A Message From Paradigm Press
Below is an important message from one of our highly valued sponsors. Please read it carefully as they have some special information to share with you.
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This Month's Featured News
Market Volatility Playbook: Trade the Noise, Get Paid to Ignore the Rest
Author: Bridget Bennett. Published: 10/25/2026.
Key Points
- Monument Traders Alliance strategists suggest splitting portfolios between short-term volatility trades and longer-term, income-generating holdings amid current market turbulence.
- Six simultaneous pressures, including Fed rate hikes, AI spending uncertainty and rising debt costs, have pushed the 10-year Treasury yield near 5%.
- Suggested plays include short-dated options on IWM, QQQ and GLD during 1% sell-offs, Agnico Eagle Mines for leveraged gold exposure, and Nuveen Municipal Value Fund for tax-free income.
- Special Report: He liked the trade and still waited
Every portfolio in a volatile market has two jobs, but most investors focus on just one. Part of the money should be used to trade the noise. The rest should be invested to generate income while you ignore it. The past few weeks have brought daily moves of 1% in both directions, prompting many investors to step back and wait for calm. But Bryan Bottarelli and Karim Rahemtulla of Monument Traders Alliance argue that waiting for a quiet market is not a plan.
6 Pressures Hitting the Market at the Same Time
Consider what the market is currently digesting: a midterm election cycle; a Federal Reserve that has resumed raising rates for the first time in more than three years, with the federal funds rate at 3.75% to 4.00% and futures pricing in meaningful odds of another move before year-end; inflation that consumers feel at the register; a federal debt load whose interest expense now runs close to a fifth of annual tax receipts; enormous AI-related capital expenditures (CapEx), with no consensus on whether the valuations are fair; and geopolitical conflict.
Markets can handle one or two of those pressures at a time. Six is a different animal, which is why the 10-year Treasury yield touched levels not seen since 2002 earlier this month before easing back to near 5%.
That matters because the cost of money is now the story. AI buildouts once funded with equity are moving to the bond market, where investors price risk in a way the stock market often does not.
Why Forced Selling Creates the Better Entry Point
Rahemtulla frames fear as the mechanism, not the obstacle. The more volatile the market, the more irrational the marginal seller can become—and the better the prices available to investors who have already decided what they want to own. Bottarelli learned the same lesson on the trading floor: the moment everyone else stops out may be the moment to buy.
The risk is obvious. Buying into a decline without a defined exit is how accounts get damaged. The upside is that a plan written before the drawdown can remove the decision from the worst possible moment.
3 ETFs Built for Short-Horizon Volatility Trades
Bottarelli’s short-term strategy centers on three liquid index funds. iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEARCA: IWM) tracks the Russell 2000 and reacts more sharply to rate moves than large-cap benchmarks because small companies feel borrowing costs immediately. Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ) swings with the daily risk-on, risk-off debate over AI and chip valuations. SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEARCA: GLD) moves as investors rotate toward hard assets.
The trigger is mechanical. When one of those funds closes down 1% or more, the group buys short-dated call options and exits on a rebound in the following session. Holding for a day or two rather than a month keeps the time premium and outlay low. Monument’s back-testing puts the odds of a bounce at some point the next day at 80% to 85%, with the probability rising as the sell-off deepens. That is internal research, not a guarantee, and short-dated options can expire worthless.
Using an index fund rather than a single small-cap stock also reduces headline risk from any one company. That framework, along with the longer-horizon names the firm is accumulating ahead of the crowd, is featured in its special report on under-the-radar volatility plays for investors who want the full ticker list.
Gold Miners Offer Operating Leverage to a Rising Metal
For gold exposure with more torque, Rahemtulla points to Agnico Eagle Mines (NYSE: AEM), which he considers the strongest operator in the sector in terms of margins and asset quality.
The math is what distinguishes a miner from the metal. Extraction costs are largely fixed, with fuel the main variable. A producer pulling gold out of the ground for $200 an ounce earns $800 when gold sells for $1,000. If gold doubles, that producer still spends roughly $200 and now earns $1,800. Margins widen faster than the metal moves.
That leverage cuts both ways, and it is worth keeping in mind. The same leverage that expands margins on the way up compresses them on the way down, making a miner a more volatile holding than bullion itself.
Gold traded near $2,000 an ounce three years ago and now sits above $4,100. That says as much about what a dollar buys as it does about gold. Agnico Eagle also lends itself to covered-call writing for investors seeking income alongside the exposure.
Municipal Income at Yields Unavailable 5 Years Ago
The income side is where Rahemtulla sees the cleaner setup. Nuveen Municipal Value Fund (NYSE: NUV) is an unleveraged closed-end fund that holds a diversified municipal portfolio, largely investment grade, and distributes roughly 4.7% monthly.
Municipal bonds fund water systems, highways and toll roads, and the historical default rate is well under 1%. That is the appeal: credit risk is modest, and the income is free of federal tax.
Run the numbers and the gap widens. For a taxpayer in the 35% bracket who lives in a state with no income tax, a 4.7% tax-free yield approaches a 6.7% taxable-equivalent yield. A Treasury paying 5% leaves that same investor with closer to 3.3% after tax. Five years ago, the 10-year Treasury paid a fraction of a percent, so income investors have not seen a setup like this in years.
The fund trades millions of shares daily, so liquidity is less of a constraint than it often is with individual bonds. It also sits near the low end of its 52-week range. If rates eventually come down, that leaves room for price appreciation on top of the income. If rates keep climbing instead, the price pressure runs the other way—a key risk of buying duration during a hiking cycle.
Sizing the 2 Books Against Each Other
Allocation depends on age and income needs. An investor nearing retirement may want a larger share in fixed income and dividend payers. Someone who checks markets once a day might hold roughly 90% in longer-horizon positions and reserve 10% for shorter-term trades. That smaller sleeve can move the needle without putting the core at risk. Monument’s own short-term trading program is built around that approach.
Stay focused on the cost of money, because that is what is repricing everything else.
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