ap769

1. Macro Due to the government shutdown inflation-indexed bond data is delayed, however what we are seeing based on data from Thursday (as shown on the white vertical line) suggests that forward inflation expectations $(US10Y+US03MY)/2-DFII10 may be reverting back to the mean, which is supported by US10Y rising slightly. The long term vs short term yield spread US10Y -US03MY has tightened and is very close to inverting, which was driven by long term yields plunging last week - a rush to safety. Another long-term bond rally could invert the yield curve, often a risk-off signal if it remains inverted and widens. The dollar is finding support near its average and gold is sitting at all time highs (more on gold later). On the commodity side, Oil CL1! continues to slide, aided by fragile stability in the middle east. My ag/industrial gauge $(COPPER1!+ZC1!)/2/DXY is still elevated but lacks momentum. Nothing interesting to glean here other than the fact that higher commodity prices are not significantly affecting forward inflation expectations (for now). Oil’s continued downtrend is certainly playing a factor, however the pause in Fed data could also make any potential inflationary impact more delayed than usual. When it comes to bonds, watch closely and proceed with caution. 2. FX The dollar index is still well below other currency indices for the year but I have all of the charts on this layout indexed to 100 to show recent relative activity. The dollar DXY has recently seen stronger performance compared to other currencies, though the others have been on the uptick in recent days . The important takeaway here can be seen on the 10Y yield comparison chart. Since the beginning of October, aside from Japan, buyers have pushed 10Y yields in the US, Eurozone and Britain down. This may suggest a rush to safety due to economic fears beyond just the US. 3. Risk On the top left chart, you can see that the corporate bond option-adjusted spread average (high-yield & investment-grade) could have either peaked or is on the uptick. Since this data is only available at the end of the day, it’s best to proceed with caution. Next, I want to highlight something I recently noticed when comparing the GOLD chart to its volatility index GVZ . Last week while Gold was reaching all time highs, there was heavy buying of GLD puts (GVZ was up over +20% on Thursday), which has pushed Gold down on the G GOLD/GVZ spread recently. I have included Gold on the bottom chart and marked the points where the ratio fell far below the standard deviation of (1) as shown via the Keltner Channel indicator on all of the charts. Looking at the previous three points where this extremity occurred, there seems to be some alignment with severe underperformance of S&P 500 Futures vs gold and stock market bottoms. Since asset prices are currently seen as elevated and Gold is close to crossing above the ES1! return since January 2020, the message this sends to me is that the gold rally is fear-driven rather than fundamentally-driven. Investors are aware that gold may be overstretched and are buying insurance. Fear without fundamentals can quickly become a buying opportunity for equities, especially when continued rate cuts (which in theory should help both Gold and Equities) are taken into consideration. If nothing fundamentally changes, and investors decide to start dumping gold, it would be expected to see equities catch a bid. I’m also continuing to watch S SPY/RSP (SPY vs equal-weight ETF) and N NQ1!/YM1! to assess risk-on vs defensive bias. Right now the momentum towards risk is flat but the Russell RUT has slid more compared to the other indices recently, suggesting a rotation out of small caps, which supports the bias that both spreads could continue higher in favor of Risk, however that is just an assumption. When looking at specific sectors, despite Consumer Staples ( XLP ) finding support, I’m not yet seeing signs that the market is abandoning tech. All of this shows that recent volatility has not changed the market’s sector positioning in a significant way, however keeping an eye on XLP for now will be very important, as it could signal a risk-off day if X XLP/XLK rises strongly. 4. Bias ( NQ1! ) I have changed my approach to trading to be more short-term, so I will not try to draw any weekly conclusions via this chart, however from Friday’s volatility action (lefthand side), it appears we may have seen a peak in near-term volatility last week. I would expect to se some volatility mean reversion on Monday ( VIX and VVIX -VIX may open higher). If the volatility is absorbed by buyers (price is relatively flat or volatility is quickly absorbed by buyers), I think dealers will sell volatility (puts) and buy futures to raise the price of SPY . On the other hand, when more bearish factors (as described above) are considered, I can’t help but wonder when looking at the ES1! chart if futures are forming a top. I would not have a problem playing the bull side if volatility activity suggests dealers are short puts, however if it shows indecision or short call positioning it may be best to sit out or wait for confirmation. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Conclusion: Put simply - I am cautiously bullish on stocks. I think the gold volatility is still mostly implied, so it will take a few more sessions before we find out if it will be realized or provide liquidity for more Gold buying. The extreme put buying has me fairly confident that the gold rally will stall out or pull back from around the 4,200 level. Aside from news-related volatility, the only major threat I’m seeing to stocks is that institutions may start to rotate out of tech mega caps XLK , communications XLC , and consumer discretionary XLY into safer sectors like consumer staples XLP and healthcare XLV . This can be tracked intraday so I will be watching it this week for early clues. X XLK/XLP will be an important gauge to watch, as well as N NQ1!/YM1! and S SPY/RSP for confirmation. I’m not too worried about treasuries either. The lack of data will likely keep yields close to the average, and as I’ve said before, if the US10Y -US03MY curve inverts because 10Y declines while 3M is flat, it’s the less concerning way it could occur. Corporate bond spreads will be important to watch for a potential risk-off continuation, however that data will only be available once per day. Most importantly, if volatility seems to have peaked (at least in the short term) it will solidify the bullish case. As I hope I’ve explained, I think the market is in a confused and defensive state, even if the situation doesn’t necessarily call for it. US economic data is still on hold so dealers are firmly in control of the narrative. Since dealers prefer to be short gamma on puts, that is the only reason why my bias is slightly bullish. On the contrary, if there is a sudden rush into puts that creates a significant Implied/Historical volatility imbalance, I will not hesitate to take the short side.

I decided to go through and consolidate my charts this week to make for easier decision making. Friday’s sell off was a sign of weakness in a market that was already showing strain. While the drop on resumed trade war threats was swift, the rest of the market had a muted response. Heading into this week, we should see another big move and I will try to be open to trading either side depending on how this develops. 1. Macro Gold is still in its uptrend and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. I don’t have it charted here, but Gold’s volatility index GVZ spiked during Friday’s session, however buyers seemed to be absorbing the volatility since it still closed up over 1%. Gold has already made a new ATH today and I do not expect to see the trend change this week. The dollar DXY seems to be near the top of its deviation from the flat EMA. I think we will see the dollar move lower which could boost Gold, Stocks, or both. Next, we saw US03MY remain relatively flat during Friday’s sell off while US10Y moved sharply lower during the session, making the US10Y -US03MY spread very tight once again. Since real yields are still edging up and the 3M bond stayed flat during the panic, that leads me to believe the bond market volatility was contained and may not be indicative of a true risk-off reaction. One reason why US Treasuries will continue to catch a bid is that as forward inflation expectations continue to slide (bottom left chart), the real return is still attractive compared to bonds from other major countries. We’ll see if the renewed trade sparring will change the forward inflation exceptions trend since the data from TIPS is delayed, however for now I’ll continue to base my perception on what I’m currently seeing on the chart. Lastly, Oil is continuing to see an average decline. Hopefully middle eastern peace efforts are successful, which could keep the price subdued. On the bottom chart I have combined the average of COPPER1! and Corn ZC1! into a single line compared to DXY , which aims to show real demand (and/or inflation) pressure against the Dollar’s relative strength. Here we can see commodities took a hit on Friday but the trend is still very strong to the upside. Since forward inflation expectations are down and the dollar is flat, this may be pointing to the presence of real demand, which should be bullish for equities. 2. Risk Even when looking at the past six months on a line chart, the pullback, Friday’s drop was significant. As I mentioned last week, there are important risk-health items to watch for here. I’m now just charting the High Yield OAS - Investment Grade OAS spread, which was already starting to move up before Friday’s sell off. This data is only reported once per day for the previous session, so the impact on corporate bond yields is not yet known. This will be very important to pay attention to, as it could signal true aversion to risk. Next, the E ES1!/GOLD spread is declining and should continue until Gold enters a re-accumulation phase. Anyone’s guess when that will be so for now I think it’s safe to assume that Stocks will continue to underperform Gold, and if Friday’s drop was any indication of which side is in control, it serves as confirmation that stocks are sensitive to bad news. Buyers seem to be the ones getting absorbed. The third chart on the top shows that although NQ1! has been outperforming YM1! since the market bottomed, the momentum seems to be stalling out. I’ll be looking at the sectors to find any further signs of sustained rotation. 3. Sector Analysis My notes are best explained in the screenshot but my comment is that most of the decline on Friday came from XLK (Tech sector) selling off. Other sectors performed better against SPX, with XLP (Consumer Staples) seemingly breaking out of a decline, however as you can see from the chart on the right, it has still been the worst performer against the other indices over the past three months. One session is not enough to change the trend, however it will be important to watch for continued rotation out of tech and into other sectors. This could cause NQ1! to decline against YM1! as I suggested earlier, and would signal the market is positioning for a more sustained downturn - likely caused by disappointing growth. 