It’s feast and famine at the House of Raul. I went down this estranged life path and fully accept the consequences.

Sold a jpeg Saturday. Turned a one into a five and it may end up being a grave error.

Taking a quick profit on an investment never feels good. I tend not to sell things. But with jpegs I find myself casting snap judgements based off the most absurd metrics. A tweet came across my stream suggesting Jack Paul was buying World of Women jpegs. I loath Jake Paul. Artchick.eth seems like a nice lady but not nice enough to brush aside Jim Paul and his tide of influence. Then like one of those Las Vegas DJs Kaladescope or Key-o-dee or something (I refuse to look back) said he was into World of Women and I was like you know what? Fuck him too I’m from Detroit bitch we birthed techno and we still grime.

So I sold World of Woman. Three weeks. Turned a one into a five.

Spent the morning figuring out how to put 2 back into jpegs because I was suddenly filled with anxiety that I was under exposed to jpegs.

This too may turn out to be a grave mistake.

But I have a nice lazy lion now that I do believe resembles my current state, and that’s enough for me right now.

You see lads, I truly have a rare look. It is quite degenerate. These milestones of life keep sort of coming and going, and I just keep chasing paper and chunks of earth.

Check out this week’s Strategy Session. I will be bullish heading into September until otherwise noted. I wish I hadn’t been bearish last week but fortune’s wheel did spin in my favor with that early Monday rally. It was early enough to spook me from doing anything crazy, like shorting the NASDAQ. I did short Wednesday, and for a moment that looked like a solid trade. I hustled the opening bells okay last week and that’s all I am really supposed to do—execute the signals put out by Stocklabs/IndexModel and hustle opening bells on the NASDAQ.

I’ve been eating so much homegrown corn and summer squash and onion and tomato that my skin is smooth and glows and all the wrinkles typically found on a 36-year-old meat homo aren’t anywhere to be seen. I am smooth and non-porous, like a fiberglass swimming pool. Maintaining 185lbs of cultivated muscle on a vegitable diet requires eating lots of plant meat and right now I am growing most of it myself.

Okay for now.

Raul Santos, August 29th 2021

And now for the 353rd Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 08/30/21 – 09/03/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.50, medium bull.  A bit of weakness Monday is met with strong demand leading to a week-long rally. Consumer confidence data out Tuesday may serve to strengthen the rally, as may the nonfarm payroll data due out Friday morning.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Big gap up across the board to start the week followed by a conviction buy trend Monday. Steady gains through Wednesday. Selling pressure Thursday immediately negated Friday morning by another day of conviction buying. The Russell 2000 lead the way.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

Not the ideal sector leadership, but overall a fairly broad market rally.

slightly bullish

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Massive skew to the buy side, effectively negating the big negative skews we’ve had on our radar.

bullish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Fresh signal

With the 6-month hybrid overbought signal generated Friday on the close we have a fresh reading to begin trading the algorithm again.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

A bit of weakness Monday is met with strong demand leading to a week-long rally. Consumer confidence data out Tuesday may serve to strengthen the rally, as may the nonfarm payroll data due out Friday morning.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Semiconductors snap range, breakout

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports had what seemed like a bit of a false start, breaking out from the downtrend, but that eventually lead to more upward discovery last week.

See below:

Semiconductors charged back higher, effectively exceeding the range we’ve been monitoring. It appears we have returned to discovery up.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral after being Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish for two consecutive weeks.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty-six weeks ago.

Neutral heading into next week. No bias.

Here is the current spread:

VI. Six Month Hybrid Overbought

On Friday, August 27^th Exodus went overbought on the 6-month algorithm. This is a bullish cycle that runs until Monday, September 13^th.

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“If you risk nothing, you gain nothing.” – Bear Grylls

Comments »

No NASDAQ trading report today lads. Trade’em well if you do.

Been up since 5am trading ether. Since I became hot on NFTs a few weeks back I’ve been building charts to help wash away the noise and give me a better look at the underlying ether auction. Ethereum is the main blockchain that supports NFTs. There are other blockchains that recently rolled out NFT protocols including Solana which is the preferred cryptocurrency of our favorite crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. RaginCajun has had some recent success with Solana NFTs but me I’m sticking to ether.

February 8th ether futures went live at the Chicago Merc and this means I have access to decent raw data to power some charts.

Long-time readers will likely see a resemblance between these charts and the ones I post daily on the NASDAQ. The main difference is I am building market profiles in Multicharts instead of Ninja, and despite a few minor bugs multichart profiles are pretty great:

That 3080 level hit around 5am and a loud announcement came over the PA system here inside Mothership “BRING IT IN A LITTLE CLOSER” (I poached a few hundred audio files from flight simulator and use them as audio alerts). Whether or not high-decibel audio alerts are good for my mental health we don’t know but here we are. I went long and began my morning scans of the metaverse.

