Greetings lads,

It is a thin thread that holds our society together.  Hard winds pressed through the north and challenged that reality over the weekend.  At times gusting up to 60+ miles-per-hour, wind and wind alone took out electricity in most of the mitten’s thumb.

winds up to 60mph I've opened all hatches to the mothership we're runnin' wide open the volume of air coming through is incredible pic.twitter.com/ZLF40ukCix

— RAUL (@IndexModel) May 4, 2018

Saturday morning I woke up to a pleasant silence.  Mothership maintained a comfortable 74 degrees through the night and a gentle breeze was blowing through the rear port.  It was so quiet that morning that after rolling around, soaking in the gentle wake up call from busy birds, I began to worry that perhaps power had gone out.  Then, as if on cue, my dish washing robot kicked on and began thrashing Friday night’s plates and pans with boiling hot water.  Mothership was operational.

Last fall, in keeping with our current political climate, I began building a wall.  The east side of Detroit is plagued with corrupt politicians and a variety of wild dogs, and I wanted to create a small libertarian oasis where I could walk around in the nude, tending to my grapes and fruit trees.  This has been a dream since I spied the old German couple across the street as a boy.  Elder RAUL always speculated that the “old krauts” were Nazis on the run, and this skepticism always made me curious of them.  One day I caught a glimpse of their shriveled-old bodies picking fruit off trees in their yard, fully nude, and I thought they had it all figured out.

I know most Americans don’t have a stomach for nudity due to their Regan-era morality and general fear of sexuality (Free The Nipple!).  So I set out to build a wall.  It is, of course, going to be the most beautiful wall anyone has ever seen.  Phase II of wall building is underway, and you will be happy to know the wall was unfazed by mother nature’s wind lashing:

I received a distress call from elder RAUL around 9am Saturday.  He was without power and several of the robotic systems I had built to augment his up north lifetsyle were still and lifeless.  He seemed to be calm, but also so calm I worried he was harboring a great deal of anxiety.  I loaded the tactical deployment vessel with a generator, ample fuel, and several contractor-grade extension cords.  Then I pushed north.

About a third of the way up the main corridor, the gravity of the situation began to set in.  There were many electric poles snapped in half like dried up twigs:

There aren’t many street lights along the way but they were all out.  Black from top-to-bottom, red-to-green.  I passed a set of hoop houses that appeared shredded.  I stopped in to see if I could help.  I walked up to the nursery owner, Theresa, having light conversation with her team.  She told me it was a pretty wild situation Friday, and at one point she opted to close up the house, have a whisky, and go to bed.

Her morning was less pleasant than mine, but she gracefully handled the wreckage.  She gave me a barefoot tour of the facility, offering advice along the way for growing plums in Michigan.  What seemed like major damage to my eyes turned out to be relatively small.  The inventory was a little beat up, but she had taken out an insurance policy last season and appears to be coming out of the wind relatively unscathed.

I love chaos.  When I tell people this they often think it is because I love destruction.  That is not the case.  It is because chaos creates opportunity, both professionally and introspectively.  A natural disaster brings out the real character of people and provides us the chance to see what we are made of.  Sometimes those challenges reveal something about ourselves that may be unsettling.  Which is fine.  It means we have found a path to growth and improvement.

By the way the cows were in good spirits and it appears none of them blew away:

None of the pinwheels in the distance showed any sign of damage.  During the last major windstorm a pinwheel destroyed itself after the brakes failed.  It was rumored to travel more than two miles, spinning like a ninja star across the planes, leaving four foot deep gouges along the way like the footprints of a marching Pink Floyd hammer.

If you’ve made it this far, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with NVIDIA earnings?  Electricity, my noble reader, is what runs through the semiconductors and brings them to life.  Exodus has put out many rare readings over the last month that whispered of bearish times.  The relevance of those readings expires at close of business Thursday.  At the same time, NVIDIA will be reporting earnings.

Back in early February, there were even more rare readings, but these were from IndexModel.  They spoke of a correction that could play out one of two ways.  The second way was a drawn-out, time-based correction.  Here is the specific note from our February 4th Strategy Session:

After the 9/11/2016 reading a bid was established the very next day, but the next three months were spent churning sideways in what appears in retrospect to be a time-based correction.

