

But what happens when it stops?

That’s when an Anthropic or OpenAI problem travels backward through the entire AI supply chain.

Exhibit D: Good Technology Can Still Be a Bad Trade

We saw a version of this 25 years ago with the dot-com boom.

Investors were right that the internet would change the world. But then they made a costly mistake.

They treated that certainty as a license to pay almost any price to get in on the boom.

At the height of dot-com euphoria, AOL’s $165 billion merger with Time Warner seemed to confirm that the “new economy” had arrived.

Then the Nasdaq collapsed 77%.

And it wasn’t just flimsy internet startups. Cisco, one of the companies building the internet's backbone, lost roughly 80% of its value.

Intel, a current AI stock darling, fell more than 80%.

Billions also poured into fiber networks that eventually became incredibly useful, just not quickly enough to justify what investors paid to build them.

The internet wasn’t a fad. Cisco wasn’t a fake company, and Intel wasn’t selling vaporware.

Investors were right about the technology. But they were wrong about the trade.

AI could follow the same pattern.

You’ve probably heard these points before. The circular financing, the unrealistic valuations, the dot-com parallels.

Now let’s get back to why this is all starting to matter now.

Exhibit E: The Cracks Are Starting to Show

The broad stock market isn’t far from all-time highs. But look under the hood, and it’s a much uglier picture.

As the chart below shows, the share of S&P 500 stocks trading above their 50- and 200-day moving averages has plunged since late August.

S&P 500 Market Breadth

Source: Bespoke Investment Group/MarketWatch

By the end of September, fewer than 25% of S&P 500 stocks were trading above their 50-day moving average, while fewer than 45% were above their 200-day.

In plain English, roughly three out of every four S&P 500 stocks fell during September.

Yet the headline index barely budged.

That tells us a handful of enormous companies are doing an extraordinary amount of work holding this market up. And many of them sit directly in the path of the AI trade.

If frontier labs suddenly cut their expected compute needs, what happens to Nvidia, Micron and Oracle?

What happens to neoclouds, data-center operators and utilities building new power generation?

To be clear, I’m not saying those stocks will collapse tomorrow. I’m saying investors can no longer assume the AI spending cycle goes straight up forever.

Closing Arguments

Artificial intelligence may be here to stay, but the AI trade is a thing of the past.

Gone are the days when you could buy any AI stock — completely ignore price, debt, and cash flow — and assume somebody else will eventually pay more.

That doesn’t mean you should sell every AI stock you own, though.

It simply means the evidence has changed, and so should the way you invest.

From here, I'll be watching credit markets, AI spending, and the frontier labs closely.

If the money begins drying up, the effects could travel through chips, memory, data centers, power, and ultimately the broader market.

AI may continue changing the world for decades. But as far as I’m concerned, the AI trade is dead.

I rest my case.

Last week, Oracle sent a “force majeure” notice to the developer of Project Jupiter, the enormous AI data center campus being built in New Mexico.

The goal is to protect Oracle financially if delays prevent the project from coming online in 2028 as planned.

In plain English, force majeure is a contractual protection companies can use when something outside their control prevents them from holding up their end of a deal.

Things like natural disasters, wars, or sudden government actions.

In Oracle’s case, the concern is potential delays tied to securing power for one of the largest AI projects ever attempted.

And “large” barely does Jupiter justice.

Project Jupiter rendering. Source: Project Jupiter Together

The campus covers roughly 1,400 acres, about 1,060 football fields.

It's designed to handle 2.2 gigawatts of power, enough electricity to supply roughly 1.8 million average U.S. homes.

Then there's the money. Around $18 billion in loans are tied to the project.

Oracle says Jupiter remains on schedule and that the notice does not mean a delay is coming. Maybe this becomes nothing more than a contractual precaution.

But Project Jupiter is also a good example of how the AI trade is changing.

AI Has Entered Phase Two

Phase One of the AI boom was all about building with what you have.

Big Tech invested heavily to expand existing data centers, while chipmakers ramped up their production.

Now we’ve entered Phase Two, which is all about building what doesn't exist yet.

It involves building enormous data centers from the ground up, along with new power plants and other infrastructure needed to run them.

And this phase also requires much more money.

Even the world's richest companies, once flush with cash, are increasingly tapping debt and outside investors to keep building.

Project Jupiter is the poster child for Phase Two.

Jupiter didn't suddenly become a financial concern this week.

Its roughly $18 billion in loans were recently trading for only $0.89–$0.91 on the dollar, as banks struggled to sell the debt to other investors.

Oracle itself carried about $130 billion in debt as of June and had committed to roughly $260 billion in long-term data center leases.

