With the stock market closed on a working day, traders are wandering aimlessly, living a life without purpose.  Instead of entering a Youtube worm hole, here are five things you can do on President’s Day to improve your trading.

Run a statistical analysis.  Trading based on probabilities has made a huge difference in my ability to consistently execute.  At first, when I attempted to trade statistics generated by other people, I found doubt would creep in, and I would lose my confidence.  However when you develop you own stats–using data you obtain and scour–you will find yourself much more able to execute.  Feeling lazy?  Here’s a link to some statistical work I posted a while back: CLICK HERE FOR RAUL3 STUDIES

Pump Iron. Or take a walk, do something active!  I love lifting weights for many reasons, mostly because I have masochistic tendencies.  The other reason is my average trade duration is about 6 minutes.  When I do a complicated lift, like the Turkish Get-Up, I need to focus on the motions of my body.  If distraction creeps in I will injure myself.  Developing this focus during physical motion allows me to focus entirely on the market when I am trading.  The symbiosis is divine!

Read a book, but not some trading book.  People always ask me what books I recommend for developing traders.  They want like a technical analysis book or something, but I do my best to steer them toward Brain Books.   They are figuring out so much about how our brains work these days.  It is fascinating stuff, and it will help you improve your trading.

Clean like you’re covering up a crime scene.  Your office, unless professionally cleaned weekly, is probably a disaster.  Sandwiches gnashed and crumbed into nearby keyboards.  Neglected paper piles that could be logged and filed in 10 minutes.  Dust bunnies living in your computer tower.  Just start in one corner of your room and before you know it, you’ll be cleaning like a damn fool.  It’s good for the soul and you will feel lighter when it is time to get back into action.

Enjoy your freedom.  I have no idea why some people work so hard, but I know my reasons.  The harder I work the luckier I get but also freedom kicks ass.  If you are not rank filed into a professional role where you are required to be stuck in a cube or meeting from 9-5, then go have some fun!  Tour a vineyard.  Spend time with family.  Pump iron.  Peer out your windows like a recluse.  Whatever floats your boat.

The world runs on dead presidents.  If you are a consistent trader you are probably a workaholic.  Just make sure you are working for your own benefit, and not just for the sake of work.  Happy President’s Day lads!

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Two weeks running the Dow Jones has been a bastion of hope in an otherwise grim market.  The index is fortified with steel and brawn and men of industry, not software nerds selling software designed to sell software.  It is these men and their industry that will lead us out of the trenches and onto the offensive.

Look for physical industries like Machine Tools and Industrial Equipment to lead on the next bounce.  I will only invest in companies servicing the United States, the only industrious nation that can hold its water when the going gets tough.

Investors are spooked.  We have generational uncertainly in politics, the Chinese and other fake capitalist nations risk breaking their currencies, and oil is back to being a cheap sludge much to the chagrin of resource cursed Arabian nations.

The Utilities sector is up nearly 8% year-to-date.  Certain REITs are doing well.  Walmart, telecommunication, etc.  If American social media companies are worth 30-40% less than we perceived them last month then Chinese social media stocks are damn near useless.

If you are itching to increase your equity exposure next week, look to the Dow Jones and its core components.  Investors having been hiding out there.  Conversely, they may be next to meet the guillotine if we decidedly turn lower.  But at least for the next 5 market days, my data is optimistic.

More tomorrow after I complete the Exodus Strategy Session which was all over last week’s action.

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Yesterday, after synthesizing the transnational behavior stock indices and powering through the net message stocks were sending with Exodus analytical engines, I posited we were likely to start the week soft.  Specifically, the first sentence of the Thesis for The Week  stated:

Sellers work down into the relief rally that took hold last week.

Then, I built on that overarching context during this morning’s report, where we used the new information the Globex session afforded us to develop specific actionable levels.  The Primary Hypothesis was bang on:

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work into the overnight inventory and close the gap up to 4247.  Then look for a test above last Friday’s high 4253 however sellers step in ahead of overnight high 4260 and work us back down through the range to take out overnight low 4218.  This sets up a move down to 4188.25 before two way trade ensues.

