Founder's Trading Journal 0 Comment Good Evening: Our morning long did not stick, but we were well-positioned, entering at 3632.25. And then we were rewarded with 25 points as we exited on our trailing stop at 3658. It was tempting to try again as the market approached the close, but there wasn’t enough runway left, and the Founders Group did not want to hold overnight. The question is whether Europe’s woes are ready to spill over to the U.S. now or later. And interestingly, the S&P 500 Index is pounding on the June low with no real success in sustaining a decisive break. Properly placed, a trade near the morning price is a low, risk-to-stop trade entry point. We can still make money even if the rally fizzles. Our algorithm is slowly but surely running through its list of buy alerts. But we have no comprehensive swing buy signal yet – even though it is close. And close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Still, a short squeeze is getting closer even if the market goes a bit lower (and by all rights, the stock market should). And to further complicate matters, tomorrow gets dicey as the last day of the month and the calendar quarter. We would love to work another swing buy signal with short-squeeze tailwinds. And everything looks to be set up—five sessions and no acceptance below the June lows. To us, it seems like the shorts are getting trapped. It pays to “think” and identify the “pain” trade. Right now, the pain trade is higher. Ben Franklin once said you must buy on the canons and sell on the trumpets. Canons are firing, and the sentiment might be too bearish for further declines – at least for now. And even if nothing happens tomorrow, money managers have one final calendar quarter to try to recover from their terrible year-to-date performance. Their FOMO will kick into high gear on Monday. I wish tomorrow weren’t Friday or the end of the calendar quarter. Money managers will be window-dressing before taking the plunge and putting real money to work on Monday. Their activities will likely fog my screens – at least for tomorrow. And then, will I want to be long all weekend? How about short if everything goes south? Nobody said it would be easy. Let’s see how it all lines up. A.F. Thornton
Founder's Trading Journal 0 Comment Good Morning: As mentioned Monday, my schedule is tight this week, which has made it challenging to be generous with my public commentary. The bottom line this week, and even this morning, is that the S&P 500 should be in a lot worse shape than it is, given all the “visible” circumstances. While continuously flirting with a break below the June 3639 lows, there is no sustained break. If it is not going down, the stock market is likely going up – even if it is just another short-covering rally. And let’s face it – the short-covering rallies in this bear market have been spectacular – and those involved will always hope that the short-covering rally at hand will become the bottom of the bear. Nobody will ring a bell at the bottom – or a low – and the news will be just as dire as it is now. For anyone paying attention, there has been global sabotage of food and energy production and distribution centers over the past 12 months (including in our own “open borders” country). An organized cabal is out to purposely make worse a food and energy crisis already on the horizon for this winter. In the past year, some organized Cabal has already sabotaged at least 20 important food and energy production facilities in our country alone. Apparently, the mainstream media is not allowed to discuss it, which says a lot about the Cabal’s identity and connections. So the sabotage of the Nordstream Pipelines is no surprise. It is highly likely a Globalist plan executed by the Orwell regime. And we already know that the regime operates on the orders of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and its partners in the World Economic Forum (“WEF”), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations (UN). The Orwell regime’s handlers do not want the Russia / Ukraine conflict resolved unless they can dethrone Putin and carve up Russia. A resolution of the conflict would restore cheap, free-flowing Russian energy to Europe again. Restoring cheap Russian energy would compete with the climate change agenda and strengthen Russia’s European influence. With friends like President Orwell and the Cabal that pulls his strings, Europe hardly needs enemies. But for now, there is little to no reaction in our stock market – which supports a potential short-covering rally soon. Given the plethora of negative events, rejecting prices below the June low is bullish – at least for the short term. And positive seasonality kicks in for stocks about the middle of October, perhaps boosted by the mid-term elections that follow. Of course, the markets could still set off some fireworks between now and then. My forecast is simple. The market will continue to drift down, interrupted by steep, quick short-covering rallies through next spring. One of those rallies is close at hand. If this bear market is like the others I have studied and experienced; the short-covering rallies will diminish in strength and intensity over time before the final bear market capitulation. Since last week, the Founder’s Group has continued to reverse positions from long to short and vice versa on short-term buy and sell signals by applying the Navigator Algorithms