My wife has a skill I envy. Through a closed bedroom door, she can tell one of our daughter’s cries from another. Tired. Hungry. Hurt.

And because her recognition arrives instantly, her response can be total: she sprints for the cry that means hurt; she settles back into her chair, with no more than a glance at the monitor, for the cry that means tired.

I struggle with this recognition. So I decide in advance: today, I will heed every cry to ensure she is safe. The next: I will wait and watch, reminding myself that her crying is normal.

No course taught my wife her ear. Seven months of unremarkable hours did. And now, the same woman responds with total conviction one moment, and patient flexibility the next.

Conviction and flexibility, I now see, are not in opposition. They rise together, both rooted in intimacy.

We imagine that to hold a market view with conviction means to grip it tightly, while to hold it with flexibility means to keep our distance.

But conviction without intimacy is stubbornness.

Flexibility without intimacy is ambivalence.

You can only hold a view when you trust yourself to recognize—within a few cries, or a few bars—what you are hearing. Absent that trust, you are forced to decide in advance.

How intimately do you know what you are holding? The market is on the other side of the bedroom door. Its cries will, at times, require a sprint. At others: no more than a glance.

Log the unremarkable hours. I am.

May we each learn to recognize which cry is which.

Commodity Supercycle

Earlier this week, Macro Ops Team Lead Alex issued a report on the developing Super El Niño—the most significant climate event in 150 years. In an interview with a Collective member and SpaceX meteorologist, they detailed how this climate shock will disrupt agricultural commodity markets, especially sugar, rice, cocoa, coffee, and citrus. This essential reading aligns with many of the strategic positions currently in our book.

White sugar futures came within spitting distance of the 2x measured move target of 567.1.

Corn futures broke out from a 3-month head-and-shoulders continuation on Monday. We are long the December contract in the Macro Ops portfolio.

Price is now testing the upper boundary of a 2-year symmetrical triangle, threatening a breakout.

November rough rice capped off the week by breaking out from a compact, 1-month ascending triangle.

Coffee futures continue to consolidate midrange following a false breakdown this past spring and a range reclaim to start the summer.

December soybean oil continues to coil inside a 2.5-month symmetrical triangle following the strong uptrend that opened the year.

December cocoa is testing an established trendline of a cup-and-handle-like consolidation.

Outside of agricultural commodities, October RBOB gasoline is nearing completion of a 3-month cup-and-handle.

After pausing last week, gold futures extended the trendline breakout featured in the August 8, 2026, issue, recapturing roughly half the decline that occurred across the first five months of the year. We continue to hold our Micro Gold futures long in the Macro Ops portfolio, which we initiated on the initial August 5 breakout.

In last week’s issue, we featured the laggard metal, platinum, and the 1798.3 level that served as a key pivot for potential upside continuation. Price closed above that level on Wednesday, and has thus far followed through.

September Mexican peso futures continued to climb following their breakout from a 6-month cup-and-handle. We remain long in the Macro Ops portfolio.

British pound futures are pressed right up against the upper boundary of a 1-year symmetrical triangle.

The U.S. Treasury announced on Wednesday plans to double its buyback operations for longer-dated bonds in the upcoming quarter. Following a brief consolidation below resistance, U.S. dollar futures dropped sharply in response. The move carried price about two-thirds of the way to the 97.95 range midpoint—the initial target highlighted in our August 1, 2026, issue.

Analogues in Action

On Tuesday evening, I shared on X an analogue that had struck me: Ethereum on the weekly timeframe was coiling directly along the bottom boundary of its 2-year ascending triangle, following a breakdown in June that had failed to follow through.

In recent issues, we have been tracking the range reclaim of a similar false breakdown from a massive weekly range in coffee.

As I stated in the post, the first target of a range reclaim is the range midpoint, where coffee sits now. The second: the range’s opposite boundary.

My expectation was for Ethereum to close the week above the last swing high at roughly 1,980, confirming the reclaim.

I did not expect Ethereum to run over 30% into Friday’s close, colliding with its 365-day EMA. Fortunately, we’ve been long Ethereum in the Macro Ops portfolio since mid-July, and took this week’s surge as an opportunity to peel off partial profits.

As with coffee, a consolidation here would not be uncommon. Should one appear, the next target becomes the upper boundary at roughly 4,800.

The Pauses That Refresh

Featured on the July 25, 2026, active watchlist, Roper Technologies has demonstrated notable resilience after breaking out of a rectangle bottom, consolidating into a tight flag above both the upper boundary and its 200-day EMA.

Here are the additional names that caught my attention in this week’s equity screen:

Active watchlists, real-time positioning updates, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

Last month, a Collective member sent me a conversation with Emily Haisley, the psychologist who leads behavioral finance at BlackRock. Her mandate, in part: keep the firm’s portfolio managers in a state of mind and body worth trusting with risk.

Her team’s instrument is a consumer wellness gadget: the Oura ring. Managers wear them day and night; Haisley overlays what the body reports on what the portfolio does. In lab studies, a week of elevated cortisol measurably tilts preferences toward risk aversion. Stress does not simply feel bad; it silently repositions portfolios. And her data shows it live: a drawdown arrives, stress accumulates above baseline, and the body starts steering the risk decisions—while the manager insists the losses are not affecting him.

The instinct is familiar: when losing, work harder. More hours. More vigilance. More screens. Haisley presses the opposite: “It’s not just their job to work hard, it’s also their job to rest hard.“

Our bodies, like financial markets, are complex systems. And complex systems that endure move in cycles. Fields lie fallow. Aspens drop their leaves. Even price rests: every strong trend is born from a base. Only the relentless speculator believes he is exempt.

What is it to rest hard? My answer begins with telling deep rest from shallow.

Deep rest is stillness. A walk through groves of coast redwoods with no podcast. An afternoon at the lake with children who ask nothing of our PnL. Shallow rest is the bottomless scroll. The queue of episodes. The third refresh of a portfolio we swore we would let idle until September.

From the outside, both look like rest. Inside, only one is. Because shallow rest keeps our nervous system running: we have taken our hands off the work, but we continue to loop, to scenario plan, to indulge the inner voice. None of it purges the elevated cortisol Haisley’s team guards against. Deep rest replenishes. Shallow rest flips the channel until the allotted time expires.

August has already cleared the calendar. An industry that measures everything in basis points takes its one sanctioned pause. How much of it will you give to deep rest?

Every strong trend is born from a base.

Break, Retest, Resume

In the August 1, 2026, issue, we highlighted white sugar futures’ retest of the 50-DMA. This week, price hit the 3-month symmetrical triangle’s 1x measured move target at 514.3.

In the same issue, we also featured EUR/CHF’s 3.5-month head-and-shoulders continuation. The retest of its neckline held successfully, sending price upward to clear over 70% of the 1x measured move target at 0.94281.

Currency Watch

The 4-month ascending triangle in EUR/CAD remains in development. We hold a risk-defined long position in Euro FX futures in the Macro Ops portfolio.

GBP/AUD volatility has contracted significantly as price progresses through the right shoulder of a 5.5-month head-and-shoulders bottom. While volatility contractions themselves are directionally neutral, a bullish breakout may provide an advantageous early entry point if the broader bottoming structure resolves higher.

Mexican peso futures followed through on last Friday’s breakout from a 6-month cup-and-handle in the September contract. A risk-defined long position remains active in the Macro Ops portfolio.

The yen remains under sustained pressure, as seen in AUD/JPY, which is consolidating near its highs within a 5-month rectangle.

EUR/JPY is consolidating in a similar 6-month rectangle continuation.

Commodity Complex

October platinum futures remained in a tight, post-breakout consolidation, with the 1798.3 level serving as the key pivot for potential upside continuation.

Soybean oil futures are developing a 2-month symmetrical triangle on the December contract.

Following a false breakdown on the weekly chart, coffee futures continue to consolidate midrange on the continuation contract. While the daily descending triangle currently leans bearish, a potential dip to new lows followed by a sharp reversal higher would transform the pattern into a bull flag, pointing toward the top of the trading range as the primary upside target.

The Pauses That Refresh

In equities, the S&P 500 Equal Weight reached its 1x measured move target of 222.44 this week. This follows its breakout from the 3-month cup-and-handle we have been tracking since spring as a prime example of healthy rotation away from earlier AI market leadership into broader sectors and industries.

This week’s equity screen returned an intriguing mix of long and short setups, as well as notable continuations and reversal patterns.

Here are the key setups that caught my attention:

Active watchlists, real-time positioning updates, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

A trade stops working at 10:02. The trader stops working against it at 11:42. What fills the hundred minutes in between?

The market received new information, adjusted, and moved on. It did so without ceremony. Price trades only in the present tense.

The mind does not. It stays behind to negotiate: with the entry that looked so clean, with the profit that was on the screen twenty minutes ago, with the outcome that was supposed to arrive by now. The chart updates itself. The story does not.

We file what happens next under emotion: emotions took over, discipline collapsed. But the trouble starts earlier, in what births the emotion: resistance.

Resistance to the fact that the setup changed. Resistance to open profits now gone. Resistance to closing the trade—because closing it would kill the possibility of it still becoming what we need it to. So long as the trade stays open, so does the possibility.

There is an exchange rate no ticker quotes: acceptance costs a few seconds of sharp discomfort, paid once; resistance offers to finance it, with interest.

