You gotta have huevos to press your longs through the weekend. That or an established system with proven statistics.

Our brains are funny things. We can take in super valuable statistical information, information that is objective and cold and dead and true. Then instead of doing what that information says to, we over-weight the first hand account of someone close to us—a relative or some internet guru.

That is how one stays firmly planted in the 90% loser category.

There is not much for me to say this lovely Mother’s Day Sunday. I usually do Mother’s Day big here at the House of Raul. Women, in general, worry too much. If we can do one thing for the women in our family it is to project stability on Mother’s Day. Prepare a bountiful meal. Host a gathering in a spotless space festooned with lots of living plants and cut arrangements. Send them home with leftovers and gifts. Then resume your purposeful persists, be them illegal hell cat street racing, writing or whatever it is you do with your time.

I shall press all longs into the end of Monday. If, per fate, we have some kind of a trend up Monday, then I shall push into Tuesday morning. These are just rules established in my trading plan years ago.

None of this is rocket science.

Keep it simple.

Raul Santos, May 10th, 2020

Exodus members, the 285th edition of Strategy Session is live. Our two key contextual sub indices are painting a really clear picture heading into May OPEX. How the next few days play out is likely to forecast the overall market direction into quarter end. Make sure you check it out!

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This entry shall be brief as it is already 65 degrees in the murder mitten and the forecast calls for sunshine and 70s. What I am about to tell you is based on the the following beliefs, which I hold to be true:

• The stock market is an indiscriminate mechanism that regularly eviscerates the majority of short term speculators.
• Beginners luck is real but doesn’t last long.
• Traditional technical analysis is often made to be a fool.
• Markets will naturally price in the COVID-19 economic shock.

First off, here is the rising wedge everyone is looking at. We can debate exactly where the lines need to be drawn (well y’all can, I dgaf) but the essence is here:

It is one of those technical patterns that anyone who has studied investing/trading theory has seen in a technical analysis portion of the book. There is one major flaw in clear technical patterns—we all see them. This leads people to make short term bets. Even option bets. The positions are loaded up, the backroom algorithms take in all this data, and then poof! said algos zero out these trades in one fell swoop.

To really screw the pooch, it works better if the move sort of starts to look like it is working. In this case, via a downward break from the wedge. This increases conviction in the technical set up. More people place bearish bets or raise cash. The algos jiggle with indifferent data, sounding the death knell in some otherwise quiet server room in Chicago.

I talk to a lot of people. I am a business man of the people. I do less talking and more listening. I listen to sentiment without applying any of my bias our perception to it. This I accomplish through a variety of mechanisms (it is complicated) but basically I am a mirror. Or a parrot. On some occasions even a mocking bird, but only if I need to demean someone into possibly changing their rotten ways.

Consensus is that the worse is yet to come. The real supply chains issues will hit in the fall, many say. This is said in real estate circles, manufacturing circles, not so much agriculture, but definitely from builders.

They are bored maybe and talking to me. They all perceive worse times coming.

The active traders I take seriously, they’re almost all expecting downside resolution.

These are just observations. Fine.

Systematically, I have reason to be bearish heading into the first full week of May. The wedge broke downward, whatever, what really weighs my bias is IndexModel. It is bearish heading into next week. However, that is only one week, and it is also the first full week of May. This is where everything becomes murky. Normally May is a time of celebration, or at least preparation for celebration—graduation, weddings, Mother’s Day and the like. It is when us northerners finally go outside in our bathing suits and relax.

But everyone has been “relaxing” for over a month now, sequestered to their homes. Some people love their home life, still others rue the day they can escape their family and return to the peace of their job/office/etc. These people may not know how to live, but they will be back to work. They will not be watching the stocked market as closely, they will be selling stuff, or sawing boards, or whatever it is people do for money.

Either thru leisure or jobber, attention will start to drift away from the markets. Markets will be markets, gyrating up and down until we establish a new, post-Covid value. Is that value lower than where we valued markets last May? I have no idea. Doesn’t seem like much has changed. If anything the proverbial deck has been reshuffled, but the winners are still winning and creating economic expansion.