I bring your attention to my work not to pat myself on the back [I did not make any money trading today, I was busy] but instead to demonstrate how methodical this market is behaving.  It has been that way all year.

A methodical market can be picked apart by the astute trader who consistently does their homework and then executes said work.

I have an overarching plan for this entire week, the tail end of which leaves from for some improvisation–like Chess [no wine, beer].  It can be read inside the Exodus Strategy Session.

Most of you are just sobering up after a weekend of snow-induced debauchery, but you can still gain some insight if you gather yourself.  It looks like the fun is just getting started.

 

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Well well well, the holiday shortened week has come to an end.  These last two days have seen the intraday tone shift dramatically.  We have gone from big waves all day to long matches of local-to-local ping pong.  Today ended up being a read grinder.

The bulk of the session was spent consolidating.  In auction speak we call that acceptance.  As in, “the market is accepting these higher price and value is migrating.”  Days like this can be a real boob to day trade, given the lack of rotations.

Buyers have been slow, methodical and steady.  The buyers are playing their cards properly on a gap up for this first time this year.  They let the open auction out, nice and tight, then ripped through stop orders.  On the check back to their morning conviction, they defended.  Nothing over the top, just clean defense.  Then they held their progress into the witching hour, despite an onslaught of sell programs.  As we wrap up, it looks like they are sparking up the afterburners for a ramp sesh.

I am developing a solid crew over on Snapchat.  We talk about trading, philosophy, equipment, and anything really.  We talked about why I don’t really trade on Friday.  I also shared the secret sauce for being a trader.  Spoiler alert: like most businesses, it takes tons of time and work.

You know I will be around the interwebs all weekend, honing my process and preparing for the upcoming week.  Come on over to my snaps if you want to ham it up a bit [VCali].

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I just got off the phone with a good friend who is at CES in Las Vegas.  He was out to dinner with the owners of his company, Chinese fellows, and he told a story worth passing on.

My friend, a large Romanian, and his two Chinese bosses sat down for dinner at 6:30pm Vegas.  The time is important to the story.  More on that in a minute.  The Chinese do not do many things right, but meals are a place where they excel.  They never shy away from a dinner and usually usher in 5-6 courses.  They order per the usual,  but one of them is not eating today. The food arrived at 7pm, aka 10am in Shanghai, aka right about when their market tripped the -7% circuit breaker.  One of the Chinese fellas is looking rather glum, let’s call him Kevin.  Kevin was being consoled in mandarin by his partner while they looked at his phone.  Confused by Kevin’s lack of appetite, the Romanian asks them, “What gives with Kevin?”

“Kevin lost big money in stock market” the other guy responds.

My friend thinks little of it because he notices that Kevin’s entire phone screen is green, so he thought Kevin’s luck had turned for the better.  Yet Kevin ate nothing.

It turns out in China they use green to denote stocks going lower, and red for higher.  Tell me this right now–how?  How can we expect these people to run a proper market if they can’t even get the colors right?

We are all in for a big serving of udon noodles this evening.  My best advice, ignore everything that happens tonight.  Eat well.  Make love to your wife.  Start tomorrow early and rested and take it from there.

 

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Trading the NASDAQ is sort of like trading Apple with some outside noise.  The company is such a huge piece of the index that a bump in APPL stock sends ripples into the futures.  Therefore when rumor of a 30% production cut on the iPhone 6 and 6+ hit the streets (so cliché, so gay) sellers piled in.  There are a few factors that make the whispers seem legit.

Andriod phones have gotten really nice.  Over the holiday I saw several of the new Samsung phones, including the S6 Edge and was blown away by the quality.  If a person can stomach abandoning years of spending inside the App Store and iTunes, they can buy phones with better cameras that are new and sexy.  They can be used to fly drones also.

Apple is probably going to launch the iPhone 7 soon.  God knows they need another hit phone.  The pro tablet is only being maximized by Jeff Macke.  People who cannot grasp the utility of the pen prefer to remind everyone that Apple must have “blew it” if they are selling a stylus (Steve’s words, not mine).  The watch, nobody wants a tech watch.  Look at what Fitbit did today when they moronically released a damned Apple watch knockoff at the Vegas Consumer Electronics Show…down 18 BIG ONES.  Smart watches are toxic.  I have fully digressed.  Why keep making iPhone 6 when 7 is coming in hot?

