A quick story about the strangest secret in the world

Back in the late 1950s, Earl Nightingale, who owned a small insurance agency, did something unexpected.

See, he was about to leave on vacation and wanted to leave something for his sales team (to boost morale -- and sales) while he was gone. Up to then he had been giving them little daily speeches, but obviously couldn’t do that while sailing on his boat.

So, he recorded a speech for them to play while he was away.

It started a success revolution.

The sales team loved the recording, began telling everyone they knew about it, and Earl’s administrative assistant ended up ordering thousands of copies of the recording to sell to people.

It spread like wildfire, so much so that by the time Earl and his family pulled back into harbor after their sailing adventure, a huge crowd had gathered to see him. Earl assumed that he had done something wrong and went straight to the police to accept his “arrest.”

But they weren’t there to see a criminal, they wanted to see the man who told them “the strangest secret in the world.”

Yesterday, as I was mowing the lawn, I got to listen to this recording for the first time.

I can see why it broke new ground on a whole industry of success & information products. It’s very good.

I won’t give away the secret here, that’s not my IP, but I will give you a hint:

When you’re on the road to success, be very careful what you think about.

Earl knew a thing or three about success, and I’m willing to learn from his experience now and wait for the cash to follow later.

A $2.5 billion Fed renovation will get a probing today when President Trump pays a visit after weeks of mounting criticism.

Yahoo Finance

The big news today is that at 4 pm Eastern -- i.e., right as the markets close -- President Trump is heading to the Fed for an official meeting with Powell. I read today that a President has not had an official meeting like this in over 20 years. So, yeah, this is a big deal.

...I still think Powell will complete his term as chairman, I don’t see this as a firing session, more of some serious negotiation and/or intimidation on Trump’s part. But I could be totally wrong, I guess we’ll see.

Yahoo Finance

In classic The Art of the Deal fashion, Trump is turning up the heat on the holdouts. My guess is that he’s pressuring them more for deals and using the tariffs as a bulldog to intimidate. After Japan’s deal yesterday, I believe we’ll see a good majority of deals being struck before the August 1st deadline (although I suspect Canada & the EU will stubbornly hold out beyond that deadline and see if Trump’s bulldog is all bark and no bite).

Reuters

Call this one “confirmation bias.” I think the market -- and the economy as a whole -- are in pretty good shape. I kind of expect the Trump years to be a sort of Roaring 20s bullish run, but that’s a big ol’ macro prediction and prone to all kinds of twists and turns. I’m bull-friendly and I like running with the bulls when I trade.

Comments: A very mixed opening, with tech moving higher on the back of Alphabet’s (Google) surprising earnings beat. The DOW and Russell have pulled back a bit, but no conviction in any direction. By the way, I would consider a greater than 1% move in the Indexes to be the beginning of conviction, and we’re just not seeing that. The bulls creep along.

I will note that the VIX, a volatility indicator (going higher as the markets flush downward and vice versa) is down at 15. I think this is around where I expect the bottom to be for the VIX and it’s lining up with my theory that we could see a (temporary) market top here at the end of July and market pullback in August.

All that to reinforce that I’m booking profits sooner and I want a big “war chest” of cash heading into August.

I’ve got a trade idea today that could yield 1.6% into next week and one contract can cover the cost of a month’s Premium subscription...