So that’s it. I expect some downside early in the week which will serve to spook some investors into raising cash and cause active traders to increase their hedges/shorts. Then an about face higher, real vicious like.

Said simply—-the overplay for the underlay.

Raul Santos, May 3rd 2020

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It is hard being the voice of reason amid a bunch of wanton degenerates out to cure bordem via stock market speculation, but I have worked hardt for nearly 15 years setting my foundation stones and building my humble fort, and if I have to be strong for others then so be it.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. – Napoleon Bonaparte

I’ve never been one of the cool kids on Fintwitter, and after all the salacious things I’ve written, I don’t expect them to usher me into their clique anytime soon. If somehow you’ve stumbled upon this here humble Raul blog (hRb) it would seem you have good karma. And if you’ve stuck with me through my worst, we must be like some kind of homies. Thank you all for your time.

Regarding markets—every model and system built to tell me which side of the tape is likely to be controlled is telling me the last week of April is setting up to be a bull run. That being said, we have pretty much every company that actually matters in 2020 set to report earnings:

• Google parent Alphabet, INC report Tuesday after-market-close (AMC)
• Microsoft, Tesla and Facebook Wednesday AMC
• Apple and Amazon Thursday AMC

If you opened a Robin Hood account and bought just those names with the intention of holding them for 10 years, I would pat you on the back and set you on your way, knowing you’ll be better for it. Add other institutions of the new millennium like Costco Walmart and Square and I’d be like, damn son have you been stalking me?

I still have a massive Twitter position. It remains my second largest holding after Jack managed to strike a deal with the perverted old kooks running Silver Lake and Elliott management, two firms who used hostility to grab several chairs on the Twitter board of directors. I do not know why I’ve held Twitter for so many years, but as long as Jack is in charge I shall remain.

I invest primarily in jockeys, not horses.

I invest in jockeys and also horses that resemble the mythological gods of ancient civilizations. Like Alphabet, Inc. They are omnipotent, benevolent, merciful and forgiving, like Jesus. Costco is like Seshat, the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge and writing because the entire eidos of Costco was created by a bunch of accountants. Cost+12% margin. That’s it. Simple and irresistible, like a goddess.

I invest in Facebook hesitantly, because I like the idea of Mark Zuckerberg being able to issue Libra coins to people for good social media behavior. This may help cure the internet of it’s psychopathic streak, or at least push this twisted psyche out of the core social platforms. Keep the crazies down in the 8chan dungeon with the rest of those friggin’ defects. Let us progressive and compassionate thinkers inherit the promised land.

Welp, I’ve about tapped out on that tangent.

Models are bullish, lots of wildcards on deck. There is a FOMC rate decision on Wednesday afternoon. The gambling halls down in Chicago give it a 0% chance of being a live meeting, meaning rates are entirely predicted to stay unchanged at 0%. And having already opened the spigots wide open on direct bond buying, the Fed seems to be out of major moves. That being said, how the market reacts Wednesday afternoon after the Fed Chair conference is likely to dictate direction into the second half of the week.

I will be pressing longs only until then, working to capture handles in the NASDAQ 100 whist letting my swings and long-term investments run.

Cheers to your month-end lads, may be be strong and gainful,

Raul Santos, April 26th 2020

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Greetings lads. Not much to report on this fine Sunday. All routines remain in place. The key to a routine is understanding its purpose. If someone ever asked me why I spend two-to-four hours every Sunday thumbing through tons of raw stock market data and parsing it into relevant information, I have an answer more meaningful than, “because that is how I’ve always done it.” Resting on your laurels is a dangerous game. Ask me how I know.

I am not going to write out all the reasons why I do lots of research every Sunday, nor will I elaborate on the why I update the public blog with a NASDAQ trading plan most every trading day. However, it is the proverbial chopping of the wood and carrying of the water. These routines took me to a place of consistent profitability as a trader and investor, and I cannot stop doing them now that I’ve achieved that goal.

That said, I am always on the look-out for ways to simplify my approach or add a new tool (algo, model, screen, etc).

Last week was huge for me. I made back all draw down my long term accounts suffered during the Valentine’s Day COVID-19 massacre while capturing hundreds of handles in the NASDAQ 100 futures. Technically, I could not work again until August and have enough money to keep the lights on, the hooch flowing, pick up some new threads and all the gourmet groceries I can eat here at Mothership.