Three months.  And here we are lads.

The bears have FOUR MORE DAYS to present themselves and keep this correction going.  Otherwise, come Friday, all bearish bets are off and we are going balls-to-the-wall long into summer, in a full DGAF manner.

So NVIDIA is the final arbiter.

So it is written, so it shall be.

Trade accordingly.

As for me, I am going to be spending the first few days of the week in nature.  I need to further assess the effect these winds had on the local watershed and bird populations. #developing

Exodus members, the 181st edition of Strategy Session is live.  Check out what is going on with the PHLX Semiconductor index, and how we can observe it going forward to make better life decision.

RAUL SANTOS, May 6th, 2018

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Greetings lads,

No morning report today.  There are more pressing matters like these balmy winds blowing in from the south.

This week has been astounding.  We leaned bearish into Monday, and I captured a handsome lot of NASDAQs on the way down.

Then Tuesday came, and the markets began whispering to me about reversal.

it appears NAS setting up for a hard rally $nq_f

— RAUL (@IndexModel) May 1, 2018

I had done all my homework.  I was prepared to pivot.  I owe a ton of credit to Jeff Kohler aka The Option Addict for teaching what I call the ‘divergent index’ trade.  He taught it during one of his many workshops here at iBankCoin.  Anyhow, I grabbed ahold of the long side Tuesday around lunch and rode it right into settlement.  Right into Apple earnings and the NASDAQ spike that followed.

Fuck.  I nearly threw up from the gains.

By the way, if you aren’t following me on Twitter (@indexmodel) you are missing out on action items I highlight during the trading day.  I have spent the last few months reining in my tweets, to keep them as relevant and actionable as possible.  If I’ve ever added value to your trading day, please consider giving me a shout out on Twitter.  I need to spread my brand of hustle and positivity and not putting other investors down.

Wednesday I nailed the 6666 trade and brought in about 40 more NASDAQs.

Thursday, more of the same.  Nailing key price levels and taking in NASDAQs.

Meanwhile my buy-and-hold portfolio was destroyed.  Three of my positions are down big on the week, $MTCH $TSLA and $SNAP.  I never expect much from Snapchat, and now Match is up against Facebook too.  I still have to fully assess the Match/Facebook/Snapchat situation before taking any action (buying more, cutting the losses).

As for Tesla, it is suffice to say everyone is completely unhinged on both sides of this stock.  I remain permanently bullish.  It used to upset me to see people trash talking Our Leader (all Praise and Glory to Elon!) and I would defend His name.  These days I just stay quiet and continue accumulating shares.

On the hustle front, I made some powerful connections down in Detroit at the Fintech Association meeting.  Sometimes I wonder if I am selling myself short by just trading my own accounts and tossing ham around on the interwebs.  My understanding of the Fintech world is much deeper than most.  I debate returning to the fray.

But then again, Mothership is looking better than ever.  I moved nine arborvitaes, installed three smoke bushes, and I have laid the groundwork for a regulation size bocci court accented with a three tier pineapple fountain.  Where I live is becoming less house, more office by the day.  It makes going to work downtown or in Birmingham a bit less appealing.

That’s all I have to say.  The week flew by and many good things happened.  Some bad too.  I wish only the good to you and your people this lovely May weekend.

May the fourth be with all my sci-fi nerds.  Happy Cinco de Mayo to my fellow mexi-degenerates.  And GOD BLESS AMERICA.

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Greetings lads,

Floods coming.

And I woke up in a calm mood.  Then I read blogs by my favorite trading psychologist Brett Steenbarger and a zen-like state washed over me.

There will be no mixing words today, the models are bearish.  Everything is aligned to expect downward action next week.  Literally, everything.  From visceral cues like the moon and May and 60 years of Korean conflict ending, to 30 different data points we observe every Sunday as part of the Sunday Strategy Session.  To exacerbate the situation, we have a Fed rate decision Wednesday afternoon and employment data Friday morning.  The gambling halls down in Chicago are favoring camp unchanged heading into Jerome Powell’s third meeting as Chairmen of USA’s Federal Reserve, an establishment that remains at the head of the free world, for now.