I start with Twitter, of course. I want to see what the hot-shot crypto accounts are discussing. Sad happenings last night lads. Two fellas were scammed out of about $600k worth of NFTs. They both did tweet threads. Definitely worth a read:

I was scammed / socially manipulated / hacked on @Discord and @OpenSea and lost three @BoredApeYC, four @0n1Force, and three @worldofwomennft totally roughly 250 eth in value by getting tricked into exposing the Metamask QR Code in the Chrome Browser Extension. I’ve never felt pic.twitter.com/aiaENpwLVP

— Sohrob Farudi 🍌 (@sohrobf) August 25, 2021

Today has been rough. While I’m currently feeling a little better, I want to get in front of this & explain what happened last night as a cautionary tail for anyone – whether noob or seasoned vet – because I believe this can happen to anyone if ur guard is down like mine was.1/27

— jeffnicholas.eth 🙏🏼✨ (@_jeffnicholas_) August 25, 2021

Then I moved into Discord. Discord is super active with NFT chatter. This is fertile ground for finding out about new projects before they’re super expensive. These projects are not mainstream and are high risk if you’re only looking for profitable trades. But if you’re looking for stuff you want to own long term, communities you find interesting, then I think its a good place to invest. I found sad girls bar. I minted a few right away. I like to buy NFTs when ether dips because the denomination of ETH often does not adjust alongside ether. So if something costs 0.7eth but eth is down -3% in the last 24 hours then the product is in my mind on sale.

I do not mean to shill you on this project or any other. Only to blog about my current technique. When I write here in the sacred halls of iBC it is only to discuss means of extracting fiat american from the global financial complex. Do your own homework and maybe find some inspiration from mine.

So that brings us to the present. I have a runner left in ether and a few sad girls added to my NFT collection.

I just had my first coffee and normally I would trade the NASDAQ opening bell but there just isn’t much for me to do up here.

Another note on the NASDAQ. I came into the week bearish because IndexModel said so. I am infinitely grateful the vax-news hit early Monday before I had a chance to make any bearish bets because I would have been rekt. I have no clear set-ups as of yet to go short. Perhaps this afternoon will reveal one. If it does, I shall let the fine folks of ibankcoin know.

Okay for now.

Raul Santos,

August 25th, 2021

Comments »

Bearish. Let’s be clear about that first. These next five trading days the models that dictate my actions are bearish.

They were bearish last Sunday also and I’m kicking myself for the errors I made last Sunday. You see, I was all hyped up on corn dreams, joyful at the prospect of hustling corn down in the hood whilst planting pumpkins. I was so keyed up on farmer’s stamina that made a very human error and improperly observed the data that was directly in front of me.

Then I exacerbated the issue by sharing my research online to you lads, the good folks of the iBankCoin metaverse.

I am not going to apologize. Regretful as it was I am here today with a clearer mind and the humility that I had to earn all last week.

Toiling like a damn junkie.

Building a farm will absolutely defeat you, physically and mentally at least 2-3 times during the development stage. It’s inevitable. So much work. So much planning. So many things have to go right and the whole time Mother Nature is indifferently throwing mystery and challenge at your vision.

Which is fine. I understand why folks packed up and moved to the cities 100 years ago. Farming is hard.  Anyhow I was all keyed up with farm vigor and corn aspirations (ended up clearing a little over 40 fiat american in corn money, lol) that I missed the signal coming out of IndexModel.

IndexModel was bearish last Sunday. It is bearish again today.

Historically when the model goes Rose Colored Sunglasses I would fire up the old doom tone and write a real horror-show of a blog entry, prophesizing the end of western civilization. These days I know better that the west is the best.

That said The West did take an L last week. The dang Taliban, man. They won. Or something. We kind of lost. I think.

Real life is not as absolute as your american football game. There is nuance. Kind of winning, kind of keeping up with the times. But the net sum of the events seems to skew to the negative side of the ledger for the good old united states and the west in general.

Or course these events bring out the general crazies. That doesn’t matter. What matters is we have some contextual reason to be cautious.

Then there’s all the data in this week’s strategy session. Cold truth. It is bearish also.

Then there’s overall sentiment which to this humble observer seems to be teetering on hubris. Folks regularly offer to pay me 6,000 fiat american dollars from my Twitter avatar.

Let that fact simmer….

…..

…..

….

…

.

Long-time readers of this hear Humble Raul blog [HRb] know that I have been calling for the ’20s to be a period of economic prosperity the likes of which no living human has ever seen. Driven on the wings of artificial intelligence and automation. Daddy Elon said something so true and visceral during the AI conference last week. That robotics are simply distilled labor. So fucking true.

So you know that my longer term core belife is that we are in a period of major economic expansion. Expansion more resembling the curvature of Moore’s Law than linear. The West will continue to thrive and we’ll have to do EMPATHATIC things like provide humanitarian relief to any poor soul stuck in a static society like the fucking Taliban nation. Domestically we’ll have to offer universal basic income to everyone as more-and-more menial work is given to the robots.

This will all come to pass and I’ll still be sitting here. Farming some sophisticated set up and extracting fiat american from the global financial complex. Rippling muscles and a real smooth technique for the trade.

Bullish on technology. Bearish for the next five days.

As always, we’ll take it one day at a time. Be sure to drop by and read the morning reports.\

Okay for now.

