Recap of the week 

The Week That Was

The stock market had a brutal finish on Friday. Panic is spreading, and large investment funds are dumping shares simply to raise cash.

Friday was the second-worst single-day decline of 2026 for big tech, with the Nasdaq 100 dropping -3.47%. The week actually started on a positive note, with QQQ (Nasdaq 100) pushing up to a peak of $726.14 on Wednesday. But that strength vanished completely. From Wednesday’s high down to Friday's close at $690.49, the tech index plunged -35.65 points (-4.91%), triggering back-to-back days of heavy selling:

● S&P 500 (SPY): $755.72 (-0.56% on the week; down -1.77% on Friday)
Stable, traditional businesses could no longer hold up the broader market.

● Nasdaq 100 (QQQ): $690.49 (-1.97% on the week; tumbled -3.47% on Friday)
Major technology giants faced nonstop selling pressure.

● Semiconductor Sector (SOXX): $471.51 (-1.40% on the week; dropped -8.24% on Friday)
Semiconductor stocks took the worst hit, leaving the group down -28.1% from its record peak.

What sparked the rush to sell? Anthropic’s public paperwork revealed the massive billions needed to build AI models, colliding with ugly tech earnings. Google missed on search and advertising revenue and sank nearly 13% as investors questioned its identity between legacy search and AI. Amazon reported over $42 billion in negative trailing free cash flow while pouring capital into AI hardware.

Seeing massive spending collide with slowing core profits set off a classic scene: a fire in a crowded movie theater with only one small exit door.

Hedge funds that borrowed money to buy these crowded tech names faced immediate margin calls. When stocks drop, lenders demand their cash back, forcing funds to sell shares instantly - regardless of price or quality - just to repay the loan. 

SanDisk (SNDK), which beat on both current and forward numbers and announced an 8-for-1 stock split, sank over 13% on Friday. When great news and a split still get hammered, the exit door is completely blocked. Big players are simply hitting the panic button to get out.

What to expect for this week 

The Election, Earnings, and Key Price Levels

The market steps out of last week’s tech slump directly into the biggest week of political and economic headlines of the year.

The Midterm Elections

Voters head to the polls on Tuesday to decide control of Congress. Expect big price swings on Monday and Tuesday as large money managers scramble to protect themselves before election results roll in Tuesday night. The major question is whether power splits or if one party takes full control of Capitol Hill, which will immediately set the tone for tech policy and corporate tax expectations.

Earnings Heavyweights

Earnings continue to pour in this week with over 31% of the S&P 500 reporting. All eyes are on Apple, Palantir, and AMD. Apple (expected move 4.7%) is unique because it rarely acts as a proxy for the broader market—instead, it functions as a safe haven where investors park money when dumping riskier stocks. On the flip side, AMD (expected move 7.6%) and Palantir (expected move 12.1%) are direct proxies for real-world artificial intelligence demand, showing whether actual corporate spending is finally matching the hype.

Key Price Levels to Watch

In our last newsletter, I pointed out that the tech index might look for a floor near $685. On Friday, the QQQ flushed down to an intraday low of $683.45 before bargain hunters stepped in, helping it claw back up to close at $690.49. We are testing the exact price zones where panic selling often runs out of gas, as long as rising oil prices do not jump higher and add more pressure.

Off the Tape 

The Election Playbook and Catching the Falling Knife

With stock prices sliding ahead of Election Day, everyday investors are asking how to position themselves right now.

If Democrats sweep Congress, don't be surprised to see a fast drop Wednesday morning on fears that new rules could slow down technology growth or power grids for data centers. However, trading political headlines is notoriously tricky. Once the initial shock passes, investors usually remember that split power in Washington has actually been very good for stocks over time. Even with a Democratic majority in Congress, President Trump in the White House creates a natural standoff - meaning extreme bills rarely get signed into law. The market loves predictable rules, and government gridlock provides exactly that. 

More importantly, do not make the classic mistake of trying to "catch a falling knife." 

When high-flying computer chip and tech stocks tumble nearly 30% from their peaks, the urge to guess the absolute bottom and jump in with both feet is strong. But trying to guess the exact turning point when big funds are dumping shares is nearly impossible - even professional trading desks get badly hurt trying to do it. The everyday investor will not outguess panic-driven selling.

Instead of trying to be a hero and guess where the slide stops, stick to a steady plan: invest the exact same dollar amount every single month. Putting fixed amounts into the market on a set schedule takes fear and greed out of the equation. It lets you pick up great companies at deep discounts over time, without ever having to risk your savings trying to guess the bottom.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

The Hidden Sell-Off

Looking only at major index headlines hides how much selling is actually happening underneath.

To anyone glancing at the S&P 500, the market looks steady - sitting just 2.5% below its record closing high of 7,819. Beneath the surface, individual stocks tell a different story. We are seeing a massive divide: 59% of the individual companies in the S&P 500 have dropped 20% or more from their 52-week highs, putting them in an official bear market, as big institutions steadily dump popular high-flying stocks:

● S&P 500 (SPY): $759.97 (-0.43%)
Defensive stocks cushioned broader tech weakness.
● Nasdaq 100 (QQQ): $704.40 (-0.76%)
Expensive tech facing nonstop pressure.
● Semiconductor Sector (SOXX): $478.20 (-3.08%)
Chipmakers took the hardest hit, and the sector is now down -27% from its peak.

The clearest proof that fear is driving trading is how investors reacted to quarterly reports. Both Western Digital (WDC) and Bloom Energy (BE) beat on both their current quarter and their forward guidance. Yet both stocks were dumped anyway.

When companies beat on both current results and future outlook and still get sold off aggressively, it means company fundamentals are being completely ignored. Large institutions are simply using the liquidity from good earnings reports to dump risk and raise cash.

A divide this extreme cannot stay like this for long: eventually, either the broad market goes down, or the beaten-down majority rallies. Once forced selling runs out of steam and big funds finish dumping positions, this shakeout clears out nervous sellers. That could pave the way for the rest of the market to join back in and push the S&P toward 8,500, in my opinion.

What to expect for this week 

Earnings, Economic Data, and the Election

The market steps directly into five straight days of major events across tech earnings, economic reports, and the upcoming election.

Big Tech AI Spending Under the Microscope
The surge in artificial intelligence spending faces its latest hurdle. Wall Street will judge these reports on forward guidance: data center budgets, enterprise demand, and whether massive capital spending is translating into real profit margins:

● Microsoft (MSFT) & Alphabet (GOOGL): Both report mid-week, with Wall Street focused on cloud revenue growth.
● Amazon (AMZN): Reports Thursday, where cloud margins and retail performance will show whether mega-cap tech can steady the broader market.

Chipmaker Reports
With chip stocks down 27% from their peak, we get direct updates from the hardware leaders:

● Intel (INTC) & SanDisk (SNDK): Both report Thursday, giving direct reads on chip demand and memory pricing.
● KLA Corporation (KLAC) & SK Hynix: Both will show equipment orders and spending on advanced AI memory.

Key Economic News and the Fed
A packed economic calendar will provide fresh readings on growth, inflation, and interest rates:

● Federal Reserve Decision: Wednesday at 2:00 PM ET. The market sees only a 5% chance of a rate hike. However, with odds at 80% for a hike later this year, Chair Kevin Warsh’s press conference could trigger sharp market moves.
● Q3 GDP & Core PCE Index: Both arrive Thursday at 8:30 AM ET, delivering simultaneous reads on economic expansion and the Fed’s preferred inflation metric.

Election Uncertainty
Adding to investors’ concerns is political uncertainty ahead of Election Day next Tuesday.

Markets historically get choppy and nervous in the final days before an election. Democrats lead national polling averages, and a clean sweep of Congress could prompt a knee-jerk sell-off over concerns about taxes and regulation. But once reason sets in, investors will realize that President Trump in the White House just creates legislative gridlock, which has historically been bullish for stocks.

Once these questions are answered, capital will return. I expect QQQ could find a bottom around $685. However, this is all dependent on oil prices not continuing higher—a wild card that remains extremely difficult to predict.

Off the Tape 

How to Spot a Real Market Bottom

With 59% of S&P 500 stocks trapped in a bear market, investors constantly ask how to tell when the selling is finally over.

Professional traders look for capitulation. In plain English, capitulation simply means "giving up"-the moment when the last holdouts panic and dump their shares at any price just to stop the pain.

You cannot predict a capitulation event in advance. It is a market structure event-an emotional reaction that might be triggered by earnings, economic data, the Fed, or a potential post-election flush the day after votes are counted. You can't forecast it ahead of time; you identify it as it unfolds and confirm it after the fact.

Here is what to watch for:

On the day it happens:
The market flushes sharply lower, often right at the open as fear peaks. Then, buyers suddenly step in, aggressively absorbing the panic until the tape reverses and claws its way back to finish flat or green by the close. That intraday turnaround must be confirmed by massive volume, typically when benchmarks like SPY and QQQ each trade at least 75 million shares in that single session.