I initiated a bearish bet against Canada Goose recently.  It has been wrong so far.  You will find no shortage of stock market commentators who can point to the left side of a price chart and tell you what happened and why.  But rare is the anticipatory eye for charts.  We have discussed failed auctions many times on this humble blog, including a promise I made to myself and the reader in 2014 that we will never miss another failed auction.  There are 59 posts in my archive that reference “failed auctions”.  In practice, to trade them, requires stepping in front of a potential locomotive strength counter force.  If you trade a failed auction after it confirms, you will miss a bulk of the move.

Anyhow, failed auction theory and some other things are what put me short $GOOS.  For a long-form of my reasoning why, you can click here.

Listen, I will not be selling any of my positions in May.  When I buy a stock, it isn’t in an attempt to take advantage of some capricious price oscillation.  I do it because I love the company’s mission and trust their management team.  And I marry that company, many companies, like some kind of Mormon polygamist whose only wives are immortal corporations.

Anyways I know most readers of finance blogs are not really interested in my ethos.  They just want to be told which acronym to buy or sell, assuaging all responsibility for the win/loss onto someone else.  Fuck, that sentence makes me angry.

I truly believe that if you are reading my blog then you are the type of person who wants to own the responsibility of their financial well being.  Otherwise you wouldn’t stick around through my far-out Sunday diatribes.

What I will be doing ahead of May, and as soon as Monday morning, pre-market (I do need to wring my hat Sunday night even looking at Globex, thank you) is hedging.  First using futures, then inverse ETFs.  I am not sure which ones yet, and I am open to suggestions.

In fact, I would very much appreciate if you would tell me in the comments below what your favorite bearish ETF is.

Models are bearish lads.  Historic rhythms are curiously cautious.  Trade accordingly.

Exodus members, the 180th edition of Strategy Session is live inside Exodus.  Go check out all the specific cues we are watching this week.

 

 

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In case you missed it, I blogged in detail about my investing methodology and highlighted my top short bet heading into spring/summer.  Click Here to check it out!

Greetings lads,

Here we are again.  The end of April.  The IRS has been informed of the finances of all citizens.  The middle east is heating up, displacing millions of sapiens who cannot support their tribes without water.  As they wander into their neighbor’s territory, base animal instincts flare up and violence ensues.  All thanks to global warming.

May usually brings out the bearish commentary and sometimes some broad market weakness.  Our good robot friends inside Exodus show us that historically May and June are a coin toss for $QQQ, a popular NASDAQ ETF:

The model we hand build every Sunday when preparing the Strategy Session is neutral for a third week.  That means we have no solid signal to forecast a directional bias for the next five trading days.  We have to rely on other context, in particular the PHLX semiconductor index.  It could be in a topping process.  It could also be in balanace.  The main thing to keep an eye on is where buyers and sellers ‘should’ be, and how the index actually behaves when we visit those levels.  This type of market observation is useful because it does not require you to try and make trading decisions based off noisy factors like politicians, Arabian conflict, or stock market gurus.

::gags::

::takes a long kombucha sip, swishing the SCOBY::

It was the weakness seen in the semiconductor index last Thursday that had us initiating bearish bets ahead of Friday’s trend down.  To see my favorite bearish bet, Click Here!

Aside from contextual cues, we have no way of confidently predicting what may occur next week.  But ready yourself for noise and distraction.  Do not let the heavy flow of negative news knock you off your feet.  Ground yourself by taking a few minutes each day to watch bird behavior, or the way a wave of people fill up the queues at a super market—only for it to be slow moments later.  This human phenomenon can be observed especially well at Costco.

Then, as you develop a deeper understanding of human nature, step outside of it and improve your intuitive ability to be a contrarian.  But not just a contrarian for the sake of being different.  Instead joining nature as it seeks to restore balance.  To reach homeostasis.

Cheers lads, it appears spring has finally come to the north.  May the season bring to light many prosperous new beginnings.

RAUL SANTOS, April 22nd, 2018

Exodus members, the 179th edition of Strategy Session is live, go check it out.

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Happy early Earth Day lads!

Floods coming.