China.  The Chinese spent last year using iPhones as currency.  These lunatics, lemmings void of independent reasoning, must have stock piles of iPhones.  Soon an iPhone 6 may not even buy a week’s worth of groceries.

Sometimes a rumor makes sense.  When it does, it is considered fact.  So while the news came from Nikkei Asian Review (Lolz) Apple is guilty until proven innocent.

Aside: I never check the futures after hours.  There are enough hours during cash and I feel like its bad for the soul.  Big ups to the after hours traders.  Be on the lookout for more Apple talk hitting the tape this week.  Also, remember, FOMC minutes tomorrow afternoon–major key driver of overall market direction through Friday morning (when they drop NFP).

Stay loose for now, so when it comes time you can be sharp.  Want to see how I stay loose?  Follow me on snapchat for closeups of me stretching and pumping iron: Vcali.

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Listen to me: I am a dangerously handsome man who lives the champagne lifestyle. The exotic lifestyle of Raul Santos has been documented for years over on Instagram, but now it is live via Snapchat. These are incredible times to be a business man but, per the usual, advisors are 15 years behind the trend. But fret not, purveyors of investment advisory, your pal Raul is here to help you get on your feet. Here are a few secrets to using Snapchat as podium for promoting your firm.

Build a story. When you add a video to ‘my story’ it saves the video for 24 hours. Then when any of your followers open Snapchat on their phone they can watch your story. If you only send snaps directly to people (like a dick pic or something) then it will only go to the people you hand pick. Be aware people can screenshot your snaps, so lay off the dick pics, Ron.

Share your Snapchat name across your other social media channels. There is no discovery mechanism on Snapchat. The only way for people to find you is by sharing your username. You can add your name to your Twitter bio or Facebook account. People who want to find you now have the option.

Be interesting. If your snaps suck, no one is going to watch them. It is important to know the demographic of Snapchat which is predominantly ages 14-19. You might ask yourself, “Why do I want to communicate with insolent children who are wholly absorbed in their phones and making zero contributions to society?” You are an advisor of wealth. These kids might not b ready to invest with you now, but you are planting seeds during formative years. Just think of what you would tell yourself if you could go back in time, what would you say?

You are going to see more of the investing community using this platform to share ideas. I have struggled for years to share what I am looking at when trading NASDAQ futures live but with Snapchat I can drop live commentary to my people without any friction. It is super clean.

If you want to see how I am utilizing the platform, follow me at Vcali. Snapchat is blazing into 2016 and before long your name will be claimed. Get on there and check out how I am living—occasionally on the fringe but always extremely good looking.

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Man I bet most of you missed my 2016 predictions because they were flicked onto Facebook like a dirty nickle but Click Here to check’em out.  One of my major ideas focuses on terrorists using drones against us.  The prediction was triggered after seeing tons of people get their hands on these incredible flying machines.  I don’t know how we ever lived before drones.  You need to understand the implications broad drone acceptance carries.

Photographers are at risk of losing their jobs (again).  Film died in the digital era, now tripods are on their way out–so are humans who stand 10 feet away and shoot you.  The angles a drone can capture are incredible, and these things are simple to control either autonomously or manually.  It is literally the best mode of taking photo and video ever.  The second we can take snapchats via drone, look out, game over.

Now we can all survey dangerous places like a steep roof or a precarious descent from safe ground.  It is like sending grunts ahead, fully accepting their fate may be of the final variety.  The drone can safely go places, on the cheap, and return real-time intelligence to you.  Every construction company will own one.  So will climbers, skiers, and adventure folks of all variety.  Think of the shots you could capture on your next vacation.  We are talking Planet Earth closeups of dangerous animals.

You grandma can fly these things.  And if not, there are incredible drones like the Lilly.  It literally follows you, like a donkey, capturing any moment you see fit for areal photography.  You do realize pictures are pretty much the end-game of social media, yes?  This is how you make it these days.  Huge stuff.

