Not much to say today other than it was a total disaster, man-made, by a single, stupid, orange shaped man. I didn't participate in the trading today mostly due to other commitments, but I wasn't going to be able to do much anyways on account of the dumpster fire.

My moves to shift capital around did however payoff because the sell-off was so brutal that one of my investment accounts got pushed into margin exposure territory. It raised an interesting question to me, how much of the sell-off is forced selling, which typically has exacerbated these types of evcents in the past.

For those unfamiliar, a lot of traders including me will use "margin" which is basically like a line of credit from the broker to leverage more impact on their trades. This is all well and good when you're doing well, but regulations require you maintain some value in your account to continue your line of credit. Makes sense right? Anyways, whenever there are massive market shifting moves like those around this asinine tariff announcement, a lot of traders can get squeezed on their margin which forces them to liquidate assets.

Forced selling will always drive the prices down. What started yesterday, I'm sure is being exacerbated today by forced selling.

"May you live in interesting times."