There is nothing for me to do this morning in the NASDAQ futures, therefore I will not trade.

So far the ’20s feature an economy so robust (and nobody wants to admit it because we want more stimmi checks) that locking down has done NOTHING to stop the invisible hand. We are expanding so rapidly, in all directions.

There are not enough houses for everyone. More are being built.

There is not enough bitcoin or equity available. Their prices rise.

Anyone willing to work can find work instantly. There is this whole gig economy, thanks to our Big Tech leaders, that serves as an effective safety net for anyone who is out of conventional work or has overspent and needs to shore up their budget.

Everyone on finance twitter is obsessed with bitcoin and tesla. So many jack offs with three letter acronyms after their names find it necessary to lecture on selling telsa and bitcoin. Taking profits. Which is fine and all. But they can kindly go fuck themselves. Especially the ones who have missed this entire move. Even if they’re not jealous, coming off as pretentious is never looked back on with reverence.

Let’s say Tesla drops -40% next week. What then? These honorable cowards then retweet themselves? I’ve had folks telling me to sell Tesla since before the split. Which is fine. I’m glad I became a hardened speculator before their feeble minded trepidation could infect my mind. I know a generational opportunity and any external influence attempting to sway me will be met with a concrete wall aka my dense fucking state.

I do not seek your admiration. I never have. My stated purpose is to extract as much fiat american from the global financial complex as possible. That’s it. By doing so publicly, perhaps my efforts will empower others to take control of their financial destiny. I’d like to see financial service bros completely vanish, replaced by robots, but this is beyond my control, so I dunna really care to push on that initiative.

In my 15 or so years of being active in this community I’ve been told countless times that how I want to trade cannot be done or that what I believe to be true is wrong. When I started blogging, tweeting as an eager to learn 20 year old, I thought shoot…some veteran out there will show me the ropes and make me into a fine trader. Nope. It’s just been me against the machine the whole heckin’ time. I’ve met some decent lads. Real kind folks like The Fly and Ragin Cajun and others, and their interactions have been a blessing. Still, I had to come up with my own approach and show up every day to dial it in. There was no teacher. This is a learning environment. Not a teaching one.

In other words. We don’t know. We don’t know where Tesla will top out. If bitcoin will go to 100k. We don’t know. When the stock market will correct. We dunna kin.

The nice thing is…it doesn’t matter. Just take it one day at a time. Like a jolly alcoholic.

If you make a plan ( a plan can be as simple as five or six written rules) and then trade real money and then reflect on your results, eventually you’ll become a competent investor or trader. By the way these are two different things. Make no mistake. Investors are not traders and vice versa.

The next generational investment is already upon us. It’s psychedelics. Figure out how to gain decent exposure for now and wait for a clear Daddy Elon to emerge in the space. Then go all in invested in that Daddy Elon. Then think. And fast. And Wait.

It is not Paul Stamets. He’s not sexy enough. But he’s about the closest thing. Wait for someone sexier to emerge, hopefully a woman, and then gain as much investing exposure to them as they’ll allow for.

Either you construct some discipline around your work or it will be someone else’s job to do so. You either create work for others or have work created for you. Me, I don’t like to work but I really don’t like being told what to do. Raul is a hard one to manage. Even for Raul.

Raul Santos, January 8th 2021

Comments »

Gotta boogie so I shall keep this brief—we’re headed into a new year lads. The 2021st Julian year. January can be noisy AF, with every dicknose or bobbed woman willing to go on teevee and say “why” given air time to make up some fairy tail reason for the price action seen in the financial markets.

It is all bull shit.

This chatter will be amplified to eleven because the dang coined bits are going bananas.

I remain cautiously bullish heading into the new year and my reasoning is presented below in the strategy session. I also give you two charts you can monitor for the next five days (on your own) that will tell you more than any human, beast or spirit about why the market is behaving the way it is.

If you simply keep daily charts of the PHLX semiconductor index and the NASDAQ transportation index on your screens, your lenses into the world of speculative finance, you will be well on your way to understanding the market. Especially in the upcoming weeks. (see my notes regarding these two chart in Section IV of the Strategy Session).