Decline the planned loss and hold a larger one. Decline admitting conditions changed and spend the afternoon glued to every tick. Keep declining and one loss becomes a drawdown, the drawdown becomes pressure, and the pressure leans on every decision that follows.

Acceptance is not just taking the loss, but acknowledging that it stings. That you wanted this to work. That it didn’t. That the disappointment is real. And then facing the only question price ever asks: what is true now?

This is not an emotional skill. It is a decision skill: the decision to stop resisting what has already happened.

The market needed one tick to move on.

Your resistance financed the remaining hundred minutes.

Sugar High

Last week, we highlighted White Sugar futures attempting to hold the 50-DMA after an impulsive breakout from a three-month Symmetrical Triangle. Price rocketed toward the pattern’s 1x measured move target of 514.3 this week.

On Monday, our Macro Ops team debated the setup in Sugar No. 11 futures. The October contract met all criteria for my commodity playbook’s multi-point trendline break.

However, the breakout itself was not decisive, instead closing with long upper wicks both Tuesday and Wednesday. We waited for more clarity, only to watch buyers completely overwhelm sellers into the week’s end.

One of our Collective members recently shared his antidote to FOMO: LOMO—the Love of Moving On. Sugar No. 11. gives our team a wonderful opportunity to put this motto into practice.

In metals, Gold futures staged a trendline breakout that converged with a brief, six-week consolidation phase.

Platinum is attempting the same, but encountering overhead supply.

That said, see Sugar No. 11 for what can happen should these three reversal bars have their wick highs taken out next week.

And in equities, the S&P 500 Equal Weight is now a hair’s breadth from the 222.44 1x measured move target of its three-month Cup & Handle Continuation.

Forex in Focus

In the currency markets, the Euro / Franc successfully retested the three-and-a-half-month Head & Shoulders Continuation pattern that we noted in last week’s update. This successful retest drove price action upward, approaching the 1x measured move target sitting at 0.94281.

Through the right shoulder of a five-and-a-half-month Head & Shoulders Bottom pattern, the Pound / Aussie is closely tracking its 50-DMA.

Following a v-shaped move this past spring, the Euro / Canadian Dollar has developed a four-month Ascending Triangle.

And in currency futures, the Mexican Peso broke out from a six-month Cup & Handle Continuation pattern on the September contract.

Muddying the picture somewhat is the continuation chart, which has price revisiting highs from the start of the year.

We hold a risk-defined long position in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

The Pauses That Refresh

Recent issues have noted relative strength in financials, and the sector’s increased presence in my equity screens.

This week, the active watchlist section saw its two featured bottom reversals successfully break out and reclaim their 200-EMAs.

This week’s equity screen once again reveals a compelling blend of long and short setups, alongside continuations and reversals.

The following names in particular stood out to me:

Active watchlists, real-time positioning updates, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

The best improvements I’ve made to my trading—the novel insights that meaningfully added to my edge—are ideas whose source I cannot name.

This summer, like each before it, I will audit the adaptations I made earlier in the year: what worked, what didn’t. Inevitably, I will try to reverse engineer the best discoveries. I will ask: where did I go when I found them? And I will plot a deliberate return.

And yet it’s never about where I go. It’s about what goes away.

What goes away is the justification to start.

What goes away is the ten-step plan.

What goes away is the knowable payoff: the guarantee that the time I invest in following a thread today will not be wasted time tomorrow.

Traders and investors have a particular relationship with the unknown. We are trained to model it, manage it, mitigate it.

We peer into the future and concern ourselves with the unknowables: the hidden leverage, the black swan, the tail risk that undoes the thesis.

We forget to look back at what the unknown has already given us.

Every unexpected discovery. Every insight that arrived from no discernible direction. Every leap forward that came not from a plan but from following a thread with no destination defined.

The unknown births all that is new. What is known is priced in—already an edge the market has adapted to. And your edge, as you know it today, will never be transformed by the familiar.

It will require befriending the very thing you have been trained to defend against.

The unknown is not the enemy of your edge. It is the source.

Shifting Expectations

The U.S. Dollar dropped sharply back inside its year-long range this week when the Federal Reserve decided to hold interest rates steady. Leading up to this week’s meeting, we’d been tracking the Dollar’s steady rise on speculation of a potential rate hike. And in last week’s issue, we highlighted the 101.57 level as a critical point to watch for either a confirmed higher high or a rejection. Wednesday’s meeting gave us our answer: the Fed opted to maintain the status quo and the premium for immediate hikes dissipated, prompting a broad selloff as expectations readjusted.

Friday’s close back inside the weekly range establishes a short bias, with an initial midline target of roughly 97.95 for the failed breakout.

Also in currencies, Euro / Franc pulled back to retest the neckline of its three-and-a-half-month Head & Shoulders Continuation pattern.

And Pound / Aussie is forming a five-and-a-half-month Head & Shoulders Bottom pattern.

While British Pound futures have been coiling for over a year now inside what could be a massive Symmetrical Triangle. Weekly chart shown here.

Another Symmetrical Triangle on the weekly has formed in Corn futures. The continuation contract shown here. No pattern on the daily to get involved as of yet.

Heating Oil futures continue to hold the breakout from a Falling Wedge pattern on the continuation chart, and could now be forming a small continuation pattern.

After an impulsive initial breakout from a Symmetrical Triangle, White Sugar futures is back to its 50DMA attempting to hold and resume higher, toward a 1x measured move target of 514.3.

And despite all the volatility in semiconductors and AI-infrastructure names, which continued to hit the Nasdaq this past week, the S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF has slowly drifted higher since breaking out of its three-month Cup & Handle Continuation pattern this past May.

RSP displays just how resilient the broader market has been despite SPY’s continued consolidation and QQQ’s sharp selloff. A 1x measured move target for RSP sits at 222.44.

The Pauses That Refresh

There is a notable mix of long setups, short setups, continuations and reversals in this week’s equity screen.

Here are the names that caught my attention:

Active watchlists, real-time positioning updates, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

Simon Russo is the most successful trader Jack Schwager has ever interviewed. That endorsement alone is worth a pause.

Russo recently published a memoir: six parts, told in reverse, each principle threaded through image and metaphor.

He never saw trading as a sprint toward a fixed idea of wealth. For him, it was always an endless game with no final score. A thing-for-itself.

He goes further.

The discipline you practice today—the rules, the process, the painstaking structure—will be inherited, he argues, by a version of you that does not yet exist.

“You are building a cathedral for a stranger,” he writes. Requiring the mathematical precision of an engineer, the aesthetic touch of an artist, the spiritual devotion of a monk.

All while knowing you won’t be the one to worship inside.

Every morning I open the charts, I meet this stranger.

He steps into the cathedral—rules welded into archways, history stained into colored glass, structure reinforced by marble—and the very conviction that raised these walls now stands in quiet opposition.

The man who built this may have beaten the market. But I can beat his models.

The architect is gone.

The stranger stands alone, asked to trust a version of himself he no longer is. Asked to be a version of himself he has never been: humble, obedient, devout.

The ultimate question isn’t whether the cathedral was built with integrity.

It is whether he can kneel without proof. Whether he can honor what was revealed in past moments of clarity.

Whether The Stranger can become The Believer.

King Dollar

U.S. Dollar Futures appear to have completed a successful retest of prior resistance turned support. We first pointed out the growing appetite among buyers to defend higher levels in the June 13, 2026, issue.

The Bull Flag pattern on the daily, which we highlighted last week, broke out to the upside. Attention now centers on the 101.57 level to see if a higher high will be confirmed or rejected.

With a strong U.S. Dollar and an unwind in former AI leadership, the Nasdaq has fallen back to the lower limit of the consolidation range we have been watching for over a month.

If that lower boundary is breached, the 200EMA near 26,800 marks the next key support level. Reflecting this outlook, our Macro Ops Portfolio has carried a risk-defined short position in the indices since last week.

Lumber Futures continues to defy the typical inverse relationship between global commodity prices and a stronger U.S. Dollar by consistently establishing higher lows.

The short continuation pattern on the September contract, speculated in last week’s issue, completed on Monday and followed through into midweek.

Heating Oil also moved higher, despite exhibiting a weak close on Friday.

And Soybean Meal Futures continues to establish the major change of trend we’ve been tracking since May. The weekly continuation chart is shown below. I am watching for a pattern on the daily around which to define risk and frame a trade.

On the weekly timeframe, a Symmetrical Triangle spanning nearly two years has developed on the Corn Futures continuation chart. While the duration of this pattern exceeds my typical swing-trading preference, a confirmed breakout will establish a clear directional bias for any lower-timeframe patterns that form in its wake.

Metals stand out as the primary asset class currently responding to the strengthening U.S. Dollar. Specifically, Platinum Futures, which has maintained a downward trajectory since peaking in January’s blowoff top, has established a Bear Flag on the daily timeframe.

And in currency markets, the Euro / Franc completed a three-and-a-half-month Head & Shoulders Continuation pattern on Wednesday.

The Pauses That Refresh

Within the software and technology sectors, my attention remains on equity consolidations developing beneath their 200EMAs. Numerous names on the active watchlist pulled back below their long-term moving averages, remaining confined within their ranges without breaking out.

Examples include Alkami Technology (ALKT):

GoDaddy (GDDY):

Open Text Corporation (OTEX):

And Workday (WDAY):

For the Nasdaq to recover, such stocks may first need to drop to their lower support levels and test buyer interest there.

While technology has sagged, financials have caught a bid, resulting in an increased presence of this sector in my equity screens.

Here are the names that caught my attention this week:

Active watchlists, real-time positioning updates, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

Early in my career, trading and investing appeared to hinge on the gathering of facts. To gather all the facts—regarding a company’s prospects, the market’s current phase, the economy’s outlook—would mean to know. And to know was the hurdle for risking capital.

Yet no matter how voraciously I ingested analysis, no matter the confidence with which it was presented, the facts kept… shifting. Over time, analysts revised their models. Forecasters moved their timelines. The targets that once felt inevitable quietly became footnotes.

But facts shouldn’t shift. Facts are facts, are they not?

That is what the intellect tells us. It divides our world into fixed categories: black and white, right and wrong. Once named, these become the things we say we know. And once known, they remain known.

Yet in markets, today’s facts consistently become tomorrow’s fictions.

Gradually, I began to perceive a resonance that accompanied the facts—and discovered it follows a reliable arc.

Early in a cycle, a compelling thesis hits something in me that is curious and alive. Novel. Seductive.

As price confirms the thesis, the novelty of those facts hardens into something different. Something that feels like solid ground. The model isn’t just interesting anymore—it feels true. Capital accumulates around it. Confidence builds.

In the latter stages, another shift occurs. Not in the data—not yet—but in the resonance. That felt sense of solid ground begins to recede. The delivery changes: more defensive, more emphatic, more insistent. More sophistication. More facts.

The resonance becomes one of grasping. And I feel it before I can explain it.

This resonance is the market’s most honest signal: truth, in all its fluidity, has moved on. And the facts, brittle and unbending, will inevitably break.

My trust has shifted: from the fixed I desire to the fluidity markets demand.

Facts lag. Resonance leads.

Around the World

The breakout in the U.S. Dollar is developing in a manner that keeps both longs and shorts on edge. For three weeks, price has been consolidating just above the breakout threshold, hovering near 100.

The structure on the daily timeframe resembles a Bull Flag pattern, with price action pulling back to test former resistance as newly formed support.

The month’s swiftest mover has been Euro / Pound, which this week met the 1X measured move target for the Descending Triangle pattern that comprised the Right Shoulder.

On the weekly chart, this highly directional move has already covered two-thirds of the 1X measured move target from the completed Head & Shoulders Top pattern. Given the intense momentum thus far, I anticipate heightened two-way volatility going forward.

Lumber Futures—the September contract shown here—continue to hold its higher low in what could be the formation of a tight continuation pattern on the daily.

Heating Oil broke out of the Falling Wedge pattern on the continuation chart, cited in last week’s issue. I have yet to identify a clear pattern on any specific contract month to properly structure this trade.

The consolidation in Feeder Cattle Futures continues to move within its congestion zone.

And as the SPY rolled over short of the 760 level required for a new high, the Nasdaq headed toward the lower threshold of the consolidation range I’ve been tracking for over a month.

The Pauses That Refresh

Our team at Macro Ops has been monitoring the recent sector rotation away from previous momentum leaders toward fresh beneficiaries. Specifically, financial stocks—most notably in the insurance space—have seen increased strength.

A prime example is The Travelers Companies (TRV), which was initially added to the active watchlist on June 20, 2026, and later flagged as a featured breakout in the June 27, 2026 issue. TRV posted impressive pre-market earnings on Friday, marking the climax of its recent powerful breakout.

Because TRV is currently extended by 7x ATR from its 50DMA—a threshold our Macro Ops team frequently utilizes for profit-taking on overextended positions—we anticipate the stock will consolidate or experience a pullback toward its long-term moving averages in the near term.

Here are the names that grabbed my attention in this week’s screen:

Active watchlists, real-time positioning updates, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

Last month, a colleague wanted to talk through a difficult first half of the year. He pulled up a chart of the S&P and began walking me through it. His account was riddled with “I”: chopped up, trapped short, forced to cover, embarrassed. I stopped him.

He couldn’t have been trapped in April. He was sitting across from me right here, right now.

An uncertain laugh. I let the silence hang.

I asked him to walk through the chart again, this time with a condition: no references to self whatsoever. The words came slowly at first. Then he caught his stride:

Mean-reverting conditions. An adverse environment for trend trading. A v-reversal on de-escalation headlines. Price to new highs. The market, moving.

No story. Just circumstance.

That was the only accurate account of what happened. The “I” trapped short, the “I” that feels shame…that “I” is a story. There is no “I” in markets.

He pushed back. He existed, didn’t he? He was sitting right there.

Yes—exactly there, in that moment, talking to me. In the next, conducting research. The next, defining risk. The next, sizing and executing. Perpetually present; never in the chart.

The story was dissolving, but not without a fight. None of this reinstated his sold-out positions or made back the money lost on the short.

But his grip—interlocked with an invisible adversary, grappling on a fictional mat—loosened.

I could see him returning.

I asked him simply: what is the next right action? His response: tighter regime rules, smaller size in adverse conditions. And he went to work.

Listen to how you describe your trades. “I got chopped up.” “I was trapped.” “I got shaken out.”

And conversely, notice who is actually sitting right here, right now, ready to take the next right action.

Wide & Loose

It’s a Jesse Livermore classic: “It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.”

Sometimes, it seems like all markets are consolidating. In those periods, “my sitting” involves patiently awaiting a clear breakout to trigger a new trend.

Conversely, there are moments when everything trends simultaneously, and “my sitting” means waiting for that volatility to compress once more. Currently, the currency and futures markets reflect this latter environment.

U.S. Dollar Futures tested its prior resistance level for a second consecutive week following one of the most-watched breakouts in macro. We maintain our risk-defined long position within the Macro Ops Portfolio.

The Ascending Triangle pattern in Rice Futures—first featured in the May 2, 2026 issue—met its 2X measured move target this week following a volatile uptrend that included a deep retest of the 50SMA.

Following its Symmetrical Triangle breakout, White Sugar Futures may be undergoing a similar deep retest. This week, price pulled back after advancing more than halfway toward its 1X measured move target near 514.

Robusta Coffee Futures also met its 2X measured move target on Monday, followed by a strong reaction to this past February’s highs.

Lumber Futures put in the lower high speculated in last week’s issue—but not in as convincing a manner as I’d like.

Things look a bit more convincing on the September contract, where price is closer to reclaiming the June highs.

Soybean Meal Futures continue to attempt a major change of trend on the weekly. No clear pattern on the daily for getting involved—yet.

The Head & Shoulders Top pattern in Euro / Pound—first highlighted in the April 25, 2026 issue—sold off decisively this month.

Price action on the daily chart has now fulfilled two-thirds of the 1X measured move target for the Descending Triangle pattern that comprised the Right Shoulder.

And on the weekly, price is roughly halfway to the 1X measured move target of the completed Head & Shoulders Top pattern.

We continue to hold our risk-defined long position in British Pound Futures in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

Finally, the Double Bottom in Euro / Aussie—first featured in the May 16, 2026 issue—continues to stairstep higher.

Consolidation & Rotation

A select number of markets are presently in a consolidation phase.

Heating Oil, for instance, experienced an impulsive move this week, driving directly into the downsloping trendline of a potential multi-month Falling Wedge pattern.

Feeder Cattle Futures continue to consolidate within the Handle of a multi-month Cup & Handle pattern.

5-Year T-Note Futures are in as tight a range as they come. Personally, I find rates to be some of the choppiest markets I follow, with many false moves.

While the Nasdaq continues its time-based correction, my bias remains aligned with the direction of the preceding trend.

The SPY demonstrated notable relative strength compared to the Nasdaq, exemplifying the rotation out of AI names and into alternative sectors of the market. This rotation represents a far healthier technical development for the broader market than uniform, market-wide selling.

Rather than staging a third drive lower to allow the 200EMA to catch up, the index instead experienced a mere minor correction off the upper boundary of its Bull Flag to start the week. Strong buying then emerged from Wednesday through Friday, making Wednesday’s low a clean level for defining risk.

The Pauses That Refresh

Recent issues have highlighted an uptick in equity consolidations forming beneath their 200EMAs, primarily across the technology and software sectors. The resolution of these setups—either forcing an upside breakout to reclaim their 200EMAs or resolving lower to extend the underlying weakness—should offer insight into the Nasdaq’s next directional move.

One example from the active watchlist, AvePoint (AVPT), staged an upside breakout from its Head & Shoulders Bottom Reversal this week.

And in the first week of July, Slide Insurance Holdings (SLDE)—an “Insurtech” name also featured on the active watchlist—broke out to the upside.

Of the remaining names in this same category, nearly all are at or above their range midpoint, closer to completing upside reversals than downside continuations.

Here are the symbols I’m watching going into next week:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

I‘ve lived in three Americas.

In the first, I delayed all gratification. I hustled. I held every penny hostage to the future. While others rested, I worked. Against all odds, I parlayed a $20,000 brokerage account in my late twenties to seven figures before I turned forty.

In this America, the nation was an objective arena for the game of capitalism. Each individual an atomized player on the field. Success or failure: 100% personal effort. Isolation wasn’t a cost. It was the strategy for avoiding a median outcome.

I’ve lived in three Americas.

In the second, the single-family home in Pasadena demanded my entire account. The consolation: a new-construction condo downtown. Taken from under me by foreign buyers, paying all cash. I’d had every advantage: middle-class upbringing, two degrees from a top university, a white man in a white-collar profession. And still: a rented apartment.