While we could sit around worrying about how drones could be used against us, it’s much more enjoyable to imagine all the applications.  Also, per the mission of this site, let’s focus on how we can bank coin off the disruption.  AMBA stands out right away.  These devices are are equipped with camera equipment and Ambrarella has the camera chip set on lock.  Twitter is a long–that patent of theirs is really something.  On demand drone photographers could be a game changer–especially if they monetize it.  Amazon is ahead of the game on drones.  Drone racing is getting traction.  I think the smaller these things gets, and the longer their battery life, the more acceptance we will see.  That means broad nanotechnology exposure makes sense.  Oddly enough, the lithium ion batter continues to be a major roadblock, even in drones.  That’s why I like Tesla and their Gigafactory.  You need to understand how disruptive drones are to a variety of jobs and industries and figure out how you can capitalize off it.  I am all ears if you want to share your best idea in the comments below.

Finally, if you haven’t already Liked our Facebook page, do it now.  We are going to be running all sorts of shenanigans on the platform in 2016 and it would be a shame if you missed out.  While you’re over there, check out how many of your friends and family are posting dronies (a selfie taken via drone).

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This is not cool–the western world will not stop messing with Russia.  Our latest attempt to alienate and dehumanize The Federation is to sick the World Anti-Doping Association on their state athletics department.  Now this nark agency is trying to kick Russia out of next summer’s Olympics down in Rio.

The associations founding president and co-author of the report, Dick Pound, went so far as saying, “This is an old attitude from the Cold War days,” during a news conference according to The New York Times.

Apparently the economic sanctions are not enough.  We must to demoralize mother Russia by kicking them out of sports; one of the things these people are really fucking good at.

The markets are already behaving odd.  Like what was that bitcoin surge last week all about?

The media loves this doping claim.  It is one more hit piece for them to run against the savage Russians.

The western world is ostracizing Russian sports while you play lazy American fantasy football and gamble your family’s savings being a sofa coach on Draft King.  Turn off your damn sports channels for two minutes and focus on something else.

I hope this whole fiasco goes away.  Sometimes I watch too much Vice and think the world is about to end.  Just last Saturday I finally watch their season finale (Cold War 2.0) then some jackass Canadian named Dick Pounder goes after Russian sports.  FML

 

 

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The markets are in slow motion.  Pull up a chair because I have a troubling story to tell. Dachshunds are vicious little monsters. They were bred by Nazis for killing ground varmint. The quality of a dachshund is determined by their body-to-foot ratio, how smooth their coat, and the length of their ‘flag’.

The schnitzel-eating Germans call a dachshund tail a flag because these dogs are designed to go into a hole and latch onto varmint.  At this point you grab the dog by the tail and pull her and marmot or whatever out.  The better the flag, the easier it’s seen and able to be grabbed.

Anyhow I love these dogs, and my modern dachshund Momo is no killer:

One cold morning, just after buying my house I came outside to a raucous.  Bruno (the uglier of the two dogs above) was going insane and Momo was eye-to-eye with a badger twice her size.  Some deep canine instinct convinced my dog she could take out this massive creature.  I had to intervene, otherwise I would be left with thousands of dollars in vet bills or worse, a dead dog.

Long story short I grabbed a steel rake and bashed the badgers skull in, rake tongs first.  It was horrible.  The poor thing’s tail spun in circles like a helicopter for 10 seconds (it felt like 10 years).  It was the worst act I have ever commited.  I’m not a killer.  I hate killing and lately I’m finding it difficult to eat meat.

This is why I know I cannot hunt.  Every year my friends ask to me join them on their murderous hunting campaigns.  I would rather eat grass then hunt my own food.

I gave the badger a proper Italian burial.  I wrapped the carcass in cheese cloth soaked with extra virgin olive oil (squeezed by the nuns of Tuscany) before lowering the body into a deep hole.  His little body rests beside my grape vines now.  The dogs were fine.  Actually, I think they liked the whole event.  They are nasty little fuckers.

 

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