iBankCoin
I turn dials and fiddle with knobs to hone in on harmonic rotations
Joined Oct 26, 2011
4,121 Blog Posts

Jay Powell to deliver speeches to Senate and House, grant him patience

You ever try describing how to properly use credit to someone who has never worked a day in their life?  The topic is hardly complicated—good debt vs bad debt.  Regular payments improve your credit worthiness.  Avoid extending credit for goods/services that will not produce income or some other form of security.

These are not abstract concepts to someone who has ever had to use credit to build a business, or a family.  But when you’ve spent your entire life in a rent-seeking position, like as a politician, it can all sound like garbled nonsense.

Jay Powell has to make the ongoing business of the Federal Reserve something a special needs fourth grader can understand.  Add a layer of skepticism because muh The Great Recession.  Jay Powell holds the highest position in capitalism, therefore he is the most important person in the world.

He’s no Janet Yellen, I can say that definitively.  That goddess could go into the Capitol and field questions for fifteen hours straight without ever actually answering any inquiry.  She could spin a smooth tale as long as time, eating up the clock better than than Bill Belichick with a two point lead.

Jay Powell stammers, he panders, he concedes to the passionate tone talk politicians are trained to spew.  At least that was his performance the last time congressmen hissed at him.  Let’s hope he can maintain a cool and smooth presence both Tuesday and Wednesday, allowing the stock market to behave on its own accord.

Because the market is the market and it looks strong.  There isn’t one systematic reason to bet against the auction right now.  Ego and emotion might want to open your trading platform and bet against the market, or hedge, but according to the institutional-grade tools inside Exodus, there is zero justification for taking bearish bets.

So why take them?

Listen I have eyes.  I see the areas we are coming into on several major indices.  I saw Utilities and Materials lead the rally last week.  I see the caution signs flashing yellow yellow.  That’s fine. I’ll be less aggressive with my longs.  But going short?  Or hedging?  Those would be flagrant fouls.  Rule breaking.  Errors.

No thank you.

Models are still bullish lads.  Friday is a new month.

Behave accordingly and may the gods of high finance grant Jay Powell courage and patience during his walk through the snake pits of America.

ciao, kiss

Exodus members, the 223rd edition of Strategy Session is live, be sure to read Section III with hammers home a very important aspect of properly utilizing Exodus.

RAUL SANTOS, February 24th, 2019

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NASDAQ holds balance all week, here’s the Friday trading plan

NASDAQ futures are coming into Friday gap up after an overnight session featuring elevated range on extreme volume.  Price worked higher overnight, slowly rotating up through the Thursday high.  As we approach cash open, price is hovering right along the Thursday high.

There are no important economic events today.

Yesterday we printed a normal variation up.  The day began with a gap down and drive lower to new low-of-week.  Just below the gap left behind last Thursday (2/14), buyers stepped in, and did so before the NASDAQ could go range extension down.  Instead price worked higher, up through the daily midpoint, then range extension up, but unable to fill the overnight gap before falling back down through the daily mid again.  Eventually the market closed right at it’s midpoint.

Choppy normal variation up.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to gap-and-go higher, trading up through overnight high 7079 which sets up a move to target 7118.75 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 2 sellers work into the overnight inventory and close the gap down to 7035.25.  Sellers continue lower, down through overnight low 7019.25.  Look for buyers down at 7000 and two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 3 stronger sellers trigger a liquidation down to 6967.75 before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps, and measured moves:

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Gap down in range :) here is the Thursday NASDAQ trading plan

NASDAQ futures are coming into Thursday gap down after an overnight session featuring extreme range and volume.  Price was balanced overnight, briefly taking out the Wednesday high before rotating lower.  As we approach cash open price is hovering just below the Wednesday midpoint.  At 8:30am durable goods orders came in below expectations.

Also on the economic agenda today we have Markit manufacturing/service/composite PMI at 9:45am, existing home sales at 10am, crude oil inventories at 10:30am, 4- and 8-week T-bill auctions at 11:30am, and a 30-year TIPS auction at 1pm.