But many a wise gambler have encouraged me to press my edge when it goes well, therefore I shall continue to show up and trade these opening bells. Don’t expect me to hang around much later than noon though. The warmth is arriving in the murder mitten and I have food to grow. Likely to be much to the chagrin of my neighbors, I am debating tilling up the entire front yard (40′ x 70′) and installing a food garden. These bread lines at Costco have fucked with my psyche a bit, and I never want to be caught flat footed again, in terms of food. I remodeled the base cement, expanding the cellar and adding a nursery area where I have started flats of celery, beans, sweet corn and cucumbers. I have stocked up on heirloom cabbage, potato, carrot and beet seed strains known to do well in my climate zone. I dedicated another area to indoor propagation of leafy greens like bib lettuce, bok choy, kale and spinach. This area also hosts basil and cilantro plants. A variety of other herbs are already established in the back yard.

This COVID-19 has been a real eye opener, a paradigm shift for sure. I am fortunate to have so much land and square footage, much of which has spent the last eight years as an empty echo whilst I sit in my dark blue office and trade, then sashay around town eating at Detroit’s finest restaurants. Something had to change I suppose. I am embracing the hermit/quarantine life. My goal is to grow at least 50% of the food I need to maintain uber male health.

Anyways…anyways…models remain bullish heading into next week. Look for Intel earnings Thursday afternoon to tell a story for the broad markets. Until then, volatility compression and sideways drift is the forecast from your old pal Raul. A stock picker’s market.

Raul Santos, April 19th 2020

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No morning NASDAQ trading report today. I appreciate anyone who followed along this week, it was a strong performance. I want to use my blogging window this lovely Friday, with NASDAQ futures bumping up against major resistance at 9k, to discuss a most critical component for obtaining consistent profitability—faith.

Faith is what makes you take the next signal from an algorithm after it suffers a major draw down. Readers of the Exodus Strategy Session know I trade every signal generated by the Exodus mother algo. Unfortunately, the algo flagged me into a 10-day index long on February 27th. That signal ran through March 12th. Then on March 12th the algo fired again, meaning I had to hold my TQQQ position until the end of March 26th. This resulted in about a -40% loss:

A lack of faith may have resulted in my passing up the next signal, which happened in close succession. The next signal triggered on April 1st, on the Fool’s Day. A superstitious man or perhaps someone who watches cable news may have been even more spooked and less likely to take the April one signal. That trade just closed out yesterday. The result:

You see? Back in the green, baby.

From preschool to eighth grade I was educated by pastors and church moms via the Lutheran parochial school system. I am privileged in this way, having usurped public schooling until college. My high school was a college preparatory school operated by Catholics. Nuns and brothers and priests. I was inside a theological brainwashing network for quite a long time. I witnessed hypocrisy so closely, it would make even a garbage man blush. I watched a pastor having an affair with the kindergarten teacher, both of whom were bound by matrimony. Racism. Lots and lots of racism from folks who huddled onto wooden pews 3-5x per week under the premise of divine love and the holy trinity—a belief that god is in everything via the holy spirit. Hating their own god, you see?

Fortunately my best friend, who you may know as ROBETO BREGANTE, was exceptionally bright at a young age and well versed on carbon dating and dinosaurs. He knew the scientific method and loved to challenge authority. We began debating the Christians, on everything, starting in about third grade.

By fifth grade we were both moved to another Lutheran school after our parents assumed we were being unfairly punished, to the point of pleasure, by our school. Such good boys we were, certainly they could pay a different group of pastors and church moms to treat us better. The next school was no safer from our logic, our data, our scientific beliefs. We were regularly kept at opposite ends of the chapel, and on more than one occasion I was made to sit in isolation in the janitor’s closed for the entire school day, about eight hours. One of the times I fashioned a noose from some rope I found in the closet. Just to work on my knot skills but boy did that spook them.

I could not be made to have faith in their King James Bible because I need objective means of believing something. This is what makes trading a better fit for me then judeo christian pursuits . I use massive spreadsheets and mathematical models to prove beyond doubt, via a statistical significance, that something is true.

