Let me first say that I am deeply moved by the incredible show of support, encouragement and enthusiasm I received when I posted my “Personal Message” announcing this Substack.
Before hitting the SEND button this morning my wife smartly asked : “Are you sure you want to commit to writing for a full year for less than you make on a single trade in your pajamas?”.
You can already tell who the smart one is in our relationship.
I thought about it a bunch, and decided to hit SEND anyway.
My first thought was that perhaps a dozen curious folks may sign up. I would lose 25% to attrition, 20% more to people loosing their passwords, which would leave about 7 or so, that I could always just refund if this gets to be too much.
Well… about 150 of you signed up.
Many are on the 7 Day Free Trial Plan, but about 30% of you mavericks just dove in head first as Founding Members. I would be remiss if I didn’t share that my heart skipped a beat when I saw that number. Not because of the money, but because of the trust, generosity and effort that this commitment represents on DAY 1 of the launch of this Stack.
We all live in our own bubbles in this wonderful electronic era, so even though I have been writing daily for the past 10 years, you can never truly know if someone out there is actually reading any of that writing. Like when a tree falls in a forest but no-one is there to hear it fall. Does it still make a sound?
Knowing that there are actual humans on the other side of this screen is a very large motivator for me. This mission we are all on is just too important to fail.
With that in mind. LFG!
HOUSE RULES:
I first want to start off by setting expectations and some ground rules around the most important topics when it comes to Markets, Crypto and Money:
RISK MANAGEMENT
Every one of us has different financial circumstances. Some are younger while some are older. Some are retired while some are just entering the work force. Some are sitting on a pile of cash, while others a living paycheck to paycheck. Some have a lot of money management experience and some have none at all.
My point is. Not only am I NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR, even if I were, it would be impossible to understand the myriad of circumstances that each reader faces when reading this writing. It is quite literally impossible for me to answer any form of “financial advice” question you may have.
I will always try to answer as clearly as possible questions posed to me, as long as they are NOT of the type:
“Should I sell XYZ, I bought too much and now…”
“XYZ has ran a lot, it is now X% portion of my portfolio, should I trim?”
“Position XYZ is down 15% but I have not sold it. Should I sell it now?”
Understand that I don’t know you time horizon, don’t know your portfolio allocation, don’t know your threshold for RISK, don’t know anything about your life circumstances AND I shouldn’t need to because… I AM NOT YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR.
I DO NOT GIVE FINANCIAL ADVICE.
This is not just a legal disclaimer but a logical disclaimer.
RISK ADJUSTMENT
I just really love talking about RISK.
RISK. RISK. RISK.
I have been trading Equity Markets for over 30 years. Spent my college days Day Trading Stock Options. The absolute worse kind of Opium known to mankind.
Super addictive and terrible for your health.
But I learned three important things.
a) You need to get very good at Technical Analysis if you want to me successful. I had the 1 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute and hourly charts on ONLY. Did not care about the daily weekly or monthly. And I learned how to draw lines really really fast.
b) You need to be ruthless about RISK. Your money management needs to be fierce. You need to trade like an emotionless BOT. With even less humanity than Stephen Miller. Just a real trading ZOMBIE if you want to succeed. You need to cut losers and ride winners. Even if you lose 2, 3, 4 and 5 times in a row. CUT YOUR LOSSES and don’t cry. Take a breath and move on to the next challenge.
c) When you are HOT. And you are making successful trades. PRESS HARDER. Scale your amounts up, scale your frequency up. You need to make as much money as you can before your hand turns cold again. When you turn cold, SCALE BACK. If you are as icy as a frozen halibut. Get away from your computer. Go on a run. Go on a yoga retreat, leave the country if you have to. Do not return until your energy is reset.
The reason I am mentioning this is that if you want to be successful at investing in general, you need to understand your OWN personal RISK PROFILE.
If being a conservative player has worked for you in the past, do not succumb to FOMO, or other people’s styles. Do not let other people’s postings of large winnings change your allocation positions and sizing. Stick to what works for you. Invest within your means, and within your mental health framework. I have seen too many people get wrecked trying to copy someone else trading.
You can take their trade ideas YES, but you should not copy their RISK PROFILE. We are all unique. We should all be trading uniquely.
I am mentioning this because my goal with this publication is to give you ideas. To make you think. To make you see opportunities. To help you see what I see. Perhaps you agree with me and decide to participate in a trade, perhaps you see a flaw in my thinking and decide to short or play against me. All of that is within keeping of this project.
I may occasionally post BUYS, with exact prices, and SELLS, with exact prices. This does not mean you need to BUY when I BUY or SELL when I SELL.
I may be feeling really aggressive and decide to take a Trade before the signal confirms, thus making it high RISK. I may decide to sell a winner, not because I think it is done moving up, but because I think I can time a pullback and a re-buy before it resumes its uptrend. Again, I will adjust my trading style based on my RISK PROFILE at the time I take the trade.
This is what I mean by, you can copy my trade idea, but do not copy my RISK PROFILE when taking that trade.
If you are up 25% on a position that I have not sold yet, but it is your style to cash out at 25%, then please do so.
Remain true to what works for you and you will do well.
A POINT OF REFERENCE
In this publication, I will share my thoughts, ideas, trades and Market Views. But it will be difficult for the reader to adjust my writings to their own personal RISK PROFILE without a better understanding of my situation, so here it goes.
After 30 years of trading equities. I have grown tired of that game. It has always been “rigged” to some extent. I hate using that word because Trump has usurped it to now mean anything that doesn’t agree with him, but those who have dealt with WallStreet know what I mean.
There has always been an intermediary syphoning fees, front running your trades, or pushing bad paper onto unknowing clients. My answer to this was to rely solely on PRICE. Since PRICE is TRUTH, I could use Technical Analysis to game the system back.