Be also aware of FOMC minutes Wednesday afternoon, MU earnings Thursday AMC and Non-farm payroll Friday morning.

I have so much heckin’ more work to do. I work harder than the priests on Sunday. Because Sunday is the easiest day to out work the christians. And let there be no mistake—I am competing against all ideologies except for the simple premise of being a good neighbor and the most consistently profitable speculator to ever share their homework publicly.

With that, I bid you a happy new year and look forward to a strong cocked year of hustle and flow.

Raul Santos, January 3rd 2021

And now, the 319th edition of Strategy Session. Enjoy

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 01/04/21 – 01/08/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.53, medium bull. Buyers continue to hold price steady along the highs though Wednesday morning. Then watch for third reaction to the FOMC minutes Wednesday afternoon to dictate direction into Friday morning. Then look for third reaction to the nonfarm payroll data Friday morning to dictate direction into the weekend.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Gap up Monday then the rest of the shortened week spent marking time. Strong ramp Thursday afternoon into year-end. Closed Friday in observation of New Year’s day. The Russell 2000 bearish divergent after being bullish divergent the week prior.

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

Rotational Report:

Sketchy leadership from Utilities.

caution bulls

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

Concentrated Money Flows:

Industry flows still muted. No heavy money flows underway.

neutral

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

User profiles

Many of the tools inside of Stocklabs are highly customizable. Some users are more advanced than others and one way to begin to understand how they use the software is to check out their profile. You can access a user’s profile by click the icon next to their name anywhere in the software. This will open a window with their recent commentary, their bio, portfolios, screens, watch lists and much more.

The follow feature allows you to receive update notifications any time that user makes a change.

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:

Buyers continue to hold price steady along the highs though Wednesday morning. Then watch for third reaction to the FOMC minutes Wednesday afternoon to dictate direction into Friday morning. Then look for third reaction to the nonfarm payroll data Friday morning to dictate direction 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 attempt breakout, yes…Transports could still fail

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 have the picture of a failed auction. The set-up is not confirmed until we print a strong daily red candle. Will that happen? We don’t know. But this key contextual sub-index could tell a story over the coming days. Monitor closely.

See below:

Semiconductors also could tell a story. This index is attempting to break balance and continue higher. Atop an extended rally. We need to monitor this attempt and gauge it. The success or failure of the consolidation breakout could lead the whole market.

Earnings out of key chip maker Micron Technologies Thursday after the bell might be the information needed to confirm the breakout (failed breakout) on the SOX.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral for a seventh consecutive week. No bias.

VI. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“The worst thing that can happen is death and that’s not the worst thing in the world either.” – John Stockdale

Trade simple, did you die?

Comments »

Broke routine this morning and spent my Sunday a bit differently. I slept late. Needed it. Staying up until 5am drinking hooch with the familia had me feeling a bit woozy. Yesterday. Add in seeing a few more than usual folks outside of my core quaranteam, the potential to become sick was elevated. I left bed around 9:30am and completed the research portion of my Sunday work then did 75 minutes of Zoom Yoga lead by a British lad with a knack for remote workouts. Then I came back here and did the report portion of the Sunday work.

To be clear—I read that study of out Wuhan last week and believe it. If the research appears in Nature, then I have no reason to question it. The main take away from the study is that in their study of 10 million humans, out of the 1,000 asymptomatic cases of Covid-19, ZERO, zed, none of these asymptomatic cases could be traced to an instance of infecting someone else into becoming symptomatic.

That is huge. It means if an ocular pat down does not reveal any symptoms on a person, and further observations also do not detect symptoms (symptoms that are quite easy to identify if you pay attention) then that person will not get you sick. Sure, keep some distance, especially from their disgusting mouths, but you can rest easy among strangers.

The overreaction paranoid state many folks remain in will be looked back on with disbelief. The virus sure seems to be a justification for progressing certain collectively desired agendas—which is fine. I’ve always found humans pretty disgusting. Even though I will wade into an oscillating pile of dancing ravers at 4am in some unsanctioned warehouse in Detroit and mindlessly sway for hours on end amongst halfway good looking young folks, put Raul in the airport and my face is covered and I am keeping as wide a space as possible from all the gen pop who are all around gross.