Seven figures was no match for capital that had begun compounding before I was born. Before my parents were born. If someone like me—every card meticulously played—still couldn’t close the distance…

Outrage. Fury. Powerlessness. Isolation wasn’t a cost. It was the system’s design.

I’ve lived in three Americas.

The third: mountain ranges older than any deed of ownership. Snow so light it sprays like champagne. Lakes of stained glass. Forests you can feel breathe. Beaches covered in sand like powdered sugar.

And here: “Grandma” and “Grandpa” across the road. Mom and Dad a morning’s drive away. Baristas whose faces I recognize. Bags of hand-me-down clothing finding the doorstep of new families. Teachers who matter to our children.

The hustle, the fury, the beauty.

I live in three Americas.

Consolidation & Continuation

Equity indices continue to form consolidation patterns near their highs. The pause in the Nasdaq I’ve been featuring, occurring right on top of a multi-month trendline, further tightened this week inside the initial range.

The SPY could be forming a Bull Flag above its rising 200EMA. To my eye, price looks like it wants to make a third drive down, allowing the 200EMA to catch up and support a more sustainable trend continuation higher. My bias is always for consolidations to resolve in the direction of the prior trend.

While equity futures consolidate, commodity futures continue to move. Robusta Coffee reached its 1X measured move this week, with a 2X target sitting at roughly 3758.

White Sugar Futures, shown here on the continuous contract, followed through on last Friday’s breakout, pushing halfway toward a 1X measured move target of roughly 514.3.

Lumber Futures pulled back at the end of June, but is possibly putting in a lower high with this week’s turn.

The much-followed breakout in U.S. Dollar futures came back to test prior resistance this week. We’re holding a risk-defined long position in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

And the massive Head & Shoulders Top in Euro / Pound finally broke down this week. As I’ve stated previously, due to the size of this pattern, I expect ample volatility on the daily timeframe regardless of how price ultimately resolves. We are long British Pound futures in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

The Pauses That Refresh

There was an uptick in equity consolidations forming below their 200EMA in my screening this week—many in the software and technology spaces, currently bouncing from oversold conditions.

Resolution of these consolidations—to the upside while reclaiming their 200EMAs, or to the downside as continuation of weakness—could inform the next move in the Nasdaq.

Here are the names that caught my eye:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

On Tuesday, I walked the design and manufacturing floor of Brunello Cucinelli’s headquarters in Solomeo: open, airy, flooded in natural light. My family had lunch alongside the workers: prosciutto toscano e pecorino, rigatoni al pomodoro, tagliata di manzo con patate al forno. Crostata all’albicocca with caffè della moka for dessert.

I’d followed Brunello for decades—first as a twenty-something living in Italy, later as a business school graduate who found his interviews unlike anything I’d heard from a CEO. He spoke not of revenue and inventory, but of beauty, dignity, and humanity. His business and his philosophy were indistinguishable.

That philosophy was born not in a textbook, but in a memory. His father, having moved the family from a rural farm to a suburban factory, would come home with wet eyes, repeatedly humiliated by his supervisors. A young Brunello made himself a promise: whatever he built, he would make money without compromising human dignity.

He founded his company in 1978. A decade later, as corporate Italy raced toward industrial centers, he followed an internal compass, relocating his entire business to a crumbling, forgotten village in Umbria: Solomeo. His wife’s hometown. His birth region. The beauty he believed would nurture the soul of his artisans.

One aligned decision after another, each defying the spreadsheet’s calculus, Brunello transformed Solomeo into the literal and spiritual home of a fashion empire: a parish church, a theater, a soccer field, residential homes. Artisans paid 20% above the Italian manufacturing average. No work past 5:30 PM. No emails after hours.

There is no cell in a spreadsheet for dignity. No input for what it costs a man’s soul to be treated as a unit of output. No formula for the wet eyes of a humiliated father. Brunello built a billion-euro luxury brand atop a foundation that no Excel model could capture.

He built an aligned business—an aligned life—informed by financial maps, but guided by the human terrain. The terrain asks something no spreadsheet can: who is right beside you? And what does dignity look like for them, specifically, today?

One aligned decision after another. This is what birthed the exception of Solomeo. And how any empire worth building begins.

Healthy Rotation

In the June 6, 2026 issue, I highlighted the weekly engulfing candle on the Nasdaq that had stopped a potential trendline breakout in its tracks. The comment I made at the time:

While this move signals a shift, it is not a cause for alarm. Following a strong run of eight positive weeks out of nine since the April low, the market may simply be entering a phase of digestion.

This pause could facilitate a transition where other sectors take over leadership from the AI trade. The future outlook depends on the nature of this correction: whether it manifests as a price decline that drags down other risk assets, or a time-based consolidation that allows for a healthy rotation.

What we’ve seen since has been the latter: a time-based consolidation that has allowed for healthy rotation into other areas of the market.

The time-based consolidation is clear on the daily timeframe, where over the past 21 days, Nasdaq Futures have moved just 1.18%.

Beneficiaries of the rotation have been industrials, financials, and a number of additional cyclical groups.

Individual names within these sectors, highlighted in the active watchlist section of these reports, have experienced breakouts with follow-through, including The Travelers Companies (TRV) …

… and Woodward, Inc. (WWD) …

… while technology names like Palantir (PLTR)—highlighted last week as one of just two short setups—broke down from its four-month consolidation.

The Dollar vs. Commodities

The breakout in U.S. Dollar futures—telegraphed in the June 13, 2026 issue—has thus far followed through.

And while a rising U.S. Dollar is typically a headwind for commodities and related equity groups, White Sugar Futures blasted through the upper boundary of its Symmetrical Triangle consolidation on Friday.

And Sugar No. 11 Futures could be putting in a double bottom, akin to the price action featured earlier this year in EURAUD.

Rough Rice, after a significant retrace back to the 50DMA, is closing in on its 2X measured move target.

And Robusta Coffee Futures continues to hold the breakout from its Ascending Triangle bottom.

The Pauses That Refresh

There continues to be a healthy selection of constructive equity setups this week.

Here are the names that caught my eye:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

I’m writing this from a restored 14th-century hamlet in the Chianti hills, just outside Florence. I once lived here—not Tuscany, but Rome—managing a wine bar in the city’s historic center. Italy won the World Cup while I was there.

Throughout the tournament, I’d pause to watch the match introductions. Each country’s team paraded to the field: their colors, their flag, their anthem filling the stadium. Argentina looked so Argentine. France sounded so French. Match after match, the world’s nations filed past in the same proud, predictable mold.

Then, Team USA took the field. Just like all the rest: their colors, their flag, their anthem. They looked the part, too: so American. I’d been living in Italy for nearly two years by then. And it struck me: “USA” was just another “other.”

It was the first time I saw culture for what it was: a set of norms and expectations inherited blindly. Suddenly, culture became a choice: opt in, opt out, switch between, invent my own.

Culture had run my life on assumed truths: that freeways were eight lanes wide; that money was green; that busyness was a virtue. From outside the fishbowl, none of it felt inevitable anymore.

This perspective returns each time I leave my context. Wherever I land, I hold the same question: what story am I telling myself about my days and my life that just isn’t true?

Timeframes I haven’t explored because I was told by successful traders there was no edge there. Sizing I’ve kept modest because that’s what responsible traders do. Entrepreneurial ventures I haven’t pursued because it would put too much financial pressure on my spouse.

But have I explored those timeframes myself, with rigor and curiosity? Have I defined what responsible sizing looks like for my actual edge and risk tolerance? Have I allowed my spouse to speak for herself, rather than putting my own words in her mouth?

Culture offers us heuristic shortcuts. They keep us moving—but only straight ahead. We solve for the problems we’ve been given rather than interrogating the assumptions baked into the problem statements themselves.

The old warning about assumed knowledge speaks as much to our peril as our potential: it ain’t what you don’t know. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

Currencies & Commodities

Following the structural shift in the Dollar’s multi-month range that I noted last week, our team anticipated an upside breakout. That breakout materialized this week, leading us to adjust the Macro Ops Portfolio positioning to reflect the move.

Given the magnitude of this pattern and its nature as a reversal, I anticipate significant volatility. Over the next several months, should the trend continue upward, the price action may look orderly on the weekly timeframe while remaining erratic on the daily.

The Euro / Pound has once again tested the neckline of a year-long Head & Shoulders Top. Like the Dollar, the sheer scale of this formation may make managing a trade on a daily timeframe a challenge.

The boundary line of the Cup & Handle pattern in Mexican Peso Futures saw yet another reaction this week.

The Head & Shoulders Continuation pattern remains valid on the continuation chart.

The price action in Copper Futures appears to be in a stair-stepping uptrend, with the latest development being a High Base.

White Sugar Futures continue to coil in a Symmetrical Triangle, with multiple reactions to the upper boundary.

The Cup & Handle Continuation pattern for Feeder Cattle Futures remains sound and continues to develop constructively.

The upward climb has persisted in Lumber Futures following the previously featured trendline breakout.

And a breakout in September Robusta Coffee Futures I passed on, believing the Ascending Triangle Bottom was a bit too messy, has proven exceptionally clean in hindsight.

The Pauses That Refresh

I continue to find many constructive consolidations in equities.