Yesterday we printed a neutral session.  The day began with a gap up and push higher, up to around 7100.  This put us range extension up before sellers stepped in and traversed the entire daily range putting us neutral.  The most logical move after going neutral is to revisit the daily mid, and that is what the market did.  THIS IS A METHODICAL AUCTION.  Then, at 2pm the FOMC minutes came out and an EKG burst ripping through the market.  Third reaction was a buy and we spent the rest of the session working back to the daily mid after briefly making a new low on the week.

Neutral.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work into the overnight inventory and close the gap up to 7073.  From here we continue higher, up through overnight high 7113.75.  Look for sellers up at 7119.50 and two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 2 sellers step in right around the gap fill 7073 and work us lower, down through overnight low 7051.25 setting up a move to target the open gap at 7020.25 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 3 stronger buyers sustain trade above 7120 setting up a move to target 7159.75 before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps, and measured moves:

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Pause: NASDAQ back to normal, here is the Wednesday trading plan

NASDAQ futures are coming into Wednesday gap up after an overnight session featuring NORMAL range on elevated volume.  Price worked sideways overnight, trading inside of the Tuesday range.  As we approach cash open, price is hovering near the daily midpoint.

On the economic calendar today we have a 2-year floating rate auction at 11:30am followed by FOMC meeting minutes at 2pm.

Yesterday we printed a normal variation up.  The day began with a gap down and drive higher.  Buyers closed the overnight gap then continued higher to take out overnight high.  Then price stalled, and we fell back to the midpoint by the end of the session.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for sellers to work into the overnight inventory and close the gap down to 7068.25.  From here we continue lower, down through overnight low 7057.25.  Look for buyers ahead of the Monday low 7035.75 and two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 2 gap-and-go higher, price trades up through overnight high 7085 and continues higher, tagging 7100 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 3 stronger buyers sustain trade above 7100 setting up a move to target 7118 before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps, and measured moves:

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Gap down in range to start holiday-shortened week. here’s the Tuesday NASDAQ trading plan

NASDAQ futures are coming into Tuesday gap down after an overnight session featuring elevated range on extreme volume.  Price was balanced for much of the globex session, eventually moving lower around 6am New York but staying inside last Friday’s range. As we approach cash open, price is hovering near last Friday’s low.  During the pre-market, Walmart earnings came out stronger than expected and WMT stock is trading higher.

Also on the economic calendar today we have the NAHB housing market index at 10am followed by a 3- and 6-month T-bill auction at 11:30am.

Last week markets worked higher.  Monday was flat-ish, Tuesday saw a strong trend higher.  Wednesday-Friday flagged sideways, accepting the higher prices.  The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

On Friday, the NASDAQ printed a normal variation down.  The day began with a gap up to new 3-month highs, prices unseen since early December.  Sellers stepped in and drove down into the gap, pushing down into Thursday’s range but failing to close the overnight gap before responsive buyers stepped in.  Said buyers eventually worked price back up through the Friday midpoint before end-of-session.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work into the overnight inventory and close the gap up to 7063.75.  From here we continue higher, up through overnight high 7086.50.  Then look for sellers up at 7100 and two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 2 sellers gap-and-go lower, trading down to close the gap at 7020.25 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 3 stronger sellers trade down to 7000 before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps, and measured moves:

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Good to be back, model is bullish

I spent a good part of my work day updating my research.  It took longer than it needed to because a task tends to fill the space allotted to it.  The day before I left for a few weeks I managed to accomplish an impressive amount of tasks.  I tied up nearly every loose end in my life.  Why had those things sat, incomplete for so long?  Why was I able to wrap them *all* up in such a short period of time?

These are the things I wonder about.  I am time wealthy. Most of you are very time poor. Being on sound financial footing as a 33 year old without child, you must imagine I am surrounded by many people who are time poor.  Very successful people on paper, running successful businesses, bringing home millions of dollars per year who are very time poor based on their own choices.  Whatever.  Doesn’t matter.  Spending too much time on my stock market research has me worried.

Have I already started to drift back into my slow rut after weeks of roaming free?  The rut has its perks—it keeps me on the right path for trading.  But it also is hard to turn out of, if needed.

Sitting at the main control panel of Mothership for several hours today has been interesting.  My anatomy has changed a bit from two solid weeks of snowboarding.  It does not enjoy my old sitting posture.  These new muscles in my deep core demand stimulation, not this desk loafing atrophy.

