3:47 AM Internal Monologue of a Market Maker Who Can't Sleep

The coffee's gone cold again. Fourth cup. The screens glow like accusatory eyes in the dark.

The Nasdaq 100 hit all-time highs yesterday. All-time. Highs. While half the world is burning and the other half is pretending it's fine. Big tech drove the rally to stratospheric levels, with the index posting its best week since June. AAPL, MSFT, NVDA — the usual suspects dancing on the grave of economic rationality.

But here's what's eating at me. The rally got a boost from "hopes the US and Russia will reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine." Hopes. HOPES. We're pricing in peace negotiations like they're quarterly earnings beats. The market is literally betting on geopolitical miracles while ignoring the fact that 34 stocks in the S&P 500 hit new 52-week highs during Tuesday's session.

Check the futures. Always check the futures.

Gold whipsawed throughout the session, which tells you everything about how schizophrenic investor sentiment really is. Safe haven one minute, risk asset the next. The algos can't even decide what gold is anymore.

Remember when markets used to make sense? When valuations mattered and earnings actually drove prices? Now we're living in a universe where peace rumors move indices more than fundamental analysis. The machines are trading on headlines generated by other machines reading headlines written by humans who may or may not know what they're talking about.

The irony burns like cheap whiskey.

After last week's drop, the dip was bought again this week and we've seen index futures head back towards recent highs. Of course they did. Because in this market, every dip is just another buying opportunity for the passive flow monster. Buy the dip, sell the rip, rinse, repeat until the music stops.

But when does the music stop?

The fundamentals are screaming. Growth is slowing, geopolitical tensions are escalating, central banks are paralyzed by their own contradictions, and yet here we are making new highs on Ukraine peace rumors and Fed cut fantasies. ARK Innovation Fund jumped 7.0%, ARK Web x.0 ETF advanced 5.9% — Cathie Wood's speculative darlings riding the risk-on wave like it's 2021 all over again.

The screens flicker. Always flickering.

You know what keeps me awake? It's not the volatility. It's the certainty. The absolute conviction that this time is different, that valuations don't matter, that central banks have abolished the business cycle, that geopolitical risk can be hedged with options and prayers.

I've seen this movie before. The ending never changes.

But tomorrow I'll be back at my desk, making markets, providing liquidity, pretending that price discovery still exists in a world where algorithms trade on sentiment analysis of social media posts about peace negotiations that may or may not be happening.

The coffee's gone cold again. Time for cup number five.

The Nasdaq 100 at all-time highs. In August 2025. While the world burns.

Sweet dreams, retail.