4. Bias This is the chart I have tried to condense the most. I have switched to just using Line Break as my main chart for ES, which I found performed better than Renko when combined with my other indicators. On the lefthand side, I am using Session CVD but got rid of my other indicators and made a CVD Momentum indicator, which tracks the momentum of CVD rising or falling over an anchor period (1 week). I’m still using a range chart calculation for this chart, currently set to 20R. On the right, I am using what I’ll call my Volatility Dashboard, however it does not start producing a useful signal until premarket. Based on Volatility, it can be said with certainty that dealers went long on puts right before the sell-off began. From a technical standpoint, the price was in a rising wedge and dumped after it made a higher high that did not reach the upper trend line. Rising channels are generally bullish, however the extent of Friday’s free fall could mean that even if the price quickly recovers, it may be forming a top similar to what we saw last December. This is why risk indicators like corporate bond spreads, sector performance, and changes to the macro structure will be important to monitor over the coming days. — Conclusion For this week, all I can say with certainty is that I think there will be some good opportunities. Here is what I believe can be safely assessed from this analysis: 1. Stocks remain under pressure, however “smart money” will require more time to rotate out of tech, leading to repeated retests of the top of the range. 2. Tailwinds for stocks are potential real demand in agriculture and industrial material that is not impacting the market’s forward inflation expectation. 3. “Smart Money” will sell volatility (puts) into pullbacks if the price is set to be driven higher, or will do the opposite, buying volatility (puts) and selling calls on low volume rips This is why I will be looking for more confirmation before taking a side, as the market’s goal now is to clear out liquidity. When it comes to the larger trend, I tend to think that stocks do not seem to be showing strength over the larger macro structure, however that does not necessarily dictate that the index will come down another 8%. Instead, I think at the very least we will stay in a flat range for the time being. I do not think the market is ready to go on a bull run, nor do I think the environment is showing a risk-off bias that is strong enough to warrant stocks going straight down. If we meet resistance near the top of the range, I’ll look at volatility positioning and CVD for the signal to go short. Conversely, if we make a higher low I will go long on calls to the top of the range. Good luck to all and thanks for reading!

Hello everyone - it has been a while since I have posted an Idea. I tried to come up with a template for recurring posts earlier in the year that just became too time-consuming so I decided to wait until I worked out something different. Lately, I have been moving away from purely focusing on technical analysis and more towards building a framework that helps me assess the overall market structure to set my bias before then looking to technicals and other indicators to find trade entries. My current approach utilizes three dashboards for market structure, which I call Macro, FX, & Risk. From there, I have a specific layout on Futures that helps me track order flow and momentum. When I feel like I have a good read on the market and am ready to make a trade, I then look at the 0DTE options chain and SPY intraday chart to determine support/resistance and good entry points. I’m still working on improving using this style of trading, but will try to journal my bias on a weekly basis from here forward if possible, which can help me determine areas where I am succeeding and others that could use improvement. For today, I will try to briefly run through each of my layouts with brief notes about how I am perceiving the market’s activity in context. I’ll look at this on a shorter scale in the future, but for now I am going to look at roughly the last 12 months, going back to October 2024. Layout 1: Macro On this layout, the goal is to gauge the overall market backdrop. Here, we can see that DXY declined until July where it began to flatten. It’s still moving down slightly on average but the slope is not as steep, however I would not yet call this a bottom as the current candlestick setup makes me think more downside is still a possibility. The next two panes show a comparison of • US03MY (risk-free short term yield); black • US10Y (risk-free short term yield); white • DFII10 (10Y real yield: US10Y minus inflation expectations from TIPS); blue indexed to 100 and the “Inflation Gauge” which is the difference between the average nominal US bond yield ((US10Y+US03MY)/2) minus the 10Y Real Yield, which provides a rough estimate of inflation expectations. Here we can see that nominal and real yields have been on the decline since June. In the first part of this phase, the inflation gauge was rising, suggesting true risk-on behavior. Fed policy remained unchanged while there was a modest rise in inflation expectations, yet investors did not pile into gold, so equities were the preferred risk asset during this period, especially since the dollar remained flat as previously mentioned. On the righthand side, inflationary commodities (namely Oil CL1! and Corn ZC1! ) have mostly been suppressed during this calendar year, however Oil has remained in a flat range since June and Corn has been on the rise since the middle of August. Copper COPPER1! , which is more of a signal of industrial demand, has been on a steady rise since markets bottomed in April 2025 and may even be accelerating. Since inflation expectations have been falling, the rise in Copper and Corn may be more