Here are the names that caught my eye this week:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

Steve Cohen has built one of the most celebrated hedge funds on Wall Street. When asked how Point72 pushes aspiring portfolio managers to evolve, his word choice—repeated twice—struck me:

“Everyone needs a little push. [...] It’ll be a little bit provocative. Just open their eyes to what’s possible. [...] And from that comes a change or an improvement that enhances what they do and who they are. They’re really intimate provocations that push the bounds of what people can achieve.”

I know this word well: provocation.

Those closest to me—teammates, traders, friends—know my words can cut through stagnant ways of seeing and initiate radical change.

But the operative word is cut. And this blade is two-sided.

When I take things personally, I wield it as a weapon. I provoke to protect the illusion of control—to defend a personal identity that feels under threat.

When I am grounded, when I am seeing clearly, I provoke differently. Not to destabilize, but to unblock. I wield the blade with passionate intent: cutting away the habitual; freeing energy to move—perhaps for the first time in years.

I can search old correspondence and see it immediately: the notes written from disconnection, deploying provocation to tip the receiver into the same state of uncertainty.

And then the others: words emanating from clarity, striking precisely at what limits, catalyzing change rather than conflict.

For those who carry a reputation as prickly, as defiantly contrarian—as so many traders do—consider that you hold something just as capable of liberating as instigating.

And consider that in your hands is one of the cleanest signals back to your own process: are you wielding the blade to unblock what is stagnant in others, or to protect your own sense of control?

Currencies & Commodities

Bitcoin broke down from an Ascending Channel earlier this month. As noted in the previous issue, maintaining short positions in various crypto pairs within the Macro Ops Portfolio served as an effective hedge against our long equity holdings.

Price has reached the origin point of the Ascending Channel and we’ve taken full profits.

Mexican Peso Futures continue to trade just below the neckline of a Head & Shoulders Continuation pattern. The right side is contracting. Low volatility precedes high volatility.

The September contract has the look of a Cup & Handle Continuation. The implication is the same.

Euro / Pound is pressing into the neckline of its Head & Shoulders Top formation. The right shoulder has taken the look of a Descending Triangle. The more tests of a level, the more likely that level is to break.

The contracting volatility in the Euro / Aussie pair, which I noted two weeks ago as a potential sign of a trend shift, expanded to the upside this week. It looks like the turn is in.

The Dollar has returned to the upper boundary of its trading range, though a significant shift in price action has emerged: following May’s successful test of the range midpoint, price has sustained its position in the upper half of this year-long consolidation for more than three months. This persistence suggests a growing appetite among buyers to defend higher levels.

Given this structural shift, our team is internally gameplanning various scenarios for a potential move higher, and preparing to execute should a breakout occur.

Lumber Futures demonstrated a decisive move within the commodities sector, breaking out cleanly from a multi-point trendline. For more detail on the role trendlines play in commodity technical analysis, refer to Building a Commodities Playbook in the March 21, 2026 issue.

Feeder Cattle Futures continue to build a constructive-looking Cup & Handle Continuation.

And White Sugar Futures are coiling in a Symmetrical Triangle with multiple reactions to the upper boundary.

The Pauses That Refresh

It has been three weeks since I highlighted the S&P 500 Equal Weight finishing its Cup & Handle Continuation. In the time since, RSP has climbed to fresh all-time highs, even as market-cap weighted indices have retreated from their peaks.

This expansion of market strength has propelled numerous featured watchlist stocks—those sharing the same technical structure—into fresh highs.

Two financial names have acted as prime examples: Enova International (ENVA) ...

…. and Valley National Bancorp (VLY).

There remain a number of constructive consolidations this week, and a notable lack of short setups.

Here are the symbols that caught my eye:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

In 1994, the University of Iowa produced the Iowa Gambling Task—now a cornerstone of neuropsychology—reshaping how we understand decision-making under risk.

Participants chose cards from four decks, aiming to maximize play money. Two groups played: healthy individuals, and those with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—the region that converts past emotional experience into anticipatory gut feeling.

When a healthy human loses money or makes a mistake, their amygdala fires and the vmPFC tags that feeling as a subtle signal that resurfaces when they face similar risk again.

Two decks offered high immediate rewards but large, unpredictable penalties; two offered smaller rewards but smaller penalties—the superior decks over time. Both groups had to discover this through trial and error.

The vmPFC-damaged group had no anticipatory emotional memory. Every time they looked at the four decks, it was as if they were seeing them for the first time. Without gut feeling pulling them away from the dangerous decks, they relied purely on short-term arithmetic. And they chose the dangerous decks time and again, repeatedly surrendering their winnings.

The healthy group followed their gut and came out ahead.

Mainstream Wall Street wisdom preaches just what the damaged cohort did: cold, memoryless execution.

“Trade the market in front of you, not the one in your head.”

“Be like a goldfish.”

The Iowa Gambling Task suggests this is not wisdom. It is a disability.

As artificial intelligence proliferates across all sectors—not least finance and trading—a new cohort of participants is entering markets: those with superhuman ability for calculation, logic, and cold-blooded rationalism.

What they have no access to: self-awareness, discernment, gut feel.

Some of the smartest money knows this. Last September, D.E. Shaw—which for over 30 years pioneered quantitative investing by treating the market as a massive data-processing problem—quietly raised five billion dollars for its first purely discretionary, human-led hedge fund.

The Wall Street mantras may not be entirely false. They may simply be incomplete.

Don’t trade the market in your head. Trade the one in your gut.

Bend with the Trend

Equities, spearheaded by the Nasdaq, appeared positioned for further gains until Friday’s strong U.S. employment data revealed a surprisingly robust economy. The shift extinguished expectations for rate cuts and reignited concerns about future rate hikes.

Consequently, a Bearish Engulfing pattern emerged, wiping out the advances made during the preceding week.

In accordance with the principle that Price is Truth—the first rule of This Infinite Game—we closed our Nasdaq long position this week as the trend began to shift.

Adhering to the trend is a core component of our process, as evidenced by various examples within our Macro Ops Portfolio and previous issues of this report.

While this move signals a shift, it is not a cause for alarm. Following a strong run of eight positive weeks out of nine since the April low, the market may simply be entering a phase of digestion.

This pause could facilitate a transition where other sectors take over leadership from the AI trade. The future outlook depends on the nature of this correction: whether it manifests as a price decline that drags down other risk assets, or a time-based consolidation that allows for a healthy rotation.

Our commitment to bending with the trend is further illustrated by our coverage and positioning in Coffee Futures.

In April, we identified a potential upside reversal at a long-term support level; however, as that support failed to hold and the reversal attempt stalled, we adjusted our stance.

Consequently, we have maintained a short position in Coffee since the middle of May.

Another case in point is Ethereum.

Throughout the first quarter, ETHUSD battled to maintain its footing at a multi-year trendline that has served as a reliable floor for price pullbacks since 2022.

Early signs of accumulation appeared on the daily charts as buyers attempted to defend this key support level, prompting us to initiate several long positions within the Macro Ops Portfolio.

However, by Q2, the bullish momentum began to wane.

Recognizing that the prevailing trend was shifting, we adjusted accordingly: we flipped our bias to short last month and secured partial profits during last week’s sharp downside break.

In addition to our short ETHUSD position, our Macro Ops Portfolio has maintained short exposure to both BTCUSD and SOLUSD.

We used this week’s break to peel off profits in these positions as well.

Note the significance of this week’s breakdown. This is the first time in four years that this trendline has failed to act as support.

For the previous two weeks, I highlighted a Symmetrical Triangle forming in July Soybean Futures. While my default expectation for consolidation patterns is a continuation of the prior trend—which, in this case, suggested a measured move higher—the market had other plans.

This Tuesday, price decisively breached the pattern’s lower support boundary. This breakdown provided a clear, risk-defined entry to the short side. Since that break, an impulsive decline has already carried price roughly two-thirds of the way toward its downside objective of 1095.50.

Our Macro Ops Portfolio managed to edge higher this week, successfully weathering the risk-off environment.

This resilience was a direct result of our commitment to bending with the trend and respecting price as the ultimate truth.

Despite entering the period with material exposure to various AI and Tech holdings, as well as a long position in the Nasdaq, adherence to our process ensured we remained on the right side of the tape.

The Pauses That Refresh

Should market breadth widen beyond the AI theme, there are a number of consolidations occurring at or near all-time highs.

Here are the names that caught my eye this week:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

When top-tier hedge funds need to recruit portfolio managers, they call Ilana Weinstein. At Sohn New York this month, Jawad Mian asked her what makes an investment professional worth betting on.

I knew her answer too well:

“I think special people tend to have a chip on their shoulder. There’s usually some historic thing they had to overcome that left an imprint. [...] I think this underdog syndrome matters because public markets test your resolve.”

Her examples were vivid: a learning disability, a speech impediment, bullying.

Some obstacles, though, run deeper—into the subconscious.

Jawad traces his own ambition to a childhood hunger for the approval of his father, a driven, successful entrepreneur. He names that unfulfilled desire as the engine that carried him to conventional success, yet the hunger it ran on never eased.

Follow that thread far enough, and it arrives at a fork.

The first instinct is to condemn it all—the pattern and everything it built.

But just because the chase was hollow does not mean the skill is.

The breakthrough: you have a choice.

Not just to walk away. But to reengage. Consciously, for the first time.

Perhaps out of curiosity. Perhaps for the intellectual satisfaction of building something and watching it fly. Perhaps as an explorer alongside others, rather than alone carrying something to prove.

Jawad’s final question to Ilana: what, over time, has she come to value?

