The cart is leading the horse now

You want to know why the market feels different?

Why your technical analysis keeps getting blown up by what feels like random price action?

It's not random. And it's not your imagination.

The cart isn't just leading the horse anymore -- it's dragging the horse down the street.

Options are now driving underlying price movement instead of the reverse. And while everyone's wrapping presents, the scale of this transformation is absolutely staggering.

In 2016, zero days to expiration options accounted for 5% of SPX volume. 

By 2025? Over 60%. 

That's not gradual growth -- that's complete rewiring of market structure.

Daily notional volume routinely exceeds $1 trillion. 

When retail traders concentrate this kind of volume into contracts that expire in hours, the traditional relationship between options and underlying gets turned completely upside down.

But here's what really matters: we just witnessed the biggest quarterly expiration in history. $7.1 trillion expired in a single day. 

The European Central Bank is now studying this for systemic risk implications.

This isn't some new trading strategy. This is fundamental market structure change happening in real time.

Markets don't pause for holidays. And I spent 60+ minutes breaking this down Tuesday.

How 0DTE shattered the patterns we used to rely on.

And most importantly -- how to adapt before 2026 begins.

Watch the DON-DTE presentation here

Because the marketplace doesn't care if you're shopping or celebrating.

It only cares if you're still standing when the next opportunity shows up.

To your success,

Don Kaufman