You can’t surf on a flat ocean

One of the quotes I heard in the early days of my trading journey:

“The trend is your friend.”

Which -- like all pithy quotes dealing with general “rules” about the markets -- is true until it’s not.

Haha.

What I mean is, the market does whatever the market does. Sure, we can make predictions based on the mathematical probabilities, but at the end of the afternoon, the market just does what it does.

I’ve never been surfing, but I imagine it works the same way.

There are optimum times to surf and bad times. But no matter what the probabilities are for when the best time to surf is, if the ocean isn’t giving you surfing waves (even if they’re supposed to at that time) then you can’t surf.

Instead of fighting the market, it’s better to be patient.

Not the secksy answer that people want to hear, but it’s the right one.

Most of what I do as a trader is patiently waiting for my setup, executing that setup, and then patiently waiting for the results.

I suppose there are “more active” ways to trade, but I enjoy the more stable “slow and steady” approach. It’s made me a lot more consistent money.

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Note: Tomorrow’s newsletter will be significantly later than usual because I’m traveling. I’ll do my best to get it to you as soon as I can.

Cook responded, saying the president had 'no authority' to remove her.

Yahoo Finance

Why it matters …

This one could be big. The President fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook last night for claiming 2 different primary residences on properties in 2 different states (one of which she rented out within weeks) otherwise known as “mortgage fraud.” (This is the same crime as Sen. Adam Schiff and New York’s Attorney General Letitia James are alleged to have committed.)

The Macro ramification is that the President could nominate a more “dovish” governor to help decrease interest rates. I expect a little volatility with this, but it should be short-lived.

Comments: Markets are mixed at the opening this morning. There are some big earnings announcements this week as earnings season draws down. Most of the significant earnings are in the Tech sector, so watch for the Nasdaq to make some movements.

New scans giving me a wonderful technical setup with a 1.17% return on risk for this Friday’s expiration...