The smell has always been a major reason. I cannot stand the way people smell, especially overweight men who seem to either be too lazy for or incapable of proper hygiene. Next grossest overly perfumed women (or sprayed, I dunno wtf they douse themselves in but…gross). Then it goes dudes coated with cheap aerosol deodorizers. Then after that just plane old swamp ass. Then there is the revolting wind of a mismanaged mouth. Then sort of nasty but also kind of oddly satisfying is the brine that comes off of alcoholics which is almost kind of sweet.

But then 2020 came and I became an armchair expert on viruses and the fix was in—all my revulsion were justified. So now when I walk through the airport with all my skin and face covered people don’t look at me sideways. I am in the right.

Lads, I have been work from home for nearly nine years now. I withdrew from the corporate office, which was a stew of fartty wind and carry out food. A sickness could rip through whole departments in a matter of hours. The windows didn’t open.

There are so many potential good things that can come out of this over reaction to covid-19. That is where I intend to focus.

Face masks are great. Next should it should be generally accepted for me to make public comment about someone’s smell. If you are giving off a smell I can declare it like the town friar and folks will shine their smart phone lights on the smelly person while uploading their likeness to their personal social media accounts. This behavior will serve as a citizen mechanism for correcting the smelly human problem.

Anyone with special needs who cannot maintain a smell below what is perceived as generally acceptable will be permitted to carry a fog horn, which they can blow off to instantly end any shame event and subsequently reverse the shame onto the original smell shame…er…ers.

Stuff like this…these are the kind of positive changes that could take hold as we return to “normal”. Have you ever seen Demolition Man? A world more like that.

Anyhow, this entry has gone on far too long and I have to wonder if anyone is even left at this point. Haha. Only those who’ve put one foot in the pasture while keeping another firmly held in the game I suppose. The odd ones. The ones who’ve found freedom and know damn well what to do with it. Stuff like read the Raul blog.

If your goal is to become a consistently profitable trader, you have my word, I will continue to do my best to give little nudges along that path. But be warned, Sunday afternoon posts can veer into the plumb weird. So can my tweets and Instagram stories. But the research I put at the bottom of these and the morning trading reports are the real deal.

If you want to be a consistently profitable trader you need to know why. Why do you trade? If your answer is ‘to make money’ buddy you have more work to do. Make money. Great. For what? What will you do with it and why?

Why travel? Simply to drift around, aimlessly or for something more. To learn and bring home what you gained. Maybe…I cannot answer the question of why you trade.

I trade for a very specific reason. My goal is to achieve Operational Precision, a term I borrow from the third manned flight into earth orbit by NASA in the Sigma 7 craft. Said precision means conserving risk and trading as close as possible to my targets (levels). Operational Precision leads to consistent profitability. Consistent profitability leads to extracting as many fiat american dollars as possible from the global financial complex. Said dollars will be converted into cryptocurrency and real assets like cement and greenhouses and ground-to-air-heat transfer systems. These structures will be built to last hundreds of years, through any variety of human conditions and policy—be it nation states or something bigger, like a one world order of Google (which I am totally here for. My life is in Google’s hands and I feel safe in the eye of the omnipotent and immortal Google).

I could just as easily not trade and go live in a tunnel somewhere near a national forest, foraging for mushrooms and herbs and living a strong cocked healthy life.

Maybe that’s the difference. I love freedom. You can have order and the ease of living it brings. I am down for whatever as long as I’m free.

Shoot…I was supposed to end this blog entry long ago. Goodness, if you’re still here reading along, we may just be some kind of homies.

As always, T.B.D.

Anyhow, I will not be trading much this week. I have some affairs I’d like to have completely in order before stepping into the Julian year of 2021.

I’ll probably be floating around Twitter and if it feels right I may even set up a plan and trade the NASDAQ for a few hours. If not, just know I am steady hustling, putting in the work to extract fiat american at a healthy clip.

Cheers and trade’em well.