I am grateful having flown so closely to the christian sun and for having elders that encouraged me to question everything, otherwise I may not have developed the critical thinking needed to thrive in our modern world.

When it comes to long-term investing, it lean on my christian foundations to understand how irrational human beings are. Christianity is the most successful business in world history. What did it do? Simplified religion. One god, one book. A few simple rituals. Defined SIN.

Okay now what entities most resemble christianity? Tesla, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and so on. You buy these names and you never sell them. You don’t use fundamental analysis like an idiot. You use blind faith. Just like the Christians.

That’s all I have time to say for now.

Cheers to never panicking out of your faith when the going gets tough.

Raul Santos, April 17th 2020

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Being an oil speculator requires thinking like an oil man. Oil carries more geopolitical risk than any other speculative instrument on the planet. Mining oil requires medium intensity work, it takes up tons of space and oil is the fuel of war.

Which is why (aside from the devastating climate change underway) I’ve always held such disdain for this crude blend of plants and animal bones. But by golly I have a job and that is to extract as many fiat american dollars as possible from the global financial industrial complex. Whenever the number on the screen shows a certain threshold of fiat american dollars in my ledger, they are withdrawn and converted into real assets—land as far north and at as high an elevation as my constitution allows. Greenhouses. Irrigation. Cement and steel and bulk minerals.

It would have been borderline negligent to not acquire a few position in oil these last few weeks. When I write something like this, a bold stance that borders hyperbole, I’d better have some data behind it. Therefore I support my line of thinking with a 20-year chart of sector performance. Energy sector was a brutal laggard well before the Valentine’s Day covid-19 massacre. But once the whole herd started to panic, babies were being thrown out with the bath water. Look at this chart, then lets pick these thoughts back up below this pornographic beauty:

When it comes to investing, or any form of exchange with humans really, it is important to do your best to place yourself into the mind of whomever you’re dealing with. Oil investing is a space dominated by religious zealots and ideologists. Muslims and Christians. Barbaric kingdoms. This is not where democracy exists. Democracy gave us the Technology sector. Religion and war gave us the oil sector.

When it comes to war, you have to have some reverence for the Chinese. Their population is obedient, even under authoritarian conditions that would have every snowflake in America, from the gay motorcycle-riding-babied boomers to the woke hipsters revolting. Those Chinese cooperate. Need a pipeline built? You want obedient subjects. Want to deal with the Russians? You better come correct.

The Russians don’t play.

“trust, but verify” – Russian Proverb

If I am going to invest in oil, I want to position alongside the only people I consider ruthless and obedient enough to fend off the religious freaks. It also has to be emerging markets because since the days of British colonialism there have always been less qualms over exploiting natural resources in foreign lands. That is why PTR is my play.

But the americans are a bunch of gun nuts, cowboys capable of surprising even the most elaborate communist plan. That is why I also took position in WES. These two tickers practically trade inverse of each-other, until they eventually don’t. Until the oil shortages start, and believe me they will, especially if we are plunged into another (inevitable) conflict.

It’s all very bleak, I know. Let’s leave oil behind for now.

Okay last thing I’ll say. I am going to accumulate more PTR soon. Both WES and PTR will be held for several quarters, and I may keep PTR for the rest of my life.

—–

I have a disease. Unrelenting optimism. I am haunted with an endless stream of positivity that seeps into everything, including my perception of the stock market. I am still bullish.

I am working with an interesting combination of system signals into the first full week of Q2. Basically I expect sellers to re-engage early in the week, pressing right into the FOMC minutes Wednesday afternoon. Then I expect the auction to reverse and rally into Good Friday. The way the sun shines come easter will awaken the resting optimist in others, triggering a rally that lasts the better part of Q2.

That is really how I feel.

So my plan is the same as it has been since I returned from the mountains at the end of February—accumulate more shares in our immutable institutions: Microsoft, Alphabet, Tesla, Costco, Walmart. One other change I need to make is swapping out my Goldman Sachs shares for Square. If I am going to lose @Jack to some vulture douche bag at Twitter, I need to retain some @Jack exposure via Square. Plus that new Goldman CEO buying pj’s right now is just in bad taste.