of a demand signal, however if something causes Oil or the other two commodities to surge too quickly, these could turn into inflation drivers. For now, the picture I’m seeing here is that the market’s risk-on appetite may be waning, in favor of safer bets like US Treasuries and Gold, even when inflation expectations are taken into account. Commodities and the Inflation Gauge will be important to keep watching, as correlation to the upside could quickly change the economic backdrop. Layout 2: FX Here, I am seeing that US nominal yields remain higher than most other major countries (Germany and Italy are both Blue to match EXY and are the solid and dotted lines, respectively) while the Dollar has seen a steep decline compared to other currency baskets over the same period. The message this sends to me is that investors are demanding a higher return on US debt while betting that monetary policy will ease, growth will slow, or both. Layout 3: Risk On this layout I am keeping track of the following Top Left: Option adjusted spread (OAS) of corporate High Yield bonds/Investment Grade bonds Top Middle: S&P 500 Futures/Gold spread Top Right: VIX and MOVE overlay Bottom: Stock index comparison (SPX, NDQ, DJI, RUT) I should have mentioned earlier that I’m trying to keep the start/end of the arrows on all of the charts aligned. The takeaway here is that the last time we saw ES1! sharply fall against GOLD , it provided an early signal for an equity sell off. The sell off Feb-April was a true risk-off event since both High Yield and Investment Grade bond yields surged and there was a simultaneous spike on VIX and MOVE. So far in September, we have seen stock volatility while bond volatility has remained flat. While VIX and MOVE were not leading indicators before, at the very least this indicates that equities are not yet ready to sell off. Still, I cannot stress the point enough that Gold is very important to watch right now, especially as it relates to stocks since it can suggest that investors view it as the better risk asset, which cold lead them to dump the other (stocks) if an event makes it seem warranted. —————————— Put simply, I think the market is saying the following: 1. More rate cuts are expected 2. Slower growth may be the bigger fear than inflation (at the moment) 3. Inflation worries are still present, yet diminished 4. Hedging with safe assets (bonds, gold) may be more attractive than stocks 5. Recent stock declines do not have risk-off confirmation Next, I will take a look at my Bias chart, which right now mostly covers September thus far. Layout 4: Bias There’s a few things going on here that not everyone may be familiar with, so I’ll break it down pane-by-pane, as I have found this layout for Futures ES1! to be very effective Top Left: 50R chart with indicators only. CVD Daily (blue), CVD Weekly (black), Fisher Transform (y-axis log scale), Anchored OBV (daily) Bottom Left: ES1! Line Break (3 lines, 1h) Center: ES1! Renko (ATR, 15m) Right: VIX (1h) I’m using a 50R chart on the top left pane to filter time-based noise and to provide more data to be calculated into each bar on the CVD indicator, which gives more conviction to each move. CVD is the most important indicator here and I have found that comparing Daily and Weekly CVD becomes more effective as the week progresses and often shows hidden order-flow divergences. Line Break creates a new line when the price closes in the same direction of the trend. Reversals only occur when the price crosses above or below three lines in the opposite direction. Successions of small boxes (like we see here) are easy to reverse than several long boxes in a row. Renko is similar to line break but it is filtered by ATR and new boxes only have to clear the filter before a reversal prints. On this layout, we can see that there was a battle last week on the order flow but buyers ended up finishing on top. Volatility was climbing for six sessions straight but ended up getting dumped on Friday (9/26). Futures are currently climbing back towards ATH on Sunday night, however the print on the Line Break chart has me cautious about if this will be quickly reversed. I’d like to see at least one long bar print heading into Monday if I’m going to go long, as Line Break must be aligned with whichever direction I trade in. —————————— Conclusion: I’m approaching this week with a good deal of caution. While I do not think that we will see a true risk-off event until the market approaches a point where policy tightening is getting priced in (i.e. Fed is too dovish and accelerates inflation, leading to a quick policy reversal). Still, the market’s defensive positioning and relative waning of interest in stocks cannot be ignored. With Q4 being traditionally strong, the market may sell into the weakness in order to reposition for a bullish end of the year, even if the broader outlook is starting to signal trouble ahead. I’m not confident about trading either side on Monday, so it could be a volatility rebalancing day. What I will watch for, however, is VIX finding support and whether or not Futures reach new ATHs before pulling back. ATH before a pullback would be the best bullish scenario, while a failure to make new highs could lead to a flat distribution or re-accumulation range. In which case, order flow and daily options positioning will be important to watch. If this becomes a weekly thing I will definitely not be explaining all of my charts and indicators each time, and will opt to keep it brief but wanted to at least explain it all once in case anyone ends up following along. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions on how I can sharpen my analysis. Thank you for reading - AP.