Raul Santos, August 22nd 2021

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And now for the 352nd edition of Strategy Session, enjoy.

Stocklabs Strategy Session: 08/23/21 – 08/27/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.20, neutral*.  Sellers engage the tape early in the week, pressuring the markets lower. Then look for GDP data out Thursday to accelerate price to the downside and into the weekend.

*Rose Colored Sunglasses [RCS] bearish bias triggered, see Section IV

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Weakness early Monday discovered a strong responsive bid with markets rallying hard into Monday’s close. Gap down Tuesday reversed much of the Monday gains followed by selling pressure through Thursday morning. Strong bidders reversed the auction Thursday morning and rallied price nearly back to unchanged by week’s end. The Russell 2000 was significantly weaker that the other major indices.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

Third consecutive week with poor sector leadership. Energy hit hard.

bearish

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Ledger skewed heavily to the negative side, affirming the major sell flows we observed six weeks back.

bearish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

More on context

Twitter is the ultimate gauge of sentiment for me, more than any other venue real life or online. I’ve curated my steam for the last 10 years to be mostly speculators and business owners. Risk takers.

These types of inputs can be noisy and I go through great lengths to ensure they don’t become harmful to my performance. There are really only a few things I am looking for:

Foremost is signs of over-confidence/excess. My greatest weakness in trading is overconfidence. It leads to the worst kinds of errors—missing a signal from the trading models and deviation from my plan. If you see it you be it and I’ve been seeing some overconfidence on the Twitterspehere. Talk of buying new  cars. Traders reaching new milestones in their equity curve. Wonderful accomplishments, no doubt, it brings me joy to see others do well in this game, but the talk makes me a bit uneasy.

A big part of this is coming from the crypto community which has just enjoyed a rather spirited rally away from the hard selloff that began back in March.

Anyhow, this sentiment, combined with all the other context we codify using Switchboard has me feeling quite bearish into month-end.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Sellers engage the tape early in the week, pressuring the markets lower. Then look for GDP data out Thursday to accelerate price to the downside and into the weekend.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Semiconductors look to be back in range

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports had a bit of a false start — breaking out from the downtrend only to be knocked back into it. This chart has lost some of its structure. It appears to be in a mini-balance of sorts with the intermediate-term trend being down.

See below:

Semiconductors lost their nearest support zone, a level that I expected to hold. Now the index appears to be back inside of its prior range and could be set up to traverse lower and test the bottom boundary.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish for a second consecutive week.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty-five weeks ago.

Rose Colored Sunglasses is a bearish bias that calls selling pressure throughout the week.

Here is the current spread:

VI. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Keep focused on the step in front of you. Nothing else matters.” – Bear Grylls

Trade simple, execute one trade then the next

Comments »

Part of what I love about futures trading and farming is that you’re regularly forced to think three months ahead. All sorts of effort is spent these days to ground oneself in the present and I am here for it. That stated, I love when a good plan comes together.

Right now everyone is hot on corn. When was the farmer hot on corn? In May. I have corn coming out of my ears boys. This week I’m setting up a small farm stand on a moderately busy corner in the city to sell corn. The hustle is alive.

But if you think unmedicated hyperactivity disorder RAUL is going to just sit behind a table all day waiting to sell corn I dunno man maybe you’re unfamiliar with my style.

I have about 200 pumpkin plants here at Mothership that I will be transplanting in the coming days. The plan is simple:

Load the diesel truck with about 175 gallons of water, table, umbrella, corn and as many pumpkin plants as’ll fit. Stop at bank on way for 50 fiat american singles. Mosey on down to the farm. Set up table then go to work planting punkin. Stopping as needed to hustle corn.

Here’s the thing. I think sometimes we become so very out of touch with reality when we deal in the financial markets. It is very liberating to grow something from the ground that sustains you physically and financially. I doubt I would have been able to spend 700 fiat american per penguin jpeg if I didn’t also work the land. The dichotomy helps me.

So does pulling weeds. Working the land will humble even the most hyperactive lunatic. It will break the spirit and the body. Then the only choice is to go on the mend and plan your next campaign. On-and-on until this musty old meat sack called home finally kicks the bucket.

And that day comes closer with each moment.

There is one shot at immortality. Build great structures out of steel and properly graded cimento. Document the journey. Perhaps then man can achieve footnote status is some bibliography nobody reads.

“All I want to do is have some fun before I die.”

I believe that was Sheryl Crow.

That’s it for now. Top stock pick going into year-end is Twitter. Top crypto: ether. Top produce: corn baby.

Raul Santos, August 15th 2021

And now for the 351st edition of Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 08/16/21 – 08/20/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.50, medium bull*.  Calm drift, perhaps with a slight upward bias. Watch earnings of out Walmart Tuesday morning along with Powell comments in the afternoon to introduce a bit of direction to the tape. Then watch for a potential acceleration or pivot Wednesday afternoon once we hear earnings out of NVIDIA.

*extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses [RCS] bullish bias triggered, see Section IV

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Steady, week-long rally in the Dow and S&P while the NASDAQ and Russell marked time.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

Second consecutive week of leadership in all the wrong sectors. Tech still [barely] positive.

neutral

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Ledger skewed slightly negative this time after being slightly positive on the prior report. Still we have not seen anything big enough to negate the major selling we saw five weeks back.

neutral

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Building context

One of the biggest challenges I had early in my trading was wrapping context into my actions. Context is a big word which encapsulates everything. Everything. Seasons, celestial alignments, policy, sentiment, news, industry, culture and more.

I codify it as best as possible. Ranking these type of things from 1-to-5, one being extremely bearish, five extremely bullish. Then over the years I made slight tweaks to the data, giving more weight to things that appear to be more important to stock market behavior.

This is not a perfect system, but it is the best way for me to consistently add a layer of context to my trades. I do this in excel. Here is a screenshot of the switchboard I build for trading the NASDAQ:

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Calm drift, perhaps with a slight upward bias. Watch earnings of out Walmart Tuesday morning along with Powell comments in the afternoon to introduce a bit of direction to the tape. Then watch for a potential acceleration or pivot Wednesday afternoon once we hear earnings out of NVIDIA.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Semiconductors are the big context in the upcoming week

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports broke free from discovery down for the first time since the trend began back on June 1^st. Watch for buyers to defend their conviction buying day. If not we could see a major liquidation.

See below:

Semiconductors made that new high and have been consolidating since then. We are heading into the week with the PHLX resting atop prior resistance. Primary expectation is for buyers to defend this region setting up a new leg higher. If not, a quick move down through range. NVIDIA earnings due out Wednesday afternoon may decide the fate of this setup.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish for a second consecutive week after being Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish two weeks back after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish three weeks back after being neutral four weeks back after being extreme rose colored sunglasses bullish for the three weeks prior to that. Bias model was neutral eight weeks back after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish bias for the three consecutive weeks prior after being neutral for the two weeks prior to that after being e[RCS] bullish fourteen weeks ago and RCS bearish fifteen weeks ago.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty-four weeks ago.

Extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses is a bullish bias that calls for a calm drift, perhaps with a slight upward bias.

Here is the current spread:

VI. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“If the world were a logical place, men would ride sidesaddle.” – Rita Mae Brown

Trade simple, accept irrationality

 

Comments »

Good morning. No trading report today. Was positioned long ahead of the CPI print not because of the CPI print but because we had a gap down in range and gap down in ranges are my favorite set-up when we’re working with an extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses signal. Which we are.

Anyhow I bagged over 50 handles and that’s enough for me.

I am headed to the farm to toil. Intern Raul called in, down bad with a case of the VID. He has the lab report to prove it otherwise my jaded soul would think he just didn’t want to shovel mulch in 92 degree heat.

Which means I will be on the toil alone. Which again, is fine.

Cheers to good health and strong toils lads.

Raul Santos, August 11th 2021

Comments »

Lads I have been producing Sunday research for the kind folks at iBankCoin for 350 weeks. Nearly seven years. I’ve been in these hallowed halls for even longer. What keeps me here?

Well foremost dear Fly has built one of the most under appeciated analytics platform available. PPT, and then Exodus and finally Stocklabs have been vital to my trading success. I stay for the signals.

The culture is odd. Very old man yells at cloud in the whole. But I **need** to expose myself to these thought patterns otherwise I’ll be lost in the hyper-liberal echo chamber of urban progressiveness. Most culture is odd to me.

See lads, what few understand is I decommissioned from societal standards long ago. I was a blossoming young fellow, fresh out of university, on track to marry my main squeeze whilst commuting to a very normal job as a corporate accountant. By conventional standards I was a success. Bought a house in my early 20s, my ford focus was paid off, had a nice haircut and wore business casual clothes to work and around town. I was miserable. Something had to give.

I left the salary first. I figured heck, seems I’m bringing home anywhere from 30-90k fiat american ever year trading futures, why trade AND be an accountant?  Those first two years away from corporate I still woke up every morning, showered, dressed business casual and sat in front of my trading computer from 8am-to-4:30pm. It seemed like I needed to do that to be successful.

I was still unhappy. Next I broke off with my lady. That was hard. Took a few years of my self-deprecating and being a hoe to move on. I did though. It was during this time however that I learned some things about life. Chasing beautiful women had become more than a part time gig. It was consuming many resources, mostly time, something I was frittering away in front of a computer. I was a very happy dog, sashaying around town at my own whim. The world was my oyster.

I broke my work habit next. Rather, I made new habits. I looked at the data. Thousands of trades and a trend emerged. I was most profitable between 8:30am and 10am. My activity after that time lost money. The concept of work for the sake of work became visceral and I said fuck it. I’ll focus on being even better from 8:30am-11am and use the rest of my time to be a hoe.

These were very special years. I become more and more aware of what made me happy and safe and it was family. I spent more time with the elders and listened to their regrets. Seemed like they were all building ranches and cottages and whathaveyou and they all wished they had started sooner. So I began to build my compounds.