S&P downgraded its credit rating in July to one notch above junk status.

Oracle's stock has roughly halved since June as its AI spending and debt load came under greater scrutiny.

Then came the “force majeure” notice last week.

Oracle still says that Jupiter remains on schedule. But that's almost what makes this more interesting.

If everything is moving according to plan, why invoke an extraordinary clause designed to protect against potential delays?

Maybe the answer will prove to be harmless. But if there’s smoke, we at least have to look for fire.

And the risk here goes beyond a delay at one data center.

Phase Two of the AI buildout increasingly depends on outside capital. That means lenders and investors have a much bigger role in determining which projects get built — and at what cost.

Financing agreements come with payment schedules, conditions and deadlines.

So when a power plant gets delayed, a permit doesn't arrive or construction falls behind, an engineering problem can become a financial problem.

Jupiter isn’t competing for capital in a vacuum, either.

Hyperscalers, data center developers, chipmakers and frontier AI labs are all chasing enormous amounts of capital at the same time.

Money doesn't suddenly disappear. But capital has a price, and investors have alternatives.

The more lenders demand, the fewer projects make financial sense.

That’s where one troubled project can become more significant.

Suppose another hyperscaler delays a giant data center. Then a major chip order gets cut. Lenders get nervous and demand higher returns before funding the next project.

Higher financing costs weaken the economics. That makes lenders even more cautious.

A physical problem becomes a financial problem. A financial problem becomes a confidence problem.

And suddenly, the cycle can begin running in reverse.

We've Seen This Play Out Before

History is a useful guide for what happens when an investment boom becomes increasingly dependent on financing.

One example comes from the dot-com burst.

Global Crossing was a telecom company that spent billions building a huge network of fiber-optic cables during the internet boom.

And it got the big idea right. The internet really did change the world.

But competitors were laying huge amounts of fiber, too. Capacity surged, prices fell, and the economics weakened.

Then money became harder to find. And in January 2002, Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy protection.

The internet wasn't the problem. The economics of funding its infrastructure buildout were.

Another example comes from the global financial crisis.

Bear Stearns was one of America's largest investment banks, trading securities and relying heavily on financial markets for funding.

In March 2008, Bear told the Federal Reserve it expected to have insufficient funding to meet its obligations the very next day.

It couldn't find private financing, and the Fed helped arrange its emergency sale to JPMorgan.

At the time, Bear could still look like one troubled Wall Street firm. Then Lehman Brothers collapsed six months later.

Bear Stearns wasn't the financial crisis.

But in hindsight, it warned that something underneath Wall Street's financing machine was breaking.

That brings us back to Project Jupiter today.

Is Oracle dealing with an isolated problem… or are investors getting an early glimpse of something bigger?

Right now, we don't know.

Project Jupiter may get built on schedule, and Oracle's force majeure notice may become little more than a footnote.

But the challenge it exposes isn't going away.

Phase Two of the AI boom requires more infrastructure, more outside capital and more things to go right. And as the price tag grows, so do the consequences when they don't.

AI may still change the world. That doesn't mean every data center or financing deal built around it will succeed.

Years from now, we may look back at Project Jupiter as the moment investors realized funding the AI revolution wouldn't be as easy as they thought.

In other words, the honeymoon stage of the AI boom may be over. Now comes the hard part: paying the bills and proving this marriage can last.

Yields are rocketing higher, with the 30-year hitting its highest level in more than 20 years as odds of an October rate hike soar.

FedWatch now shows a 70% chance of another hike next month, up from less than 50% just last week.

The market is none too happy about this ongoing global bond selloff.

Stocks have reversed hard just days after the Nasdaq posted new all-time highs.

And the wall of worry continues to grow, with Middle East tensions, energy prices, and rates looming large as the quarter draws to an end.

But there’s one major asset class setting up for higher prices in the fourth quarter…

That’s right, crypto is back in action.

Bitcoin and its peers are finally waking up following a grueling 10-month bear market that bled optimism dry and left most investors exhausted.

Bitcoin’s initial surge off its August lows bears all the classic hallmarks of an early-stage “disbelief rally” that typically kicks off a new longer-term uptrend.

As market participants scramble to gain exposure, crypto is lining up to be a massive outperformer heading into 2027.

The evidence is stacking up in favor of an extended crypto rally.

Now’s our chance to dig into the charts, along with some of the best crypto-related names to trade heading into October.

Waiting Was the Hardest Part

You probably didn’t nail the exact bottom in crypto as Bitcoin suddenly shot higher last month.