to the hourly charts. Our previous short was 3700.25 yesterday, which we reversed at 3642.75 on something we call a “cradle” buy signal. But our public stance and swing-trading accounts have been neutral since yesterday but remain on high alert for a buy signal in the swing-trading algorithms. We maintain that neutrality, with the risk of a rally higher than the risk of further declines at this moment. The market’s muted reaction to the Nordstream Pipeline sabotage underscores that position. The sabotage makes a settlement of the Russia / Ukraine conflict more difficult. That was the intention. The Globalists want war, aiming to conquer Russia and China at any cost. And since the Globalists have a parallel objective of population reduction – you can see that a war with Russia and China accomplishes more than one of their objectives. As one example of a direct threat to the Cabal, Russia’s constitution declares the country a Christian nation. Further, Russia also made traditional marriage between a man and woman a constitutional position. Russia does not want the anti-family, anti-church, anti-gender, and sexual child-grooming Great Reset agenda overtaking Western Nations – much less Russia. China doesn’t want the Great Reset for different reasons. They do not favor “girlie-men” or sexual liberalism -especially with their children. The plot is hard at work, putting us into a war with Russia and China because the Cabal cannot implement the Great Reset until the two opposing superpowers are out of the way. The Cabal has already conquered the U.S. with the 2020 Coup and all that has followed. It should be obvious to anyone as we watch our liberties destroyed and our government institutions weaponized against half of the country. That is how the Cabal can get a submarine to take out Nordstream while leaving Norway’s new gas pipeline unharmed. Stay tuned, hold on to your wallet, and we will do our best to keep you out of harm’s way. A.F. Thornton
Founder's Trading Journal 0 Comment The Founder’s Group reversed the long from 3668.75 yesterday to short at 3700.25 this morning with a 5-point buy stop. We will trail the stop if the market moves lower. The Failure to take out the 5-day line on the second attempt this morning negated the chance of a buy signal painting as yet. That does not change the fact that the market is still oversold with a lot of attendent fear. A neutral stance is justified in the circumstances as indicated in the first update this monring. This will be our last public comment today.
Founder's Trading Journal Interim Update – 9/27/2022 Sep 27, 2022 AF Thornton 0 Comment S&P 500 Index Continuous Futures Daily Chart - Key Levels Good Morning: The Founder’s Group notified subscribers yesterday afternoon that we were covering our latest short position at 3668.75. We had shorted the morning drive at 3717.25. From a trading perspective, shorting at the 5-day line has been successful. But the Navigator Algo is painting preliminary buy signals on the daily chart. The alerts tell us to pay attention – but not everything is in place for a solid buy signal yet, and the signal may not complete. The signals are enough to keep us neutral while we see what develops. If anything, one still has to wonder why the S&P 500 is not in worse shape with a complete meltdown in 10-year treasuries and junk bonds. The Founder’s Group believes the sentiment is too negative here and needs to bleed off before we get the next down leg. Also, with the third calendar quarter ending this Friday, there is always some nonsensical distortion around money manager duck, cover, and window dressing. Our aggressive accounts took the long side for a bounce on the cover signal but maintain a veyr tight trailing stop. But the trend remains down, so manage long positions carefully. For those of you still holding onto hope – any meaningful rally is another chance to liquidate longs and cull your portfolio. A.F. Thornton
Founder's Trading Journal 0 Comment Good Morning: Due to my schedule this week, my public commentary will be brief and to the point. As indicated Friday, the market appeared poised to run the stops below the June 52-week low at 3639. However, as also mentioned, there was a risk of a short-covering rally due to the extreme position of the put/call ratio. As it turned out, the market experienced the highest put volume in history on Friday. The activity in puts and the ratio itself counsel that a short-term low is near. The market did not quite make it down to the June low, which in and of itself was a sign that the market was strengthening – at least for Friday Soon after, the Founders Group notified subscribers that they covered their short positions at 3671.25 to enjoy a peaceful, worry-free weekend. Right after we covered, a short covering rally did kick in and brought the market back to close just above 3700. While the market may bounce here as we go into the close of the calendar quarter on Friday, nothing has changed. We are still in a bear market and the trend is down until proven otherwise. As such, we prefer to sell rallies and cover on dips. For the braver among us, reversing from long to short and vice versa on subscriber signals has been quite rewarding. A recent, respected tactition said to nibble at 3400, buy at 3200, and load up the truck at 3000. Not such bad advice given all we know at this moment. A.F. Thornton