Raul Santos, December 27th 2020

And now the 318th edition of Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 12/28/20 – 01/01/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.63, medium bull. Buyers continue to hold price steady along the highs during the holiday shortened week.

**U.S. markets will be closed Friday in observation of New Year’s Day.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Gap down Monday followed by a morning of hard selling. Sellers discovered a responsive bid after probing back down into the prior Monday’s range. Auction turned higher and close strong Monday. Rest of the holiday shortened week was spent marking time on all major indices except the Russell, which continued to rally suggesting risk appetite is running extra high as investors become more aggressive in chasing returns.

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

Rotational Report:

Energy remains aggressive and choppy and separate from the other sectors.  Tech showing a second week of divergent strength.

Bullish

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

Concentrated Money Flows:

Industry flows skewed slightly to the positive side of the ledger but remain muted.

slightly bullish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Tune out the news

Stocklabs defaults to displaying its wire-like news feed along the bottom of the screen. While it is an excellent feature, especially for assessing if a recent spike in the markets is associated with a breaking news event, sometimes it can be a distraction from whatever our objective is at the time.

To hide the feed, simply hover your mouse along the top edge of the news window right near the middle until you see a small down arrow appear. Click it once and the streaming news window will collapse out of sight into the bottom of the screen.

Find the small up arrow near the bottom center and click it once to return the news to your display.

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:

Buyers continue to hold price steady along the highs during the holiday shortened 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 show balance, Transports could still fail

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 bulls are not out of the woods yet. While price does continue to linger just below the recent high print, the daily chart still has the markings of a failed auction. One more big red candle and the failed auction could be in place.

See below:

Semiconductors showing balance along the highs of a quite mature rally. The longer they can trade sideways the stronger this market remains. A time based correction is the most bullish of all, especially after four big rotations higher.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral for a seventh consecutive week. No bias.

VI. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.” – Harriet Tubman

Trade simple, define your purpose for trading, why do you trade?

Comments »

Totally cliche right? To proclaim Sapiens to be a meaningful book? Kinda sucks but, the book just really makes clear how to invest.

Now I may be just a humble NASDAQ futures trader and prolific but unpopular blogger/fintwitter-er, but several years back I read that pop-culture book and it changed the way I invest. Folks sometimes ask me what book I recommend on investing, and I say Sapiens every time. The writing in that book laid the ground for the investing style I’ve come to call “faith-based investing”.

Drinking the koolaid is what made people into bitcoin millionaires. HODL! The battle cry of seemingly insane investors, right?

The big shot professionals with their serious haircuts can’t help but snicker at the concentrated bet investors who go all in on one or a few ideas. What could go wrong? They sarcastically ask.

They don’t have big enough huevos.

The concentrated long term bet on any financial instrument is a threat to their professional existence. The people of financial services make a living prying into the personal life of others then making really average investments in really average ways that produce really average returns.

Which is fine if you already have money.

Most of us don’t.

If you’re someone who wasn’t born rich and you want any hope of becoming truly wealthy then you have to make concentrated long term bets.

I strongly recommend making your biggest bets on yourself. On places where your efforts have an effect on the outcome. These require less faith in others and more in yourself.

I know that when I buy land I can work that land. You cannot take away my willingness to work. Only the gods can. I will turn a seemingly useless patch of dirt into a fucking goldmine. But I am cut from a different cloth then most of you. I am built like mountain goat. I am strong on plow and there is immigrant blood in my and it boils hot and make me want to kill.

So I channel all that energy into land development and have total confidence in my ability to strike the stone until wine flows.

Then I go and seek bigger humans than me and invest in them. I invest in people and put my faith in people. People like Elon Musk, JACK DORSEY.

Faith is what lets me sit through the big drawdowns. Just like the Christians can pray to their god when the going gets tough, I can rest assured that I have invested with the brightest humans in the world and that allows me to wait until the tide turns.

The right stuff to invest. The willingness to think and fast and wait. That is all you need. Throw a bit of faith on top and you have the recipe for big gains.

Listen man, make average investments expect average returns. Do something different, expect different results.

That’s all I have to say about investing.