No problem! Turnaround trades can be tough. And bottom fishing always seems to get traders into trouble.

You’re much better off if you wait for confirmation that a move is going to stick before plowing all your hard-earned money into a trade. Just think of all the times Bitcoin looked like it might rally this year, only to slip back to its lows. 

The August rally has turned into an important signal for two key reasons. First, Bitcoin was able to reclaim its 200-day moving average during its initial push above $70,000.

Prior to this move, it had been unable to break above this longer-term moving average since reversing lower late last year.

Next, Bitcoin was able to top its May swing highs at $82,000 earlier this week following a tight, orderly consolidation.

This initial thrust off Bitcoin’s lows, followed by another rally above horizontal resistance, is exactly the move the crypto bulls wanted.

Bitcoin had already completed a full reset back to the prior cycle’s highs in the low $60,000 range. Now, we’re getting all the confirmation we need to give Bitcoin and its crypto brethren the green light into October.

The current Bitcoin breakout also perfectly aligns with its longer-term bull/bear cycles.

All Star Charts analyst Alfonso De Pablos points out that major Bitcoin lows have been spaced almost exactly 3.91 years apart (January 2015, December 2018, November 2022).

This time was no different, with the lows aligning perfectly with previous cycles.

Then there’s Ethereum. Late last month, we discussed how Ethereum had already broken above its April-May highs.

Following its own consolidation, Ethereum has now extended higher to confirm the move off the lows. This week’s thrust places Ethereum near $2,700, levels we have not seen since the late January/early February meltdown.

How to Trade the Crypto Follow-Through

Let’s tackle some big crypto questions following this week’s rally:

Should I buy Bitcoin heading into the fourth quarter?

Yes, I think there’s plenty of room for the coins to run heading into 2027. Bitcoin will likely shoot back toward $100,000 in the weeks ahead.

Longer-term, I believe this change in trend will lead to the next major leg higher that will send Bitcoin beyond its all-time highs.

For reference, a 50%-plus rally from today’s prices is what Bitcoin needs to top those Oct. 2025 highs around $126K.

For Ethereum, I’m targeting $3,400 in the weeks ahead. This level coincides with the January swing highs.

Ethereum has a lot more work to do to get back to its all-time highs. But if we are in fact entering the next major bullish crypto regime, it can potentially outperform Bitcoin. 

Are there any crypto-adjacent equities I should consider as the sector firms up?

Yep! I love to target crypto stocks for short-term trades when we enter favorable trading environments.

Remember, the crypto miners and other names in the space tend to get slammed during crypto winters. But they also can deliver explosive upside when the bull market returns.

Just look at Strategy Inc. (MSTR). This was a name no one wanted to touch when Bitcoin was locked in its months-long downtrend. Plenty of smart people were predicting its imminent collapse back in the summer.

Now, the polarizing stock has rallied a whopping 70% since its initial move in late August. Think of MSTR as a “call option” on Bitcoin. It will move quickly in the wrong direction if Bitcoin drops. But it also amplifies the rallies.

Many of the crypto miners have attempted to pivot their businesses to align with the need for AI datacenters. But they’re still solid snapback candidates as the current crypto rally matures.

Hut 8 (HUT), CleanSpark (CLSK), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Mara Holdings (MARA) are all solid short-term trading candidates on breakout moves.

Bottom line: I like playing the crypto stocks as opposed to the smaller alt-coins. They’re more liquid and offer far better trading opportunities through the options market.

As long as this Bitcoin move continues to build above $80,000, we have a green light to explore plenty of bullish trading options heading into the fourth quarter and beyond.

Short-term pullbacks are solid buying opportunities. And breakouts should extend to offer traders plenty of fat pitches to knock out of the park heading into 2027.

That's bad news for anyone filling a gas tank, and the knock-on effects of rising oil prices are obvious.

But I also recommend paying close attention to what happens when oil prices fall.

Earlier this month, Brent surged above $107 as attacks on Saudi infrastructure and shipping intensified.

It then suffered a five-day losing streak as Saudi oil flows improved and hopes for U.S.-Iran diplomacy grew.

Yesterday, Brent even closed below $100 for the first time in weeks. But it’s already bounced back above $102.

That’s a long way from the $60–$70 levels we saw before the war.

So what if the floor under oil prices is moving higher?

The Damage Is Getting Harder to Undo

Energy infrastructure has never been completely off-limits in this war.

In March, Israeli strikes hit Iran's South Pars gas field and the Asaluyeh processing hub.

Iran responded by attacking energy facilities across the Gulf, including Qatar's massive Ras Laffan LNG complex.