And until then our job is to help every animal live their best life, at least until mother nature decides to indiscriminately wipe out millions of mammals with floods.  The quants inside Exodus are firing off broad market caution flags that have not been seen in years.  Our only contextual ‘tell’ going into the week has been the PHLX Semiconductor index, which is down more than -4% in Thursday afternoon trade.

These objective data points had me shopping for a bearish swing trade for the first time since June 2017 when I took a loss betting against the NASDAQ.

April 2018 RAUL is different than the June 2017 model.  I have developed a deeper empathy for the animal spirit, in all its forms.  I have not traded individual stocks since I swore off the bastards back in 2015.  Yes, I have been at this game a long time lads.  My archives run deep inside the hallowed halls of iBankCoin, a place that was once patronized only by proper ladies and gentlemen.

But I do invest.  I invest using a method I call faith-based investing which basically means I have unwavering belief in a company and their mission and will buy their equity every quarter with no intention of selling—ever—riding the shares right to the pearly gates and leaving them behind for my kin.  Obviously I have to be extremely selective about these stocks because this is an expensive habit.  Tesla is one.  Twitter is another.  CRISPR, AI, and quantum computing themes have me in a few other stocks I shall not mention. Oh, and I also keep a cache of crypto-bucks (all the bitcoins, ethereum, banana coins).

I got enemies though.  I can’t be one of these ‘everything is awesome, always take the high road’ leaders.  I commend those who can.  I have enemies.  I should have washed my hands before I began typing this.  They are covered in soil.   I spent the lunch hour caring for my flower beds.

With dirt on thine hands I am letting it be known the CEO of Canada Goose and his team of murderous trappers are an enemy to RAUL.  As of today I have taken bearish positions against the their company’s equity.

There is more to this trade then faith or karma.  First, the price chart.  I don’t like it.  It reminds me of GoPro circa November 2014.  Great run up after the IPO, consolidation, attempted breakout higher preceding what would become a long, long, march lower.  Much…much…lower ::said aloud with Liam Neeson effect::

Next there is the basic b*tch meter.  These coats are worn by basic b*tches, both genders.  There is a small market of people who actually wear the coats for arctic explorations, the rest are worn by young urban professionals whose dogs have their own instragram accounts.

Thirdly, we are about to enter summer.  The farmers almanac is calling for a dry and hot summer in the north—one that presses extreme heats into late August.  Ergo, nobody is going to buy coats filled with boiled geese bits and dog fur.

Let it be known that I intend to keep bearish positions in place on $GOOS through summer’s end.  I have also joined the PETA awareness campaign against Canada Goose.  We simply ask that they stop the use of animal fur and stop supporting the inhumane trapping industry.  There are plenty of faux alternatives that work just as well, if not better.

That is all I have to say.  Robots are leaning bearish.  My contextual cue is leaning bearish.  And faith-based investing methodology (which cannot be rationally explained) has me choosing $GOOS as a means of extracting fiat currency from the financial markets.

Be well and again, happy Earth Day fellow earth citizens.

RAUL SANTOS, April 19th, 2018

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“No man is wiser than Socrates. But if no man is wiser than the man who knows he is without wisdom, it seems to follow that “learned ignorance” is the only wisdom that man can have.” -Socratic Ignorance

Models are neutral for a second week.  That means there is no solid way of me forecasting which direction the stock market will trade over the next five days.  If I did have a solid way of making a forecast, I would present a confident forecast then spend the next days working that side of the market.  This is how I have become a consistently profitable trader.

That and closing overnight gaps.  The overnight gap, in-range has been so good to me.  I always think of overnight gaps, in-range like the teach a man to fish saying.  The trade keeps a roof over my head and wholesome food on my plate.

But beyond a solid five-day bias, and outside of trading overnight gaps, I really have no idea what the market intends to do.  Anyone claiming otherwise should be questioned and their reasoning put to the stoic test to see if it holds water.  If they are relying on their political wit, and they are not privy to secret (illegal) information, cast their opinion aside.  If they are relying on hearsay from someone else, thank them for their thoughts then kindly rinse their nonsense from your mental RAM.