The confirmation that follows:
A high-volume reversal day signals a bottom, but the true test comes in the sessions right after. We know that capitulation was genuine when good news is finally received as good news again. When strong earnings reports and solid economic data are rewarded with rallies—instead of getting dumped like they were this past week—it proves the forced selling has ended and the durable floor is in.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

The VIX Wakes Up

Complacency in this market broke wide open on Friday. After trading quietly, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) surged over 41% from a morning low of 15.72 to an afternoon high of 22.31 before closing at 19.99—reaching its highest levels in more than four months as heavy institutional de-risking swept across the tape.

A primary catalyst driving Friday's sudden liquidation cascade centered on reports surrounding Value Aligned Research Advisors (VARA). Desks pointed to forced deleveraging and position liquidations across the fund's heavily concentrated artificial intelligence and semiconductor longs.

When a multi-billion-dollar fund faces margin pressure in crowded thematic trades, the exit door is never wide enough. The resulting forced selling spilled across prime broker books, triggering immediate downside index hedging:

• S&P 500 (SPY): Fell -1.97% on the week, closing at 763.25 after Friday's 1.2% drop erased earlier session gains.
• Nasdaq 100 (QQQ): Stumbled -5.52% on the week, settling at 709.80 near the session lows as capital rotated out of high-multiple growth.
• 10-Year Treasury Yield: Settled at 5.09%, easing from the prior week's 5.24% peak as flight-to-safety bids surfaced during the Friday equity slide.

When yields remain elevated and liquidity dries up, structural unwinds happen fast. The market is no longer pricing in smooth sailing.

What to expect for this week 

Mega-Cap Tech Steps Up to the Plate

The big banks opened earnings season last week. This week, corporate reporting hits maximum velocity. Over 200 major companies will report between October 19 and October 23, shifting the spotlight directly to Big Tech, industrial backlogs, and consumer spending.

The Heavyweights on Deck:
• Tuesday, October 20: Netflix (NFLX) reports after the bell, giving an immediate look at consumer subscription pricing power and discretionary spending.

• Wednesday, October 21: Tesla (TSLA) and Meta Platforms (META) report. Wall Street wants hard data on whether Meta’s AI infrastructure spending is translating into top-line revenue, and whether auto margins at Tesla can hold against high consumer financing costs.

• Industrial & Equipment: Lam Research (LRCX) and GE Aerospace (GE) will report on semiconductor fabrication demand and commercial aerospace backlogs.

The Playbook for the Week
Do not make binary bets ahead of earnings announcements. With the VIX elevated near 20, options premiums are expensive. Let the numbers cross the tape, listen to what the CEOs say about forward guidance, and let prices settle before committing capital.

Off the Tape 

Demystifying the VIX and the Illusion of Fear

Whenever the market takes a hit, financial media immediately points to the VIX or "Fear Index" spiking. Understanding market psychology and how the VIX is actually calculated will help you understand why others' fear can be your opportunity.

1.⁠ ⁠The VIX Is Not an Emotion; It Is Pure Math
The VIX does not measure human sentiment, panic, or psychology. It is a mathematical calculation derived directly from the pricing of S&P 500 options over the next 30 days.

• When portfolio managers and mutual funds manage multi-billion-dollar equity books, they protect against downside by purchasing S&P 500 put options.
• High demand for puts pushes up options premiums.
• Higher options premiums feed directly into the VIX pricing formula.

The VIX doesn't rise because Wall Street gets emotional; it rises because institutions are paying a higher insurance premium to hedge downside risk.

2.⁠ ⁠The Mechanical Asymmetry: Why the VIX Only Spikes Down
Markets take the stairs up and the elevator down. Upward equity advances are orderly, gradual accumulations over months and quarters. Downward moves are compressed liquidity events where institutional desks rush through the exact same exit doors simultaneously. Because the VIX calculates the cost of immediate insurance, it spikes in violent, parabolic bursts during sell-offs, but grinds slowly lower during bull markets.

3.⁠ ⁠The Traps: Where Retail Investors Make Unforced Errors
Most retail traders make two classic unforced errors when the VIX wakes up:

• Panic-Selling at the Top of Volatility: Volatility is mean-reverting. Unlike equities—which trend upward over decades alongside economic expansion and corporate earnings—the VIX cannot trend upward forever. It spikes during liquidity shocks, exhausts itself, and mean-reverts back to its historical baseline. Liquidating assets into peak implied volatility means selling insurance when it is most expensive.
• Buying Retail VIX Products (VXX, UVXY): These exchange-traded products hold front-month and second-month VIX futures. Because the VIX futures curve is in contango most of the time (longer-dated futures trade higher than prompt futures), these products bleed capital daily from roll decay. They are short-term tactical hedging tools, not buy-and-hold investments.

4.⁠ ⁠How to Navigate an Elevated VIX
Professional desks do not run from volatility; they use the mathematical pricing changes it creates:

• For Long-Term Allocations: High volatility simply offers cheaper entry multiples. When implied volatility is high, long-term investors stick to mechanical dollar-cost averaging, accumulating quality assets while others panic.
• For Active Positioning: Elevated volatility widens daily expected moves and temporarily misprices individual equities. The trade is not chasing the initial spike; it is waiting for implied volatility to roll over and confirm capitulation before selectively deploying risk.

The Bottom Line: Volatility is not the enemy—it is the cost of admission for equity returns. Strip out the sensationalism, understand the mechanics of options pricing, and let other people pay peak premiums while you stay disciplined.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

The Rate Reality Checks In

Last week, we laid out the central tension in this market: record tech earnings colliding directly with stubborn, elevated bond yields. Over the past five days, that reality check started to hit home.

The 10-year Treasury yield refused to back off, holding near multi-decade highs and settling the week around 5.24%. While broad index heavyweights managed to hold modest gains, the speculative heat in semiconductors took a direct hit:

• S&P 500 (SPY): Finished higher on the week (+1.2%)

• Nasdaq 100 (QQQ): Edged higher, closing up (+0.2%)

• Semiconductors (SOXX): Dropped -5.0% as capital rotated out of high-multiple chipmakers

• Micron (MU): Finished down -4.3% on the week. Despite management confirming tight supply-demand conditions through 2028 on its blowout earnings call, Wall Street remains skeptical about downstream AI returns.

The takeaway from the past five days is straightforward: When borrowing costs stay high, the market stops giving tech a free pass. Investors are questioning whether massive spending on AI infrastructure can yield real profits fast enough.

What to expect for this week 

Big Banks Kick Off Earnings Season

The quiet period is officially over.
This week marks the official start of third-quarter corporate earnings season, led by the big banks. When the banks report, we get our first unfiltered look at the actual health of consumer wallets and corporate balance sheets.

The Main Event: Money-Center Bank Earnings
The heavyweights report before the opening bell on Tuesday, October 13:
• JPMorgan Chase (JPM)
• Wells Fargo (WFC)
• Citigroup (C)

With interest rates pinned near multi-decade highs, forget the complicated accounting ratios. Professional investors are focused on two simple questions:

1. Are Consumers Cracking Under High Rates? Watch what CEOs say about credit card delinquencies and loan loss reserves. If everyday households are falling behind on payments, it signals that high borrowing costs are finally taking a toll on consumer spending.
2. Is Corporate Dealmaking Alive? Commercial borrowing and IPO pipelines give us an immediate read on whether business executives feel confident enough to expand into 2027.

Beyond earnings, the big macro print lands Wednesday with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
Last week's Fed meeting notes confirmed that policymakers are looking for clear proof that inflation is headed steadily back to their 2% target. A cooler CPI print gives stocks room to breathe; another hot number will push bond yields higher and keep pressure on the tech stocks.

The Playbook for the Week:
Earnings season always brings sharp single-day moves. Do not try to guess on post earnings moves. Let the numbers hit the tape, listen to what executives say, and let price settle before making major portfolio adjustments.

Off the Tape 

The Mathematical Certainty of Indexing

Most investors lose money not because they pick the wrong companies, but because they play a game rigged against them: trying to outsmart the entire market.

Wall Street spends billions convincing everyday people that successful investing requires picking the next hot stock, reading technical charts, and jumping in and out of positions. The data shows the exact opposite: indexing is not a gimmick—it is a mathematical certainty.

1.⁠ ⁠The Core Allocation: 70% to 80% Belongs in the Index

Too many investors treat indexing as an afterthought—even though for the vast majority of people, broad index exposure should make up 70% to 80% of your total equity portfolio. That forms your unbreakable bedrock. If you want to research individual companies, express conviction in high-growth themes, or explore more active trading, reserve that remaining 20% to 30%, anchoring your net worth in the engine that cannot be beaten.