The strikes knocked out about 17% of Qatar's LNG export capacity, with repairs expected to take years.

But there were also striking examples of restraint.

When U.S. forces attacked Kharg Island in March, Trump said the military destroyed military targets while leaving its oil infrastructure intact. Kharg handles most of Iran's oil exports.

Iran, meanwhile, repeatedly showed that its missiles and drones could hit difficult targets across the region.

In other words, both sides appeared capable of inflicting far greater damage on the energy system than they initially chose to inflict.

Then that pattern began to change.

Commercial ships increasingly became targets this summer as attacks around the Strait of Hormuz intensified.

By early September, the U.S. said it had attacked 10 Iranian oil tankers in one week. Iran responded by attacking 10 ships near Hormuz

Then the damage spread beyond ships.

On Sept. 11, drone attacks damaged three pumping stations along Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline — one of the country's main ways to bypass Hormuz.

The pipeline can move roughly 4 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia's eastern oil fields to the Red Sea.

It restarted this week, helping push Brent lower. But the pipeline is operating at reduced rates, and restoring full capacity could take weeks.

Months of fighting have now damaged pipelines, pumping stations, processing facilities, and oil tankers.

And unlike a geopolitical “risk premium,” that damage doesn't disappear when the missiles stop flying.

An attack can take minutes. Repairs can take months.

The disruption is already making oil more expensive to move

This week, Iraq's oil minister said the cost of shipping its crude has jumped from $26 to $37 per barrel.

The world doesn't need to “run out of oil” for prices to remain elevated.

If there are fewer safe routes, fewer ships, less refining capacity, and damaged pipelines, delivering the same barrel costs more.

And those problems don't disappear when the shooting stops.

We're getting a real-time test of this idea right now.

What Happens to the Floor?

Compare today's oil prices with where they traded before.

Before the conflict this spring, Brent spent much of the winter around $60–$70. It returned to the low $70s during this summer's calm.

I'm not trying to declare that $80, $90 or $100 is oil's new permanent floor.

The behavior matters more than the number.

If each new flare-up sends Brent higher, and each period of calm leaves it higher than before, the market may be telling us that something important has changed.

And the damage isn't limited to the Middle East.

Ukraine continues attacking Russian refineries, while Russia continues striking Ukraine's energy system.

Two Russian refineries were forced offline this month following Ukrainian drone attacks.

At one, damage to its main crude-processing unit was expected to take at least a month to repair. Another major refinery near Moscow was hit over the weekend.

The two wars aren't directly related. But their effects on global energy markets can add up.

Every refinery knocked offline reduces the system's ability to turn crude into usable fuel.

And with infrastructure being damaged in two critical energy-producing regions at once, the world's cushion for absorbing the next disruption gets thinner.

We've seen what can happen when an energy shock hits an economy already dealing with other problems.

In 2007 and 2008, the U.S. housing market was weakening and financial conditions were tightening.

Meanwhile, Brent surged from around $50-$60 a barrel in early 2007 to nearly $150 in 2008.

Oil didn't cause the financial crisis. But soaring energy costs added another burden at exactly the wrong time.

Today's economy is very different. Still, persistently high oil would put more pressure on household budgets and corporate margins while making inflation harder to contain.

We're already seeing stress in diesel markets, where refining margins have surged to record levels amid global supply shortages.

And that could make the Federal Reserve's job much harder.

The Real Test Comes With Calm

There is some encouraging news in all of this.

At the United Nations this week, the U.S. and Iran held their first indirect talks in months. Iran has also discussed reopening Hormuz as part of a broader agreement.

Maybe diplomacy works. Maybe Hormuz reopens. Maybe Brent falls sharply.

But even if the war ended tomorrow, the world's energy system wouldn't magically reset to where it was before the fighting began.

Pipelines still need repairs. Refineries need rebuilding. Ships need replacing.

That's why I'm no longer watching to see how high Brent goes during the next attack.

I'm watching to see how low it goes during the next period of calm.

If Brent keeps settling at higher levels, we'll have growing evidence that this isn't simply another temporary oil spike.

It could be the beginning of a new price regime.

And with the consequences stretching from the gas pump to inflation, interest rates, and ultimately the stock market, I'll be watching that floor very closely.

Starting this December, Nasdaq plans to keep its market open 23 hours a day, five days a week.

Trading will run nearly around the clock, with just a one-hour break each evening from 8 to 9 p.m. Eastern.

It’s not the only exchange moving in that direction either.

NYSE Arca and Cboe are preparing to offer 23-hour weekday trading, while others are pursuing similar plans.