Raul Santos, December 20th 2020

And now the 317th editon of Strategy Session:

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I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.75, medium bull. Buyers hold price steady along the highs during the holiday shortened week.

**U.S. markets will close early Thursday (11:15pm ET) in observation of Christmas Eve and remain closed Friday in observation of Christmas Day.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Strong rally early Monday, carried through the week. Selling Friday gave back some of the Wednesday/Thursday gains before strong ramp into the weekly close reclaimed much of the gains.

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

Rotational Report:

Energy still on its own planet. Tech and discretionary way out in front.

Bullish

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

Concentrated Money Flows:

Industry flows skew back to bullish after being neutral last week.

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Stocks go up

An interesting observation—from the Intelligence page on Stocklabs. Setting the back test period to ten years and observing the real time data on the current hybrid score, the market has been higher 71.2% of the time over the ten day period.

The statistics from the real time scoring consistently show higher probabilities of prices being higher over a wide range of algorithmic scores.

Something to think about. Consistently engaging the broad market to the short-side is a low probability bet over multiple day holds.

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:

Buyers hold price steady along the highs during the holiday shortened 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 keep going up, Transports could still fail

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 are sticking around the highs, which makes the failed auction less and less likely. However, one cannot help but see the ascending flag set up, which often times sets up a leg lower. The failed auction picture is still in play and this is a critical contextual component to keep in mind heading into year end.

See below:

Semiconductors negated anything seemingly sketchy last week. Now they simply look like a chart going higher.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral for a sixth consecutive week. No bias.

VI. Stocklabs HYBRID OVERBOUGHT (COMPLETE)

On Friday, December 4th Stocklabs signaled hybrid overbought. This is a bullish cycle that runs through Friday December 18th, end-of-day. Here is the performance of each major index so far:

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” – Hal Borland

Trade simple, savor the moments as they come

Comments »

Bulls, Big Tech optimists, loyal servants to the robots and committed futurists are seeing their ideologies rewarded by the mechanisms of finance this week. Look at me? My hair is long and my beard is black and my van is rusty. I am sitting in my underwear at 9am on a weekday, next to smoking lamp, penning a blog about the wide world of finance. A field, I seem to dominate simply by following a few winks and cues.

We have set aflame the notion of making an honest living as a corporate servant. The business causal dress code has been proven to be WRONG by our odd leader JACK DORSEY.

Yep. It’s the bohemians who’ve come out on top—taking drugs and drinking hooch and sitting around in their underlews next to their smoking lamps. This they/them if filled with gratitude heading into year end, seeing the way things are working out. Now if only if the they/thems guarding Canada would let me in so I can test my new stick out on their mountains…

Yes things are really looking up for your humble pal Raul. I’ve been inside Stocklabs for about eight weeks now and I’ve already traded two winning cycles. Check it out. System flagged hybrid overbought on November 16th and again on December 4th. We don’t count the overbought that happened on November 24th because it happened in the middle of the November 16th cycle. Anyhow, the December 4th cycle comes to an end today at the close and here is the performance so far:

Here are the signals, in case yous don’t believe me:

 

I am noticing an early trend on Stocklabs. The system is generating good signals and folks aren’t taking them. We’re handed the controls to the rocket ship, systems are set to manual, the pilots in control baby, and the pilot jock is fuckin’ up. There is a strong inability for yous all to do nothing.

Look AT ME. I do nothing. I am in my underlews, on a working day, and I am a wealthy man who consistently makes sound investments and trades. I have the right stuff for rising to the top of the world of speculative finance. I am not afraid to die and I am totally willing to put my life in the hands of command control.

Who knows, me working with Stocklabs may result in the architect, dear Senor Tropicana, aka The Fly paying me a few bucks. We don’t know. But I am already using his damned machine to print money.

So thanks.

That’s all I wanted to say. I am not trading today. There is a dusting of snow and it makes the whole town look like it has a new coat of paint and I want to tie a jag on and savor the beauty.

Adios chums…trade’em well…and don’t work too hardt.

