Author: Lawrence Chan

FOMC did another rate hike this week and immediate reactions to that was absolutely nothing burger. What happened the day after got even more interesting as S&P rushed to a new year high and collapsed straight back down. Some said the selloff was due to Bank of Japan’s failure in containing their government bond problems. Some said it is all okay and that the stock market will go straight up from here.

Same old theme continues – as long as there is no external shocks to this very fragile system, it will keep on grinding higher. Those who try to short the overall market over the past few months are the ones who pushed the market higher. They are the ones who need better education in understanding how financial market works – it is all a f*ckery of American football.

Here is an interesting discussion on China’s near term future. All the premises discussed in the video have not taken into account of some basic risk factors that I always emphasis on. For example, if there is a 1% chance of the Three Gorges Dam to collapse any year from now, what is the proper evaluation of Chinese stock market? The answer is at most 50% of the current level.

On the other hand, there are talks of the financial system will be destabilized thanks to central bankers not doing their jobs. Chicken Little’s sky is falling mentality is also not helping if you are an average investor that needs to navigate this tough environment. I do not agree with Tucker’s take mainly because the real problem is not what the Fed is going to do, but what a completely messed up US government will do to the world.

Anyone who pay attention to what Biden has done lately knows that since the US debt ceiling is removed, he has used his executive power to spend like a trillion dollar already. It is something no central bank can do to counter the effect. So welcome to the hyperinflation world.

Here is a video from a “conspiracy theory spreader” on NASA lying about climate science. If you believe what he said is true, or as a minimum, that the environment changes are real and accelerating, the future of the global financial system is already set in stone. I like to give NASA idiots who author these lies credit though because they are trying to do their jobs to lie to the public where things really matters.

By the way, it is now proven scientifically, the planetary alignments of our solar system indeed predict earthquakes and volcano eruptions. If you still think that these alignments do nothing to Earth, you need to seriously update yourself if you consider yourself someone who “believe in science”.

Another busy weekend for me. Have a great weekend all!

Option expiration Friday for the month ended up printing another year high for major indices. Many people keep crying that the market is very over valued and a crash is coming. But what they have been preaching for months now has not happened.

I am not saying that the bears are wrong and the bulls are right. I am saying both sides are wrong as their fundamental understanding of financial markets like the stock markets is wrong. Otherwise why would people looking at the same thing arriving at exact opposite views?

Here is a bull looking for new record high while this bear sees the risk of a steep correction coming soon.

I prefer checking out video like this to learn something I don’t know. This gives me a reason to look forward to go to Spain again to try out this delicacy.

Or that watching a podcast of Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray to tell myself this world still has normal people who have common sense.

There is really no need to overthink about the financial markets at this stage of the financial system. Take it one day at a time will make life much easier.

I had been spending many hours reviewing resume and talking to candidates to fill my company’s important positions. However, I am quite disappointed so far. Maybe I have not been able to state the hiring criteria more precisely. Maybe I have set my expectations too high. This is something that has to be taken care of so my near future will continue to be consumed by this task …

Outside of that, of course, is my forever growing list of projects to take care of. That’s the life of a CEO, to solve the problems that your team can’t.

Enjoy this weekend all!

Another funny week of pushing the stock market indices higher. People rush in to explain why it is happening but all their explanations are after the fact kind of response. None of them can foretell what to expect before it happens.

Sometimes things are as simple as some squiggly lines I draw randomly on a chart.

Next week is option expiration week, so traders should be prepared to handle increased intraday volatility. No need to guess the direction. Just follow your trading strategy should do the job.

So many people on latest economic predictions are pretty much all the same on the bearish side – bearish on stocks, bearish on real estates, and bearish on economy. But if you listen to them carefully … they don’t really agree with each other. Obviously it is very confusing time for all these experts out there.

Personally I prefer the dry humor Patrick Boyle does with his video on East vs. West. Enjoy!

For those of you interested in astrology, an important astro cycle is coming to an end and a new beginning is starting this week. This cycle is the moon’s nodal cycle finally moving back into Aries / Libra after 18-19 years. In case you are wondering, Aries is considered the first sign of the zodiac, hence we call this the start of a new cycle.

Among so many videos posted on the subject, this is one of the earlier ones that was posted more than six months ago. The early posting of this video shows the content creator is a thoughtful person who understand that such useful information should be shared ahead of time so that people can better utilize the information.

Disclaimer: As usual, I may not agree with everything in videos I linked to.

More work to get done here.

Have a great weekend all!

Post option expiration week gave us a pullback in the stock markets. It is reasonable and expected. What changed however is the sudden turn of events with Russia over the weekend. Reports keep comin in and we can’t tell if this will turn into someone endangering everyone in the world.

On the surface it is only a matter affecting Russia. I am no political expert so I have no idea what the outcome would be. I could only wish this problem being resolved quickly.

Brent Johnson talking about his take on the future of US dollar. The video is almost an hour long so find the right time where you can sit down to watch the whole thing. What he said matters as this is pretty much the backdrop of the whole conflict between US (and its allies) against the rest of the world.

I find the pronunciation of the China “Yuan” by many people interesting. It looks like the Western journalists have somehow standardized their way to pronounce the term as “You-an” with two syllables. It should be pronounced simply as “Yu” ending with “n” sound, a single syllable.

