Market On Open, Friday 29 August
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The Internet 1, Everything Else 0
by Alex King, CEO, Cestrian Capital Research, Inc
Whether you choose to partake of a position in $OPEN or not, the Opendoor Technologies activist campaign playing out now is a spectacle for the age, and I highly recommend watching.
The background is this:
A poster child for the recent rate-hike-cycle collapse in the SPAC cohort, Opendoor dropped some 98% of its value from peak to trough in just ocer two years. Impressively terrible! The stock was under threat of de-listing by NASDAQ (which will happen if your stock falls below $1 for long enough); the board had proposed a reverse stock split to get the price back up above $1, and the CEO and some members of the management team were busy selling stock at $0.52.
Anyway, along comes an activist, nothing surprising about that. With the company focused on real estate and the economy looking at a possible rate cut from the Fed, why would it not pique the interest of the more interventionist kind of investor?
So who came a-knocking on the door? Was it Elliott Advisors? ValueAct Capital? Starboard Value? It was not. It was Eric Jackson of EMJ Capital. Jackson has form for jumping in at the lows in Carvana, with impressive results, and believed he had another such bargain-basement opportunity at $OPEN.
This activist campaign is playing out in public as well as in private. Pressure has been brought to bear not in the smoke-filled rooms beloved of the traditional activist fun, but in the court of public opinion. The CEO was criticized for selling at the lows rather than investing anew and driving change; cue the departure of the CEO. The remaining managers were criticized for their programmatic stock sales; cue a new open-market cash buy from the CTO. The board has been criticized for not engaging in any formal way with the activist; so far, so much silence.
Personally, I think the board will soon respond, not least through their choice of CEO, perhaps through changes to the slate of directors or some other kind of virtue-signalling. I think they have to, or they risk running dreadful optics where they look to be out of touch with one of their own shareholder cohorts. I personally own $OPEN stock and I believe the stock will go up as a result of all this. But the point here isn’t so much about $OPEN - the point is that this method of bringing pressure to bear on companies is now absolutely of the zeitgeist. Bud Light? You saw what happened. Jaguar? Same. Cracker Barrel? That too. These were all to do with marketing campaigns, not capital markets campaigns - but today, capital markets marketing (ie. the way in which you market your stock) and IRL marketing (of your products and services) are very much intertwined. Professional marketeer and capital markets commentator Katie Perry illustrates the point here. So - get used to more of these dramas playing out on a screen near you. Some will succeed, some won’t, but just as with everything Internet related, this is a change which has destroyed the guild of “secretive activist campaign” and lays it open for any and all investors to participate - for better or worse. You may find rich pickings among the series of these plays that I expect to come along. I myself am staying long in $OPEN because I think there are more dominos to fall, and because I think the stock can benefit from that.
If you’d like to hear more about this topic - I think we’re early in this phenomenon and it pays to get smart early in capital markets - here’s a couple things to watch.
Firstly, I spoke one on one to Eric Jackson earlier this week. You can view that here on YouTube or here on X.
$OPEN
— Cestrian Capital Research, Inc (@CestrianInc) August 27, 2025
I was delighted to chat with @ericjackson today about the Opendoor board’s response - or lack of it! - to the activist campaign.
Watch it here! pic.twitter.com/E9SGNJkfxh
And secondly, we discussed this on the Daily Rip yesterday - the relevant section is here:
Fantastic convo on what's going on with $OPEN with @CestrianInc -- Alex King says he appreciates @ericjackson's candor + self awareness.
— Katie Perry (@katieeperry) August 28, 2025
Also where is the Opendoor Board? 🤔
via @Stocktwits Daily Rip Live: pic.twitter.com/W9SEtv4u5L
Righto.
Back to work!
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US 10-Year Yield
Continues its decline.
Equity Volatility
The news on volatility is - there is no volatility.
Disclosure: No position in any Vix-based securities.
Longer-Term Treasury Bonds (TLT / TMF)
No change.
Holding over $87, bullish. Over $89, very bullish.
Note - Leveraged ETF. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
Over $37, bullish, over $41, very bullish.
Disclosure: I am unhedged long $TLT and similar EU UCITS ETFs.
Ether
Continues to look bullish - the Wave 4 down here illustrates where any correction may reach before finding support. ETH is currently hovering over its 21-day exponential moving average.
If you’d like to have AI help you to trade Ether, Bitcoin, Solana and key crypto-centric stocks, take a look at our Big Money Crypto algorithmic signals, here (independent investors) and here (investment professionals).
Disclosure - Long $ETHA and others in the Ether complex.
Oil (USO / WTI / UCO)
No change on this timeframe.
Continuing to move up.
2x Levered Long (UCO) / Short (SCO)
Note - Leveraged ETF. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
Still looks bullish for UCO.
Disclosure: No position in oil.
S&P500 / SPY / UPRO
Easy-up.
New highs, and holding up and over the 8-day moving average. Bullish until it starts tripping MAs on the way down.
3x Levered Long / Short ETF - UPRO, SPXU
Note - Leveraged ETF. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
Disclosure: I am long $IUSA, and long SPY puts for September expiry. In aggregate net long the S&P.
Nasdaq-100 / QQQ / TQQQ
Also easy-up.
Some weakness around here; look for a shallow drop at this point.
Levered Nasdaq - TQQQ Long / SQQQ Short
Note - Leveraged ETF. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
Disclosure: I am hedged 1.1:1 $TQQQ:$SQQQ, and have $TQQQ and $QQQ puts for September expiry. Overall net long the Nasdaq.
Dow Jones / DIA / UDOW
Holding up nicely on a weak morning for the Qs. I think the Dow goes higher on this timeframe.
Still looks bullish.
3x Levered Dow - UDOW Long / SDOW Short
Note - Leveraged ETFs. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
Also bullish looking for UDOW in my view, as long as it holds over the 21-day EMA.
Disclosure: No position in the Dow.
Sector ETFs
To repeat: $240 likely hard support, $296 year end target.
Disclosure: No position in XLK.
3x Levered Long/Short Tech - TECL/TECS
Note - TECL and its inverse TECS tend to be illiquid outside RTH with relatively wide bid/ask spreads.
Note - Leveraged ETFs. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
There is a lot of accumulation in $TECS, so far to no avail. Now, the point at which one starts to think well, maybe this market only goes up forever - that’s usually close to the point a market reverses. But still … been a long time that it just keeps going up!
Disclosure: No position in TECL or TECS
SOXX (Semiconductor)
Is it even possible that semiconductor has put in a local high?
3x Levered Long / Short Semiconductor - SOXL / SOXS
Note - Leveraged ETF. Read the fund documentation if you are considering using this instrument.
SOXL below its 8-day now.
Disclosure: I am hedged 1:1 $SOXL:$SOXS, and long $SMH - overall net long semiconductor.
Alex King, Cestrian Capital Research, Inc - 29 August 2025.
DISCLOSURE - Cestrian Capital Research, Inc staff personal accounts hold long positions in, inter alia, TQQQ, SQQQ, IUSA, SOXL, SOXS, SMH, TLT, DTLA, ETHE, ETHA; long September TQQQ, QQQ and SPY puts.