2.⁠ ⁠You Buy the Entire Racetrack, Not One Horse

An index fund (like an S&P 500 ETF) is a pre-packaged basket of America's 500 largest, most profitable businesses—companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Nvidia.
When you buy an index fund, you never have to worry about a single bad CEO, a product recall, or an unexpected earnings miss ruining your retirement savings. You own the entire economy.

3.⁠ ⁠Automatic Survival of the Fittest

If an individual company falls behind, loses market share, or goes bankrupt, your investment can be wiped out. An index solves this through automatic rebalancing:

• Dying, poorly run companies get demoted and kicked out of the index.
• Fast-growing, highly profitable businesses get added and given larger weightings.

You never have to guess when to cut a losing stock. The index purges the losers and keeps the winners automatically.

4.⁠ ⁠The Math of Fees: Why You Don't Need an Advisor to Index

Most people think paying a 1% AUM fee to a financial advisor sounds harmless. It is not. That 1% cut is taken off your total balance every year, win or lose.

More importantly, the need for an advisor shrinks dramatically once you commit to indexing. If your strategy is simply buying and holding the major broad-market indexes, what are you actually paying an advisor for? You don't need someone charging you thousands of dollars a year to buy an S&P 500 ETF and let it sit. That is entirely self-executable with zero specialized software.

Look at the compounding math over a 30-year horizon ($100,000 starting capital, $1,000/month added, 8% average return):

• Self-Directed Indexing (0.03% ETF fee): Grows to ~$2,410,000
• With a 1% Advisor Fee Siphoned Off: Grows to ~$1,735,000
• Lost to the Middleman: ~$675,000 (over 28% of your ending wealth)

Handing over nearly 30% of your lifetime wealth just to have someone click "buy" on broad market funds is an unforced error. Unless an advisor is running complex estate structures or saving you six figures in business taxes, manage the index core yourself and keep that compounding capital in your own pocket.

5.⁠ ⁠The Scorecard: Even the Pros Can't Beat It

Every year, S&P Dow Jones tracks professional mutual fund managers against the basic S&P 500 index.
Over a 15-year period, more than 90% of active fund managers fail to beat the basic index. If professionals with teams of analysts and supercomputers cannot consistently beat the broad market after fees, everyday investors should not be taking unnecessary risks on single-stock hunches.

The Bottom Line: Indexing is not settling for average; it is guaranteeing that you capture the exact growth of American business at near-zero cost. Allocate 70% to 80% to the core, automate your contributions, leave them alone, and let time compound your wealth.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

Micron Crushes and Yields Soar

The market faced a major test this week, and it delivered two completely opposing signals: massive earnings strength in tech, paired with an unmistakable warning sign in the bond market.

On Wednesday after the bell, Micron Technology (MU) reported earnings and decisively beat expectations across the board:

• Revenue: $54.23 billion vs. $51.10 billion expected
• Earnings Per Share (EPS): $33.42 vs. $31.61 expected
• Next Quarter Revenue Guidance: $61.50 billion (±$1.5B) vs. ~$56.55 billion expected
• Next Quarter EPS Guidance: $38.15 (±$1.00) vs. $35.14 expected

Beyond the raw numbers, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra delivered the quote of the week on the call:

"Industry demand has strengthened since our last earnings call, and we expect memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than they were in 2026."

For decades, memory chips were treated as a boom-and-bust commodity where companies print cash for two quarters and crash the next. That cycle is over. High-bandwidth memory is locked up years in advance, and Micron proves the global AI buildout is accelerating, not slowing down. The market’s hesitation here creates a major mispricing and that is your edge. With every fundamental tailwind aligned, I believe Micron can trade more than 50% higher over the next 12 months.

The Red Flag: Yields Refuse to Back Down

While tech rallied, the bond market flashed a warning you cannot ignore.

The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to close at 5.28%. What makes this move critical is that yields surged despite two major economic releases that normally push borrowing costs down:

• Wednesday’s PCE: The Fed's preferred inflation gauge came in lighter than expected. Inflation cooled, yet yields rose anyway.
• Friday’s Jobs Report: Monthly payrolls came in weaker than expected, alongside lower wage growth. A cooling labor market usually sends rates lower immediately. Instead, yields pushed higher into the weekend.

The stock market still rallied Friday, sending the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) to new all-time highs. But when borrowing costs climb in the face of slowing economic data, underlying market pressure is building. Enjoy the tech gains, but keep a very close eye on those yields.

What to expect for this week 

The Fed and the Rate Path

We are officially in the calm before third-quarter corporate earnings kick off in full force.

Aside from early reads on consumer spending from PepsiCo (PEP) on Thursday and travel demand from Delta Air Lines (DAL) on Friday, company news is quiet. Big bank earnings do not roll in until next week, and the massive tech giants will not report until late October.
With company announcements on pause, the only thing that truly matters for the tape this week is the Federal Reserve and where interest rates are heading next.

The Main Event: Wednesday’s Behind-the-Scenes Fed Notes

The centerpiece of the entire week arrives Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve releases the detailed meeting notes from its last interest rate decision.

Forget academic jargon. What professional investors are watching for boils down to two simple questions:

1. Where Is the Peak for Interest Rates? All that really matters is finding out where the Fed will finally stop raising interest rates. Policymakers are watching the multi-month pattern in jobs and inflation, not a single month's jump or drop. Wednesday's release will show whether Fed officials believe interest rates are finally high enough, or if they are still quietly debating one more rate hike before the year is out.

2. How Long Will Borrowing Costs Stay Up Here? Stock prices can handle higher interest rates; what they hate is uncertainty. If the notes show the Fed is comfortable pausing here to let current rates cool the economy on their own, tech stocks will have room to breathe. But if officials signal that borrowing costs need to stay pinned at high levels much longer than the market hopes, expect bond yields to stay stubbornly high and put real pressure on valuations.

The Playbook for the Week Ahead
Because corporate news is quiet, expect financial commentators to blow every headline and Fed comment out of proportion.
Smart investors do not chase mid-week noise. Use this quiet window to review your positions, watch how the market handles Wednesday's Fed release, and prepare your watchlist before the big Wall Street banks kick off earnings season next week.

Off the Tape 

The 4 Biases That Cost Investors Money (And How to Beat Them)

Most people assume losing money in the stock market comes from bad math, complicated software, or missing a secret news tip. In reality, most losses come from basic human psychology.

Our brains are hardwired to survive in the wild, not to allocate money into fluctuating markets. When real cash is on the line, four predictable mental traps take over. Understanding them is the single fastest way to protect your hard-earned capital.

1.⁠ ⁠Anchoring: Obsessing Over Past Prices

• The Trap: You fixate on a specific number that has zero relevance to what a business is worth today. The two most common anchors are the price you paid for a stock ("I just want to hold it until I break even") and the recent all-time high ("It was $100 last month, so at $70 it must be a bargain").

• The Reality: The market does not know or care what price you bought a stock at. A stock trading at $70 can easily drop to $40 if business conditions deteriorate.

• How to Beat It: Stop asking what a stock used to trade at. Ask: If I had cash in my hand right now, would I buy this company at today's price based on its current earnings and future growth? If the answer is no, holding it simply because you are anchored to an old price is costing you money.

2.⁠ ⁠Loss Aversion: Letting Small Scratches Become Big Wounds

• The Trap: Psychologists have proven that the emotional pain of losing $1,000 feels twice as intense as the joy of making $1,000. Because selling a falling stock forces you to admit you were wrong, investors freeze up, ignore the drop, and hope it miraculously rebounds.

• The Reality: That is how a routine, manageable 5% loss turns into an account-crushing 40% loss that takes years to recover from.

• How to Beat It: Decide your exit point before you buy, while your head is clear and unemotional. Professional risk management isn't about never being wrong; it's about making sure your mistakes stay small so you have cash ready when the next great opportunity appears.

3.⁠ ⁠Recency Bias: Assuming Yesterday’s Move Lasts Forever

• The Trap: Letting whatever happened over the past 48 hours completely dictate your outlook. If tech stocks drop for three days straight, people convince themselves an economic collapse is starting and dump their shares. If a stock shoots up 15% in a week, they rush in at the peak out of fear of missing out.

• The Reality: Market prices swing in cycles. The daily headlines are just noise; real wealth compounds over quarters and years.

• How to Beat It: Step back and look at the multi-month trend. If a company's underlying sales, cash flow, and market position are growing, a rough week in the stock price is just standard volatility, not a reason to abandon your plan.

4.⁠ ⁠Confirmation Bias: Only Listening to People Who Agree With You

• The Trap: The moment an investor buys a stock, they start ignoring every warning sign. They seek out cheerleaders on social media, click on bullish YouTube videos, and brush off slowing sales or executive departures as "fake news" or "manipulation."

• The Reality: Surrounding yourself with an echo chamber feels comforting, but it blinds you to the real risks threatening your savings.