But 23 hours may only be the beginning.

A major development last week could eventually push the market even closer to never closing at all.

And you could feel the effects even if you have no interest in trading stocks at 2 a.m.

So today, let’s look at where this is heading and what it could mean for your money.

The 23-Hour Market Is Coming

For some, these new trading hours will seem pretty normal.

Crypto markets, for instance, are already open 24/7.

Foreign exchange markets operate nearly around the clock during the workweek.

Futures trade for most of the day.

Even stocks have been moving in this direction.

Robinhood already offers overnight trading in many stocks and ETFs, as do several alternative trading systems.

But overnight stock trading remains tiny.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said last week that extended-hours trading still accounts for less than 1% of trading in U.S.-listed stocks.

What's changing now is the scale.

Near-continuous trading is moving from the market's edges toward the mainstream.

There are some compelling reasons for the change.

The 9:30-to-4 trading day makes perfect sense if you're sitting in New York.

It makes considerably less sense if you're sitting in Tokyo, Seoul, or Singapore.

Nasdaq says growing global demand for U.S. stocks is one reason it's expanding its hours. And you can see the appeal.

For decades, foreign investors seeking the deepest access to American stocks largely had to operate on America's clock.

Soon, they could increasingly trade U.S. stocks during their day instead.

In a sense, it's another step toward democratizing access to America's markets.

And that could benefit the U.S. too.

Making American stocks easier to trade worldwide could attract more global capital and strengthen the country's position at the center of global finance.

There's another potential benefit.

News doesn't wait for the opening bell.

Wars break out, companies make announcements, and economic news hits overseas.

A longer trading day gives investors more time to respond when those events happen, instead of waiting for the market to reopen.

Of course, extending the trading day also raises some questions.

Just because a market is open doesn't mean it will behave the same way at every hour.

If fewer buyers and sellers participate overnight, trading could be thinner.

Spreads could widen.

Smaller trades could cause larger price swings.

Then there's corporate news.

What happens when a major announcement hits while most of a company's executives, analysts, and investors are asleep?

Regulators are asking many of these same questions.

Last Thursday, the SEC brought exchanges, brokers and major Wall Street firms together for a day-long roundtable focused on preparing for longer trading hours.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins specifically raised questions about how extended trading could affect corporate announcements and SEC filings.

None of this means longer trading hours are bad.

It simply means the 2 a.m. stock market may look very different from the 2 p.m. stock market.

We'll find out soon enough. Now for where things really get interesting…

One Step Closer to 24/7 Trading

The change to trading hours in December is 23/5, not 24/7.

Nasdaq will still close for an hour each weekday, and weekends remain weekends. But regulators are already thinking about what could come next.

Last week's SEC roundtable specifically discussed a possible future move toward 24/7 trading and what would be required to make it work.

On the same day, the SEC made another potentially important move.

It created a five-year regulatory pathway for certain tokenized U.S. stocks.

At its simplest, tokenization means representing ownership of an asset on a blockchain. This digital record tracks who owns what and allows that ownership to be transferred.

For example, Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to track ownership.

A tokenized stock applies that same basic idea to stocks.

Under the SEC's new “Innovation Exemption,” qualifying platforms can facilitate limited trading of tokenized U.S.-listed stocks.

Those tokens must provide the same basic rights as traditional shares, including dividends and voting rights.

Companies can also object to having their shares offered this way.

To be clear, this does not mean 24/7 stock trading is coming next.

But blockchain-based markets aren't bound by traditional exchange hours. So, tokenization could eventually become one piece of a market that operates continuously.

For now, that's a possibility, not a plan.

When the new Nasdaq hours take effect on Dec. 6, we'll get our first real look at what happens when a major U.S. stock exchange stays open almost all day.

That could make American markets easier to access worldwide.

It could allow stocks to react faster to breaking news.

And it could change everything from overnight liquidity to how companies release information.

That's why this matters to us as investors.

We don't necessarily need to trade at 2 a.m.

But we need to understand what happens to our investments when somebody else can.

We’re nearing the end of a choppy month. We just got a rate hike. And some of the biggest stocks in the market are slowly drifting lower.

One day stocks are up. The next, they’re down.

There’s been very little traction in either direction.

But while everyone is focused on the Fed and complaining about this difficult trading environment, something very different is happening under the surface.

In fact, I’d call it a revolution.

A group of stocks is breaking out right in front of us. But hardly anyone is talking about it.

I think this could become one of the biggest stories of the fourth quarter — and potentially one of our best opportunities to find huge trading gains in the months ahead.

The interesting part is that these stocks aren’t waiting for the rest of the market to get its act together.

