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VIX

The market continues its pullback from the top end of the RANGE from last week, but VIX remains in a bearish TRADE TREND. Instead of feeling your feelings this morning, ask yourself: what did you do on these red-arrow days? Depending on your answer, you might have different feelings. Because if you positioned for Quad 2 on September 17th and October 1st, you should be doing just fine despite the current market price action.

MOVE

It’s funny how many people were panicking about higher rates—then, as soon as rates stopped going up, the market started its pullback. These aren’t serious market participants; they are headline junkies. From here, bond volatility has some more room to the downside, but the overall picture is that rates will continue higher, and that’s good for Quad 2.

HYG

Credit has stabilized, but it is now near the top end of the RANGE. With these three signals, it’s not screaming buy the dip quite yet. Let’s see what the individual signals are signaling today.

QQQ

Nasdaq is still in no man’s land. The time to buy was September 16th; the time to sell some was last Tuesday. Now it has some more room to the low end of the RANGE before loading up on the dip again. This is why you follow the fractal math every day, not when it feels comfortable. Most macro tourists chased the ATH and are now getting punished. It’s almost time for them to panic at the low end of the RANGE in a bullish TRADE TREND.

IWM

On the flip side, people wanting to squeeze more out of the market were buying low-cap stocks that weren’t signaling buy. The math told you to sell at the top end of the RANGE and cover last Thursday.

Sector Signals

IGV

Software was the long of the summer and it’s holding strong as the market takes a dip. Selling some at the top end of the RANGE was the move. Make sure you move incrementally as you want exposure to the strongest signals in the market.

SMH

Today is not a day to panic in AI. TREND flipped on September 21st and told you to take some profits last Tuesday. Now it’s back at the low end of the RANGE. If you bought some back already, this is where you wait and watch. If you aren’t at a full position, this is the same price that was offered on the flip back then. Bullish TRADE TREND at the low end of the RANGE is all you need to be thinking about—not what if it breaks or goes lower. Executing the process means you should always be diversified and have max positions so that in the case it does break TREND you’ll be just fine, but that’s not the expectation today as the math is strong.

QTUM

QTUM is testing that TRADE break scenario. I’m waiting for the close before reducing, and even with a TRADE break it’ll be sitting at TREND, so I might just hold on to a full position until a TREND break. All that being said, when I take a position I know my exit is a TREND break, so I size according to that number. QTUM needs to go another 5% lower until I exit, and I already had a big gain when I sold some at the top end of the RANGE. So if you are panicking about this price action, ask yourself: did I size correctly? Did I execute on time the last fractal instructions? If yes, you probably don’t have very many feels today—it’s just part of the process.

SPCX

Same with Space X—it’s still up 12% from the last fractal instruction and told you to sell some when it was up 20%. If you are panicking about 2-3% drawdowns on QTUM, ask yourself why isn’t my QQQ and SPCX outweighing this dip?

XLE

XLE and XLV are a potential preview of what SMH and QTUM can look like. Breaking TRADE is significant, but it doesn’t mean TREND is over. That’s why you reduce, not exit, on TRADE breaks.

XLV

Reduce, no exit. That reduce signal also came up 14% from fractal instructions to get long in June in XLV. When tracking results, make sure you don’t just take the last one but when TREND first told you to enter.

XLU

Same with XLU—have you been short since August? The most recent add is still overrunning TRADE, so no execution to be made yet. But if it does break TRADE, that doesn’t mean the process doesn’t work; it means you aren’t executing all of the instructions.

Macro Markets

When you have the Similar Set Signal, you aren’t limited to just US equities. There are moves to be made in Global Macro today.

DXY

Dollar continues to climb—nothing to do in this one.

TLT

TLT is approaching the top end of the RANGE while MOVE is near the low end, hence the lack of concern on XLU overrunning TRADE. Could still get another push up here to touch the top end of the RANGE, but again the theme of today isn’t what is going on today but what did you do with the last few fractal instructions. TLT said get short July 7th. This is just a place to start grossing up rate short exposure after going to minimum after a 10% gain.

Oil

Oil’s been deadlocked between bearish TRADE and bullish TREND—no new positions here. But if it breaks back to bullish TRADE, expect rates to continue their TREND.

GLD

First touch of the top end of the RANGE in a bearish TRADE TREND since the flip. Today you should have seen this as a selling opportunity on a rate-sensitive exposure. To recap: short minimum and possible add TLT, full exposure short XLU, Oil holding bullish TREND (no exposure), and now short Gold. All of these are correlated trades expressed in my portfolio at different levels and different assets. The market is one big machine. The Similar Set Signal allows you to see all the moving parts as one fractal picture, and that picture is still saying rates go higher eventually from here.

BTC

Bitcoin was an add into the end of last week and is holding TRADE and RANGE above TRADE with TREND way down at $75K. Don’t get bearish on Bitcoin here.

Stop riding the emotional rollercoaster of “feels,” red-arrow panic, and headline-driven second-guessing. With Similar Set Signal you replace that chaos with a clear, daily fractal process that keeps you sized correctly, diversified across the whole machine, and calmly executing whether the market is at the top or bottom of the RANGE. The difference shows up in your results—and in how little the noise bothers you anymore. Subscribe to Similar Set Signal and start trading the math instead of your feelings.

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