• How to Beat It: Make it a rule to understand the bear argument. If you cannot explain the top two or three reasons why an investment could lose money, you don't have an investment plan—you have a hopeful wish. Talk to people with opposing views and let the facts, not your ego, guide your portfolio.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

The Setup We Flagged Played Out

If you read last week's edition, none of the past five days should have caught you off guard. We flagged that with an empty calendar, money could go looking for shelter in semiconductors, and that's the way the tape leaned.

Here's how the week finished:

• SPY (S&P 500): finished up +1.2%

• QQQ (Nasdaq 100): finished up +2.1%

• SOXX (Semiconductors): led the entire tape, finishing up +7.4%, with Nvidia and AMD drawing heavy buying and Micron (MU) surging +6.4%

What to expect for this week 

Micron Takes Center Stage

The quiet days are behind us. This week we go from digesting headline noise to navigating two real catalysts: the monthly jobs numbers and a blockbuster tech earnings report.

The Labor Market: Watch the Trend, Not the Single Print

Several employment reports hit the tape this week, culminating in Friday morning's Jobs Report. Historically, Wall Street panics over every fraction of a percent in these releases. Don't get pulled into the knee-jerk reaction to a single number. The Fed has been clear that it's no longer reacting to one isolated data point; it's tracking the broader multi-month trend. Because the Fed is looking at the bigger picture, an individual beat or miss on Friday carries much less power to shock the market than it used to.

Micron (MU): The Real Pivot Point of the Week

The centerpiece arrives Wednesday afternoon, when Micron Technology reports earnings after the close.

I am very bullish heading into this print. Micron manufactures the essential high-bandwidth memory chips that feed every modern AI cluster. Nvidia may build the compute engines, but Micron builds the memory pipelines that keep them running.

Here's what the tape will be watching on Wednesday:

AI demand into 2030: Is hyperscaler appetite just a near-term spending bubble, or is enterprise demand locked in through the end of the decade? Micron has said its high-bandwidth memory is effectively sold out through 2027, with demand extending into 2028, so Wednesday tests whether that story holds.

What they do with the cash: With free cash flow expanding rapidly, and management guiding to over $30B for the quarter, does the company lean into aggressive capacity expansion, or start returning more capital to shareholders through buybacks and dividends?

If Micron confirms that memory demand remains sold out deep into the decade, expect this report to spark a powerful move across the entire semiconductor complex.

Off the Tape 

What Is an ETF, and How to Pick the Right One

If you're just getting started, trying to analyze and pick individual winning stocks like Micron can quickly feel overwhelming. That is exactly why exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are one of the most effective tools for building real wealth.

The Fruit-Basket Analogy

Think of an ETF like a pre-packaged fruit basket at the market. Instead of guessing which single apple, banana, or orange is the sweetest, you buy one basket with a balanced mix of all of them. If one piece turns out bruised, it doesn't ruin the purchase; the rest of the basket keeps it sound. An ETF does the exact same thing with stocks: buy one share of something like VOO and you instantly own a small slice of 500 of the largest, most profitable businesses in America. If one company stumbles, the remaining 499 absorb the blow.

Four Steps to Choose the Right ETF

1. Match your risk appetite. Want steady compounding with less volatility? Stick to broad-market index funds like VOO (S&P 500) or VTI (total U.S. market). Comfortable with larger swings for higher growth potential? Look at targeted sector funds like QQQ (Nasdaq 100 / big tech) or SMH (semiconductors).

2. Know what index it tracks. Look under the hood: total U.S. market, international, dividend payers, speculative growth? Always know what you actually own.

3. Check the expense ratio. This annual fee is deducted straight from performance. For broad index funds, stay below 0.15% (VOO charges just 0.03%, about $3 a year per $10,000 invested). Steer clear of funds charging 0.75% or more unless they offer a genuinely specialized strategy.

4. Demand high liquidity. Stick to established funds that trade millions of shares a day, so you can buy or sell immediately at fair prices without losing money to wide bid-ask spreads.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

The Rate Hike Roadmap

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday for the first time in three years, delivering the exact outcome the market anticipated.
Heading into the meeting, investors wanted one thing above all else: clarity. The Fed provided it by signaling two additional rate increases before pausing to assess the broader impact on inflation and growth. The FED’s defined policy path removed a massive amount of uncertainty.

Headlines fixated on the Dow dropping 1.7% in its worst week since March. The DOW weakness concealed where capital actually flowed. Tech and semiconductor stocks posted solid gains:
- Nasdaq up 0.7%
- Semiconductor Index (SOXX) gaining 2.7%
- Micron (MU) adding 3.9%
- SanDisk (SNDK) jumping 11.2%

What to expect for this week 

The Information Vacuum

With virtually no tier-one economic data and an empty earnings calendar until Micron reports on September 30, the market enters a news vacuum.
Without fundamental earnings prints to anchor stock valuations, geopolitical headlines drive price action. Two major events command attention: President Trump's address to the United Nations on Tuesday, September 22, followed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House on Thursday, September 24.
When trading desks lack economic data, sensitivity to headlines spikes. Any friction from the UN podium or diplomatic posturing at the White House could trigger sharp, short-term pullbacks across major indices.

Off the Tape 

The Semiconductor Divergence

A clear split is forming across the market, and semiconductor stocks are positioned to pull ahead of the broader indices.
The divide comes down to oil prices and pricing power: who gets stuck paying higher energy bills, and who can pass them along.

Consider an airline. Jet fuel is one of its largest operating expenses. If oil jumps 30%, operating costs immediately surge. The airline cannot simply raise ticket prices by 30% to protect its profit margins, because travelers will cancel trips or book cheaper alternatives. The airline must absorb the fuel spike, which crushes its earnings.

Semiconductors operate under completely different economics:
Insulated Margins: Power and fuel represent a manageable fraction of total production value compared to basic industrials or transportation.
Indispensable Demand: Hyperscalers and tech giants are locked in an intense artificial intelligence race. Cutting-edge chips are essential, and buyers cannot afford to pause orders or fall behind competitors.
Full Pricing Power: If advanced chipmakers need to offset rising input or utility costs, their enterprise customers absorb the bill without hesitation to protect their compute roadmaps.

When geopolitical turmoil spikes oil and triggers a broad market sell-off, investors instinctively hide in energy stocks. High-quality semiconductors offer a parallel safe harbor. Because premier chipmakers hold dominant pricing power and strong balance sheets, they provide a reliable buffer against the margin compression hitting the rest of the market.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

The Data Is In

The latest inflation report showed prices are still rising faster than expected, and the slowdown in price hikes has stalled out. With everyday living costs staying uncomfortably high, Wall Street is now betting heavily that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this week, putting the chances around 85%.

Companies powering the artificial intelligence boom brushed off that interest-rate worry:

• Computer hardware makers like Dell jumped as businesses poured money into heavy-duty servers.

• Semiconductor stocks kept climbing because the advanced chips needed to run AI systems are still in short supply.

• Cloud infrastructure momentum accelerated this week as Oracle reported robust AI workload demand, while expanding its OCI data center networking footprint via an agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

The takeaway: Despite renewed rate fears, which typically pressure growth stocks, investors are still willing to pay up for companies directly benefiting from AI infrastructure spending.

What to expect for this week 

To Raise or Not to Raise

All attention turns to Wednesday afternoon, September 16, when Chairman Kevin Warsh and the Federal Reserve announce their next decision on interest rates and share their forecast for the economy.

The standoff comes down to two conflicting clocks:

• 1,146 days since the central bank last raised borrowing costs.

• 50 days until the midterm elections on November 3.

While Wall Street believes another rate increase is necessary to knock prices down, making loans more expensive right before voters cast their ballots guarantees a massive political firestorm.

Off the Tape 

Understanding Inflation

With talk of rate hikes back at center stage for the first time in over three years, it is a good time to look at how these moves actually affect your wallet.

The Federal Reserve has two main jobs: keeping unemployment low so people have jobs, and keeping prices stable so groceries, gas, and rent do not spin out of control. Its main lever is setting benchmark interest rates:

• Raising rates makes mortgages, car loans, and credit cards more expensive. That forces people and businesses to spend less, cooling off customer demand and stopping runaway price hikes.

• Cutting rates makes loans cheaper, encouraging everyone to borrow and spend, which speeds up economic growth.

But the Fed does not operate in a vacuum. While higher rates are designed to reduce spending, government policy can push demand in the opposite direction.

The big complication right now is government spending pulling in the opposite direction. Campaign proposals to send $5,000 cash checks to American adults would inject trillions of dollars directly into the economy. Flooding the country with that much extra cash would cause another wave of price spikes, eroding the buying power of the dollar and fighting directly against the Fed’s efforts to calm prices down.

The View

Markets are pricing roughly an 85% chance of a hike, but I’m not convinced. The inflation data gives the Fed an economic case to raise rates, while the political backdrop makes the timing unusually complicated.