They’re moving right now.

So today, I want to show you one chart that caught my attention.

Because once you see it, I think you’ll understand exactly what’s going on beneath the surface of this market — and why I’m paying such close attention to these stocks heading into Q4.

[wistia id="ianiriqknp"]

Don’t let all the noise surrounding the Fed and this choppy September market distract you from what’s actually happening beneath the surface.

Some stocks are already breaking out. And if the broader market firms up from here, I suspect we’ll see plenty more opportunities emerge in the weeks ahead.

So keep your eyes open. Things are about to get interesting.

Happy trading,

The Cuban Missile Crisis had brought the United States and Soviet Union very close to nuclear war.

Then, one afternoon, a rumor swept through Wall Street that Russian missiles were already flying.

Stocks began to fall.

Cashin's instinct was to bet against the market. But one of his earliest mentors, an older trader he called “Professor Jack,” gave him some strange advice.

If you hear that the missiles are flying, he said, you don’t sell stocks. You buy them.

Why?

Because if the report is wrong, stocks will recover.

And if it's right, the trade won't matter because everyone will be dead.

Cashin, who went on to spend more than six decades on Wall Street, later became famous for a simpler version of that lesson…

“Never bet on the end of the world. It only happens once.”

I’m reminded of this 64-year-old Wall Street story today as investors once again worry about the end of the world.

But instead of nuclear missiles, this time it’s artificial intelligence.

AI Doomsday Goes Mainstream

The latest debate exploded last week after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and accused leading AI companies of “gambling with our lives.”

Then Evan Hubinger, who leads Anthropic's Alignment Science team, said he believes there’s a greater than 10% chance AI could wipe out humanity within the next decade.

Then Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised the stakes.

In an essay titled We Must Pace the Frontier, Amodei argued that AI development is moving so quickly that safety research may not keep up.

He warned about everything from cyberattacks and biological weapons to advanced AI systems that could move beyond human control.

Then something even more unusual happened.

Some of Amodei's biggest rivals agreed.

Elon Musk responded, “Dario is right.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.”

And Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis said Amodei's proposal pointed toward “the right path forward.”

Think about that.

Some of the most powerful people competing to build the world's most advanced AI systems are publicly warning that the technology may be moving too fast.

But not everyone is buying it.

Some equally recognizable names have come down firmly on the other side.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has pushed back repeatedly against AI doomsday predictions.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg rejected the call for a coordinated slowdown this week, arguing that companies already have strong reasons to build their systems safely and should do so themselves.

President Trump has also rejected the doomsday argument and opposed slowing U.S. AI development, particularly as America competes with China.

Respected AI researchers have also questioned whether anyone can credibly assign a percentage to something as uncertain as AI causing human extinction.

In other words, this debate is far from settled.

So, we have some of the biggest names in technology warning about an extreme threat to humanity.

We also have other major figures saying those claims go far beyond the evidence.

Call me cynical, but I find the timing of this debate quite curious.

Anthropic is preparing for what could become one of the largest IPOs ever.

The company is expected to begin marketing its offering next month and could seek a valuation above $2 trillion.

Meanwhile, OpenAI has pushed its own expected IPO into next year.

And reports surfaced this week that the company is discussing another huge private funding round that could value it at $1.2 trillion.

None of that proves AI executives are exaggerating these risks to boost their companies' valuations.

But the financial backdrop is worth knowing.

After all, when an AI company tells the world that the technology it is building could become powerful enough to transform, or even threaten, human civilization, that warning also sends another message…

This technology is incredibly powerful.

Some critics point out that these warnings about AI can also reinforce the idea that the technology, and the companies controlling it, are extraordinarily important.

Maybe the warnings prove justified. Maybe they're overstated.

Right now, we don't know. And that's where Art Cashin comes back into the story.

If This All Sounds Familiar… There’s a Reason

In 1962, investors watched the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold while the world's two nuclear superpowers stared each other down.

The threat was serious enough to rattle Wall Street. But diplomacy prevailed.

The Soviet Union removed its missiles from Cuba, the U.S. pledged not to invade the island, and the missiles never flew.

Nearly four decades later came Y2K.

As 1999 drew to a close, Americans heard warnings that computers unable to handle the switch to the year 2000 could disrupt banks, power grids, transportation, and other critical systems.

Source: Wikipedia

The concern even reached financial markets.

The New York Fed described a period of “extreme risk aversion” as traders and banks tried to reduce activity around the calendar change.

Then midnight arrived.

And virtually nothing happened.

Scattered computer glitches occurred, but none of the widespread breakdown many had feared.

The SEC reported that U.S. securities markets experienced no problems as the new year arrived overseas, and Wall Street entered 2000 near record highs.

Supporters credited years of preparation. Skeptics said the danger had been wildly overstated.

Either way, the feared catastrophe never came.

Now it's AI. Different technology and different threat, but it’s the same problem for investors…

How do you invest when the worst possible outcome is so bad that, if it happens, your portfolio won't matter anyway?

That brings me back to that 64-year-old story.

Cashin's lesson wasn't that investors should ignore risk. He spent more than six decades navigating wars, crashes, recessions, and financial crises.

It was about understanding what you're actually betting on.

There's a big difference between preparing your portfolio for risks you can measure and building your financial future around the assumption that there won't be a financial future.

We can diversify, keep some cash, and hedge when it makes sense.

We can also avoid investments whose valuations no longer match the facts. And when the facts change, we can change with them.

But we shouldn't treat the worst outcome imaginable as the most likely outcome simply because it makes the scariest headline.

That's why I’m not betting on the end of the world when it comes to this latest AI debate.

I'll stay on top of the warnings, the pushback, and the enormous sums of money flowing through

And if this time really is different?

Well, then our portfolios will be the least of our concerns.

I just wanted to give you a list of what I was seeing in the derivatives market, potential plays, and whatnot.

But the trend I found is much more important.

Now, digging through unusual options activity is tough work.

It’s not as simple as “Someone just bought a ton of AAPL calls expiring after earnings. They must know something!”

No.

It’s more like “Hmmm. Some money moved into AAPL calls after earnings. Okay, was it a sweep that tore through multiple exchanges, or one negotiated block? Did it fill at the ask, at the bid, or somewhere in the middle?

Is it opening or closing? I won’t know for sure until open interest updates tomorrow morning. Was there a matching leg at the same timestamp? A higher strike sold against it? A put sold to finance it? Stock bought or shorted at the same time to hedge the delta? Because if so, this isn’t a bet at all. It’s a spread, a collar, or a hedge wearing a costume.

What did implied volatility do? If IV jumped, the buyer paid up and didn’t care. If it didn’t budge, maybe a market maker was already sitting on the other side. And how much of that premium is about to get crushed the morning after earnings?

Where are dealers positioned? Long gamma or short gamma near this strike? Any dark pool prints in the stock right before or after? Did the same strikes light up yesterday? Last week? Is anyone doing the same thing in MSFT or the QQQs? Was there a headline two minutes earlier that I missed?”

… And on and on and on and on.

You know what? After all that investigative work, the answer is usually... nothing. There was news. Or other traders were already piling on. Nothing unusual about it at all.

Now imagine doing that with hundreds of stocks a day, across hundreds of expirations and strike prices. (Yes, I have filters. I’m not a psychopath.)

But it’s still a lot of data crunching, math, and theory.

That’s why, when I was compiling today’s list, one trend stopped me. It was hard to see at first.

A lot of this is happening in airlines right now.

I mean, hey. It’s airlines. It’s like trading bank stocks. (Are you still awake? This is serious!)

• Delta: 119,000 calls traded Monday. About five times normal.
• United: 73,000 calls traded Tuesday. About 11 times normal.
• JetBlue: More than 23,000 calls, nearly all bought at the ask (just means more likely buyers of the options than pure volume), late Tuesday.

Meanwhile, American, Southwest, and Alaska Air? Business as usual. Someone is oddly picking their spots.

And I think this could be the setup for a great contrarian play.

WTI crude is jumping up around $103 a barrel. Brent is around $107. Jet fuel eats up roughly a quarter of an airline’s operating costs, so the market did the obvious thing: it sold airlines. Hard. Delta is 17% below its 52-week high. United is 23% below its June peak. JetBlue has lost more than a third of its value.

But, you know, the thing here is that airlines pass that fuel bill on to you and me. Fares were up 25.5% year over year in July. United says it will recover 80% to 90% of its higher fuel costs this quarter, and all of it by the fourth. The stocks are priced for fuel pain. The companies say they’re outrunning it.

It could be true.

Implied volatility — how expensive or cheap the options are — has ticked up this month, but all three names sit in the bottom 40% of their 52-week range. IV rank is 37 for Delta, 33 for United, and 29 for JetBlue. Pair that with beaten-down share prices, and the dollar cost of a bet here is small.

The icing on the cake is earnings. Delta is expected to kick off the season on Oct. 8, with United around Oct. 14. JetBlue comes later, around October 27.

All the unusual options contracts we’ll talk about today expire Oct. 16.