I also sense a bit of hubris in my writing that makes me wonder if I will drift away from my trading system in a way that hurts me.

I suppose you don’t need to read through my internal awareness.  You’re hear for headstrong insight into the world of investing and trading.  The model, lads, it’s bullish.  It has sereved as a faithful guide since not avoiding the Q3 market correction.  It has been rock solid since then.  It is bullish.

Therefore I will take to the NASDAQ 100 come Tuesday, and I will be working any down gaps inside the prior day’s range closed with my buy orders.  I will be gunning for the overnight high AND range extension up sometime before lunchtime New York.  I will continue to press my long bets, especially the one’s I have been quietly placing inside Exodus that pertain to a certain eco-friendly industry group.

The only things that can stop me from working my plan are a dramatic negative reaction to the Fed minutes Wednesday afternoon, some sort of geopolitical catastrophe, or my own reckless ego.

Exodus members, of course I still love you.  The 222nd edition of Strategy Session is live.  Sorry to abandon you for a few weeks.  Hope you’ve all been holding up well. My abandonment is a perfect example of why you should develop your own systems.  One day your old pal won’t be around anymore.  Perhaps I’ll move to Wyomah and start herding alpaca.  Who knows.  Anything could happen.

bullish until otherwise stated

RAUL SANTOS, February 18th, 2o19

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Woke blogging gets no play in the fin-twit universe

If you are really good at something, then the peers you are competing against aren’t going to like you.  That’s why I love blogging here on iBankCoin aka the island of fin-twit-misfits, consistently calling it how I see it.  I can be as crass as a keyed up trucker without repercussion from some dick nosed manager/handler.  More often than most I’m right, and the fin-clique can’t share my work because I use boulevard vernacular.

Wannabe traders seem to gravitate towards blogs that cannot forecast—to feel good blogs that shade real life traders who trade and blog about how they trade and forecast.  I forecast, like a horoscope, using set of objective rules to interpret something.  Is it perfect or always correct?  Hardly.  What fun would that be?

Anyways, here’s what I stated before abandoning my post for a few weeks:

Aaaaand here’s what has happened since:

I’m going to be watching this setup closely heading into month-end.  In the meantime, enjoy your favorite list-posting feel good fin-tweeter, for whatever it’s worth.

STRATEGY SESSION UP NEXT.

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How Exodus Strategy Session navigated the v-shaped recovery

I have been out of pocket for a few weeks.  Despite my best attempts to secure WIFI in the arctic lands of British Colombia, I failed.  Subsequently, I have not done my Sunday research in three weeks.  This must have been very nice for my enemies, who didn’t need to compete against a living legend.  But I am back inside mothership and have made the rest of my work day open for research purposes.

While I catch up on recent stock market happenings and use said happenings to form a forecast for the upcoming trading week, here are the old notes from Section III of the strategy session.  I have kept a running dialog since IndexModel fired the “Bunker Buster” signal on December 15th, 2018.  In the following notes, you will see that the systems we utilize to forecast direction stayed on the right side of the recovery.  While we did not avoid the Q3 correction, we did successfully avoid becoming bearish during the bounce, which would have been an all together painful mistake and losing endeavor.

Without further adieu, my research up unto this point:

December 16th, 2018:

The last time IndexModel signaled Bunker Buster was on 04/01/2018.    The other 2018 BB signals were 03/25 and 02/04.  The 03/25 signal and 04/01 signal fired sequentially, ultimately marking swing low for the next six months.  The February signal was successful also, but not for as long a period.

December 23rd, 2018:

The 12/19/2018 BB signal is interesting.  The timing of it into year-end and December OPEX, with the prevailing sentiment calling for a market crash, heading into the last FOMC rate decision of the year, with our contextual NASDAQ Transportation index on the verge of a breakdown, is giving me strong bullish conviction into year-end.  The look bad.  The news cycle is negative.  The holidays are distracting.  These are opportunistic conditions where the competition seems to be collectively leaning the wrong way AND distracted.

With the IndexModel back to neutral [see Section V] and Exodus still in an active hybrid oversold signal [section VII] the models are aligned for upside.

#developing

December 30th, 2018:

Everything expected above was wrong.  Now we have another Bunker Buster.  Two in close sequence has been a trait seen near swing lows historically, therefore I am skeptically bullish.  Extremely skeptical.