With the midterms less than two months away and pressure on the Fed’s independence intensifying, I expect the Fed to hold rates steady on Wednesday.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

Memory Stocks Shine

Coming into the week, the expectation was that Broadcom’s earnings report could provide the lift the semiconductor space and memory stocks needed. Instead, Broadcom sold off 6.3% as Wall Street digested forward guidance that fell short of expectations. Yet even with that heavyweight drag, memory stocks detached from the broader semiconductor group and had a massive week: Micron gained 8%, SanDisk surged 17%, and the memory ETF, DRAM, climbed 8%. I think the memory stocks still have room to run and I remain bullish on all of these names into 2027.

On the economic front, Friday's jobs report delivered a major upside surprise: the economy added 162,000 jobs in August, way above the 55,000 expected. Despite the release of this data, the odds of a rate hike still sit at 50/50. 

What to expect for this week 

Breaking the 50/50 Tie

Heading into the week with rate hike odds locked at a dead-even 50/50, the market is looking for incoming economic reports to provide clarity. In a holiday-shortened trading week, expect the real fireworks to arrive late: Thursday’s PPI inflation data followed by Friday’s CPI print should break the 50/50 tie.

Although the market sees 50/50, I think the real number is 48. Let me explain: What are the real-world odds that President Donald Trump sits back and allows the Fed to hit the brakes on the economy with a rate hike for the first time in over three years, less than 48 days before voters head to the polls? The market may be pricing a 50/50 coin flip right now, but the political calendar and pressure from the White House makes an actual hike highly unlikely in my opinion.

Off the Tape 

Back to Basics

Thanks for the feedback everyone! We are listening and still receiving great feedback. It turns out we should go back to the basics, so here it is.

Basic Terms:

• Bull Market: The market is rising.

• Bear Market: The market is falling.

• S&P 500: The 500 biggest and most profitable companies.

• Nasdaq 100: The 100 biggest technology companies.

• Stock: A tiny fraction of ownership in a public company.

• Options: A contract that gives you the right - but not the requirement - to buy or sell a stock at a set price before a set date.

• Market Cap: Total dollar value of a company. 

Now let’s try a simple calculation of a Companies Market Cap:
Stock Price x Total Shares Outstanding = Market Cap

Example:
Stock Price: $100.00
Total Shares Outstanding: 1 billion.
Calculation: $100.00 x 1,000,000,000 = $100B Market Cap

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Founder, Trader

Recap of the week 

Nvidia Blew Out Earnings - Then the Fed Ruined the Mood

Nvidia posted another blowout quarter, delivering a record $96.2B in revenue - a 106% year-over-year increase fueled by an 89% surge in AI Data Center demand. Management projected 70% revenue growth for next fiscal year, outpacing Wall Street's 44% consensus. Notably, forward guidance was capped solely by high-bandwidth memory supply bottlenecks rather than end-market demand, confirming that compute demand across their entire architecture remains fundamentally strong.

Emphasizing that disinflation progress remains inadequate, Warsh triggered a sharp repricing across interest-rate hike futures. Before he spoke, the implied odds of a rate hike at the next FOMC meeting were 35%. As of Monday afternoon they sit at 66%. A higher-for-longer cost of capital poses a direct headwind for debt-financed AI infrastructure plays, where elevated borrowing costs threaten to squeeze free cash flow and compress valuation multiples.

Marvell rounded out the week with a 45% revenue expansion that nevertheless triggered an 8% post-earnings selloff. Despite strong top-line execution, the market penalized the stock over monetization lag, specifically questioning the runway required to translate their custom silicon and optical interconnect partnership with Google into near-term realized cash flows.

What to expect for this week 

Market Wants Clarity from the Fed and September Seasonality

The market is looking for concrete data to gain clarity on the Federal Reserve's trajectory heading into the next FOMC meeting, especially with benchmark yields pinned near multi-decade highs. The 10-year Treasury yield sits at 4.73% while the 30-year bond trades at 5.22% - levels matching 20-year peaks last sustained prior to the 2007–2008 cycle.

In this restrictive rate regime, the upcoming macro calendar provides critical inputs, highlighted by ISM data and Friday's non-farm payrolls report. Both prints will deliver essential readings on labor market durability, wage pressure, and broader economic momentum, dictating whether the Fed follows through on renewed rate-hike pressures. On the corporate front, Broadcom reports earnings, providing the next major checkpoint for custom ASIC demand, enterprise AI capex, and overall semiconductor momentum.

Compounding macro uncertainty is the calendar itself. Historical data confirms September is the weakest month of the year for equities. Since 1928, the S&P 500 has averaged a -1.17% decline in September, finishing negative roughly 56% of the time - making it the only calendar month with a persistent negative long-term track record. Performance deteriorates further during midterm election cycles, where the index has averaged a decline of approximately -2.0% in September across the last 10 midterms as markets price in uncertainty surrounding congressional control. Between multi-decade yield highs, the potential for Federal Reserve rate hikes, and historical seasonal weakness, the markets are susceptible to an acute downside movement with higher volatility in the month of September.

None of this alters the fundamental thesis for 2027 or the long-term outperformance of structural AI leaders. However, trading the tape requires acknowledging immediate price action: the convergence of elevated long-term borrowing costs, hawkish monetary policy, election-driven risk premiums, and adverse historical seasonality warrants tactical caution in the near term.

Off the Tape 

Beware of Leveraged ETFs

After 26 years as a trader and an ETF specialist, the single most critical lesson I can pass along is to beware of leveraged ETFs. These vehicles were engineered as sophisticated instruments designed to deliver 3x the daily return - or 3x the inverse daily return - of an underlying benchmark. To achieve this daily exposure, fund managers rely on complex over-the-counter swaps and derivatives that suffer from severe volatility drag and compounding decay over time, structurally eroding the ETF's net asset value.

The mathematical drag from the leverage creates a massive headwind, making it nearly impossible to recover invested capital unless your market timing is perfect. The daily leveraged reset mechanics introduce a punishing decay on the NAV that does not exist in standard cash equity or unleveraged ETFs. In a choppy or range-bound tape, that structural decay will bleed your capital regardless of your long-term thesis.

To see this decay in practice, look at what happens when the underlying index drops 1%, 2%, and 3% on consecutive days, and then recovers with gains of 1%, 2%, and 3%. Both ETFs start at $100:

• 1x Standard ETF ($100 Start):

  • Day 1 (-1%): $99.00

  • Day 2 (-2%): $97.02

  • Day 3 (-3%): $94.11

  • Day 4 (+1%): $95.05

  • Day 5 (+2%): $96.95

  • Day 6 (+3%): $99.86 (Net Loss: -0.14%)
    

• 3x Leveraged ETF ($100 Start; daily moves of -3%, -6%, -9%, +3%, +6%, +9%):

  • Day 1 (-3%): $97.00

  • Day 2 (-6%): $91.18

  • Day 3 (-9%): $82.97

  • Day 4 (+3%): $85.46

  • Day 5 (+6%): $90.59

  • Day 6 (+9%): $98.74 (Net Loss: -1.26%)

  
  Even though the underlying index returned almost entirely to breakeven, the 3x product suffered nearly nine times the capital destruction simply due to the mathematics of daily compounding and volatility drag.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

Recap of the week 

Market Sees Losses in light trading

The markets ground through a classic late-August lull with a light economic calendar and earnings season winding down, major indexes finished the week lower across the board:

• S&P 500: Down -1.4% (closing at 7,674)

• Nasdaq Composite: Down -2.1% (closing at 26,180)

• Russell 2000: Down -1.6% (closing at 3,017)

Despite the broader market pullback and quiet trading some stocks stood out:

Marvell Wins Major Google Custom Silicon Agreement

The standout mover of the week was Marvell Technology, which surged following the disclosure of an expanded multi-year commercial agreement with Google tied to Marvell’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) ecosystem. Under the agreement, Marvell is set to develop custom silicon covering. The scale of the deal is massive: $120B in potential revenue through early 2033.

• Marvell: Gained +6.8% for the week as Wall Street priced in the positive impact of the deal with Google.

• Broadcom: Dropped -4.2% for the week as the market digested Google diversifying away from Broadcom toward Marvell.

Walmart's rare Miss: A Crack in the Consumer?

On the retail front, Walmart fell sharply following its earnings report, finishing down -7.9% for the week after their first miss in over five years. While headline adjusted EPS beat, the company missed on U.S. comparable sales and delivered weaker-than-expected forward earnings guidance.

Consumer spending drives roughly 70% of U.S. GDP. When the world's largest discount retailer misses, it is a direct signal that consumer spending continues to soften under the cumulative weight of inflation and higher borrowing costs.

If this trend persists, broad-market earnings growth will face genuine macro resistance.

What to expect for this week 

Market-Moving Catalysts & Volatility Ahead

The coming week brings an onslaught of economic data points and bellwether earnings reports that could create significant volatility across the tape.