In todays Market, Equities are even harder to game. You are trading against ALGOs, you are trading against CITADEL, you are trading against 0DTE desks, you are trading against AI Swarms, you are trading against insider moves (R.I.P. - SEC -, it was nice knowing you) and now…. you are even trading against the Commander in Chief of the most powerful army in the world.
Every tweet, every move, every favor rendered, every secret weekend meeting now directly affects equities. FORD reported an almost $1.5B impairment paying for Trump’s Tariffs (you know the one that China is paying for). That would not have happened were it not for a tweet. APPLE saw a massive Tariff applied to imported electronics from China (where Apple makes all their goods) only to see Tim Cook offer Trump a Gold and Glass trophy and be exempt from that Executive Order. NVIDIA now being asked to pay 15% Taxes on GPUs they EXPORT, not IMPORT.
My point is. I am done with Equities. I am done with earnings RISK. I am done with execution RISK. This is why I am so heavily invested in Crypto. Mainly in BTC, ETH, SOL and SUI. I also own a small sized bag of a mix of a bunch of ALT Coins (15% of my total Coin allocation is in ALTs that DO NOT include ETH and SOL).
They have no earnings. And in the case of BTC specifically. No central office. No home state. No CEO that can be impeached, and no Tariff that can be imposed.
Ah… the freedom.
So currently, my assets are comprised of:
Crypto Coins
These are tokens that I hold on exchanges and in hardware wallets.
Crypto Equities
These are Stocks that trade on US Exchanges. And they can be ETFs, Crypto Treasury companies, Crypto Miners, DEFI operators, etc….
Cash Equivalents
These are short term T-Bills, Money Market Account, and USD Fiat.
I am not counting my Real Estate Holdings, Art Holdings, Vehicles, nor any of the revenues generated by my Software Company and other income vehicles.
This is purely a measure of my Crypto/Liquid Allocation Ratios.
Right now, the apportionment looks like this :
50% COINS / 30% EQUITIES / 20% CASH.
The reason I am mentioning this is that I only ACTIVELY trade my Equities. I do not touch my BTC Coins, or my ETH Coins, or my SOL Coins.
My ETH is staked at 4%, my SOL is staked at 8%, and has been for many years.
The only time I am trading Coins is if I am buying or selling ALT Coins. Many of those do not have equity equivalents.
ALSO
My average cost basis on BTC Coins, ETH Coins and SOL Coins are very low since I started buying Crypto 10 years ago and have added at every 70%+ pullback.
I am divulging all of this to you so that you understand better why I would sell something, and why I would buy something.
If I told you that I was selling all my BTC Equities. You should then know that I am still holding a large amount of Coins. So if your position is that you only have 1 BTC, or that you only own BTC through an ETF like IBIT, then me selling all my IBIT, should not equate to you selling all your IBIT.
Conversely, if I am adding to my ETH Equities, know that I am doing so, while already having a large Coin position in ETH. Which means I am extra Bullish (like I am right now :)
IMPORTANT:
If I sell Coins, I will specifically call them Coins.
BTC Coins, ETH Coins, ADA Coins, SEI Coins, etc…
If I sell ETH or BTC, please assume it is the TICKER : ETH (ETF), and the TICKER : BTC (ETF).
The tricky one is of course COIN, which is the TICKER for the Stock Coinbase, which I do own at the moment. I will always make sure to stipulate Coinbase COIN.
This nomenclature above is very important because if we get a Blow Off Top this year in Q4, as I am currently expecting, I am planning to sell many of my Coins for the very first time in 10 years.
More on that soon.
HOW TO USE THIS PUBLICATION
This publication is not a Trading Desk. It is not designed to guide you through Day Trading Activities. I will never post positions I plan to flip INTRA-DAY.
If I post something on Monday and it rises 40% on Tuesday, I may sell it. But the intent of this publication is not to replace your Active Chat Room, your Active Daily Trading Blog, or your Active Community Trading Blog.
I still participate daily on RMP, and on Discord on a INTRA-DAY basis.
The intent of this publication is to share with you my view on the Markets, American Institutions, Specific Asset Classes, and any trade ideas that come to my mind.
I think of it like being in the 1950’s, where you would take your pipe to the morning tobacco shop, open up your newspaper to see what stocks were trading at the day before, read up on what company was being covered by analysts, decide what stock you wanted to buy, place your order by writing it on a tiny piece of paper, roll that paper up, tie it to a carrier pigeon, then send it off to the trading gods.
So essentially, something to read while you’re going number 2, to inspire you with something you may not have thought about, or spur an idea you may not otherwise have had.
For Founding Members, you have access to our Chat Room.
The goal of the Chat Room is :
To make statements. (Declare trades you’ve made, celebrate gains, mourn losses, etc…)
To chat with other members. (Post a topic or theme you would like to discuss)
To ask specific questions. (I will always check the Chat to see if I can help. Others can chime in as well)
You have to assume that the Chat Room is NOT a real-time messenger like Discord.
Folks will answer at their leisure and when they can.
A LIVING THING
Substack is as new to me, as it is to many of you. I find some stuff to be self explanatory on this platform, while other stuff is very confusing.
If you have suggestions about anything regarding the experience here, please do not hesitate to reach out and voice it.
I’m very excited to share some of my prescient thoughts about the current state of the markets and where we are headed.
We are reaching an important fork in the road in my view. (more soon).
Lastly, and probably the most important thing of all…
This is going to be the Best Substack Ever!! No one knows more about Substacks than TN! He uses the best language!! He has the best writing style - no one uses better writing style better than TN!!! They will change the name Substacks to TStacks - do t worry about the N!!!
Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!
Appreciate all of your thoughts/writings throughout the years.