THOUGHT FROM FOUR WEEKS AGO:

Signs of swing low emerging.  Lots and lots of people calling it a bear market bounce.  Not many think we can v-shape back up to the highs.  In fact, I have not seen that sentiment expressed anywhere.  The prevailing sentiment is to initiate shorts into this ‘bear market rally’.

We are in yet another active Exodus hybrid oversold cycle (triggered Christmas eve) and IndexModel is neutral.  These conditions, per my 215 weeks of tracking Exodus and IndexModel statistics, favor upside.

#cautiouslybullish

January 6th, 2019:

With Exodus going hybrid overbought on Friday and the behavior of the industry performance (Section II) I am becoming more confident in the bullish case.  I expect price to work higher at an increasing velocity in the coming week.

January 13th, 2019:

The e(RCS) signal from IndexModel gives an interesting layer of context to our current recovery.  The signal has often precluded weeks where price simply drifts sideways.  With our key contextual index, the PHLX semiconductor index, coming into old support (which is likely to behave as resistance now), it makes sense to see a pause in upward action.  However, if price simply corrects by trading sideways (a time-based correction) as opposed to a return of volatility and downward selling pressure, that will bode especially well for a continued recovery.

January 20th, 2019:

Holiday shortened week, monthly OPEX out of the way, index model calling for a calm drift via the Extreme Rose Colored sunglasses signal, no major tech earnings scheduled—with these contextual pieces aligned, my primary expectation is for continued price stabilization, perhaps not as strong of movement to the upside as we saw during the week of 01/13 – 01/18 (last week).

January 27th, 2019:

Tons to digest and this is likely to accelerate the movement of prices.  But I expect little to be accomplished.  IndexModel is still showing extreme Rose Colored Sunglasses which signals an expected drift perhaps with a slight upward bias.

***

RAUL here.  I am going to be back later on this President’s day with fresh findings.  Stay tuned.  My spirit is envigorated after spending weeks underneath the largest atmospheric river North America has even seen in my 33 years on earth.  This freshness, paired with my desire to fuck up all these bush league fin-twitter personalities has me quite optimistic in my findings.

#developing

If you want some extracurricular activity, here is my blog entry from December 30th, where I first suggested a v-shape recovery was likely.

okay, now I go to work, ciao ciao kiss kiss

 

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Victory lap: America strong, payrolls strong, NASDAQ…STRONG

NASDAQ futures are coming into Friday with a slight gap down after an overnight session featuring extreme range and volume.  Price worked lower overnight, slowly, trading below the Thursday midpoint before discovering a bid.  As we approach cash open, price is hovering back above the Thursday mid.  At 8:30am Nonfarm payroll data came out much better than any forecast expected.

Also on the economic calendar today we have ISM manufacturing, construction spending, and the final January reading of sentiment from the University of Michigan.

The only major tech company still due to report earnings is Google parent Alphabet.  They are set to report earnings Monday, February 4th after market close.

On Thursday the NASDAQ printed a normal variation up.  The day began with a gap up and drive higher.  Price stalled out just beyond the weekly ATR band (6923.75) and just before the old composite VPOC 6950.  We then retraced back to the midpoint before rallying into the bell.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for sellers to gap-and-go lower, trading down through overnight low 6862.25.  Look for buyers down at 6854.50 and two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 2 buyers work into the overnight inventory to close the gap up to 6917.50 then continue higher, up through overnight high 6934 before being magnetized to the old composite VPOC at 6950.  Look for sellers up at 6963.50 and two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 3 stronger sellers work a Wednesday gap fill down to 6836.50.  Look for buyers down at 6819.75 and two way trade to ensue.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps, and measured moves:

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High level thoughts before heading into the mountains

Some of you know that I commit the majority of February to living life out on the fringe of society—taking most of my food cold and sleeping out in nature—my only goal being to find the softest and deepest snow powder on the steepest and deepest mountains in North America.  This year I am starting out just a few clicks south of the Canadian border up at Mount Baker and then working north from there, likely spending time in Banff and Revelstoke and places like that where western civilization hasn’t made the living luxurious and lazy.  It’s nice have a core purpose, if only for one month, beyond fighting like a ravenous dog for scraps of green paper.