Raul Santos, December 18th 2020

 

Comments »

Russian hackers tore through the U.S. federal government over the weekend. Including breaching the U.S. Treasury. I am sure it was nothing. Nothing to see here. No reason to be concerned Nope.

Washington Post has the story.

UPDATED: Russian government hackers are behind an online espionage campaign that has breached the Treasury and Commerce Departments, other U.S. agencies and a top cyber firm. The scale of this is "very, very bad," said one source. w/@CraigTimberg https://t.co/DDnvtFo0uG

— Ellen Nakashima (@nakashimae) December 14, 2020

There is a 250 million person union strike happening in the country of India. As much as Americans look to the east for their philosophical virtues, this is a country that maintains a caste system. The big strike could have global ramifications. Maybe humans will be granted more basic human rights. We don’t know.

All I know is I’m happy with my current trajectory. Fit. Health nut. Steadily divesting from the Big Game that is corporate servitude. Doing work that will take robots a long time to assume while doing my best to acquire and be kind to robots.

Anyhow. That’s all I had to say. Have a nice day.

Raul Santos, December 14th 2020

Comments »

Took a heady dose of nitrous oxide Thursday morning, pretty much first thing after some coffee (no breakfast). At the dentist, of course. I have my teeth cleaned every three months…for the nitrous. I gives me the added benefit of having extra squeaky clean teeth. But I am all about that higher consciousness.

Anyhow the NOS calmed me down a bit. I’ve been real buggered lately by the lockdown, notably because I usually take off from the murder mitten during the bleak winter months. I have many dear friends in places much fairer than here who are happy to house me. In the mountains, in the clubs and on the west coast. But why go anywhere? So here I sit, in the grey stew, hunkered down for the sake of the devil knows what.

Fine.

I read a nice Jerry Garcia quote this morning and while the feller hardly seems like the Wall Street type he certainly rode his fair share of waves. I’ve never been a fan of Grateful Dead music, but if I understand correctly they sort of do these long form shows that build and build then release. Which is a common approach today in the techno house scene, and is definitely a wave, man. You know when a DJ is doing it right because the flow adapts to the crowd and the crowd begins the sync and everyone is just vibing.

The Garcia quote is at the bottom of this week’s strategy session, and I dare say it has everything to do with the world of speculative finance. Undifferentiated weirdness. That is all this game is. You can get your fill of bullshit whys from the heads at CNBC entertainment news or any number of popular twitter accounts that have proven to be wrong year-after-year-after-year-after-year-after-year and yet grown more-and-more-popular and more-and-more-vocal and more-and-more-retweeted. Or…or you can put your blinders up, write a trading plan, wrap some risk around it and show up every day ready to work your way through the undifferentiated weirdness.

It may seem sometimes like I harbor a clairvoyance. I mean, I’ve been banging the drums for years-and-years-and-years-and-years-and-years-and-years-and-years-and-years-and-years regarding Tesla. But look, even I sold a third of my hard accumulated Tesla shares back when we hit 1,000 (pre-split). It was just another example of not assigning too much meaning to the weird pudding that is high finance.

And fuck finance to be totally frank. This industry is so chock full of greedy bastids who’d just as soon sell you up shits creek as they would leave you holding the bag. A bunch of measly skunks I tell ya. Our job is not to befriend any of these big shot douche bags. Fuck’em. Our job is to execute our plan and consistently extract fiat american dollars. That’s it.

You start assigning some big meaning to this-or-that move or this-or-that big shot douche bag and you know what’s gonna happen? The Big Machine is going to zero you out and smash your ego with a cinder block. Maybe that’s a good thing. It can be a positive experience. Anything can be. Look at me…I live in a van down by the river loving life.

This is not the kind of game that rewards truth seekers or folks teeing up for that one big life changing trade. That sort of against the odds bullshit only works in hollywood scripts. It has been beaten into the conscious of the American that the individual can defy great odds, with some heroic bravery and luck and fling themselves out of the thick minutia of middle class existence.

Almost certainly this agnostic belief set will end up in ruin. Show up and work. And then work some more. Nobody cares. Look at me. Nobody cares about me except for like two good dudes on Twitter.