—

bearish to start the week, then bullish until otherwise noted,

Raul Santos, April 5th 2020

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I stepped aside last week because my signals were crossed. IndexModel, which is built on auction theory, was flagging bearish while Exodus was bullish. The signals generated by these two systems are the rocks I stand on when trading NASDAQ futures, which involves so much leverage it is the financial equivalent of cliff diving in shallow waters. If my footing is off, then I refuse to jump. No one can make me. I can think and fast and wait.

Those are times when I like to stand on my head and stare a the world from that uncommon perspective. Anyhow, the signals cleared up over the weekend. I’ve regained my systematic footing and spent all morning fortifying my logical constitution with three hours of sunrise research. Here are my findings.

Thank you for your time.

There is uncertainty down at the gambling halls in Chicago.

It may seem like I joke around too much, Elder Raul often scoffs that I am, “Always joking around,” when the going gets tough. But the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is a giant gambling hall and you cannot convince me otherwise. Just like Las Vegas makes a book around sporting events, so too are odds placed on FOMC meeting outcomes, via the CME’s Fed Funds futures (say that five times fast). Trading can be gambling, if you go about it like some barstooled jackal. Trading can also be a business, like buying a rail car full of mangoes on Sunday and selling them all by Friday. Anyhow, I watch Fed funds futures closely, have for years, and this week the bookies at the CME are having a hard time making a book on the FOMC rate decision. The CME even felt the need to add a little yellow warning to the data, here is a screenshot:

Say what you will about Janet Yellen (QUEEN), when she was sitting at the helm of the Fed, telling long wandering grandma stories and handing out Werther’s Candies, investors had zero uncertainty with the Fed. The bankers were transparent and calm and non-reactive. Now they are led by Jay Powell, who is like a puppet on arm strings held by the President and his CEO friends and foot strings manned by all the private equity goons he is in cahoots with. With Pinocchio in charge, the Wednesday afternoon rate decision is as hot of a scheduled economic event as we’ve likely ever had. I will be watching the third reaction closely, and “going with it” into the second half of the week.

NEXT

Gold is not a safe haven.

Some would say I am a fox, sure, but I am not here to trick you into burying your gold in the field of miracles. I don’t want your gold and you shouldn’t either. It has no purpose and its value is relegated mainly to fashion. If I want to invest in fashion I buy Gucci.

Keep an open mind.

I have never liked the oil and gas sector. Their actions have destroyed much of the planet, and I’d like to see them all put out of business by Our Dear Leader Elon. And they likely will be, but it will take time, more time than I have been allotted as a mortal. My job, as a speculator, is to extract as many fiat american dollars as possible from the global financial complex and convert said fiat into real assets—land as far north and at as high an altitude as my constitution allows. Said land will be earmarked for development, using steel and concrete and brawn, to create a compound of sorts, for hoarding actual important things like heirloom seeds, quality hooch and firewood.

I think we are seeing a generational buying opportunity in energy and I may take to the equity markets this week and secure a position. I spent some time researching the area this morning and came up with two names, one domestic and one in the emerging markets. The greatest emerging market, of course, is China. PetroChina reports earnings Thursday. I am waiting to hear back from my China correspondent ROBERTO BREGANTE before taking action, but the plan I am setting up is to buy half my position before earnings, and half after.

Domestically I like WES, but for fucked sake, they’re operating in my beloved Rocky Mountains. I’d like to see them become a going concern and then a nonexistent concern. But I may buy some of their stock in the meantime.

Recent comments

Guys (ladies?) you showed up in the comments of my last two posts on dealing with huge losses and wins. I am humbled by your feedback and grateful for the opportunity I have here, standing on my humble little soapbox and talking greasy about making money. Becoming a proficient speculator is an ongoing process. I intend to be the finest speculator this world has ever seen. That said, those posts were an exercise in consistency. In eastern philosophy they have a saying about chopping wood and carrying water. You still have to do the things you did to be successful (enlightened) even after success (failure?) happens.

phoenix your comment resonated with me the most. Excellent observations about the physiological changes that take place after a huge win. I experience many of the same, and they tell me something very important. That if I were to draw a line with “overcautious” on one end and “overconfidence” on the other, with calm and nonreactive in the middle, I am dangerously skewed towards the overconfidence end. Historically, this is when I’ve made the most expensive mistakes in my career. So what do I do after a huge win? Chop wood and carry water. Stay off the phone, take no business meetings and definitely stay away from anything that can execute a trade.