There are few things I hold firm and using data to form a prediction is one.  I am a speculator by trade.  This is my vocation.  It is something I love, and also something I take seriously.  It is a business like any other.  It has overhead and cost-of-goods sold.  It has revenues and working capital.  It needs to be audited regularly and there needs to be a plan in place.  A plan extending beyond three years starts to enter fantasy land, but you can plan out your next three years.

In three years you can change, and improve, and achieve while still maintaining focus.

That is all I can offer you this icy Sunday morning—the option to ignorant.

Exodus members, the 178th edition of Strategy Session is live.  Go check out the one contextual piece we will be watching (for a second week) to provide simple, objective, directional bias.

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Greetings fellow earth humans,

Floods comin’

And for now our job is to toil away in the financial markets and also like hard working capitalists to gather as many Federal Reserve notes as we can before the waters reach our threshold.  Said notes will be converted into safer decentralized robot dollars like ethereum, so that we can buy steel and oil on the dark net (tor) from the Winklevoss twins without paying taxes.

These basic materials should be used to build legacy structures on land as far north and at as high an altitude as our constitutions allow.  This will create a buffer between us and the inevitable migration of humans away from the equator.  It will also give us a fighting chance if bad actors ever decide to turn our very kind and helpful robots against us.

You should also develop a means of producing protein.  The most efficient use of land is a cricket farm.

If you must consume animal flesh, may I suggest goat?

Turning our attention to the markets, they are a mess.  You won’t find brazen confidence on this blog today my friend.  When I have a reason to trade, a quantitative bias, from my robots, yes, I am confident and will trade at the highest level of performance expecting to capture Federal Reserve notes.  When I have nothing to work with, I’m not too proud to admit it and just sit here, doodling and listening to yodeling Walmart boy.

I have a quant signal issued by Exodus which carries me through close-of-business Monday.  Then I am completely in the dark.  The model we use inside Sunday Strategy Session to determine our directional bias for the upcoming week is neutral.  There is nothing I can do here beyond scalp my morning NASDAQ report levels.  I cannot press any trades.  Which is fine.

TNA has been on my books since Monday, March 26th around 1pm eastern.  At about 3:58pm Monday, it will be sold.  The trade is losing right now, but there’s lots of time for it to pull and upset and win again.

And why the hell not, right?  If I just come here everyday and work, and make good decisions, time-and-time again, I am likely to win.  And I have been, and it feels good to stick to my process.  The money is a bonus.

Money is a silly concept to me.  So many people devote 80% of their existence to gathering dollars, leaving only a small window for appreciating all the other cool stuff here on earth.  Find your balance.

That is all lads, trade’em well, and may Elon Musk’s light shine upon you.

namaste

Exodus members, the 177th edition of Strategy Session is live.  Check out the one piece of context we can watch to help us gain foresight into potential market behavior going forward.

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Alright so I’ve gone through this movie three times, the first two of which had me in the clutches of anxiety, and a third where I came to terms with our inevitable fate.  AI lads, our 2018 Theme of The Year, is on the verge of consciousness and we have no idea what that means.

And that is okay.  It is quite likely we will need semiconductor brain implants if our species is to continue existing.  Totally fine.  The moral question of AI is presented exceptionally well in Blade Runner 2049 if you want some extracurricular homework.  In Do You Trust This Computer you are shaken out of the innocuous world of science fiction and brought up to speed with technology currently being unleashed without much oversight by actors like Google and Cambridge Analytica.

Elon Musk used his Instagram account to tell everyone they need to watch.  Therefore I, a faithful Diciple of Elon, am passing on the word.  Watch Do You Trust This Computer before it goes behind a paywall Sunday.

LINK: http://doyoutrustthiscomputer.org/watch

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.  As humans, we are all in this together.

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Just wanted to drop a quick note on this busy Friday.

Since we are in the business of publicly disclosing premium Exodus signals, I will have you know today is day 9 of an oversold ‘buy’ alert.  The alert occurred on Friday, March 23rd at end-of-day.

Here is the performance of each major index since then

The phrase, “lies, damned lies, and statistics” is in play here.  An Exodus oversold signal is not confirmed until after-market-close which means you can not take action until the following trading day, which in this case was Monday, the 26th.

We had a big gap up into Monday.  I had about as good an entry as I could hope for that Monday, opting to see the morning action and step in after lunch, and just before an explosive afternoon rally.  The position was validated by the market.

That being said, my $TNA position, which is an ETF representing 3x the returns of the Russell 2000, is flat.

Because I always trade every single Exodus hybrid oversold signal exactly how the system is designed, I have to hold the trade until close-of-business next Monday.  I will be pressing this long into the weekend.

Bearish facts:  Breadth is low, currently only about 26% of stocks are up according to Exodus.  NASDAQ Transports are at range low, as are Semiconductors, NASDAQ net issues are also low, -75 (that is out of 100, so confirming the low Exodus breadth).  We are RE down on /nq_f.  Hybrid Chg % which shows an intermediate term bias, flipped bearish on Monday, April 2.

Bullish facts: NYSE TICK is trending higher into afternoon.  There is a ledge formation on nq_f that we are likely to spill over:

Utter nonsense that is affecting the market that we have no factual proof is bullish or bearish: TRADE WARS, Jerome Powell talking at 1:30pm.

That is all I have.  I have been working the long side since about 11:30am after the primary hypo nailed the short-of-the-day.

The key to any success in a process driven approach to trading, business, or life, is sticking to the plan.  The plan is to remain bullish until end-of-Monday, therefore I am.

Easy-peasy

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I have an optimistic bias towards Tesla and anything else Elon Musk touches.  Unlike a journalist, I have told you my bias up front.  Now, let’s look at a few relevant details regarding Tesla.

The bonds everyone is talking about, with the increasing premium?  They are still being serviced.  They do not expire until 2021.  Also news flash: interest rates are going up.  Did you happen to look at $TLT during Monday’s bloodbath?  It was red.  Welcome to the Jerome Powell Federal Reserve.

The Model 3 production numbers that are being repeatedly thrown under the bus, they have issued more than 20,000 VINS.  A Model 3 typically delivers within 9 days of being issued a VIN number.  Here is a Twitter account you can follow to track VINS on your own, without some negative spin being added to it:

#Tesla registered 2,041 new #Model3 VINs. Highest VIN is 20581. https://t.co/LXEyupKdSn

— Model 3 VINs (@Model3VINs) March 30, 2018

Are the Model 3 production numbers below forecasts?  Yes.  But behind every VIN number is a person elated to receive a Tesla, a person who will spread the word of Tesla faster than any traditional disciple ever could.  BEHOLD:

Two years ago to the day, I was standing in line to reserve my Model 3. Today my Model 3 got a VIN! Happy 0th Birthday, my as-yet-unnamed sweet! Thank you so much to all @Tesla for their incredible hard work. I’m counting down the hours…#tesla #model3 #birthday #throwback pic.twitter.com/P3pnMM1wTV

— Owning a Tesla in the City (@lexiheft) March 31, 2018

I wonder how much BMW or General Motors or Toyota spent on advertising last year and how many times those add dollars yielded the kind of brand excitement shown above…

Regarding the Model S recall, I believe our very kind and benevolent Leader addressed the media hullabaloo surrounding the recall sufficiently:

Tesla policy is to issue a recall *before* there are injuries. This is absolutely the right thing to do. Yet there were dozens of recalls by other car companies last month, incl w injuries & deaths, but you only wrote an article about Tesla. Why so?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018

I am not here to convince you Tesla is going to succeed and be the biggest company in the world, surpassing Apple slowly, that all at once.  I already believe.  And I have my money where my mouth is, long a considerable amount of $TSLA shares.

The value I can add, aside from being the loudest bull when it matters most, and otherwise quiet, is to show you how I expect $TSLA price action to play out over the next several months.

Here is how I envision Tesla price action playing out, going forward:

Is the above chart accurate?  Perfect?  Not really.  These are broad brush strokes.  With any luck, share price will be compressed for many years, allowing me to continue accumulating shares.  But I think this gives you a sense of my mentality.  I am extremely long term.  The shares I am buying will not be sold.  They will be passed onto my kin.

This is my take as a permabull.  We are in the middle of a negative news cycle, and journalists from all publications are showing their true colors—they despise the hope and change Tesla and Elon bring.

Fine.

I will continue to be a voice of hope in the sea of negativity.  Also I bought more $TSLA today.

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