GOVERNMENT & POWER • MILITARY & DEFENSE
Twenty-five years ago today, the towers fell. Since that day, Brown University’s Costs of War project puts total post-9/11 war spending at roughly $8 trillion — $5.8 trillion in direct appropriations, another $2.2 trillion in veteran care obligations still coming due. Factor in the Iran and Yemen operations since late 2023, and the total edges past $8 trillion. Divide that across every taxpayer who filed a return last April… and you get today’s number. That’s not a budget line buried in a spreadsheet. That’s your share.
It always lands on a Friday
Some of the fastest options moves of the year have happened in a single trading session, and it always lands on a Friday.
It's coming up soon, and there's a free guide that's your shortcut to understanding exactly what experienced traders are looking at when it hits.
Here's why the day is so big. Stock options, index options, and futures contracts all expire at once. Wall Street even has a nickname for it. Trading volume jumps. Prices can swing hard, especially in the last hour.
For experienced traders, it's a big day.
For beginners, it's where the sucker's bet gets made over and over. They see a stock moving, buy an option, and don't realize their contract runs out of time that same afternoon.
You can be right about the stock and still lose money if you're wrong about the timing.
This guide explains how options and expiration work in plain English, with real trade examples.
Even if you've never traded an option, you'll know what you're looking at before the big day gets here.
P.S. One of the biggest options trading days of the year is coming up, and it falls on a Friday. Stock options, index options, and futures all expire at once, and beginners often lose money because their options run out of time.
Fifty-seven thousand dollars per taxpayer, almost all of it borrowed — which means the interest is still compounding, twenty-five years later, on a tab that has no closing date.