“A sense of humour. The fiercest competitors I know also know how to laugh at the end of the day.”

Perhaps, God forbid, you actually have fun playing this infinite game.

Momentum & Continuation

In the May 9th, 2026 issue, I highlighted the Nasdaq’s weekly trendline breakout, stating that it offered the “almost unfathomable potential for further acceleration of the trend.”

The following week formed a hesitation Doji as the initial move digested. I mentioned I was watching for a breakout from its boundaries to confirm direction. We got that break this week.

“Unfathomable” upside continues until price action dictates otherwise …

Top momentum traders utilize relative strength as a primary filter for identifying opportunities, particularly during aggressive corrections when true leadership becomes apparent.

During the market volatility of early April, I identified Brookfield Renewable Partners (BEP), Bread Financial Holdings (BFH), and Dell Technologies (DELL) as standout performers due to their resilient price action.

Their moves since have been significant: BEP and BFH successfully reached their measured move targets, and DELL entered a full parabolic phase, capped off this week by a $9.7 billion U.S. Pentagon contract on Wednesday and an exceptional Q1 earnings report on Thursday.

The sheer velocity of DELL’s recent ascent has been remarkable.

Around the World

In other areas of the market, December Soybean Oil Futures broke out of the pennant I’ve been featuring. This is a tight pattern that should impulse quickly if it is going to move.

November Canola also broke out—but encountered immediate resistance on Friday.

The best breakouts are those that never look back. This one is already out of the “best of” running.

Soybean Futures continue to form a Symmetrical Triangle on the July contract.

Mexican Peso Futures are holding just below the neckline of their Head & Shoulders Continuation.

And Euro / Aussie is still trying to put in a Double Bottom.

Trends are hard to turn. The dropping volatility could be an early precursor to a new price equilibrium taking hold.

The Pauses That Refresh

This week, a fresh array of tickers emerged on my radar, suggesting that market breadth could widen beyond the AI narrative if these consolidations successfully clear overhead resistance.

Here are the names that caught my attention:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

I know of only one cure for the fear of death. It is not what people want to hear: experience death, and then live again. This is what happened to a mentor of mine.

She was whitewater rafting the Pastaza River in Ecuador. Her boat capsized, and she was swept away by a rip current. She fought at first. But the water swallowed her, slammed her like a ragdoll, and the inevitable became apparent.

While losing consciousness, her experience shifted: a lightness, an expansion, a still silence. A sudden freedom, unchained from societal conventions, expectation, identity.

Then, she woke up at the bottom of the boat. A guide had pulled her from the water and resuscitated her.

Her body survived. But a different part of her—the domineering corporate executive she thought she was—died that day. What remained: the stillness; the lightness; the freedom from all that was revealed to be trivial.

When trading greats talk about the moments that shaped them, I hear this same experience.

Paul Tudor Jones lost over 60% of his clients’ accounts on a single cotton trade. Stan Druckenmiller watched a bet on interest rates implode and was forced to sell a portion of his company. Louis Bacon saw a third of his initial funding evaporate, leaving him mortified.

I used to see stories like this as acts of perseverance. I would reduce their experiences to a motivational footnote: when the greats get knocked down, they get right back up. Doing so trivialized what had occurred.

Their raft capsized. They were thrown into a rip current. The inevitable became apparent: the trader they thought they were was losing consciousness.

Placing those investor letters in the mail. Signing away a portion of the company. Transferring all remaining capital out of the account.

Their bodies went unharmed. But the identities they once held died.

What remained: the trader who had experienced death, and then lived again.

Futures in Focus

Market hesitation persists following the weekly Doji on the Nasdaq that I pointed out last week. That candle appeared just above a multi-point weekly trendline, and as we finished this week inside of last week’s range, the state of uncertainty remains. I am still monitoring for a breakout beyond last week’s boundaries to confirm the direction of the next intermediate trend for equities.

Last week, I noted that Rough Rice reached its 1X measured move target with real momentum. That strength indicated that this could be the beginning of an extended advance. The 2X target is currently projected at approximately 13.945. We maintain our long in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

The established uptrend in Soybean Oil remains healthy, now appearing to be in a period of consolidation following several legs to the upside. On the December contract, a three-week pennant pattern has potentially developed.

Canola displays a similar look.

And Soybean Futures have taken on the form of a Symmetrical Triangle on the July contract.

Featured Forex

Euro / Pound continues to flirt with the neckline of its Head & Shoulders Top. The boundary could not be better defined, and the right shoulder has taken on the look of a Descending Triangle. My only qualm is just how large (in time) this pattern has grown. Applying daily-timeframe trade management to a pattern going on 46 weeks in length can result in being chopped out on volatility that, zooming out, never affects the integrity of the pattern itself.

The potential Double Bottom in Euro / Aussie highlighted last week continues to hold its form. A talented Macro Operator tells me positioning strongly supports this possibility.

And Mexican Peso Futures have formed a Head & Shoulders Continuation. The neckline looks well defined with multiple price pivots.

The Pauses That Refresh

The S&P 500 Equal Weight completed a Cup & Handle Continuation pattern this week.

This has led several individual equities to exhibit similar technical setups. If you decide to trade these names, remember to manage concurrent risk.

Here are the names that caught my attention in this week’s equity screen.

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George Coyle, co-author of the upcoming Market Wizards: The Next Generation, has been making the interview rounds.

Nearly every interviewer asks a version of the same question: what core trading principles do all wizards share?

Coyle’s answer won’t surprise anyone familiar with the iconic series: respect price action, hold winners, cut losses. Find a strategy that aligns with your temperament and lifestyle.

But one interviewer asked a different question: who were the human beings behind the tactics, and what traits did they share as people? Coyle identified six:

Self-awareness: A deep understanding of oneself and what works.

Clear goals: Precise objectives for what they’re trying to achieve.

Unjustified self-belief: Profound persistence, even after significant failures.

Independence: A preference for autonomy over traditional career paths.

Extreme passion: Devotion to trading as a primary reason for being.

Commitment and persistence: Willingness to press on despite the fear of failure.

These aren’t tactical choices. They are ways of being.

Across nearly all performance fields, aspiring players seek ‘how to’s’ of the elite performers, only to end up mimicking surface-level actions.

The doing is seductive because it’s observable. You can see the setups, the entries, the exits. You can backtest it, forward-test it, replicate it.

But the tactics bloom from the traits. The being births the doing.

The being requires you to look inward. To ask: Do I truly know myself? Do I have clear goals? Do I believe in this work even when the evidence says I shouldn’t? Am I willing to walk away from a traditional career path? Does this craft call me forward?

When you study a Market Wizard, be curious about their tactics. Learn their setups.

But do not seek to copy their trades. Seek first to cultivate their traits.

Futures in Focus

The Nasdaq printed a Doji this week, signaling market indecision right above its multi-point weekly trendline. With open skies overhead and a lack of structure below, I expect the direction for the next two-to-three week move depends on which side of this weekly range breaks first. In this scenario, this next phase will either trigger a significant reversal of the recent v-shaped rally or spark an accelerated blow-off move.

Rough Rice met its 1X measured move target this week. Thrusts out of patterns don’t get much stronger than this, suggesting it could be the start of a larger move. We’re long a risk-defined position in the Macro Ops portfolio.

Cocoa Futures hit their 1X target and are retracing to the breakout level. Note Cocoa’s strength relative to Rough Rice. Tony D-L, our resident Vol expert and futures trader, caught much of this move for the MO Portfolio via an early entry last month.

A theme we’ve seen—and played (see: A Real Gusher)—since the turn of the year has been the major trend changes across the commodity complex. Soybean Meal is attempting such a trend change right now.

The December contract had the cleanest boundary, in my view. Price is experiencing volatility as it attempts to breakout from the ~323 level.

Soybean Oil already established its uptrend and is pausing after multiple legs higher.

Canola has a similar look.

Bucking the uptrend is Coffee, which I’ve been highlighting in recent issues. Price closed Friday definitively below prior support on the weekly continuation chart.

Individual contracts show support from last July still in play. For the September contract below, that level sits at 251.50, where I expect more volatility before direction is ultimately decided. Our MO Portfolio is short a risk-defined position in the July contract.

I’m sneaking one currency cross into the futures roundup as it displays price structure very similar to the commodity reversals we’ve seen. Perhaps one of our traditional Macro Operators can provide the economic rationale for going long Euro short Aussie …

The Pauses That Refresh

There’s a mix of equity consolidations ready to break out and others ready to break down in this week’s screen.

Here are the names that caught my attention:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

What does money represent to you?

Complete this sentence with the first three words that appear: “Money is ______ .”

When I ask traders this question, the same qualities surface time and again. They surfaced for me, too.

Money is freedom. Money is choice. Money is security.

Now, name the opposite of each quality you just wrote. Use those words to complete this sentence: “Without money, I am ______ .”

Without money, I am imprisoned. Without money, I am coerced. Without money, I am unsafe.

See what money has stolen from you.

See what you believe must be protected when your account reaches new highs. What you believe is being taken from you when your account draws down.

This perceived theft is what disconnects traders from their process as their account scales.

They are not protecting capital. They are protecting their sense of freedom, their sense of choice, their sense of security—all of which have been projected onto an account balance.

What if you could reclaim these qualities? Not by pretending the money doesn’t matter. But by recognizing the qualities exist independent of the numbers on the screen.