Not that I am offended by the practice in anyway since I don’t speak Mandarin myself unless absolutely being forced to. I just can’t help to notice that the current generation of reporters and journalists are of lesser quality when in comes to seeking the truth. Case in point – they don’t care in the details like being correct with their pronunciation, why would they be interested in reporting the truth on more complex subjects?

Sorry for my rant on this subject.

Let’s look at a new story from Bloomberg on the dark side of Huawei. I am not pointing this out as if Huawei is the only big corporations that plays dirty. If I were one of the investigators, I would be scared to death too.

We’ve learnt from non-MSM reporting of firms like Microsoft, Google and Amazon were doing something similar to each other to secure their US Department of Defense contracts. But obviously Bloomberg is not interested to report how dirty they are …

So it all comes down to China being a threat. Specifically, the governing party of China is feared like the governing power of Russia.

And here is another video of spy espionage by a Chinese spy trying to steal technologies from US companies.

All these ongoing wars behind the scene reminds me of US itself of what it did to the Western world when it first started out, way back when. I am not the only one who noticed. Here is a piece on the subject from 2019.

Could we call this karma? Or is it just the repeat of the cycle of superpowers, as Ray Dalio puts it.

For me, I hope somehow the world can stay peaceful in coming decades. The fight among superpowers only hurt the general public and benefits a small group of people.

Too much overthinking this weekend. I should concentrate on my projects.

Have a great weekend all!

Another option expiration week is now over. It was quarterly expiration of index options, index futures, and all kinds of options. Making things even more complicated, FOMC announcement was set on Wednesday. If I were option market makers, I would be on the edge as well.

About the FOMC decision that they pause the rate hike this month yet planned to hike rate 2 more times – watch Gundlach saying it is just a bluff.

Why? Because they can’t afford to as the regional banks will all fail according to Jeffrey Snider.

So, what’s the impact on everyone? David Lin had a talk with Adrian Day on the outlook.

What do I think? I already told my premium members what I think some time ago.

Check out this old article about what happened to stock markets around the world from 1930 to 1950. The nice thing with this article is that you get to see the charts of the overall performance of these stock markets back then. If history is going to repeat, the most important question you must ask yourself is where we are on those charts.

Another weekend packed with work.

Happy Father’s Day!

Another week printing new high for the year by the major stock market indices definitely drives the bears crazy. But that’s the nature of an up trend – as long as the up trend is intact, the momentum build up can lead to explosive up moves catching many people by surprise. Next week is quarterly index future and option expiration, in addition to FOMC decision. I’m sure we will see more fireworks.

Patrick Boyle talking about the SEC actions against crypto firms. He explains very well what the cases are and the implications going forward. And I like his jabs against cryptos at the end.

One thing I like to point out that I see no one talking about, is the removal of the US debt ceiling and its impact. Of course, many would say it has a 2 year limit as if that matters. No mainstream media or independent guru came out talking about this. This is the most important change ever in US history as a financially responsible country.

The consequence of this drastic change means one and only one thing – hyperinflation is here to stay. The perks in the political circus are never removed in the future. Once the debt ceiling is removed, it is removed for good. So, instead of having a Fed put on the stock market, now we have US government printing infinitely at light speed. This will mess up the global financial markets in a big way and we will see the impact soon.

It is a very complicated subject and I hope that I can explain what the impacts are in the future.

This is why it is so funny to watch two completely opposite views on the market. Here is a bear’s view and this is a bull’s take.

And if you haven’t seen enough you can watch the latest update from Gundlach.

Got to run. Have a nice weekend all!

Another NFP week was over and market participants are shouting against each other as the opinions of what will happen in the near future are so extreme on the two opposite ends. Bulls are all high and calling victory already but seriously? It was NFP week and the bias for the week worked perfectly as expected. That’s all.

Another good video from Eurodollar University (aka Jeffrey Snider) on the current outlook of the world economy. His take on the situation is on the negative side of potential major down trend in the global economies. Stock market bulls will tell you otherwise though.

For those of you who are interested in ET, you will enjoy this video. If you pay attention, you may notice that MSMs are now systematically talking more about aliens than ever. Given the financial system of the western countries are all at the brink of total collapse, maybe this is the next trick these countries will use to ensure that they can stay in power.

Time for someone funny instead of the heavy subject on financial markets. It is an old video of an angry fowl mouth cockatoo. Enjoy!

Another busy weekend for me.

Have a great weekend all!

Another week of roller coaster ride in the stock market thanks to the idiotic debt ceiling drama and the so-called surprise earning results from Nvidia. As usual, those so-called major financial firms came out upgrading their price targets for Nvidia after it has reached the level already. I am quite skeptical if Nvidia stock price can continue to go much higher though. Thanks to Jim Cramer saying he named his dog Nvidia for a reason … with his track record of being 100% dead wrong on every single call he made on TV, I guess Nvidia is fucked.

Here is a long discussion of the current market environment from DoubleLine. Again, I may not agree with their opinions. I like to look at how others view the current situation so that I can discover my blind spot.

Bitcoin 2023 conference just happened in Miami. As a speaker at the conference, Gareth Soloway discussed his view on multiple topics at Kitco News.

If you are not confused enough by these two videos, here is another one for you from another pro.

Lots of work and feeling a bit off due to seasonal allergy is not helping. In my case, taking allergy meds is not going to help because they make me sleepy and tired which is counter-productive. So, having a big box of tissue paper and I am tanking it through.

Have a great weekend all!