That’s all for now. I am bullish into quad witching OPEX, but will move slowly while the ape men bash each other about with bones and stones.

I am the crocodile.

Raul Santos, March 15th, 2020

Exodus members, the 277th edition of Strategy Session is live. Check out the NASDAQ transportation index. It will tell a story this week.

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Now I will follow-up my entry on dealing with a huge win with the tactics for dealing with the opposite extreme outcome, a huge loss. Huge losses ought not come from one trade, that is just senseless. However, sometimes the whole shit house goes up in flames and despite all your planning you lose big time. Here is how I deal with a huge loss.

Clean something. Cleaning can be a mindless task, yet some find meditation in dish washing. What I find in cleaning is the ability to flow between deep contemplation, where I am completing my cleaning task despite my mind being hard at work sorting through some mental gymnastics or psychological sore spot, to back meditative, where I am simply doing my task and thinking of nothing else.  Contemplative to meditative, and back again, over and over. Sorting an old junk drawer and throwing most of it away can be quite refreshing and mindful.

Sharpen the axes. There is always work on the farm. By farm I mean where ever you conduct your trade or business. I need things that take me away from the desire to trade for a few days. Nothing satisfies my intellectual mind like updating my statistical studies, which is something I do quarterly and even sometimes less often. I resharpen my algorithmic trade entry systems by refreshing all the data. I also sharpen actual cutting axes. And the knives in the kitchen. Now I am ready again for fast work.

Do something left-handed. This could be anything. If you are cleaning like some impulsive freak, you can switch to waxing the bleach onto your surfaces with the left, or vacuuming with the left. This helps keep your muscles and bones in balance so you don’t end up looking like Quasimodo in your fifties. I like skateboarding goofy. Nothing crazy. Just go out onto the nature walk and do some long, controlled, kick pushes. It does wonders for the mind.

Pull weeds.

Call an old relative or homie. Nothing provides perspective like talking to an old person, especially a foreigner. They’ll remind you what truly matters.

These are my methods of handling a huge loss. They have been developed over the years. A much younger and more eager Raul would sit and stare at the computer screens, worrying. Do you know what all that worrying added up to? Nothing but a few more greys in my beard.

What is your favorite method for dealing with a huge loss?

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I will not be trading the futures today, therefore I will pen an entry I’ve meant to log for some time. Here is how I deal with a huge win.

Stay calm. There is no need to react. Before any trade or investment is made a plan ought to have been formulated, where you pull up a price chart and mark where your trade is right or wrong and where or when you will close the position. Take my massive win in Tesla. I have stated numerous times that not a single share will be sold until the 1000 handle. Has TSLA printed 1000 yet? No. Therefore no action is required. Maybe I accumulate more shares soon.

Clean something. Whenever there is a big change to the numbers on the screen showing how much I am worth to bankers, I start cleaning. Not tidying. Full on cleaning. Pull the oven out and clean up all the crumbs behind it. Scrub the floors and walls like you committed a crime. Use caustic sodas and acids (not at the same time!) to break all the built up residue off the range. Take the baking pans in the back yard and hose them down real nice, then throw at least one pan into the trash—the one you cannot admit to loving or one you blew out attempting some Martha Steward recipe. Purging low use or thrashed kitchenware is good for the soul.

Read a book. Preferably fiction. Most of my business oriented homies pigeonhole themselves into the self help and non fiction case study genre of reading. This is not good for the mind. Explore the works of a famous writer, like Kurt Vonnegut or Herman Hesse. Read the whole bloated Douglas Adams series if you can suffer through that much rambling British humor.

Dig hole. As mentioned before, there is no sense taking action simply for the sake of action when it comes to investing and trading. Your job is to formulate a plan and stick to it. Instead of digging a proverbial hole in your finances, dig a real hole in the ground. This will serve to ground you, and also you can do something cool once you have a kick ass hole, like bury a 5-gallon bucket full of newspaper scraps.