The macro calendar is packed with market moving data that should provide critical guidance on where the Federal Reserve goes next:

• PCE Price Index (Wednesday, 8:30 AM ET): The Fed's preferred inflation metric.

• Jackson Hole Economic Symposium (Aug 27–29): The annual symposium is always a major macro event for global markets highlighted by the Federal Reserve Chair's keynote speech on Friday, which historically sets the tone for monetary policy.

• Current Rate Probabilities are pricing a 39% probability of a 25 bps rate hike.

What to watch - AI/Semiconductor stocks report earnings:

• NVIDIA (NVDA) – Wednesday (AH): The undisputed king of the AI market raised its prices over 15% effective 2027 due to soaring cost of memory. Expect Nvidia's results to provide a powerful catalyst not only for NVDA itself but also across the entire memory complex. Micron (MU) is a primary name to watch for a sympathy move following the print, as high-bandwidth memory (HBM) remains essential to the AI scaling architecture.

• Marvell (MRVL) & DELL (DELL) – Thursday (AH): Marvell will be closely watched for follow-through commentary on its newly expanded Google agreement, while Dell will provide an update on AI server market.

Off the Tape 

Why There Is No Such Thing as a Bad Trade

One of the foundational principles I live by as a trader is simple: there is no such thing as a bad trade.

Anyone who wants to do this for a long time - or trade full-time as a career - must accept that losing trades are an inevitable part of the picture. Positions will go against you. Things will not always work out according to plan.

One of the main differences between traders who fail and those who succeed comes down to how they process losses.

A trade is only truly "bad" if you walk away from it without extracting the lesson and making a tangible change. As long as you can conduct an honest post-mortem, identify what went wrong, and implement a tangible correction, then the trade was a net positive on your future performance.

That post-trade adjustment could be:

• Execution & Sizing: Adjusting your position sizing, scaling rules, or risk-per-trade limits.

• Pricing & Protocols: Refining entry and exit triggers, or making structural changes to your strategy.

• Psychology & Discipline: Recognizing emotional tilt, overtrading, or hesitating on an exit. In reality, probably 90% of your ultimate outcome as a trader will be determined right here by your psychology and discipline.

Embrace the losing trades, refine your process, and let the outcome make you a sharper trader and a better reader of the tape.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

Recap of the week 

The Continuation of the Rally & Neocloud Stocks Surge

Following the prior week's 5% surge, the market consolidated near highs while digesting incoming CPI and PPI inflation prints:

• S&P 500: +0.4% for the week.

• Nasdaq Composite: +0.1% for the week.

• Russell 2000: +1.0% for the week, pointing to broader participation.

While the major indexes caught their breath, the real momentum was concentrated in the neocloud computing space.
Leading names delivered massive beats:

• CoreWeave: Reported record quarterly revenue of $2.58B (more than doubling YoY) with order backlogs crossing $104B.

• Nebius: Climbed 23% following $582M in quarterly revenue. The stock rallied a stunning 48% last week.

Demand for specialized AI training and inference clusters continues to outpace legacy cloud providers. Institutional capital is treating neocloud infrastructure as secular growth that remains insulated from broader macro noise.

What to expect for this week 

Summer Doldrums: A Light Week Opens the Door for Semis

We are heading into a classic late-August summer doldrums setup. The economic calendar this week is exceptionally light, with only minor data points on deck:

• Tuesday, August 18: Import Price Index and Housing Starts.

• Wednesday, August 19: Federal Open Market Committee Meeting Minutes.

None of these reports are expected to be major market movers.

On the corporate front, earnings season is officially winding down. While we await marquee reports from Nvidia and Marvell in the coming weeks, this week's few reports of note are largely retail and select analog: Home Depot, Target, and Analog Devices.

Because it is a quiet week macro-wise, expect broad indexes to chop sideways. That backdrop is ideal for memory and semiconductor names. With a lack of noisy headline risk, fundamental buyers can continue accumulating.

Expect a strong week for SanDisk, Micron, Marvell, DRAM, the Semiconductor ETFs, and select infrastructure peers.

Off the Tape 

How to Value a Stock - Beyond the Surface Metrics

Valuing a high-growth tech company requires looking past top-line hype and understanding the mechanics beneath the numbers. Here are principles that separate real secular winners from debt traps:

Trailing P/E vs. Forward P/E

Trailing (Backwards-Looking) P/E: Measures the current share price against past earnings over the last 12 months. It tells you where the company was, not where it is going.

Forward P/E: Measures the current share price against consensus estimated earnings for the next fiscal year.

The Micron Example:
Look at how distorted valuation appears if you only look backwards:

• Trailing (Backwards-Looking) P/*E:

Retail investors see a triple-digit multiple and assume the stock is expensive.*

• Forward (Future-Looking) P/E:

The multiple compresses into deep value territory once structural earnings power is factored in.
In a structural supercycle, trailing P/E is obsolete. Markets price future earnings power.

Debt-Fueled Growth vs. True Operating Leverage

Top-line revenue growth is meaningless if it is entirely financed on borrowed money. When a company relies heavily on high-yield debt or leveraged borrowing facilities to purchase hardware and build data centers, that growth carries massive structural risk.
If utilization drops, pricing softens, or rates stay elevated, that debt service suffocates cash flow. This is precisely why investors like Michael Burry short heavily leveraged balance sheets during cycle turns: debt magnifies downside risk when execution slips. Always be mindful to separate companies that have high debt and risk from companies that are operating with superior balance sheets, and growth stories with great tailwinds.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Everything above comes directly from tracking institutional flow and your direct feedback.

Keep the replies coming. Hit reply to this email and tell me what market questions or positions you want covered in next week's edition.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

Recap of the week 

Wall Street Cheers & SNDK Reports Record Earnings

Wall Street Cheers

Buyers stepped in following the collapse of Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness fund, where brokers forced liquidations and dumped high-beta tech and semiconductor names. This week saw relative calm return to the market, leading to healthy weekly gains:

• Nasdaq: Up 5% for the week

• S&P 500: Up 3.5% for the week

Calling the Bottom

In a previous edition of Off The Tape, we mapped out this exact setup. While the Street was in a panic, we noted that QQQ would likely bottom near a 10% pullback around $673, targeting a firm bottom between $650 and $660 before bouncing.

We called the bottom nearly perfectly!

Our newsletter went out on July 27th, QQQ bottomed two days later, and it has subsequently rallied 10%.

SNDK Reports Record Earnings

We saw a classic example of Wall Street short-sightedness following the release. Despite posting exceptional numbers, the stock experienced a sell-off:

• Earnings per share: $43.97

• Revenue: $8.97B (up 372% YoY)

• Gross margin: A staggering 84.6%

Why Did It Sell Off?

Wall Street reacted to near-term guidance that missed Street expectations. The reality: The shortfall isn't a demand issue. It is purely a supply constraint.

SanDisk literally cannot manufacture chips fast enough to meet hyperscaler demand. Data center demand is surging, and memory is completely sold out through 2027, leading analysts to expect that this will most likely stretch into 2028 and 2029.

Through multi-year fixed customer contracts, memory is shedding its historical "boom-and-bust cyclicality" and transforming into a secular utility.

Misinterpreting this fundamental shift leads to a misreading of the tape.

What to expect for this week 

Macro Catalyst: Flying Blind into CPI & PPI

With Chair Kevin Warsh deliberately giving markets less forward guidance, Wall Street is flying without a safety net. Without guidance from the central bank, economic data releases could trigger far larger market swings.

Mark Your Calendars for This Week's Dual Catalysts:

• Consumer Price Index (CPI): Wednesday @ 8:30 AM ET

• Producer Price Index (PPI): Thursday @ 8:30 AM ET

Because the labor market is already softening, if CPI and PPI prints come in cool this week, yields could back off meaningfully, leading to a sustained market rally.

A few big earnings names of note for the week are SMCI, CRWV, NBIS, and AMAT.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

Off the Tape 

From Rate Hikes to a Probable Hold

Friday’s July Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) Report showed a cooling in the labor market and shifted the odds of a rate hike.

• Market Expectation: +80,000 jobs created.

• Actual Print: -23,000 jobs LOST!

• Wage Growth: Eased to 3.2% YoY. Lower than expected.

This report, combined with negative revisions subtracting another 103,000 jobs from prior months, almost certainly changes the Fed's calculus and policy direction. Markets agreed, shifting rate hike odds from 67% entering the week to 42% as of Friday’s close.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Quick note: everything above came from your replies. Last week I asked what frustrates you most about the markets, and you answered - in detail. The "when to sell" series exists because you asked for it.