Doesn’t matter. I am not here to find a sewing circle, nor am I here to impress any of yous. Extract fiat. Build cool shit. That’s it.

RIP Chuck Yeager.

Raul Santos, December 13th, 2020

And now, the 316th edition of Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.03, neutral. Buyers re-emerge and control the tap through Wednesday afternoon. Then watch for the third reaction to the FOMC announcement to provide direction into the second half of the week.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Rally through early Wednesday morning, then hard selling Wednesday. Some consolidation selling during the rest of the week but no real follow-through. Divergent strength from the Russell 2000 suggests risk tolerance remains strong.

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

Rotational Report:

Energy independently bucks the selling. Everything else rotates lower. Tech being the second weakest sector is not something bulls want to see.

bearish

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

Concentrated Money Flows:

Industry flows somewhat neutral after two weeks skewing bullish.

neutral

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Still a bullish cycle

We are continuing to operate in a bullish overbought cycle until Friday the 18^th. Expectations remain to the upside.

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:

Rally through early Wednesday morning, then hard selling Wednesday. Some consolidation selling during the rest of the week but no real follow-through. Divergent strength from the Russell 2000 suggests risk tolerance remains strong.

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 go parabolic, Transports not acting like a failed auction

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 are lingering along the high after initially looking like they may print a failed auction. The longer this index can stick up here, the less likely a hard sell is to materialize and more likely we are to see a fresh leg up.

Watch FedEx earning due out Thursday after market close to perhaps tip this index one way or another.

See below:

Semiconductors really look sketchy for the bulls. After blasting higher out of the ascending wedge, the wedge which formed during the 4^th rotation higher of the current discovery phase, they quickly have given back much of the move.

If this index falls back down through the wedge it could be the start of a discovery down phase.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral for a fifth consecutive week. No bias.

VI. Stocklabs HYBRID OVERBOUGHT

On Friday, December 4th Stocklabs signaled hybrid overbought. This is a bullish cycle that runs through Friday December 18th, end-of-day. Here is the performance of each major index so far:

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“It’s pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.” – Jerry Garcia

Trade simple, eschew seeking higher meaning

 

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I have to make this brief and then commute over to my exercise room for the zoom yoga meeting (FML). Boy do I miss going over to the hot house on the uppity side of town and packing shoulder to shoulder with all the nearly naked mamacitas in their state-of-the-art sports bras and panties.

Research is bullish going into the first full week of December. You know the drill. That means I will be actively working open gaps in range (as always). I shall press the bets if we’re dealing with a gap down in prior day’s range because of the bullish convictions of my research. We’ll be gunning for range extension up and overnight highs like a bunch of amphetamine junkies climbing a mountain.

MORE

That’s about all I have time to say. The murder mitten has taken on its grey hue, a bland blob of scenery where different days are only discernible by the long stretches of darkness between the brief periods of grey glow. This is the antithesis of a psychedelic experience. Where one features kaleidoscopic trips through the entire visual color spectrum, the other is simply fifty shades of gay grey.

In these conditions it is best to stick of coffee. Legal speed. Until about 11am. Then switch to malt liquor, nourishing the body with a couple of 40 ounce bottles of foamy soda. Then, if night comes and a fire and some good fiction don’t put you under, then a big of tequila to turn out the lights.

Enough of that. Farewell lads.

Raul Santos, December 4th 2020

And now, the Stocklabs Strategy session. Enjoy.

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 12/07/20 – 12/11/20

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.78, medium bull. Expect a bit of weakness Monday, with sellers claiming a minor victory early in the week. Then look for a responsive bid to step in as early as Tuesday morning and for price to steadily rally through to Friday.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Similar story to the prior week—strong selling early Monday discovers a strong responsive bid. The rest of the week is spent rallying then holding along the highs.

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

Rotational Report:

Energy continues trade independent the market, this week way out in front. However the key driver Tech put in a strong showing and was flanked by Healthcare and Financials. Utilities were weak. Everything else muted.

slightly bullish

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

Concentrated Money Flows:

Industry flows skewed majorly bullish for a second week. Raises expectations for a continuation higher.

bullish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Fresh signal

The Stocklabs overbought signal we were working ended last Monday. Then, into the close Friday a new overbought signal fired. That means we have ten more trading session’s worth of bullish bias, clean through to the 18^th.