And here we are today. I wear athleisure. I am in the best shape of my life. I have detailed processes that allow me to extract enough fiat american from the global financial complex to live comfortably and more and more I pepper funds into a variety of lottery tickets, both in real life and in the burgeoning metaverse. Earlier this year doge hit. I never sold any. Whatever. I couldn’t think of anything useful to do with the proceeds.

I am losing my train of thought.

What happened next was the pandemic and shit got weird. And I was already like five years ahead of the shift away from “work” to life. So when everyone else moved work-from-home I had to go further. Now I spend lots of time kicking around on a piece of ground in a pretty seedy part of Detroit. Everyone’s real nice to me and we’re having a good time growing corn and pumpkins and drinking cheap hooch. I give fiat american to anyone who asks and it makes me happy.

I don’t know what happiness looks like for you but I suggest cutting out 10-20 minutes a week to sit completely still and watch the thoughts that manifest and vanish in your mind. That’s a good starting point.

Well this metaverse thing is nuts. The Facebook earnings call sort of made my antenna jiggle and ever since I’ve been dropping fiat on jpeg files. Maybe I just have way too much fiat. We don’t know.

What we do know is my job is to extract as many fiat american dollars as possible from the global financial system. In whatever markets I see fit.

I’ve watched trader folks unfollow me on twitter in droves since I started lightheartedly participating in doge/nft. Sometimes it makes me sad. These are good people who sort of just take themselves way too seriously. Knee jerk reaction is to call them names like cuck or boomer or Trevor Milton.

But what will that do? Not make me happy I can assure you that.

That’s about all I wanted to say for now. Thank you for being here and reading my research and odd Sunday entries all these years. I would be lost without iBankCoin. I do feel that way. It is some of the only remaining structure in my life.

Okay for now, and to 350 more, salute

Raul Santos, August 8th 2021

And now the 350th Strategy Session. Enjoy.

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 08/09/21 – 08/13/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.63, medium bull*.  Calm drift, perhaps with a slight upward bias. Watch for earnings out of Berkshire Hathaway early Monday to provide some context for the week.

*extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses [RCS] bullish bias triggered, see Section IV

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Gap up into the week was slowly faded lower Monday. Hard selling early Tuesday discovered a strong responsive bid. Rally into the weekend with the NASDAQ lagging a bit.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

Leadership in all the wrong sectors. Tech still positive.

neutral

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Ledger skewed slightly positive again but not enough to negate the major selling seen four weeks back.

neutral

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Resetting the count

I am clearing all prior algo signals we were tracking here in the Strategy Session and starting anew once we see the 6-month go hybrid oversold.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Calm drift, perhaps with a slight upward bias. Watch for earnings out of Berkshire Hathaway early Monday to provide some context for the week.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Semiconductors say “stay bullish”

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports continue to be discovery down. The downtrend is maturing and buyers printed a conviction candle a few session back. We may see this downtrend complete this week but for now sellers remain in control.

See below:

Semiconductors made new record highs and appear to be in a fresh leg of discovery up.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish after being Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish on the prior report after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish two weeks back after being neutral three weeks back after being extreme rose colored sunglasses bullish for the three weeks prior to that. Bias model was neutral seven weeks back after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish bias for the three consecutive weeks prior after being neutral for the two weeks prior to that after being e[RCS] bullish thirteen weeks ago and RCS bearish fourteen weeks ago.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty-three weeks ago.

Extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses is a bullish bias that calls for a calm drift, perhaps with a slight upward bias.

Here is the current spread:

VI. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” – Warren Buffett

Trade simple, invest the gains

Comments »

Well I sat to prepare a morning report but I haven’t mustered the strength to do it. If all systems aren’t feeling-a-go I heckin’ pull the plug on high leverage futures trading for the day.

Physically I am spent. Two days riding coasters has my muscles tight. Meanwhile this market is sort of loose. Slow summer action can really jam a trader hot off of some summer thrills.

To dial in to a boring bull market while the energy of life courses through my veins seems unlikely.

Looking at the charts there is nothing to be bearish about. Nevertheless I am managing an SQQQ position I initiated down near low-of-week. It carries risk through end-of-day Friday. Which sucks. But rules are rules and dialed in or not my job is to execute the signals generated by the models.

Above average executor of algorithmic signals. That’s my claim to fame.

I will be around tomorrow morning to look at the charts again. As for dialing back in and working the opening bell…unlikely.

May take a weekend reset to put me back in the game.

ho ho ho for now

Raul Santos, August 5th 2021

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Hi ho lads, Raul here, you friendly derelict speculator and humble farmer. Been plugging away—toiling in the fields to produce corn and punkins all whilst hustling these opening bells on the NASDAQ. In other words, living my best life.

Most of you don’t know this but your dear pal raul is really very beautiful. I brush my long dark locks of hair ten minutes in each direction to produce a shining mane. Then I oil my knees so they also give off a nice shine. My Sephora habit is more expensive than your :::insert drug addiction here::: habit.

The only drugs I’ve been doing these days are COFFEE. HOOTCH. And diesel fumes. Few understand that a drug is not just a white powder or some pill dispensed by the HALF BLOOD POPES of the world. Drugs are all around you friend. Smog is a drug. Loud music is a drug. The key is properly defining the word “drug.”

Coffee and diesel make life feel a bit more like a campaign. When I fire that heckin’ old diesel truck up and it lurches to life, my aura is filled with a sweet fume that makes me feel like some kind of american with a mission. A soldier perhaps.

Mushrooms don’t do this. Mushrooms make me feel like a wolf who can converse with the wind. Non-duality. All One Or None, comrade.

America is a high-strung nation of psychopaths addicted to stimulants and diesel fumes and my fear is that I’m becoming more American every time I fire up that diesel. I want to grow fat in the belly region and complain about mysterious lower back pain, all while ignoring the huge sack of tissue I’ve ringed around my hips. I want to grow corn, lots of it. I want to grow the numbers on the screen associated with the value of my person to infinity.

Heading into August I have a bearish signal coming out of IndexModel. Good old Rose Colored Sunglasses. Rose Colored Sunglasses tells a story of rose index prices hiding the ugly reality of the constituents. The constituents are sick. Sick from all the diesel fumes and caffeine and belly fat. The constituents are about to make their disease felt far and wide—at least that is what IndexModel is saying heading into next week.

I have crossed signals. There appears to have been some maintenance inside Stocklabs which has resulted in new signals appearing on the mother algo. Which is fine. When signals cross we lean on that which we can control. For me, IndexModel is in my control. I am the captain.

You’d be wise to find your own machinery in this crazy world of global finance. There are too many fucking enemies lobbing attacks at your ship from 6pm Sunday to 4:30pm Friday to be merely a loyal subject to the crown. Take the reigns buck-o or be mowed down by the psychopaths at Citadel.

One last note—who the fuck would own $HOOD when you can own @Jack’s $SQ?

Who is better leader? Long-haired, weak muscled eastern european or long-goatee stoic bitcoin maxi?

Okay for now. Bullish for the next 24 hours or so, then BEARISH.

Raul Santos, August 1st 2021

One more thing. The accountant in me takes great satisfaction in a month ending and beginning so very nice and clean like this. Okay see you in the morning.

Here is 349th edition of Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.28, medium bull*.  Expect a bit of upward price action early in the week. By as early as late Monday look for the auction to reverse lower. Selling pressure persists into second half of week. Then look for non-farm payroll data Friday morning to accelerate the selling into the weekend.

*Rose Colored Sunglasses [RCS] bearish bias triggered, see Section IV

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Mellow Monday with chop and upward drift. Hard trend down Tuesday that found late-day buyers. Choppy inside of Tuesday for the rest of the week. Russell bullish divergent during second half of week.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

Key Tech and Discretionary sectors down. Materials leading.

slightly bearish

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Ledger skewed slightly to the positive side but not enough to negate the major selling seen three weeks back.

neutral

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Algo maintenance

The mother algo inside Stocklabs appears to be under construction. There are suddenly 3-month overbought signals back on July 9^th and 10^th which effectively negate the July 21^st signal I was using to carry a half position until August 4^th.

When factors beyond my control arise there is nothing I can do but accept them. What is within my control is IndexModel and IndexModel is bearish heading into August. I will formulate a strategy for the week based on this.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Expect a bit of upward price action early in the week. By as early as late Monday look for the auction to reverse lower. Selling pressure persists into second half of week. Then look for non-farm payroll data Friday morning to accelerate the selling into the weekend.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Continue to key off semiconductors

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports have a discovery down look going on.

See below:

Semiconductors are attempting to go discovery up. This context makes it difficult to have bearish conviction on the overall market. While this week’s forecast calls for selling, we can use the PHLX to help us decide whether or not to initiate a swing short. If this index is pushing to news highs, we will back away from the shorts. However, if this breakout fails, we will gain conviction in short selling.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is Rose Colored Sunglasses BEARISH after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish last week after being neutral two weeks back after being extreme rose colored sunglasses bullish for the three weeks prior to that. Bias model was neutral six weeks back after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish bias for the three consecutive weeks prior after being neutral for the two weeks prior to that after being e[RCS] bullish twelve weeks back and RCS bearish thirteen weeks prior.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty-two weeks ago.

Rose Colored Sunglasses is a bearish bias that calls for morning selling pressure and lower prices on the week.

Here is the current spread:

VI. Stocklabs Hybrid Oversold (12-month)

On Friday, July 16^th the 12-month algo went technical oversold. This 10-day bullish cycle which runs through Friday, July 30^th end-of-day. Here is the final performance of each major index:

VII. Stocklabs Hybrid Overbought (3-month)******

******THIS SIGNAL MAY BE A FALSE FLAG. UPDATES TO THE ALGO HAVE PRODUCED TWO OVERBOUGHT SIGNALS BACK ON JULY 9^th AND 10^th WHICH EFFECTIVELY NEGATE THE 21^st SIGNAL*****

On Wednesday, July 21 the 3-month algo went technical overbought. This 10-day bullish cycle that runs through Wednesday, August 4th end-of-day. Here is the performance of each major index so far:

VIII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: “she wanted storms.”” – Anna Akhmatova

Trade simple, with full sensual awareness

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I did a bit of inspired writing this morning. Both on Twitter and in my private captain’s log. I raved. I gardened. Had breakfast and then updated the Sunday research. I suppose I should say thank you. The city inspires me of course. My little oasis from the mundane norms of society and I am building a farm right there in the thick of it.

What a time to be alive.

All the big hitters are due out with earnings next week. Breadth on last week’s rally was real narrow. On the wings of Big Tech just how we like it daddy and now it is time for them to show up and deliver robust 10-k forms.

Powell and the Fed team have a message due out Wednesday afternoon but this is of little importance. Jim Powell’s Fed has taken a back seat in economic policy talks ever since Janet “the queen” Yellen took the helm over at Treasury. Master of Coin.

I will wait until word comes down official word comes from the Queen and make a small note of Jim Powell’s low-impact chatter while remaining reverent to the tape.

The fun kicks of Monday afternoon with none other than the dogefather himself daddy elon love you long time yes. I like buying Tesla before and after earnings. I like it both times and then doing nothing. Maybe gardening or something, whist waiting for the Cybertrucks to deliver.

I learned something curious about trucks last week. Those ram 1500s you see folks across america driving are only rated to hold about 500lbs in the bed. WTH is 500 pounds? Nothing. I put two tonnes in the back of an eleven-year-old 250 diesel last week and the ride home had me shook.

Anyhow truck-life hoe. I am hardt on things. Not just trucks but everything. I had the whole inside of Mothership painted white. The trim. Doors. Everything. Now I am walking around, strong cocked, every last bit of 5’11” 185lbs of labor-hardened-shit-kicking-vegitarian mass, doing my best to not scuff the walls like an idiot.

Using the handles and hardware to open and close things instead of just bashing them with my hips or ripping open like bear.

Okay for now.

Raul Santos, July 25th 2021

And now the 348th edition of Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 07/26/21 – 07/30/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.58, medium bull*.  Major event-heavy week ahead. Expect elevated volatility as we drift sideways, perhaps with an upward bias. Watch for the markets to pivot Wednesday afternoon after the FOMC announcement. Late-week earnings from Facebook and Amazon may serve to accelerate or reverse the prevailing price action before month-end.

*extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses (e[RCS]) bullish bias triggered, see Section IV

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Pro gap down Monday. Choppy Monday featuring selling pressure until late in the session. Conviction buying Tuesday set up a strong rally for the rest of the week. We ended the week at record highs.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

After two weeks of poor leadership, last week featured leadership from key Tech, Discretionary and Health sectors.

bullish

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

The heavily-skewed flows featured in the prior two-weeks of report was not negated last week. The breadth of money flows was fairly balanced. The slight edge goes to buyers on the week but until we see a major push featuring a majority of the industries with +3% gains on the week the slight edge goes to sellers.

neutral

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

SETTING ANOTHER RULE

Make sure to read last week’s entry to ‘STOCKLABS ACADEMY’. In it I outlines to protocol I will follow when a 12-month oversold signal triggers while I am trading the 6-month oversold signal.

I am writing another rule today to address an important happening that sometimes happens that I want to have a rule for. It may seem like I am making these rules up on the fly. I am.

I am learning how best to utilize Stocklabs live. Just like all of yous. Which is fine.

The overbought signals have been my favorite to trade for many years because they give me the conviction to press momentum and the rules to keep me from making errors.

My favorite set-up is when we swing from oversold to overbought and I want a rule for how to proceed if this happens midway through an oversold signal so here we go —

When we go overbought mid oversold cycle I will restart the 10-day counter on HALF of my original position. Closing the other half at the completion of the 10-day oversold cycle, whichever one I am working with at the time.

Right now I am working with the 12-month oversold signal that fired on Friday, June 16^th. This signal cleanly carries risk up until the final day of July, this upcoming Friday, the 30^th.

That means I will be at my desk (or phone) Friday afternoon, closing half of my position. The other half I will risk until Wednesday, August 4^th, because the overbought signal I am working with fired on the 21^st.

Simple rules. Simple to follow no matter what external forces are assaulting my person. Simple. But not easy.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Major event-heavy week ahead. Expect elevated volatility as we drift sideways, perhaps with an upward bias. Watch for the markets to pivot Wednesday afternoon after the FOMC announcement. Late-week earnings from Facebook and Amazon may serve to accelerate or reverse the prevailing price action before month-end.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Key off semiconductors

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports caught a bounce and may still be in discovery down. I drew some broad lines of where we may see a new balance form.

See below:

Semiconductors have a slightly more clear picture. We are inside the established range. There was a local failed auction but then buyers reclaimed the local Fibonacci which we can key off of with reasonably tight risk. If price pivots off the top-side of the fib we’re likely entering a fresh leg of discovery up. A push down from the fib sets up a traverse of the old range.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish after being neutral last week after being extreme rose colored sunglasses bullish for the three weeks prior. Bias model was neutral five weeks back after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish bias for three consecutive weeks prior after being neutral for the two weeks prior to that after being e[RCS] bullish eleven weeks back and RCS bearish twelve weeks prior.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty one weeks ago.

Here is the current spread:

VI. Stocklabs Hybrid Oversold (12-month)

On Friday, July 16^th the 12-month algo went technical oversold. This 10-day bullish cycle which runs through Friday, July 30^th end-of-day. Here is the performance of each major index so far:

Here is the performance of each index since the original 6-month oversold signal:

VII. Stocklabs Hybrid Overbought (3-month)

On Wednesday, July 21 the 3-month algo went technical overbought. This 10-day bullish cycle that runs through Wednesday, August 4th end-of-day. Here is the performance of each major index so far:

VIII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“The ideal building has three elements: it is sturdy, useful, and beautiful.” – Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

Trade simple, build simple processes

Comments »

Buon giorno mo fos. Research is updated heading into the week. The entire Sunday report is featured below. Cliff notes version is widespread weakness (as seen by last week’s industry performance) is likely to carry into the beginning of the week. Expecting a bit more selling early on and then bidders to rally the equity complex into the weekend.

That’s about all I have on my mind. Oh, watch earnings out of Intel Thursday and how the PHLX trades into the weekend. That heckin’ index is the key to everything and it has had an incredible run these last few years. Are we truly entering the exponential growth phase I’ve been expecting all these years? Where this thing can just ascend more-and-more steeply to new heights? Or is it high time for a correction?

We don’t know. Intel earnings may serve as a catalyst. Or they may not. Again. We don’t know.

That said I prefer to take my cues from something cold and raw and dead like Intel earnings. The numbers on the 10-k and the way price oscillates afterwards. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Okay for now. I have to boogy around town spreading cheer and good tidings.

ciao ciao

Raul Santos, July 18th 2021

Here is 347th edition of Strategy Session for you to enjoy time today maybe we don’t know. Maybe you want to make to kill it we don’t know. First island cope when time seagulls thank you.

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 07/19/21 – 07/23/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 2.68, medium bear.  Continued selling early in the week eventually finds a floor setting up a rally into week’s end. Earnings out of Intel Thursday afternoon may serve to accelerate or end the rally.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Rallied through Wednesday morning then selling pressure for the rest of the week. Russell 2000 bearish divergent all week long.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

A second consecutive week of leadership from Utilities suggests investors are becoming more risk averse. Utilities were flanked by Staples which supports this idea of investors feeling risk averse.

A small bit of bullishness is gained from Tech being slightly bullish divergent, despite being lower on the week.

slightly bearish

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Money flows skewed strongly to the negative side of the ledger for a second week. Only Water Utilities managed to put up a strong positive return on the week. Seeing the ledger skew this heavily we tend to expect follow-through to the downside in the week ahead.

bearish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Setting rule and sticking to them

Alright, so…a few updates were made to Stocklabs during the week resulting in the original 6-month oversold trigger vanishing. This caused a bit of confusion for me because I used the signal to initiate a position and found myself unsure whether to continue holding for the full 10 days or close out. Fortunately a fresh 6-month oversold signal triggered on Wednesday the 14^th.

I am new to trading the 6-month signal so I am coming up with rules for all the potential scenarios that may arise. Historically I have only traded the 12-month algo with Stocklabs and before that, with Exodus, I only traded the 36-month algo.

I do miss the 36-month’er.

Anyhow, and this is the lesson of this week, all that matters when trading is that we create our own rules (or with the help of a community/mentor) and stick to them. Creating a rule, and sticking to it no matter what will do wonders for the psyche whether the trade is a win or loss.  It builds conviction in yourself and with it comes what some traders call emotional capital. Emotional Capital takes time to build and can be wiped out by simple errors, errors as simple as setting rules and then breaking them. Because suddenly this all becomes random, chaotic gambling.

The rule I am setting today is simple and therefore simple to obey—if the 6-month algo triggers me into a trade and during the 10-day cycle we go oversold on the 12-month algo, I will restart my count from the date of the 12-month algo and hold my risk for the 10 more days.

I would not start the 10-day count over if another 6-month oversold signal triggered mid cycle. But I will if the 12-month fires.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for buyers

VI. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Continued selling early in the week eventually finds a floor setting up a rally into week’s end. Earnings out of Intel Thursday afternoon may serve to accelerate or end the rally.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Mirror images

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports broke range and are in a discovery down phase. There is a Fibonacci level a bit further below.

See below:

Semiconductors are holding range for now but Intel earnings Thursday afternoon may push this index into a discovery phase.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral after being extreme rose colored sunglasses bullish for three weeks. Bias model was neutral four weeks back after being extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses bullish bias for three consecutive weeks prior after being neutral for the two weeks prior to that after being e[RCS] bullish ten weeks back and RCS bearish elveven weeks prior.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty weeks ago.

Neutral. No bias.

Here is the current spread:

VI. Stocklabs Hybrid Oversold (12-month)

On Friday, July 16^th the 12-month algo went technical oversold. This 10-day cycle with run through Friday, July 30^th end-of-day.

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Let each thing you would do, say, or intend, be like that of a dying person.” – Marcus Aurelius

Trade simple, with purpose

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