Pull weeds. It is nearly that time in the north where every orifice of dirt will spring to life with unwanted plant life. Work these weeds out of your life, and feel the same unwanted thoughts pulling free from your mind.

These are my methods of handling a huge win. They have been developed over the years. A much younger and more eager Raul would sit and stare at the computer screens, worrying. Do you know what all that worrying added up to? Nothing but a few more greys in my beard.

What is your favorite method for dealing with a huge win?

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Well lads, my reservoir of deep insight is tapped for now. I suppose I laid it all out last Sunday. I came back to work last week and did okay. My ass was handed to me trading NASDAQ futures Wednesday, but then I pulled a sick win late Friday. There weren’t many pockets of strength last week, but my 10-year grocery investment theme was validated, both via Kroger and Costco earnings.

The way attorneys and other financial alligators crawled out of their holes and attacked Robinhood on Monday disgusted me, and reminded me why I spend much time bathing in mountain rivers and otherwise firming up my constitution for a simple life on the land. Bankers and attorneys make me sick. A polluted lot, and while I make a decent living trading these financial markets, I need to be ready to leave it all behind when my soul no longer can tolerate being around these misanthropes. Or am I the misanthrope?

Life is a mirror.

Boy oh boy, this Sunday’s update is off to a cheery start. Thank you for your time, rant over. Back to the markets.

Call me superstitious, but seeing a Friday the 13th on the horizon before the Ides of March AND a quad witching OPEX has me feeling cautious.

And let’s not forget [let’s not forget, dude] that Monday is a full moon.

It looks like the markets are setting up to make new lows (full disclosure: I have been wrong before). The way I see it playing out, is a rally to start the week. Something to draw in some FOMO dip buyers, then Thursday the selling starts, accelerating into Friday and printing a real horror show candle into the weekend.

I still have a swing trade on in TQQQ. I do not waffle into and out of Exodus system trades. I trade them the way the system itself generates its statistics, 10-day hold. This week, the 10-day cycle ends on Thursday, close-of-business, and perhaps that data point is a major factor in my forecast for the week.

It could go the other way, weakness early in the week, scaring people into selling off risk, looking real bleak, then bottoming Thursday before absolutely destroying bears Friday.

Both of my forecasts are based on the idea of whichever move begins the week being reversed near the end of the week. They could both be wrong.

Writing this all out only serves to solidify something I realized while preparing the Strategy Session—I do not have a clear read on the tape. There is nothing wrong with admitting that. I will tread lightly this week. You won’t find conviction from me, just an ape man sitting on the riverbanks, listening to the wind.

One of the biggest challenges I had to overcome as an independent hustler and financial market trader is the desire to work. To do something for the sake of feeling productive. Often times the best course of action is doing nothing. I satisfy my monkey brain by digging holes in the back yard or busting concrete with a sledged hammer. Much better than forcing trades and losing thousands.

Some old Italian fella found my posting on Craigslist and asked if I can save his enormous coy pond. It is the size of a modest in ground pool. It’s a hideous mess, having been neglected for four or five years. You can tell it had some magic to it perhaps several years ago (he painted an elaborate cinder block waterfall a nice blue and embossed it with golden fishys) but I had to be frank with him. I told him I could come smash it into bits, fill the hole with the rubble, then smooth it over with about 15 yards of top soil. Some jabronies quoted him ten stacks to do the demo. I told him I could do it for three.

So maybe he takes me up on the gig. I don’t know, frankly I don’t care beyond wanting to help a nice old Italian man move on to a more suitable home and wanting all his boulders for my back yard and having some grunt work to keep me busy.

I work hardt.

So that’s it. Long term investments are validated and won’t be touched. I have a swing trade to close out. I will be treading very lightly in the futures markets heading into the Ides of March. And if it is the will of the gods, I’ll have some grunt work to keep me busy for a few days and some boulders for my back yard.

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Juice – I can do my best, and do. I still think the outcome of all these efforts is beyond my control. Fate, is inevitably determined.

Exodus members, the 276th edition of Strategy Session. Check out the story the PHLX semiconductor index is telling. I am bearish.

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