Shaken and Stirred, Yet Unperturbed

An amorphous, overall trend-less equities market for months has been the main takeaway for swing traders, lending itself to natural frustration. Sure, the bond market has been selling off, and we have been on top of that with Members, trimming a TBT play into the recent pop in rates before the cooling off this week. 

However, when it comes to stocks the fact remains that for every one GOOGL or META endlessly meandering higher we have a plethora or issues which continue to flounder, at best. 

Not only is this insufficient grounds for a swing trader to be leaning into longs heavily (with shorts having its own issues, too), but it is naturally animating the dreaded gambler's "tilt" in many who are hellbent on simply making something happen.

Tilt, or acting out of extreme emotional frustration, is a natural human byproduct of risk-taking and speculation in virtually all forms of life--When things do not go your way the easiest reaction is to revert to a frustrated baby and thus "act out" in various forms: Emotional outbursts, turning to drugs, alcohol, pills, etc.. 

But those who can remain unperturbed will, ultimately, be in the most advantageous position mentally, emotionally, and financially to strike when the turn inevitably comes--And it always does. It's just that in this cycle all of the excess liquidity has created so many inefficiencies that we have almost no choice but to wait it out while effete central bankers continue to think they can reinvent the business cycle. 

Speaking of which, we have the Fed Minutes at 2pm EST today, followed by the CPI tomorrow morning as the next big market moving events. 

Also keep an eye on the natural gas ETF, UNG (daily chart, below), backtesting the key $7.50 level into this dip. Lord knows the patience required for this long play to develop. And if it can hold $7.50 into the end of the week we may finally have something going. BOIL is the levered long ETF derived from natty.