The work is seeing it: you have freedom, you have choice, you are secure—at new highs and in drawdown.

Limit your drawdowns. Compound your returns. Care deeply about the process. But do not trade in pursuit of life’s most precious qualities.

Trade because the craft itself calls you forward.

A Trader’s Journey

Last weekend, a member of the Collective reached out to Alex, our Macro Ops Team Lead, seeking advice on how to cultivate his ability to act more independently as a trader. Alex subsequently shared this inquiry with the broader community:

“Just renewed my subscription … been loving the community and learning from you guys. I’ve been enthusiastically reading and applying what I read as it relates to trading/macro (eg, just today backtested what happens to JPYUSD post MOF/BOJ intervention given the news and whether it makes sense to follow that trade through) but the volume of info and content to consume far outpaces what I can realistically get through and don’t feel like I’ve grown too much as an independent-thinking trader (where I can generate ideas myself without leaning on what you, Brandon, Mike write about) so wanted to ask what you recommend as the best path forward -- do you think it’s a function of time spent reading books and eventually things clicking into place, reading research papers, etc.? what would you attribute to driving better idea generation and trading, and what do you think is the most optimal path forward for someone in my shoes (~6Y working in finance in banking, PE, and now credit with ~1-2Y of trading experience but honestly mostly riding the coattails of you guys and 1-2 others whose work I trust)? appreciate any help. thanks!”

Several members of the Collective stepped up to provide mentorship based on their personal experiences. This exchange highlights the strength of our community and brings to life one of our foundational principles: iron sharpens iron.

In my contribution to the discussion, I aimed to synthesize the initial inquiry and provide a structured framework for the various recommendations offered by the group.

I am including that response below as a real-world application of the concepts explored in the introductory essays of This Infinite Game.

You’re consuming ideas faster than you’re developing your own judgment. That’s normal at this stage (”~1-2Y of trading experience”) and fine as a starting point. But now you need to shift from observer to operator. The path forward isn’t more books or reading (external input). It’s narrowing your focus and building reps in one specific area until you develop proprietary pattern recognition.

Here’s what I’d suggest:

Pick one domain. Not ten. One. Maybe FX interventions. Maybe credit dislocations in a sector you know from PE. Pick one thing where you’re genuinely curious and have some edge from your background. (See: Enabling Constraints)

Let your curiosity lead. Audit your last few months of trading-related work. What work has dropped you into flow state—where you followed a thread for hours with no regard for time? By contrast, what felt like a homework assignment with a looming deadline? Double down on flow state. (See: Trade Where Time Falls Away).

Study it obsessively for 3-6 months. Build a database. Track every instance. Backtest different approaches. Develop your own framework for when it works and when it doesn’t. If you’re more of a price-action trader, you can use my trade log template. If you’re more of a thesis-driven trader you can use a journaling software like Notion.

Trade it in small size. Real money, but small enough to learn without bleeding. The goal isn’t profit yet, it’s judgment. The best you can, tune out all other market commentary. Tune in to the budding intuition that is taking root as you apply your “classroom” study to real-world live markets. You’ll learn more about your own market sense from taking 20 small trades in your domain than from 100 hours of reading what others have to say on those same markets. (See webinar: Your Ears Are Your Enemy)

Share what you’ve learned and ask about topics where you feel blocked. By this point you will have original thoughts on your individual domain, and specific questions as to what you believe is blocking your next stage of growth (much like you shared with Alex, as it happens). Ask questions specific to your study and your experience trading your strategy in small size. This community will route you to excellent, curated resources on those specific topics.

You don’t have to remain in this single domain forever. But for right now, deep expertise in one thing will cultivate your ability to think independently.

Commodity Whiplash

A slew of commodity breakouts saw their advances undone this week when reports hit that the U.S. and Iran were close to a peace agreement. My current commodities ruleset stopped me out of positions in Brent Crude, Soybeans, KC Wheat and Corn for a smattering of tiny wins and tiny losses.

What’s survived? Rough Rice, holding its Ascending Triangle breakout …

… and Cocoa Futures, holding its Ascending Channel breakout.

Fresh breakdowns appeared in Lean Hogs—possibly a Secondary Completion of April’s Head & Shoulders Top …

… and a real surprise based on what I was anticipating in Coffee: a Head & Shoulders Continuation to the downside.

If you recall from earlier issues, I was monitoring the lower boundary of a massive range between ~280 and ~420, scanning for either a reversal pattern at the lows or a continuation pattern after an initial move higher.

Yet the market now appears on the verge of breaking down.

Other markets I’m watching right now include Australian Dollar / New Zealand Dollar, which broke down the Rising Wedge featured in recent issues.

This wedge is small and price is above a rising moving average, so expectations are low.

Euro / British Pound’s Head & Shoulders Top.

Feeder Cattle’s Cup & Handle Continuation.

A multi-point trendline in Robusta Coffee Futures.

The Dollar looking increasingly weak at the mid-point of its range.

And the runaway train that is the Nasdaq …

The above chart is weekly and displays the almost unfathomable potential for further acceleration of the trend with this week’s closing breakout. Grab your popcorn.

The Pauses That Refresh

There are a number of consolidations in equities hovering right at All-Time Highs.

Here are the names that caught my attention:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

To trade is, in part, to navigate discomfort. The ambiguity of selecting trades, the vulnerability of putting on risk, the tension of extended drawdowns.

To grow in trading is to develop one’s capacity for doing so.

So when someone promises to eliminate these for you—completely remove them from your trading experience, for one low fee—you’ve found my favorite screen in finance.

Such engagements are not mentorship. They are marketing. Even at their best, the enrichment flows one way, and the result is dependency.

What, then, distinguishes a true mentor? Start with your own lived experience.

Whether you have traded for a few years or a few decades, you have made contact with many truths of trading: the ambiguity, the vulnerability, the tension; the euphoria, the invincibility, the ephemeral sense of arrival.

Even in the faintest of ways, you already know these textures.

A mentor is someone steadier in the places that have left you off balance. Their contact with the realities of trading is more persistent, more tapped in.

And when you observe them closely, you can see it—not because they claim it, but because you’ve touched that same truth yourself and recognize its depth in another.

Each aspect of trading carries its own truth: market sense, sizing up, adding asset classes, trading under the eyes of risk managers or LPs.

You don’t need someone who has mastered it all. You need someone closer to whichever aspect is blocking your next stage of growth.

And once you find them, watch how they meet you. Do they offer guidance, or do they manage you? When you challenge their ideas, do they defend, or do they open?

Marketers sell dependency. Mentors cultivate your liberation.

High-Flying Commodities

In the April 4th issue, I noted that Light Crude’s “loose” price action lacked the asymmetric risk-to-reward required by my swing-trading playbooks.

While it has since whipped around that same range …

… Brent Crude broke out of the Flag noted in the April 18th issue and is testing March’s swing high. Clearing this resistance targets a 1X measured move of 109.

Energy isn’t the only sector moving; Iran conflict spillovers are aggressively driving agricultural commodities higher.

KC Wheat’s breakout, noted last week, nearly hit its 1X target:

Soybean Oil broke out of a 7-week Running Wedge. As I commented in the Macro Ops Comm Center, I preferred the three upper-boundary pivots on the December contract, but early entry on the nearby July contract was rewarded.

On Friday, the November “new crop” soybean contract broke past the upper resistance level of a seven-week Ascending Triangle pattern.

And the reversal in Corn continues to take shape with price pushing further away from the neckline of a multi-month Head & Shoulders, which is part of a large double bottom formation.

We’re long a number of these commodities in our Macro Ops Portfolio, and have added multiple times this year to our position in the Bloomberg All Commodity ETF (BCI).

Rounding out a look at agricultural commodities, Rough Rice pivoted off of the 11.45 level multiple times since mid-February, forming an Ascending Triangle on the continuation chart. Note that this market is significantly thinner than those previously discussed.

Featured Forex

I’ve been tracking a potential Head & Shoulders Continuation in Yen Futures, specifically the tight coil at the right shoulder. Following a Wednesday breakdown, the Bank of Japan intervened at the neckline to halt the decline. Thursday’s surge then breached the right shoulder high, signaling a possible trend reversal.

This possibility gets much more interesting when zooming out to the weekly.

The BOJ defended a level that was first tested back in 2024. Much like the range in Coffee covered last week, a reversal from this lower boundary would offer plenty of room for a run back to the top of the two-year range.

The US Dollar continues to trade at the midpoint of its established range:

The potential Head & Shoulders Top I’ve featured in the Euro / Pound ended the week right at the neckline:

And the Australian Dollar / New Zealand Dollar has been on a tear and is coiling at highs:

The Pauses That Refresh

Responding to Collective member requests, I’ve added Sector and Industry labels to the upper right of every chart on my active watchlist. This update makes it easier to track names within specific groups or themes.

Here are the stocks that grabbed my attention during this week’s screen:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

Developing traders often see constraints as boxes that limit them. When they watch a trader commit to a single setup, a single timeframe, a single ruleset, they misread what’s happening. They think: “That trader has boxed themselves in.”

But constraints don’t create a box. They create riverbanks.

Your creative energy—the spirit of your trading—moves like water. That spirit flows through the charts you watch, the setups you track, the trade data you collect.

Without banks, that water flattens into a shallow marsh. The potential power within you dissipates rather than builds because it has no direction to its flow. But introduce riverbanks and everything changes. The banks don’t block the water. They channel it.