I failed to update my trade journal at the end of last week and am going to try to be better about it this week. I am going to try to keep these posts more brief so I can remain consistent and meet my goal of creating an accurate timeline of my trades. For this week, I am going in with a bullish bias, which is better supported on the PA for QQQ instead of SPY , so I will be trading it instead. The price is currently down 0.60% overnight, which would take the price near the bottom of the range ($550), which is outside of the channel. In this flat structure, we will either see the price break up after a liquidity test (spring) or break down in a true bearish reversal. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Neutral Analysis Renko: As my main chart, Renko clearly shows both scenarios, illustrated by the solid white (bullish) line and the dotted (bearish) line. For the bullish idea, the price will find a significant number of buyers after a false breakout to the downside. I switched from Traditional box sizes to ATR (14) filtered, and as you can see, the automatic rally (AR) after the peak did not have a significant retracement. We did not see a retest of the upper part of the range that could be considered a secondary test (ST) until some time later and when it did, the price rose back to the peak, indicating that buyers still had strength. From there, the price has been chopping around in Phase B without making much progress to the downside, which it will most likely reach on Monday in the form of a gap down. Additionally, the rising channel that led to this pullback is also a strong pattern, so this pullback should be treated as possible re-accumulation. If the price fails to reenter the channel or reach the top after a breakout below the range, it will likely sell off from there. 200R Chart: The range chart also supports that the secondary test was the retest of the top of the channel, a potential sign of strength. The price is still way above the 200MA, so the uptrend appears strong. One important area to watch is the volume gap from $548-$549 on the volume profile. If bulls cannot defend the gap, that could be a potential sign of weakness. 500R Chart: I am including this chart because it does provide a reason to be cautious of a pullback, or even a reversal. The price is at the top of the channel that began on April 9th. The last time the price tested the upper boundary, it formed a temporary top and pulled back, which we could see play out again here. The volume candles also show significantly higher interest since May 13th. This could either be due to increased interest from buyers or the distribution of shares, requiring more effort to move the price higher. Daily Chart: Here is another chart that suggests that the first movement that could be considered a secondary test was the retest of the top of the range. The price has been bouncing off monthly VWAP and Fisher Transform remains flat in the upper zone. We have not seen a bearish candle with intent on the daily chart. These have all been flat doji candles. Options: For this section, I can’t provide a good analysis of on-the-money options since the price is likely to gap down. I’m including 7/15 $550p since the price will likely open around that level and will need to move below the strike to see the premium rise significantly. The price of this contract was in a larger descending channel and will need a strong break above the top ($2.15) in order to signal further downside for $QQQ. According to my options calculator, this would require the underlying price to drop below $551 for an extended period. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Targets Calls: Open at $549; Close at $557; Stop below $548 Puts: Open $550-$552; Close at $544.50; Stop above $555I missed the biggest move of the day due to the fact that I was waiting for the underlying price on QQQ to break above the range before making a trade. I noticed that the chart for ITM calls were on the verge of a breakout from the top of the descending channel.I figured bullish momentum on QQQ would build to take the price above the top of the range (>$557.25) but instead it lost momentum, limiting the potential upside on calls. The only good thing that came out of today was that I exited at the first chance that trade was going to start moving against me, leading to a small profit rather than a B/E or loss. I wasn’t watching the call option chart in real time at the opening bell, but had I watched the downward channel boundaries, I could have entered after the bounce off support (~$1.10), which would have given me a maximum profit opportunity of up to 200%. I’d like to see a bullish continuation tomorrow that would build on this call breakout. If the market opens higher, I may be inclined to enter calls at the bell. On to the next one.

