INSIDE THE CASINO: A Dialogue With Nobody in Particular
INSIDE THE CASINO: A Dialogue With Nobody in Particular
October 10, 2025
Me: So Delta reports Q3 earnings at $1.71 per share. That's 18 cents above consensus. They guide Q4 at $1.60–$1.90, which also beats—say 25 cents on the midpoint. Revenue up, travel roaring, corporate spending heating up like a jet engine in July.
The Voice That Sounds Like Reason: That's bullish. Stock should pop.
Me: Nasdaq was down 0.08% yesterday. Russell 2000 down 0.53%. Oracle just announced a "bombshell" and the whole thing sold off. Delta's good news landed on a day when the market decided good news was bad news. The S&P 500 closed at 6,735. It hit 6,777 intraday on Wednesday. We're playing limbo now. How low will sentiment go before it swings back to euphoria?
The Voice: You're being dramatic.
Me: Am I? Bitcoin is up 25% for the year. Ethereum up 30%. The crypto market cap hit $4.26 trillion on an average day last week. We have a 94.6% probability of a Fed rate cut on October 29th. The market keeps hitting all-time highs but it can't hold them for more than a day. It's like watching someone sprint up a staircase in the dark—they hit a landing, panic, stare into the void for 20 minutes, then sprint again.
The Voice: What's Oracle have to do with anything?
Me: Nothing. Everything. Who knows anymore. That's the point.
Here's what actually happened this week: The Nasdaq and S&P both touched record highs on Wednesday after a seven-day losing streak. Investors were convinced the coast was clear. Thursday morning: "Oracle bombshell." Everything craters. Not badly, but enough to break the spell. The Russell 2000—the canary in the coal mine—fell 0.53%. Small caps always know when something's wrong.
Meanwhile, Delta crushed it. Travel demand is surging. They're not guiding down. They're guiding up. This is the real economy talking. This is people with money spending it because they believe in tomorrow. And the market yawned.
This is what I can't stop thinking about: We're sitting at a crossroads where the fundamentals (Delta's guidance, travel demand, corporate spending) don't match the technicals (selling on record highs, selloffs on good news, small caps underperforming).
When those two paths diverge, one of them is lying.
The Voice: What happens next?
Me: Depends on the 29th. The Fed cuts, and we rally another 3% on enthusiasm. Or they signal caution, and we give back everything from September plus a few percentage points for good measure. Or—and this is the one nobody wants to contemplate—the data between now and then shifts and they don't cut at all, and we find out that Ethereum's run to $4,500–$4,900 (per the "institutional demand" narrative) was priced in on the assumption that rates would keep falling forever.
Bitcoin and Ethereum don't need the Fed to go down for them to go up. They just need people to believe they will. That faith is worth $4.26 trillion right now. But faith is not a business model. Faith is a terminal velocity before gravity remembers you exist.
The Voice: You think it crashes?
Me: I think it does something. I don't know what. But I know that on Wednesday we hit all-time highs and on Thursday we sold off on a "bombshell" about a single company's cloud platform. I know the Russell 2000 is flashing yellow lights. I know that Delta reported great earnings and nobody cared. I know that crypto is pricing in a utopian scenario where rates fall forever and inflation stays asleep.
And I know that in a market this stretched, any small thing can become everything.
The next Fed meeting is 19 days away.
The market has already decided what will happen.
But markets are very good at reminding us that we're not actually in control of the script.
We're just watching it unfold, wondering when the plot twist arrives.
Check back when someone finally breaks character.