But while I am gone, I want it to be perfectly clear where my investments lie and how I expect the economy to behave while I am away.  There is no bear market.  There never was a bear market.  Anyone who tells/told you we are in a bear market is a god damned fucking lair and not to be trusted.

That’s nasty language.  When I was sitting in the dentist’s chair just now, having my teeth picked clean like a shark between meals, altering my mental state with a blend of oxygen and nitrous oxide, I realized two things.  The first is people tend to believe that people never change.  For the most part that’s true.  The next thing I realized is the language we use matters.  How we choose to address something beyond our control, like the behavior of others, matters because it is quite possible that it could change the way someone else’s mind reacts to an external stimuli.  So I shouldn’t use such nasty language.

Anyone who tells/told you we are in a bear market may be a victim of group think, taking too many cues from the media outlets and wall street analysts.  In general, these are not happy people. Additionally, the amount of little green pieces of paper they earn is highly contingent on them keeping your attention, and I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, but humans can’t help but gawk at disasters.  It’s a real sick society.  Are you feeling me?

I spend too much time delving into topics like these which is why you never see any of the other fin-twit [people of finance who use twitter and run in a tight clique] share my work.  Even if they read it, they wouldn’t possibly promote it.  It doesn’t fit in a nice safe package for their podcast radio shows.  So I blog alongside the other misfits, here on our bloody lovely island IBANKCOIN.

IBC is a place where people gather for the explicit intent of extracting money from the global financial complex.  Said money can then be converted into little green pieces of paper that can be traded for any number of things.  I suggest trading your moneys for farmable land as far north and at as high an altitude as your constitution will allow.  This land will preserve you and your next two generations despite the fact that people never change and humans are rapidly destroying our planet.  You will have a land buffer between you and the massive herds of people migrating away from the equator in desperate search of drinking water.  You and your plants will have clean air to breathe.  Does anything else really matter?

In my opinion, which you may be realizing is clear is logical, there is a simple way to extract money from the financial markets right now.  We are entering a period of economic prosperity the likes of which no living human has ever seen.  A rewind of the roaring ’20s, complete with gilded ceilings and decadent wealth.  The gap between the haves and have nots will inevitably widen even if the AOC’s of the world manage to turn us into a socialist state.  Because policy cannot stop the forces that have been created by the internet and semiconductors. We are in a new paradigm folks.  You either try to resist it and perish, or you go with the flow and enjoy your brief mortal existence—a wisp of spirit inside a sack of mammal bits.

The simplest way to align yourself with the oncoming explosion of wealth creation is to buy-and-hold the best names in tech: TSLA, MSFT, GOOGL, FB, MTCH, ADBE, CRM, AMZN.  A more dedicated way is to create a rule-based method of short term trading.  Don’t flutter between instruments like some capricious dope.   Pick one instrument and form an intimate, visceral understanding of its behavior.  Then come to the market every.single.day and trade that instrument.  Review your trades.  Score your trades on whether or not you followed your rule-based method.  Do this again and again for years until you have a consistent means of extracting money.

Intermediate term my main expectation is for the PHLX semiconductor index to check back to its October breakdown.  Then I expect some push back from the sellers before we go up and explore the other side of that gigantic consolidation aka a continuation of the long-term trend higher.  In essence, a much larger and slower version of the overplay for the underlay.  I link back to my old blogs because people never change and that means you might be reading my blog for the first time.  I do my best to bring you all up to speed.  I refuse to apologize for redundancy.  If it wasn’t important I wouldn’t be writing about it.  Anyways look, here’s the above paragraph in chart form:

I want you all to know that I appreciate you taking time out of your day to stop by and read my thoughts.  The life of a speculator is somewhat isolated, and it helps to share my predictions and solicit your feedback, even if you think I am wrong.  Your comments likely won’t change my mind, but perhaps you can offer some insight that will result in me forking off my current path in a curious way that slowly leads to something new.  I do think the works of a community can be greater than that of the individual, especially if there is a cohesive flow of thoughts and energy between the members of a group.

I like this island of misfits, even if you fuckers don’t like me.  Thanks for stopping by.

ciao ciao, kiss kiss

RAUL SANTOS, JANUARY 31st, 2019

 

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