So keep it coming. If there's a market question that's been nagging you, just hit reply and tell me. I read every one, and they set the agenda.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

Special Market Update

The Deleveraging of an AI Darling

This week we saw something that was a real eye-opener in the market.
Leopold Aschenbrenner, an AI darling hedge fund manager whose fund Situational Awareness came into the month as one of the hottest investors on Wall Street, was brutally humbled in the month when all of his positions were closed out. Because he was completely over-leveraged, he was forced to sell his open positions to Ken Griffin's Citadel at 40 to 50 cents on the dollar just to keep his hedge fund open.

Why this matters for your portfolio:
His over-leverage could be the exact reason why many of these high-flying tech and semiconductor stocks have sold off recently. This was not a collapse in AI fundamentals-it was a pure, mechanical liquidation driven by reckless leverage.

For long-term, disciplined investors, this gives us a great buying opportunity. We can use his poor decision-making and over-leverage as an opportunity to get into long-term investments that we would not otherwise be able to get into at these great prices.

This week's signal

⁠The Fed Held - But Don't Mistake That for Calm

Last week I told you we'd break down the Federal Reserve. Here it is.

On Wednesday, the FOMC held rates at 3.50–3.75% for the fifth straight meeting - but this was no quiet hold. Three regional presidents dissented, all wanting a rate hike - the sharpest split on the committee in nearly a decade. Chair Kevin Warsh shrugged off the friction: "I asked for a good family fight, and I got one."

Three critical takeaways for your portfolio:

Less Hand-Holding: Warsh is deliberately giving markets less hand-holding - fewer forward-guidance breadcrumbs about the next move.

Fewer Fed Meetings on the Horizon: Warsh introduced a proposal to slash the number of annual FOMC meetings from the long-standing eight sessions down to fewer meetings per year.

Zero Tolerance on Inflation: His message on inflation was blunt: no soft target, and the Fed won't hesitate if prices climb.

This could be bad news because markets crave clarity, and Warsh is deliberately reducing transparency. Wall Street always wants more information, more frequent visibility, and clear guidance. Fewer meetings and stripped-down statements mean less transparency, longer periods in the dark, and higher market volatility whenever the Fed does speak.
The takeaway isn't "rates stayed the same." It's that the Fed just told you, plainly, that it isn't in the business of rescuing your portfolio.

The takeaway isn't "rates stayed the same." It's that the Fed just told you, plainly, that it isn't in the business of rescuing your portfolio.

Behind the scenes

Five Blockbuster Earnings, Five Different Reactions

This was the biggest earnings week of the year, and it was a masterclass in how markets actually work. Every one of the megacaps grew revenue double digits. Every single one. And yet:

Microsoft jumped ~15%. 

Azure crossed $100B for the year, and management said demand is running ahead of supply. Microsoft turned in an impressive $20B free cashflow in the quarter. (Amazing considering their AI spending.)

Amazon rose ~15%. 

AWS reaccelerated, the fastest pace on record. Like Google they have $500B backlog. AMZN increased their capital expenditures by 20B.

Apple ($AAPL) sold off 7.5% 

Despite a record June quarter, the rising cost and tight availability of memory will directly impact future earnings; Apple is facing higher component costs for DRAM while simultaneously being constrained on production volumes for phones and laptops.

Meta fell ~10%. 

As spiraling AI spending and out of control cost-control, including a $2B legal charge related to “youth related cases,” swallowed its free cash flow.

The Lesson: Same growth, opposite outcomes. Guidance matters; Apple’s was weak and they suffered because of it. Cost control matters, especially in the era of such large AI capital expenditures - Meta's cost control is atrocious.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

What’s next?

The Skill You Asked For: Knowing When to Sell

When I asked what frustrates you most, one answer came back louder than any other-from more of you than anything else: knowing when to sell.
⁠"I pick the right stocks but give back the gains."
⁠"I'm too aggressive and don't know when to pause."
⁠"I get greedy and hold too long."

I heard you. So let's build the missing half of the game. Buying is the easy half. Selling is where returns are actually won or lost and this week proved it, as anyone who held Meta or Apple through the print watched good news get sold.

Here is the general framework I think in, not a call on any specific stock, just a system for taking profits without leaving money on the table:

Decide Your Exit Before You Enter: A target and a stop, written down, before any emotion is in the trade.

Scale Out, Don't Slam Out: If a position runs to your first target, trim a portion - say a third - and let the rest run. You lock in gains without having to call the exact top.

Raise Your Floor as It Climbs: Move your stop up as the position works, so a winner can't round-trip all the way back to breakeven.

Separate the Thesis from the Price: Sell because the reason you bought is gone or fully priced in, not because a green candle made you greedy or a red one made you panic.

The goal was never to nail the top. Nobody does that consistently. The goal is to never give back the bulk of a win. We'll go deeper next week.

Before we go further

You're Already Shaping This

Quick note: everything above came from your replies. Last week I asked what frustrates you most about the markets, and you answered - in detail. The "when to sell" series exists because you asked for it.

So keep it coming. If there's a market question that's been nagging you, just hit reply and tell me. I read every one, and they set the agenda.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

This week's signal

Google’s AI Platform Explodes (and the Numbers Prove It!)

This week, we got a clear look at big tech’s artificial intelligence buildout, along with a reality check on how the market reacts to news versus expectations. Let’s break down what happened, and what to watch out for in the week ahead.

Google earnings came out this week, and as I expected, the sheer scale of growth in their AI platform is astounding: they added 200M daily active users (DAUs) in just the last two months alone, surging from 750M to 950M DAUs. Demand for compute power is so intense that Google is turning to third-party providers because their own internal capacity can’t keep up. That demand translated into a massive 82% surge in cloud revenue and an astonishing $514B cloud backlog. Alphabet increased its planned infrastructure spending by another $15B - and management said every additional dollar is going directly into AI infrastructure.

My real takeaway isn't Google's earnings. It's that every major cloud provider is now racing to build AI infrastructure. That means AI spending is becoming less of a one-time investment cycle and more of a long-term trend. That's what I believe investors should be paying attention to in the long-term.

Behind the scenes

Making Sense of the QQQ Pullback

Despite Google's outstanding earnings, technology stocks sold off. But here’s the truth: this market pullback is not only completely normal - it’s necessary and healthy. Looking at the QQQ (which is the main index I track), shares traded as high as just over $748 before consolidating. A standard 10% pullback brings us right into the $673 range. I expect the QQQ to find a bottom somewhere between $650 and $660.

QQQ rallied nearly 40% in just two months before peaking on June 3. After a move like that, a 10% correction is completely normal.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

What’s next?

⁠The Week Ahead: Big Tech, Blue-Chip Earnings & The Big Market Lesson

As we head into this coming week, the big tech earnings parade continues with Microsoft and Meta on Wednesday, Amazon and Apple on Thursday - the other mega-spenders alongside Google. Their updates will give us critical confirmation on whether AI infrastructure spending is keeping its foot on the gas (and there is no reason to think otherwise given Google's guidance).

Beyond tech, we also get major economic telltales across different sectors with earnings from Coca-Cola, UPS, and ExxonMobil.

However, this past week delivered a classic market lesson: You can know the news before it happens - but you can't predict how the market will react. I anticipated that Google would ramp up its CapEx spending, but the stock - along with key memory and semiconductor names - traded down. When the market's short-term reaction doesn't match the underlying fundamentals I stay focused on the long-term thesis.

⁠Macro Watch: The Fed Takes Center Stage

The FOMC reports on Wednesday and investors will be hanging on every word from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who has been laser-focused on bringing down inflation. I will be watching how the market reacts if there is a meaningful shift in Federal Reserve policy. We'll break it all down in next week's edition.

Before we go further

I want to hear from you

This letter only works if it solves a problem you actually have. If there's a market question that's been nagging you - or something you want covered - just hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and they shape what comes next.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

This week's signal

Ugly days could be ahead for the market. This is how I stay focused.

The semiconductor sector just endured one of the most aggressive, mechanically driven liquidations we have ever witnessed in modern market history. If you only watch standard financial news headlines, it probably looked like a structural collapse.

According to a recent Morgan Stanley research note, the 17-day sell-off we just witnessed in high-momentum tech names is officially the fastest and worst unwind in the 27-year history of their tech momentum index. The pain was intensely concentrated in semiconductors, with major ETFs shedding massive chunks of their valuations in a matter of days.

A lot of retail traders look at a 27-year record sell-off and panic. They assume the fundamental thesis is dead. I see a historic long-term buying opportunity. The fundamental backdrop for artificial intelligence, hyperscaler capital expenditure, and next-generation global infrastructure has not changed at all. The underlying earnings power of these core semiconductor companies remains absolutely rock solid. Be mindful that an escalation in the war with Iran could bring additional market volatility. I stay focused on my long-term investment thesis.

Behind the scenes

The Earnings Paradox: Netflix and TSMC

Look no further than this past week's high-profile earnings releases to see the massive disconnect between corporate performance and market reaction.

• Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC): TSMC dropped an absolutely blowout report. They reported massive jumps in profit, guided for incredible revenue growth, and aggressively raised their capital-expenditure guidance. That is the clearest balance-sheet proof on earth that global AI chip demand is not just stable - it’s exploding. Yet, because of broader momentum selling, the stock actually fell post-earnings.

• Netflix ($NFLX): Netflix crossed the wire reporting a strong revenue increase and double-digit growth. Their actual business performance is completely healthy. However, because their forward revenue guidance fell just shy of the lofty Wall Street whisper numbers, the stock was aggressively punished, falling in after-hours trading.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

This is the classic earnings season paradox. Companies are delivering solid results, but short-term, over-leveraged market structures are forcing sell-offs anyway. For long-term investors who understand true valuation, this creates massive pricing dislocations to exploit.
When I look at this market, I buy Micron because I am positioning to hold the stock for the longest amount of time. I do this based entirely on the underlying value. To be absolutely clear: I do not give financial advice, and nothing in this communication should be taken as such. My goal is strictly to show you how I approach the numbers and how institutional systems function.

What’s next?

The Week Ahead: Expect the Volatility to Continue

As we head into the weekend, make no mistake: I fully expect this volatility to continue. The sheer velocity of this 17-day momentum flush means the market needs time to find its footing, and the next few days are going to bring massive, highly volatile moves across the board.
The quiet summer daze is officially over. Next week, the macroeconomic and corporate earnings engines shift into overdrive, giving us a massive look across the S&P 500.

Key Corporate Earnings Releases

We will get crucial data points across mega-cap tech, defense, and industrial leaders to see how inflation and capital expenditures are hitting the real economy. Keep your eyes on the tape for:

• ⁠Mega-Cap Tech: Alphabet (Google) and Tesla will be major market drivers.

• Core Industrial & Defensive Bellwethers: Lockheed Martin, General Electric, and Visa.

Critical Economic Data Releasing at 8:30 AM EST

• Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims & Advance Q2 GDP (The ultimate reading on economic growth vs. slowdown). ⁠

• Friday: Core PCE Price Index (The Federal Reserve’s absolute favorite inflation metric).

If the economic data comes in cool and corporate hyperscalers reiterate their massive commitment to AI infrastructure spend, the floor for this semiconductor rout could form very rapidly.

Before we go further

I want to hear from you

This letter only works if it solves a problem you actually have. If there's a market question that's been nagging you - or something you want covered - just hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and they shape what comes next.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

This week's signal

Microns $250 Billion Blueprint, Hynix debuts and what to expect this week…

In the last issue I showed you how thin summer desks exaggerate every move - how a routine rotation out of chips can look like a collapse to the untrained eye. This week, two events cut straight through that noise, and they point the same way.

First, SK Hynix - the world's leading maker of the high-bandwidth memory that powers AI - pulled off the largest US listing ever by a foreign company, raising $26.5 billion. Demand ran roughly seven times the shares on offer. That isn't retail chasing a chart. That's the deepest pockets on Wall Street paying up for memory capacity.

Second, Micron committed to spending $250 billion through 2035 building memory plants in the US. Micron sees a decade of demand the summer selloff is ignoring.

So while amateurs read the pullback as the end of the chip run, institutions continue writing big checks. That gap - panic on one side from the shortsighted, positioning on the other from experts.

Behind the scenes

Longterm thinking.

When I look at this market, I buy Semiconductor stocks because I am positioning to hold the stock for the longest amount of time. I do this based entirely on the underlying value, ignoring short-term price fluctuations and geopolitical headlines like the ongoing issues with Iran. Sophisticated operators know those geopolitical events are far too volatile to game or plan around. You tune out the noise and lock your eyes entirely on company fundamentals.

It is as easy to get swept up in market repositioning as in political turmoil. As much as I want you to ignore the former, I need you to ignore the latter as well. Stay focused on the long-term investing thesis.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

Look past the summer desks, and the structural fundamentals for memory chip capacity are ironclad:

• The 2030 Horizon: Global memory demand and pricing are locked into a massive secular upcycle. In fact, supply shortages across high-bandwidth memory infrastructure are fundamentally projected to remain robust until 2030.

• The Historic Wall Street Debut: Look at what happened with South Korea's memory giant, SK Hynix, listing on the Nasdaq via an American Depositary Receipt (ADR). It pulled off a blockbuster debut and surged 13.08% on its very first day of trading, closing strong at $168.01. The deep institutional appetite for memory infrastructure is undeniable.

• Micron's $250 Billion Bet: Micron didn't announce a guess; they committed to a historic capital deployment plan to spend $250 billion through 2035 building out massive, cutting-edge memory manufacturing plants right here in the United States.
  A quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar U.S. infrastructure bet tells you exactly where the puck is going over the next decade.

  
  To be clear, my positions are what I execute for my own portfolio. I don't want to give people financial advice, and nothing in this communication should be taken as such. My goal is strictly to show you how I approach the numbers and how institutional systems function.

What’s next?

The Earnings Catalyst & Our Strategy

The quiet summer daze ends right now. The market is facing a packed calendar of major volatility injections.
First, we have critical macro data dropping at 8:30 AM EST across the week: Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Tuesday, Producer Price Index (PPI) on Wednesday, and Consumer Confidence on Friday. Keep your eyes completely locked on the pre-market action during CPI and PPI, as these will heavily influence future interest rate direction.
Simultaneously, the Q2 earnings season officially kicks off. On Tuesday morning, the major banking institutions—Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Bank of America—all report before the opening bell. Tech earnings follow on Thursday, with Netflix and Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) crossing the wire. TSMC will give us our first real, raw look into the actual state of AI stock fundamentals this earnings season.

Given how far semiconductors ran up, and how significantly they have pulled back over the last few weeks, you could expect massive, highly volatile moves across the board as these corporate numbers drop. We could see massive moves after these earnings are released.
We are not going to guess which way the coin flips. Over the next few weeks, I am going to explain exactly how I navigate this volatility. I will demonstrate how I spot value entry points in high-conviction stocks without chasing the peak, and how I manage my risk to see a position through to its long-term destination.

Before we go further

I want to hear from you

This letter only works if it solves a problem you actually have. If there's a market question that's been nagging you - or something you want covered - just hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and they shape what comes next.

Reply to this email and tell me

That's the signal for this week.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader

This week's signal

The dinner party test

Think about the last time the conversation shifted to the market, MU, Fed policy, AI stocks - a massive institutional block trade, a Fed pivot, a market move nobody could explain. Did you have the knowledge to lead that conversation, or did you nod along, wishing you understood the hidden mechanics moving the numbers?

My 26+ year WS career has been defined by being a disciplined risk manager. Beginning at Goldman Sachs, I now run an arbitrage fund since 2008. The best success you can have with your money is through the knowledge of markets. I can give you the insiders institutional insight you're looking for with an extremely approachable delivery. This is the knowledge to command the room when the topic of conversation turns to financial markets.

Behind the scenes

The Fed Pivot, Thin Desks, and The Counterintuitive Rotation

The new Fed Chair entered the hot seat focused on one thing: tackling inflation. But the economic data that crossed the wire Thursday came in light, showing a weaker labor market. Ultimately, we'll likely get a cross-current of data that makes it difficult for the Fed - and economists - to determine whether inflation or a slowing economy is the real concern.

If data stays light, that means the economy is cooling naturally, easing pressure on rate hikes - and historically, that's been a setup for rallies.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

• ⁠The value case — Micron ($MU) trades around $1,000 but is projected to earn $150/share next year. That's under 7 times earnings - a multiple more in line with mature, low-growth businesses than a company at the center of the AI buildout.

• ⁠The Buffett rule — "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." Smart money buys the blood; amateurs buy the peak.

• The summer effect — Thin desks and lower liquidity mean daily moves get exaggerated while traders summer in the Hamptons.

Frameworks & Systems

The Discipline of Buying Strength

Here's a problem every investor runs into: a stock rips higher, and you either FOMO in at the top, or you miss the move entirely because you weren't in early enough.

What I like to do instead is mark the highest price the stock has traded at, then wait for a pullback — and scale in with discipline rather than betting everything at once.

Say a stock ran from $100 to $1,000, and the underlying story is still strong. You're not in it yet, so chasing it here is risky. Instead:

• Wait for a 10% pullback from the all-time high, and deploy 25% of your capital.

• If it pulls back 15% from the high, deploy another 25%.

• If it pulls back 20% from the high, deploy the remaining 50%.

  That gets you a blended entry roughly 16.5% below the all-time high - without chasing the top, and without needing to perfectly time the bottom.

Before we go further

I want to hear from you

This newsletter only works if it solves a problem you actually have. Hit reply and tell me: what's your biggest frustration with the markets right now, or what do you most want out of this newsletter?

I read every reply - it'll directly shape what we cover next.

Reply to this email and tell me

That’s it for this week.

That's the signal for this week. Stay sharp out there.

Respectfully,
Ian Scott
Trainer, Ian Scott Trader