Let’s use our magnifying glasses…

Delta

I am not Delta neutral. Delta is easily my favorite airline to fly, even if I live right outside the Southwest hub that is the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Delta is the best-run shop in the group. It remains investment grade at all three major rating agencies. And it owns something unusual for an airline: its own oil refinery, in Trainer, Pennsylvania. Refinery revenue jumped 83% last quarter to $2.09 billion. When jet fuel runs hotter than crude, Delta collects on the other side of the trade.

Now look at what hit the tape late Monday.

See that big green bar?

Someone bought 52,339 of the October 16 $87.50 calls for $1.66 and sold 52,339 of the $97.50 calls for $0.23. That’s what’s called a bull call spread, just a complicated options tactic to cut risk while capping profits. They spent around $1.43 per spread, or about $7.5 million all in.

Remember all that digging I talked about?

This is where it pays off. Check the open interest column. Open interest is contracts owned at one time, while volume is the contracts trading. Before this trade, there were just 525 contracts open at the $87.50 strike and 83 at the $97.50. In other words, this was a brand-new bet.

Delta’s total call open interest jumped by nearly 108,000 contracts overnight, right in line with two legs of 52,339.

Is that a stretch? A bit.

The options market is pricing in about an 8.7% move over the next 30 days, which would put Delta around $86. So this trader needs a bigger rally than the market expects.

The good news for them is that the catalyst sits right inside the window. Delta reports about eight days before these contracts expire.

Back in July, Delta guided third-quarter earnings to $2 to $2.50 a share, while analysts were at $2.02. That guidance came before oil’s latest run, so the report will tell us fast whether the fare increases are keeping up.

And look at the chart.

Delta has spent two weeks chopping between roughly $78 and $80. That towering green bar on the right is this trade. It’s the biggest burst of options volume on the chart by a mile. Over the full seven days, Delta call buyers spent about $30 million in premium versus $10 million on puts.

United Airlines

If Delta is the blue chip, United is its high-beta cousin.

It leans harder on long-haul and international flying, and its options carry more volatility, with 30-day IV at 51%. On Tuesday, the stock fell 2.3% to $106.44. And right into that weakness, call volume exploded.

Look at the two lines on that chain.

The Oct. 16 $120 calls traded 33,873 contracts against open interest of just 5,279, and 94% of that volume went off at the ask. Those are buyers.

The Oct. 16 $135 calls traded 31,710 contracts against open interest of 2,474, and 99% went off at the bid. Those are sellers.

Nearly matching volume, same expiration, opposite sides of the market, and both hitting early Tuesday. That’s the fingerprint of another call spread: long the $120s, short the $135s.

Why would anyone want that trade? Because the bar United has to clear isn’t that high.

In July, United guided third-quarter earnings to $2.50 to $3.50 a share, below the $3.60 Wall Street expected, and the stock sold off.

But that same day, United raised its full-year range to $9 to $11 a share. It even said it would beat the top end if fuel fell back to early-July levels. At $106, with a $10 midpoint, UAL trades at about 10.6 times this year’s earnings guidance.

The risk is just as clear. That guidance assumed jet fuel at about $3.69 a gallon. Fuel is running closer to $4 now. If oil stays here, there’s a hole in those numbers.

And there’s a timing risk. If United reports on Oct. 14 as expected, this trade gets its answer two days before expiration. If that date slips a week, these calls expire before anyone hears a word from management.

Still, the seven-day picture is lopsided: about $25 million in United call premium versus $11 million in puts.

JetBlue

And then there’s JetBlue. This is the speculative one.

JetBlue is a $1.6 billion airline trading at $4.32 a share. It’s down about 35% from its 52-week high of $6.62, and Wall Street has been piling on. Last week, Goldman Sachs, TD Cowen, and UBS all cut their price targets to $4. Barclays cut its target from $7 to $5.

Keep that $5 number in mind.

Late in Tuesday’s session, 23,390 of the Oct. 16 $5 calls traded against open interest of 8,179, with 97% of it at the ask. At around $0.12 a contract, that’s roughly $280,000 in premium.

That’s pocket change next to Delta and United. But look at the chart. That green bar on the far right is the single biggest 30-minute burst of JetBlue options volume in two weeks.

Yes, this is the only one where the option expires before the earnings report.

But that doesn’t really matter.

If Delta crushes earnings, if any other airline crushes earnings and brings us good industry news wrapped in gold cloth, I can imagine a company like JBLU will also ride with the tide.

I’ll be watching the price action closely on these over the coming weeks.

Put these on your watchlist as well. We might see something no one (except these options traders) expects.