By narrowing the path, the water gains depth. It gains speed. And suddenly it has the power to move your understanding, your experience, your wisdom forward.

This is what I see when traders make their biggest leaps. Not commitment to trading in general. Commitment to self-imposed enabling constraints.

David Ryan made this leap after blowing up his account early in his career. He audited a year of shallow waters: buying extended stocks, chasing pullbacks, mixing styles. He made a commitment:

“I was so focused. I wasn’t buying pullbacks. I wasn’t buying extended stocks. I was buying exactly right. I didn’t care what the rest of the market looked like. I was buying one setup and one setup only.”

He went on to become a three-time U.S. Investing Champion.

The constraints you choose—if only for a season—become the banks that give your trading depth and force.

Choose your riverbanks. Let them channel the spirit of your trading forward.

Futures in Focus

In last week’s issue, I highlighted Brent Crude flagging after the impulsive move up in energy. This week, it attempted to break out.

We’re long close cousin RBOB Gasoline Futures in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

Let’s see if they follow through next week.

Also attempting to break out this week is KC Wheat. Broadening Patterns are inherently volatile. The boundaries diverge from one another, representing the expanding volatility. This makes it challenging to define an appropriate risk point.

KC Wheat, however, compressed just below the upper boundary. Such pre-breakout conditions make for excellent risk-reward setups as they offer a clean structure to define risk and frame an asymmetric trade.

KC Wheat blasted out of that short price compression on Thursday, but ran into sellers on Friday. Another one to watch for followthrough or lack thereof next week.

Coffee is at an important juncture. Price is reacting to the ~280 level for the third time in nine months. The last test was March’s failed reversal attempt from a 7-week Head & Shoulders Bottom.

Zooming out to the Weekly, the picture becomes more compelling. Coffee could be reversing off the bottom of a massive range between ~280 and ~420.

The ideal setup would be a clean continuation pattern on the daily in the lower half of that range, launching a move back to the upper boundary.

Yen Futures continue to coil, as highlighted last week:

Euro / Pound could be forming a Head & Shoulders Top, with price drifting back to the neckline:

And the Corn Futures Continuation chart is attempting to push away from the neckline of a 54-week Head & Shoulders Bottom pattern (with a cautionary flag for the downward sloping neckline).

The Pauses That Refresh

There are a number of consolidations in equities this week that are building up power just below their All-Time Highs.

Here are the names that caught my attention:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

What is the destination for your trading? Not your goals for this week, this month, this year. What is the vision for it all?

Dr. Brett Steenbarger spent four years at Tudor Investment Corporation and has worked with countless hedge fund managers since. At SMB Capital’s New York trading summit last month, he shared what he’s observed: those who dedicate a percentage of their profits to causes they deeply believe in transform their relationship with market speculation.

They’re inspired to trade well because the profits fund something meaningful. They stay disciplined because the cause matters more than any single position. And they hold better emotional balance because their identity isn’t tethered solely to market swings.

Dr. Steenbarger cites Paul Tudor Jones as an example of this principle: a man trading not for a number on a screen, but for his Robin Hood Foundation. The foundation is the destination that pulls him forward—his vision for his trading.

You don’t need PTJ-level wealth to feel this pull.

My wife and I have a young family and an equally young nest egg. We both care deeply about our local community and the next generation being raised here.

A few times a year, we’ll find ourselves driving through town and spot a commercial space for lease. My wife, an entrepreneur in architectural design, begins painting a picture of what could be created to support the flourishing of the people we care about. I soundboard. We assemble a shortlist of collaborators who could bring the vision to life.

The timing isn’t today. But there’s a real sense that the day will arrive when we have the capacity to move on one of these visions—if not multiple. The trading desk feels different the next morning. My attention is less magnetized to the minutiae: to today’s action, to this week’s performance.

I return to process—one I know will persist indefinitely, and compound until we arrive at the day the resources and timing are no longer ahead of us, but at our feet.

This is all it takes. No philanthropic foundation. No WSJ headline.

Just a destination you truly care about, and can make out clearly enough to feel its pull.

A Rip-Roaring Rally

Two weeks ago, in the April 4, 2026 issue, I featured the “loose” markets of Crude Oil and the Nasdaq, and contrasted them to the “tight” price compression on the Russell. Shortly after, the Russell popped out of that range with our Macro Ops Portfolio positioned long.

Things looked pretty good last week when I wrote I’d be watching what would develop next—potentially a bear-market “Rounding Pattern” or a tight, low-volatility consolidation.

What we got was a hot knife through butter:

In that same April 4 issue, I covered three names that had exhibited notable relative strength in the face of all the turmoil.

Bread Financial Holdings has gone on to meet both its Head & Shoulders Continuation and Symmetrical Triangle 1X targets:

Dell encountered initial selling pressure but pushed into new All-Time Highs:

Brookfield Renewable Partners pulled away from its Cup & Handle Continuation boundary on the daily timeframe, which can act as a launching pattern completing the massive Head & Shoulders Bottom on the weekly timeframe:

Of note: there is a boatload of overhead resistance to the left on the weekly chart:

Futures in Focus

Japanese Yen Futures looked like they were forming a Head & Shoulders Continuation, but volatility is contracting above the neckline. It’s a small pattern with potential to break either direction.

I’ll be watching to see if the upper boundary can clean itself up (I’m not thrilled with boundaries defined more by wicks than closes).

Brent Crude is flagging after the impulsive move up in energy. Brent Crude is a cleaner pattern than Light Crude if looking to play continuation in energy prices. December contract shown here.

I’ve been following the breakout in Cotton since initiating work on my commodities playbook earlier this year. The March break of the Declining Channel on the May contract kicked off a huge rally.

That breakout on the daily coincided with a breakout from a multi-month trendline on the continuation chart.

The Dollar continues its rangebound action between ~96 and ~100. It’s currently smack in the middle of the range. Both boundaries have been tested multiple times.

The ideal scenario for Platinum would have been a low-volatility contraction along the upper boundary of this Falling Wedge. This would have allowed energy to build for a breakout.

Instead, price bled right through the boundary, which tells me this boundary is not significant to market participants and the pattern as I labeled it is likely to morph.

Corn is trying to hold a retest of a multi-month Head & Shoulders Bottom breakout.

Note: Head & Shoulders with necklines slanted in the opposite direction of the breakout are considered weaker than those where the slant of the neckline aligns with the direction of the breakout.

A continuation pattern forming on the daily would be an ideal setup from here.

The Pauses That Refresh

A month ago, many of these same equity setups appeared ready to break out. The conflict in Iran sent them to the opposite sides of their ranges. Now, they are looking back in play.

Here’s what rose to the top of my equity screen this week:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.

The best traders I’ve studied share one visible quality: the wilder markets become, the more still they appear.

In an attempt to emulate their external personas, I used to default to emotional detachment when markets came unhinged. It kept me out of trouble. And out of opportunity.

Without attunement to my inner state, the only action I could take was inaction.

This guarded against impulsive trading and protected capital. But it also suffocated perfectly valid trades that fit my playbook: opportunities I had trained for, conceived clearly—and then watched pass from behind the glass of detachment.

The traders I admired weren’t numb. They were spacious.

Numbness flattens the signal along with the noise. Space preserves the signal, and creates just enough distance to keep the impulse from pulling the trigger.

When the temptation to act arrives—to release the excitement, to resolve the unrest—the answer is not to extinguish it. It is to recognize the reactive impulse, and to pause.

In that pause, aligned action becomes clear: does this impulse fit what was conceived in calm? Does it match the trade plan built before the storm?

If yes, the pause is confirmation of the trade.

If no, the pause is the trade.

This is what separates the two traders who appear identical from the outside: both quiet and seemingly unmoved.

One has gone numb.

The other has learned to anchor in stillness without severing the signal.

Around the World

There’s been a strong focus on U.S. equities in recent issues, so this week I took to my full futures universe and grabbed the charts that caught my attention.

Japanese Yen Futures show a potential Head & Shoulders Continuation on the daily:

The Dollar continues its rangebound action between ~96 and ~100. Both boundaries have been tested multiple times. I’d love to see price tighten up against one of the two levels in anticipation of a breakout.

London Cocoa has formed an extremely tight price range between ~2500 and ~2300. Low volatility precedes high volatility …

We’re currently long the American Cocoa contract in the Macro Ops Portfolio.

The scale of this Falling Wedge on Platinum is enormous. So much so I question its tradability. Silver exhibits a similar pattern, but the upper boundary on Platinum looks cleaner to me.

The ideal scenario would be a low-volatility contraction along the upper boundary to allow energy to build for a breakout.

And, of course, there’s the Russell, whose tight price compression along the convergence of the 200EMA and multi-point trendline I featured last week.

I felt the Russell offered the best asymmetric setup of all the indices, allowing for either a conservative stop placement below the entire consolidation, or aggressive stop placement using the low of the last daily bar inside the range.

Russell popped this week, but the move lands it back in a congestion zone. The next 1-2 weeks are key: will we see a bear-market “Rounding Pattern” or tighter, lower-volatility consolidation?

The Pauses That Refresh

Many stocks continue to form clean consolidations. The following names stood out in this week’s screening:

Active watchlists, real-time trade alerts, and live portfolio tracking are reserved for members of The Collective, our premier service offering discussions on high-level theory and performance, differentiated research, and a global community of serious traders and investors dedicated to mastery. Learn more about The Collective here.