Hi everyone. I am going to be moving my trading commentary back to Ideas rather than Minds so I can stay focused during the day, as well as having the added benefit of retrospective analysis. I do not trade BTC but have been tracking the price recently and believe it is gearing up for a big move. The current structure supports a bearish bias based on the Wyckoff Distribution pattern, which the price has been following in a textbook fashion. If this pattern continues, I believe Bitcoin will enter a bearish trend. For the indexes I will try to post ideas for a bullish and bearish bias but for this quick post on Bitcoin, I am going to stick to the bear side. Using Renko (Traditional, $500 window size) as my main chart, you can see the price broke out of a strong uptrend after the peak on May 22 (Buying Climax) and entered a potential distribution pattern. The secondary test (ST) set the lower band of the resistance zone, which the price has been testing and rejecting up until this point. The labels are subjective but what we can confirm is that the price has broken through the bottom range (Sign of Weakness or Spring) but has been unable to break through the top of the range. An upthrust/false breakout above the top of the range would be a key level to go short, as this would take out the last remaining buyers, however the price continuing to stay below the resistance could be a sign of persistent weakness. A rejection here would suggest that we are in Phase C, which is where momentum will build up on the sell side, eventually pushing the price through the bottom of the range and into a bearish trend. Since Renko is the smoothest chart, I am also using range bars (less smooth) and standard candle sticks (most noise) to analyze closer setups. On the range chart (20000R or $200), the price looks to be in an inverse cup and handle pattern, which if it holds would support the idea that we are in Phase C of the distribution pattern and the price will fail to break above the range again. Volume indicates that there is low interest at the upper levels, which resulted in the price moving down in Friday. We could see another push down after another period of low interest at the upper level. Lastly, the 1h candle chart shows that the price has been relatively flat since June 25th and is being supported by a large volume node on the Volume Profile. There was large buying volume at the lower level, so if the price can stay above this node (~$106,700) there is a good chance that it will get pushed above the range, however if sellers are able to push it through this level of high volume, further downside could follow. This is why I would suggest waiting to see if this level holds before entering a trade. A false upside breakout (above $112,000) would be a safe area to go short, as it would be a quality setup with good risk/reward. If the price is in Phase C and cannot break above the range, it would be a less ideal short setup, as the market could make a push to the top of the range at any time to clear out buyers. If this were to happen, I would prefer to wait for more confirmation. To conclude, my idea here is:Short (Solid Line): False breakout above $112,000 (preferred) or below $107,000 (higher risk)Long (Dotted Lines): True breakout above $112,000 (preferred) or reversal $103,000-$98,000 (higher risk)Thank you for reading and let me know what you think. More ideas to come.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an idea and for anyone who follows my posts, unfortunately I timed my trades poorly with the bearish pivot so I have taken a step back, and am now seeing some interesting developments happening in the market. For now, I’ll keep it brief. I wanted to post a quick analysis on GOLD ahead of the rate decision using elements of the Wyckoff method and Elliott Wave. If you asked me a month ago where I thought Gold was heading, I would have said ATH - and while that can still happen, I’m seeing weakness on today’s chart that is worthy of attention. For starters, The A wave established the pullback in a typical 3-wave pattern that mostly stayed within the channel. The bullish breakout was tested twice, so I would interpret it as bullish - however the subsequent flat movement and rejection at resistance suggests that the rise from May 14th could be losing steam. The current price ($3,382) is at a neutral level. From here, we could see several scenarios play out; a false bullish breakout, a true bullish breakout, or a break below the channel to retest demand. Breaking out of the channel could signal a Change of Character (CHoCH), and could indicate that smart money is distributing in a flat pattern. If the price breaks down key level of support would be at the Sign of Weakness (SOW), which has confluence with the extended lines of the Wave A channel. If Gold is set to rise to ATH, I still think it will need to pull back to find large buying volume in the middle of the Wyckoff channel (white rays) first. We will see what happens today, but it’s starting to look like the bears may have the upper hand here.