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 weakness Monday, with sellers claiming a minor victory early in the week. Then look for a responsive bid to step in as early as Tuesday morning and for price to steadily rally through to Friday.

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 go parabolic, Transports not acting like a failed auction

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 the look of a failed auction heading into last week after quickly reversing off the highs after making a new swing high. However, price managed to linger and even claw back some losses last week and now it is looking less and less like a failed auction. Sellers need to make a decisive move, and soon, otherwise the prevailing up trend is likely to carry prices into the open air above.

See below:

Semiconductors might be at the beginning of something big to the upside after blasting up and away from the wedge formation we’ve been monitoring for the last few weeks. Or, this could be the final throws of a rally—a euphoric blow off.

We don’t know.

Either way, as of now the index remains in discovery up.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral for a fourth consecutive week. No bias.

VI. Stocklabs HYBRID OVERBOUGHT

On Friday, December 4th Stocklabs signaled hybrid overbought. This is a bullish cycle that runs through Friday December 18th, end-of-day.

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.” – Ken Kesey

Trade simple, have fun

 

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Not even the jobs numbers could put a wiggle in the futures and when we’re up at record highs there isn’t much I can do to extract fiat using my approach. Instead I will pen this brief blog entry, interact with Stocklabs for a bit then sequester myself to the laboring fields.

When busy pruning trees or cooking or exercising or whatever, it is much more difficult to do something low value like force a trade on for the sake of keeping busy. Idle hands are soon occupied by rabid jackin’ off or taking big lugs of hooch, or trading YOLO calls. Anything for a kick in this otherwise dull pandemic existence.

Three hours is about the max amount of time I can sit, disciplined, at the turrets of Mothership, which are always greased and loaded and ready to fire seventy thousand shots at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Then my mind wanders. To hoagies. Fast women. Building water features. You know, stuff like that.

And I sense my mind is already someplace adrift. Therefore, before I do anything I’d later come to regret, like my ongoing twitter rants against the lock down, I’ll just excuse myself and wish you all adieu.

Cheers lads. Stay woke. People creepin’. Back Sunday with an in depth weekly research report.

Raul Santos, December 4th, 2020

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I just started my morning rituals. Checking economic events. Pre-market movement from tera cap stocks. A brief scan of Twitter. Splitting the market profiles and annotating key price levels etc etc…and I decided to pass on this session.

Too much jammed into the first few hours. Everyone’s trying to wrap up and head out so you know what? I’mma head out now.

Cheers lads. I am humbled by your interactions and the time you spend reading all the thoughts I type into this here blog. All the Fleets and Tweets and Insta stories. You guys have kept me accountable to my research in a way I may not have been able to achieve on my own.

It is very american to think you have to go at everything alone. The lone ranger, taking on insurmountable odds with a few lucky twists of fate. It is ingrained into our culture. Into our story telling. Our pop culture lore.

The truth is while I fight like hell to make a few scratches on the earth that say, “Raul had True Freedom” as a fierce independent, there is a whole team of people behind the scenes. Some working directly with me. Others doing their own hustle but doing it consistently enough that they’re almost always ready to help. Like my homie Eric at the nearby hardware store, my dear friend Dean who keeps the fluids maintained in my work van, the crazy Albanian who makes a damn fine veggie skillet, Elder Raul and all his wisdom. The list really is endless and spans across the whole country. Then there’s all the products I can cue up with a few thumb swipes at Amazon that just magically appear at the entry port of Mothership. Google. My life is in Google’s hands.

Daddy Elon and Humble Jack for making me a modest fortune this year.

There is a literal army of help that powers my independence.

You guys through, the readers and fellow speculators, you’re the most swarthy bunch of all right folks I have the honor of corresponding with.

Cheers, and Happy Thanksgiving.

May the celebration roasts retain their moisture and bring you vigor and health.

Salute.

Raul Santos, November 25th 2020

 

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