Founder's Trading Journal 0 Comment Sentiment indicators show extreme fear, including the Put/ Call ratio above 1.25. Further, the Founder’s Group would prefer not to hold ANY positions other than cash over the weekend. So the Founders’ Group will target the stops under 3639 as a potential place to cover our short positions, at least for the weekend. And we may pull the trigger sooner. Friday afternoons are famous for running buy stops to punish the shorts before the weekend, when the Put/Call ratio is at an extreme. Ideally, we could hold the short positions all the way down to the huge JP Morgan Chase put collar expiring 9/30 at the 3580 strike price. The JPM put delta will start rapidly increasing, as will their hedging obligation to sell futures, as the price approaches the strike price. The way to look at this is that there is a lot of velocity down to 3600, and then Negative Gamma flattens out. So if we can lock in our profits as the stops go off under the June low at 3639, it would be ideal for today. A lot of this is theoretical, and there are a lot of assumptions about the options market and how it is positioned. So factor that in to our comments. This Interim Update will be our only public comment today, and we will notify subscribers by email or text IF we cover. Still, we hope this information is helpful to our non-subscriber community. Our next public notes will be over the weekend. A.F. Thornton
Founder's Trading Journal 0 Comment S&P 500 Index Continuous Futures / Today’s Close – 3773.75 / -34.25 pts (-0.90%) Published Thursday Evening, September 22, 2022. Navigator Swing Strategy™ Current Position: Cash/Short @3893.25 on 9/21/2022 Sell Stop: Subscribers Only Last Signal: Closes Long Position from 9/20/2022 @3886.25 for 25.50 points S&P 500 Index Gain/Loss from New Short Signal: -119.50 Points / - 3.06% *** S&P 500 Index Continuous Futures - Daily Chart - Key Levels and Trading Ranges Navigator Algorithm™ Trends Hourly: Bearish Daily: Bearish Weekly: Bearish Monthly: Bearish As we are going into Friday, I will skip the Sandbox Table. The DEM high is at 3828, also the 5-day line where the bears sell.With the WEM low at 3800, the price could hold between 3800 and 3825 as dealers fight to keep their weekly premiums tomorrow. Or, it the price persists lower, dealers will be forced to sell futures, exacerbating any sell-off and leading to another two sigma move.Also, note that the 80-day cycle is due to give us a bounce in here, and tomorrow’s daily candle will provide us with a 9-count exhaustion signal. The 80-day cycle is not all that important on the scale of cycles, but it may be enough to scare the shorts out of some positions.The market could be much worse, given all the circumstances. Any good news (like a resolution of the Ukraine conflict) will spike shorts into the stratosphere. Make sure you set buy stops. We have advised our subscribers where the Founder’s Group placed theirs.Short-term, a lot turns on a sober assessment of the Russia- Nato conflict vis a vis Ukraine, best captured in this YouTube video by Clayton and Natalie Morris.The couple interviews two objective, independent journalists. I recommend Redacted for anyone looking for independent “propaganda-free” news. Roll the video forward to start at 35:40 for the Russia-NATO assessment.a According to the sources, if NATO does not back off and does anything to interrupt the elections in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine this weekend, all bets are off. Sadly, all of our Globalist leaders who shout “Democracy. Democracy” until we are ready to puke don’t really believe in Democracy that doesn’t serve their goals, as we have learned here in the U.S.The Western media continues to spout the latest Orwellian talking points about Ukraine’s “fraudulent” elections.But all I can say is it takes a cheater to know a cheater. Anyway, the weekend elections are the risk de jure for the moment.I have drawn in the support and resistance on the first chart above. That should be all you need to know for tomorrow.A.F. Thornton BluPrint’s business model for retail services is sharing the buy/cover short and sell/short signals generated by our proprietary Navigator Algorithms™ for the S&P 500 index. Subscribers can implement the signals with the SPY ETF, SPX or SPY options, S&P 500 EMini (and micro) futures, or a combination of these instruments as the context warrants. Futures and options are leveraged instruments that involve high risk, volatility, leverage, and loss. They have different characteristics with comparative advantages and disadvantages. With leveraged futures, you could lose more than your original investment. Past performance does not guarantee that you will achieve similar results, nor do we.A.F. Thornton is not a financial advisor, nor is he your financial advisor. He only expresses his opinion based on his experience. Your financial situation and experience may be different. This blog is for educational and inspirational purposes only. Your investments are solely your responsibility. You must conduct your own research. Click to Learn More About Navigator™ Trading Subscriptions Share with Friends and FamilyWord of mouth is crucial for growing our trading community and providing education and support for your trading decisions. Please feel free to share this with your friends and family if you find the information beneficial. Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn