 Welcome, traders, to the evening's webinar on how to profit from trading 24-hour market conditions and how it can impact your trading. We are gonna get going here in just 15 seconds now. What I'd like to do before we do start, I just want to make sure that you can all see Dan's welcome screen and you can hear me loud and clearly. If you can, could you type a Y into the chat box so that I know that we're good to get going here? And Y in the chat box, if you can hear me loud and clearly and you can see Dan's welcome screen. That's very much, thank you very much. Okay, so welcome. Good evening, if you're on this side of the world. Good morning or good afternoon, looking upon your location and welcome once again to this evening's webinar with me, Patrick Munley and it's acting as host this evening for Dan Gramser. The content this evening is gonna be regarding how 24-hour markets can impact your trading on where the opportunities are in this market environment. Before we get going, brief introductions myself. My name is Patrick Munley. I am a money manager, a mentor. I've been active in the financial markets for over 15 years. I'm a resident market expert for Tickmail. I provide daily market outlook for forex markets, giving fundamental and technical drivers for the trading day ahead. I also produce trading video setups for three to five markets that I'm actively tracking my share that through the Tickmail trading view accounts. In addition to that, I'm obviously managing my own money and client money through a managed account service that has been profitable on an annual basis since 2013. But more importantly, let me introduce you to Dan Gramser. Dan is president of Grams and Capital Management and DMG advisors. He is a trader consultant to domestic and international clients and advisor to hedge funds and is a developer of ETF securities. Dan has been published broadly across most money market outlets, and specifically on CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Dan has been responsible for developing and presents worldwide public and private courses on essential market techniques for traders. Most specifically, Japanese candle analysis is a particular expertise for Dan, along with technical analysis options, options trading, strategy, stock and futures, industry fundamentals and operations. Dan is a former member of the Chicago Rice and Cotton Exchange. He has established and run proprietary stock trading operations on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange and off-floor proprietary futures trading group, and has given witness testimony in federal court. And most, one of the things Dan might share in common, aside from the markets, is an interest in martial arts. And Dan has a six degree back belt in karate and a secondary back belt in true high-form jiu-jitsu. So without further ado, let me hand you over to Mr. Gramza. Good evening, Dan. Good evening, Patrick. Hello, everyone. Thank you for that intro. It was very kind. I'm really excited about being with everyone. And let's get started. We're gonna be looking at these 24-hour markets, but also we're gonna take a look at some of the dynamics that's going on out there, and that's the Ukraine situation. I do wanna mention before we get started that for TICML, CME Group, and Gramza Capital Management, we're all separate unaffiliated organizations. They're not endorsing anything I'm gonna share with you today. These are my ideas that I hope you find helpful, that some of these have been helpful for me, and I hope you find something today that will be helpful for you. Patrick's already gone through my bio. I come to the markets from a floor trader point of view, and to my total amazement, I've had the opportunity through a word-of-mouth network to work with primarily institutions. But before COVID, I would circle the globe a couple of times a year, working with different institutions on different trading strategies. And what's interesting is what's different and what's the same. What's different is how an institutional trader will react to a trade, what they need to do with it as a market maker. But what's the same? It's you and me, it's people. The things that drive us as a human being still is there, whether you're trading one contract or 20,000 contracts, the difference is just the size of the account. So the institutions I would deal with do trade thousands, but they have a lot of zeros behind their account. But the bottom line, is it a good trade? Do we understand what we're doing? Do we have risk management in place? Do we know how we're gonna react to any circumstance that may come up? That stays the same. So let's get started, because I do wanna talk about this impact of 24-hour trading. And I just put together a few ideas that I think really emphasizes what I feel is important about this idea. I have some people saying, well, Dan, trading 24 hours, I sleep. I don't know if I'm interested in being up at two in the morning. That is not the idea. The idea is what it allows us to do. Now let's start out with an example. What I have here in front of you is a half hour candle chart of the S&P 500. Now we're gonna look at futures and we're gonna look at an ETF. The ETF and the futures follow the same index. So there's no difference in that regard. Same exposure, same market. So let's imagine the stock trader now sees this chart. And let's say they bought it earlier when it went from this red candle, excuse me, let me grab my little, there we go, there we go. So let's say earlier in the session, by the way, we're gonna talk more about this later, but red to me means selling, green means buying. And this trader saw a transition between red to green, they decide to buy this. And the same thing holds true for, oh, by the way, they're a conscientious trader. So they put a sell stop right down here. If this comes back down, they will exit the position, they will lose money, but they will be out. It failed to give them what they wanted. Well, and they see this positive movement. And from their point of view, they're saying, I'm gonna hold on to this overnight. Now, we're gonna do the same if I bought futures. That trade would look the same. And here there's a sell level, a sell stop, that if the market gets down there, we'll be out with a loss, just like with the stock. But here's where the difference comes in, the play. The stock market, that stop that we were working is gone. When the market closes, there's no way to work that order. In the futures market, it continues to trade. And I think about it as time zones. What we're looking at here is the US time zone. So the US stock market is finished, the futures have stopped for only for a moment because the CME checks all their systems and then it starts to trade again. Well, here's Asia, look at that price action. A few things that hit me instantly when I saw that. One, because we look at different time zones, that is not normal for Asia. It will trade five to 10 points typically in the S&P. Here it's incredibly calm and quiet. And that's because there's going to be an announcement in Europe and who knows how the market's gonna react, right? Well, here's what happened. In Europe, the market did get weaker, actually a lot weaker than expected. Now let's go back and review the trade. For the futures trader, they would have gotten stopped out about one o'clock in the morning. They were probably sleeping at the time, but they were out. Now, for the stock trader, they got a deal with a lower opening because the US market is now gonna open again, US stocks are gonna open again, and now they need to deal with that. So did I lose money in the futures? Yes, I lost that amount of money in the stock position because it doesn't trade 24 hours a day. And I have to deal with that opening the next session. This is the risk I have. So what do you think? If that was your position, would you say, well, I'm gonna buy more? You know, it's not working for me, I'm gonna buy more. I personally don't like that idea at all, adding to a trade because you're adding to a losing trade. And if you have a futures position, well, you don't. Right now, it's clean. You did lose money up here, but now it's to do whatever you think you wanna do. And since this is unusual behavior in Asia and in Europe, it may imply further downward pressure in the US time zone. Well, and maybe it's a selling opportunity for us. Again, we don't know what's gonna happen next, but here is what happened. And the market did move a bit lower, actually a lot lower. But if you see afterwards, look at Asia, this is more typical. And see the power of you and I fouling this 24-hour market is we get to see what's normal. We get to see what's not normal. We have an idea of how to set up our trade. We can manage risk. We can manage trade entry. You know, right now we have earnings coming out in the States as well as in some other countries. And if I wanna trade a stock, or an end to see in this case, because earnings are coming out after the stock market closes, well, I can react to that. Or if I wake up in the morning and I see for me, I look at what Europe is doing. And that may give me an idea. I may wanna initiate a position in the European time zone for me in the stock end to see before the stock market opens. This allows me that flexibility. And you remember the Brexit vote? I just wanna use this as a quick example. I don't know about you, but my feeling was there's no way that Brexit's gonna pass. They're gonna maintain it, maintain that relationship. And this is what it looked like if I was trading stocks, the ETF for the S&P 500. This is what I would have seen. Well, this is what it did. Again, this is a half hour chart. And if I add something else in here, look at this from a time zone point of view. So now we have US, Asia, Europe. And what you can see here, this is when the boat occurred, excuse me. See, it just chokes me up thinking about this. This is when the boat occurred. And at the end of the day, they didn't know in the UK what was gonna happen. They're still collecting information. And at the end of the US trading session, they didn't know yet either. Although the bias was now they're not gonna be leaving. And we see how the Asia time zone started. They also got information now. Now they're getting feedback. And here's how the market absorbed that feedback. So the volatility, the opportunity occurred here in the Asia time zone. And we could have participated in this by putting a stop order in here in case we're long. And if it fails, we now go to the other side because of the potential movement in this time zone. We could do it with options. We could participate in that way. We could do it with micro futures, which are much smaller. So a variety of ways we could have participated in that. And what it shows us is this opportunity that I would have not seen if I just traded my time zone only. Now in Europe, they also were able to participate in some movement here, but that's the power of a 24 hour market. So here's some things I think it's important to keep in mind. For trade entry and trade exit, we can do a lot when it comes to a 24 hour market. As you can see here in the examples that we went through. Profit management, loss management. You know, how I manage a trade, maybe we would trail a stop if it was profitable. And now we have the ability to capture some of that. Maybe when you and I were sleeping and we have the ability to initiate a position and to manage loss as well. And that's really critical. As we both know, I'm sure you're sensitive to this too. Loss management, oh, that's the key. It's important that you and I define what it should be and we take action by the end of the session of how we're gonna trade something. To see global market reaction to news and reports and observe and react to how another time zone absorbs information. You know, I'll tell you something else that I just thought of that when I said that. And that is what I'll see on institutional desk. Actually, I was just thinking about a German bank. And what you could see when you go from one time zone to the next is how does the market position itself? And I think about that particular bank of how they would position themselves before the opening of the US session. It gives you an idea, is there a bias? Are they going neutral? Are they trying to add to positions? And that can be reflected, I believe, in how these candles or other tools you might wanna use mesh as you go from one time zone to another. You wanna identify what's normal and abnormal price activity in other time zones. It's like what you and I did when we saw Asia. I said, holy Toledo, that's not typical for Asia. So right away, we knew something was going on. And then when Europe went down for me in my time zone, I thought, oh, something's going on. This is not normal. This is not typical. Do I wanna fade that? Do I wanna go against that? Maybe not. So it can be powerful information that you and I gather. You know, in that case, let's say we looked at Europe again and let's say I had no position. Now I wanna do something. I know Asia was unusually quiet. Europe was down violently as opposed to typical behavior. And if I now wanna initiate a position, and let's say I do wanna short it because of that, I can put my risk management in there that if it does whatever it needs to do and it goes against me, I can exit. But it allows me to position myself to maybe take advantage of that. Use other time zones market action as a setup for the local market. So what does Asia, if you're in Europe, what does Asia bring to you? What did the US session do? And then how did Asia absorb that session? And then how did it react? And that's what's important here. Those are the clues that you and I can look for. And that may give us an idea of how you may wanna set up trades in your time zone. 24 hour futures allows a trader to stay nimble and flexible. That's really what we're talking about here. It is powerful. So if you've traded futures markets before, please take advantage of that 24 hour clock that you're working with. The market is closed for about an hour a day for my time in my time zone, central time zone, Chicago time zone, it closes at four o'clock and it begins at five o'clock in the evening. So that's between the US time zone and the Asia time zone. Five o'clock is the morning, the next day in Asia. So we get to see how these markets react. We get, and once you do that, you get a feel for what is typical. How many points does this market move in this time zone? And so you'll know what's normal and what's not normal. And it may give you some clues about how you wanna position yourself before the next time zone opens or during your time zone and how to position yourself at the close as well. Now I'd like to talk to you a bit about what's going on with Russia and Ukraine. India imports about 80% from Russia, also along with metals. India is the fifth largest automobile industry in the world. The rates to charter giant oil tankers, they hold about 2 million barrels of oil. Worldwide have increased dramatically because of the demand. There's hundreds of tankers and bulk carriers out there that have not gone to the Black Sea, to the ports that are there. That is a big deal. The issue is if you send a tanker in, can you get it out? And that's such a fluid situation. So it has an impact on a variety of areas that you and I are gonna be talking about. Tankers have been stranded, unable to unload their cargos. Windward estimates 87 million barrels of Russian oil worth $10 billion is floating out there in the ocean, trying to find buyers. Crude oil at $70 a barrel, just to give you a reference, made Russia $120 million. We're gonna be talking about the economics of this dynamic situation that you and I are in right now. And the different areas that we should be aware of that could have a potential impact longer term. Freezing the assets of Russian's biggest banks means the business of importing and exporting from Russia will take a major hit. We're seeing some of that now. One of the problems with sanctions is they're not immediate, but we're now starting to see some of the impact. Another Russian bank whose name I can't think of today was reported that they're going to be also thrown out of Swift, which is the international money transferring system that's out there. Oil and oil products about a third, move that over, of Moscow's export revenues last year. So oil is a big deal for that country. Currently Europe spends, just to give you a feel, $450 million a day on Russian crude oil and refined products. $400 million a day for Nat gas from Russia, $25 million a day for Russian coal. You know, I mentioned it later on, but China is now gonna buy Russian coal with one. And we'll talk more about that later. Europeans have paid Russia some $13 billion for Nat gas since the war began. In theory, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have enough spare capacity for Europe to replace the Russian oil it buys, which is about one half of the Russia's total crude oil exports of 4.7 millions per day. There is capacity out there. And right now, OPEC really hasn't responded to that. They just had incremental increases in terms of output. But there are solutions out there. China calls out the US dominance, dollar dominance, and it buys Russian coal with one. But they wanna get away from this doggone US dollar. And so does Russia. Those two countries don't wanna make transactions in dollars because of what we're seeing right now with Russia. There is the ability to grab assets that are in US dollars to prevent flows, capital flows between countries and markets if it's in US dollars. I just wanted to show you this quickly because the last time we were together, I mentioned this. This is the micro crude oil futures contract. And if you look down here, this was as February 9th. So a couple of months ago, a 10 million futures contracts were traded. It just started trading and it was exploding. The other thing is 37,000 of unique users. These are not people coming from the mini contract coming to the micro. These are new people coming to the marketplace, which I believe are those stock traders that are interested in maybe trading futures. And now the CME has created a whole mixture of micro contracts. So your capital cost to put a position on is greatly reduced and your exposure per tick is also greatly reduced. It's down to one-tenth. So anyways, I thought that was interesting, but check this out. These contracts are now 20 million and 40% of the volume comes from outside the United States. I love that because what does that mean to you and I? Hey, this thing is a liquid. It means that if I want to put a position on, I can get out when I'm sleeping. And it means that depending on your time zone, you can also react and do something because there is volume there. There's people that are interested in participating and what it says, these are new people. So it tells us a lot about the futures market. It says a lot about crude oil, not only crude oil, but a whole bunch of other micro contracts. But this one, it wouldn't be explosive if people weren't comfortable and confident in this market and this exchange. Well, let's go back to the Russia situation. Russia wants gas. Remember this thing came out just recently from unfriendly nations in rubles, not dollars or euros. Most of the contracts that are out there for purchase or sale are in dollars or euros. And they're saying, no, we want rubles because they're trying to get away from the dollars. And if you pay me in rubles, it supports the rubles. It puts demand on that currency. So unfriendly nations account for 70% or around 69 billion of gas prompts exports in 2021. Supply contracts will need it to be reworked, right? If you're gonna change the contract terms, then okay. Right now it's dollars and euros. You wanna make it rubles? Well, then we gotta talk about that, but it also opens a whole slew of other things that can happen. And what it would require is Western governments to hold rubles. Now I'll show you how they're getting around this. And they don't wanna hold rubles. They don't wanna support that currency. But anyways, because it takes it away from the sanctions. Putin trying to chip away at the dollar just like China is. Russia gas shipments through the Ukraine, just so you're aware of that. It's a billion dollars of revenue for Ukraine. They get paid a little fee as the gas flows through that country. All the euro zones banks can withstand a full write-off of the Russian exposure and still meet their capital requirements per the ECB. I wanted to mention this because the financial situation of euro zone banks are not in jeopardy by this whole situation. Paying in rubles, here's how they do it. Buyer of Russian gas. And by the way, this has happened for the German utility Uniper, I think, I don't wanna say because I'm not exactly sure, but it's the Germany utility. This is what they're doing. Okay, paying in rubles, buyer of Russian gas from unfriendly countries needs to have two accounts at the gas prom bank. Gas prom is the natural gas company for Russia and they also have a bank. One in the foreign currency that it wants to pay. And so they put in euros and one in rubles. When the gas payment is due, the buyer deposits the necessary sum in dollars or euros. At its first gas prom account, then the bank converts that money into rubles under the Russian central bank exchange rates. And they deposit that in the second account, which is where the payments made. Now, according to Bloomberg on Wednesday or yesterday, 10 companies in Europe have already opened accounts at gas prom bank. It is a very difficult situation. And we'll see why that is in just a bit. One of them is, whoops, go right back, there we go. What I'm is right here. 42% of the gas that Germany uses, the largest economy in Europe is from Russia. And last year it was, what I saw for 21, 45%. And then we have our friends in Italy, Belarus also, but Belarus relationship is not in jeopardy. Turkey, Netherlands, Hungary, Hungary is willing to comply. They said all along, they're supporting Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, you know, Poland's been, they cut off the pipeline to them, excuse me, and to Bulgaria by the way. Bulgaria gets about 2%, a little bit less than 2% of their natural gas from Russia. So breaking this independence, well, dependence, both Europe and Russia have made moves to diversify their energy markets, which is gonna have an impact, right? Which would help both better weather conflicts between them. Russia agreed to a 30 year contract to supply gas to China. Now, a new, there are some other pipelines over there by the way, but they're also talking about a new pipeline. And it doesn't solve their other issues though. And that amount of gas is not gonna replace right now what they're sending to Europe. Gas may come from the Russian fields with Russia, which Washington put under sanctions in 2015 for the Moscow's role in the crisis when they took over Crimea. So possibly some of that, but the new deal will not divert gas from Russia's Western European pipeline network into China. The challenge of natural gas to really move it, it's usually done by pipeline. And you can't move those around too much. Per the Atlantic Council, sales from this deal will be a fraction of the sales to the European market. Here's what it looks like. We hear so much about Nord Stream, this orangey kind of line there, that one, Nord Stream one, Nord Stream two, the broken line that you see, which has not been accepted, but you can see there's, there are other pipelines coming out of Russia to the rest of Europe. And here's the Bulgarian one that was shut. I just wanted to give you a visual picture when you hear pipelines from Russia going into Europe, what it looks like. Let's talk about some other markets. Wheat, Russia's the largest exporter of wheat in the world. 8 trillion bushels, 8 billion bushels of wheat. US is number two. Russia overtook the United States. I can't remember how many years ago, but it's been a while in terms of exporting. Then we have our friends in Canada, France. France is the largest girl of wheat in Europe. Our friends in Ukraine, Australia, Argentina, Romania, Germany, and Kazakhstan. Again, I just wanted to give you a feel when you hear about wheat, because you're gonna hear more about it going into the future. So there's a lot of Russia, largest exporter. Russia and Ukraine is about 30% of the global wheat market. Countries that risk are Egypt. More than 70% of Egypt's wheat comes from this area. You remember the Arab riots? Well, it started with bread. Bread is critical in that country. It's critical. And where's it gonna get that wheat? India and Indonesia, Turkey rely on Ukraine and Russian wheat to make flat bread and for tourism. About 50% of the grain for the World Food Program buys to feed 125 million people. It comes from Ukraine. Approximately 78% of the Turkey's wheat imports come from Russia and another 9% come from Ukraine. Wheat is used in the Turkey food industry. It's processed into a major Turkey export. Sanctions imposed on Russia means harvested and stored wheat is not being bought. For Ukraine, wheat harvested and stored last season, it won't be shipped. They're talking about sending some of it through Moldova, but there's challenges there. Even if you put it in railroad cars, the railroad tracks, the width of the railroad tracks from Ukraine to Moldova, they're different sizes. The Russian railroad systems wider than the European system. So there are challenges there too. What happens to the winter week currently in the ground that was planted last autumn and should be harvested in the spring? Ukraine's 16% of the global corn. Let's talk about corn. Ukraine supplies 60% of the corn supply to the EU. Here's world corn production. And you can see the US, we produce a lot of corn and we export a lot of corn. The blue line is the export share. The green line is production. And China, you see, they produce a lot. They produce a lot of wheat, but starting maybe 14 years ago or so, they started importing wheat because they couldn't grow enough to meet local demand. Same thing for corn. Look at this green bar, they're producing it, but they're not exporting it. Brazil, look how much they export Argentina. When China goes shopping for corn and soybeans, they go to the United States, Brazil and Argentina primarily. And you can see it reflected in this chart. Russia, when it comes to corn, is not really a major player, but they are participating. Now, there's another area that we gotta be aware of and you know, this thing affects all of us. Russia, major exporter of potash, aronia, urea and other soil nutrients. Disrupted shipment of those key fertilizers has a global impact. And people think, well, you know, if we can grow more corn here, well, Russia and Belarus account for more than 40% of the global exports of potash last year. Critical nutrients to boost crop yields. Russia accounted for key types of fertilizer, 22% of the global export of ammonia. That's where you get your nitrogen for the fertilizer, for the crops. 14% of the world's urea exports. 14% of the monoammonium phosphate, MAP, are called MAP. Brazil, the world's largest and biggest soybean exporter relies on imported fertilizers, which account for 38% of the crop nutrients that used last year. Okay, I'm in Brazil. I'm a farmer. Could I grow more soybeans? Yes, but if I have no fertilizer, am I gonna be able to do that? So it's the problem that's faced around the globe. Russia and Belarus were the source of 50% of those shipments. Russia, Ukraine and Russia supply 75% of the global sunflower oil. That's a big deal too. Sunflower represents about 10% of all cooking oil. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil exporter. And it's planning to ban exports, holy Toledo. You got the sunflower seed oil that there's a problem there. Indonesia, they need to do it because they have inflation. They account for about half of the world's supply of palm oil, world's most widely used vegetable oil. Palm oil is used for cooking and production of thousands of consumer products, including biscuits, detergents, lipsticks. You know, same thing for soybean oil. Everything from cosmetics to cooking oil. Palm oil is competing with soybean oil prices. Hey, you know something? You and I should take a look at oil when we get to the markets. We have time to do that. The ban was designed to bring down domestic palm oil prices and ensure domestic food availability in the wake of global food inflation. I get it. They're trying to protect their people too. So they're not a bad guy here. It's just, they got issues they're trying to deal with. Crops like sunflower oil and corn, they're planted in the spring. Now, well, are the farms going to be able to plant? In the Ukraine, you got the war draft. You've got mine field farms. Russia mined some of the fields, so you can't just hop on your tractor and go out there. The invasion itself is still going on. Supply shortages of fuel and fertilizer. Transportation challenges. So you produce it. You're going to be able to send it out. How are you going to do that? Big, big problems there. Russia is a second largest, no, we're in a shift years here. Just a couple of the areas I want to mention to you before we get to the markets. Second largest supplier of platinum. That comes into play in a variety of ways. Ukraine supplies more than 90% of the semiconductor grade neon gas used to make US semiconductor chip manufacturing. Holy Toledo. Russia supplies 35% of the palladium for chips. Not only do they use platinum, palladium and chips, but they also use it in catalytic convergers. And in the United States, it's about $250 of platinum and palladium in a catalytic converter. So that's going to cause problems from the auto industry. Large impact on the European car manufacturing. This is why, by the way, Volkswagen and BMW have been closing assembly lines in Germany due to the shortage of wire harnesses manufactured in Ukraine. Tire manufacturer Michelin has announced it could close plants in Europe due to logistics issues created by Russian's invasion of Ukraine. And it goes on. Now let's just talk about economies. Where does that fit in? Russia's economy, it's 11th largest economy in the world. It represents 1.7% of the global economy at the end of 2020. Russia has been a very solvent country also. Now it may be getting into shaky ground now, but they've had a solid balance sheet if you look at that over the last 10, 15 years. Russia's gross GDP is roughly $1.5 trillion, slightly smaller than the GDP for the state of Texas. Ukraine's economy is approximately the size of Nevada, another state here in the United States economy, which ranked about 33rd in the United States. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, total value of Russian stock market was approximately $251 billion. And that's roughly equal to the market cap of Pexico, which is a beverage company. So it's that stock. The capitalization of that stock. To give you an idea of how those pieces fit together in 2020, 36.5% of all Russian imports and 37.9% of its Russian exports were with the EU. Take that out of the picture long-term. Now let's talk about a technique that I want us to look at here in just a minute, we got plenty of time. And now we can look at some markets. This is a tool, Japanese candles, that I saw in Tokyo back in mid-80s, I guess it was. I was teaching a course on market profile for Bank of America, for other banks, for their clients. And a part of the course was to go into the dealing room. See, no, that's interesting because today with the tick mill account, I got a trade at that market in the classroom. Well, anyways, we had to go into the dealing room. And we looked at 30-year treasuries, found some trades, walking out to the fellow drawing by hand, these candle charts. And I said to Kunosan, the gentleman, I was with, I said, what are these things? And he said, oh, these are Japanese candle charts, which I had never seen before. But as they were kind enough to talk to me about this, what went through my mind is what I want to share with you. And that is it's what you see as a market maker, whether you're on the floor of an exchange or on a bank desk trading desk or a prop desk at a firm in your market making, it's your C order flow. And you may see whether it's biased to buy or sell. On the floor, if the hands are like this, they're buying, hands are like that, they're selling. And they usually show size by touching their face. This would be buying my hands this way, buying one, buying six, buying 60. This could be buying 200. This would be buying 2,000. You do that in some countries, they beat you up. But here it just represented size. My point is, I think that's what we see here. And that's why I call it behavioral Japanese candles. So for those of you not familiar with this, what I'm gonna say now is not the typical approach to this. For those of you who are familiar with candles, please just put those ideas aside. Our focus is not gonna be on candle patterns. Well, let's get started. You know, what many of you know is when they have a closing price above the opening price, they draw a box between that. It's called the body of the candle. I think it represents buyers coming into the market. And on the other side, when the closing price is below the opening price, I think that represents sellers coming into the market. Why does price go higher in any market? Well, I think because more people wanna buy it. If you think about an auction, if you and I went to an auction and the price is at 50 and I wanna buy it and you wanna buy it. And the price right now is at 50. I bid 51 and you bid 52 and I bid 55. We're competing against each other and we're driving prices higher. That I believe is what happens in the markets. And also here at the high and low match the body of the candle. As many of you know, that doesn't always happen. If the high price is above the body of the candle, there's a vertical line called a shadow. I think it represents sellers at higher prices. And on the downside, it represents buyers at lower prices. The size of the body is a measure of enthusiasm. The size of the shadow is a measure of rejection. Those are the principles that I'm gonna take you through now in some markets. Also, I have a website, DanGramsa.com and I look at 22 different markets every day. You know, Patrick mentioned he provides commentary. Please check that out. So I'm sure he's got some great ideas to share with you. And I have a free one that, well, if you're interested in this and what I talk about are these different markets, how they're setting up, what I'm gonna show you here in just a minute. And if it's of interest, if you're not trading futures and you're thinking about it, a place to begin and just watch them. Or if you only trade stock indexes, maybe crude oil or metals, maybe of interest to you. But where it says start here, click on that because what you'll see is a video. That's the trading floor behind me, by the way, at the CME Group, the old Chicago Board of Trade Building. Anyways, I just talk about what you're gonna see in the video so you understand what's going on. Then click on free market studies, learn more. Where it says get started, you click on that. And then you have a registration, you put some basic information in there, it stays there. I don't do anything with it, CME doesn't do anything with it. But that's how you go about doing that. And it's, it lasts two to three minutes depending on what's happening during the day. And it gives you that overview. Now, what I'd like to do is, let me turn that off and let's take a look at some markets. What an interesting day today. And what you're seeing here are stock indices. You got the S&P, NASDAQ, Dow and Russell. Now, you'll see some dotted lines. Those are just representation of trades that occurred before the current market environment. So previously in the S&P, that would have been a sell level. And again, I'm not making buying sell recommendations. I'm just sharing how I approach these markets. I don't know what's appropriate for people watching, but to give you an idea, that was a sell level. This would have been a buy level and that's when that position would have been exited. And that was the dollar value here, which doesn't mean anything. But if you're not familiar with this, it gives you an idea of what it represents. That's $8,000 a contract for the mini. Now the micro, it would be one-tenth of that or $800. And then this was the next trade. Yesterday, this market went and traded above it. And this would have been a sell level. And you can see today it went right through that sell level. Apparently there's still some concern and apprehension from the market regarding inflation, regarding the Fed, what they're going to do. They raised 50 basis point. They took 75 basis points off the table, said we're not going to do that, no plans right now. By the way, in the past, they've used 75 basis points. I think it was 2007 or 2008. They used 50 and 75 to get that quick reaction. But the problem is the market says, well, when the Fed changes their interest rates, it takes six months to 18 months before the economy feels it. So the concern is that if they do it too quickly, by the time the economy starts really feeling it, it chokes it down and now we have a recession. So apparently that's on the mind of the market as well. This is setting up a potential neutral trade, by the way. I call it a neutral zone trade. Same thing over here in the NASDAQ. This dollar value, there was to be a sell level, very similar to the S&P, that was, what was that? That was $10,000 a contract down here in the Dow to give you a feel for that one. That was $5,000 a contract. And over here in our friend, Mr. Russell, that was $5,000 a contract also. So you have large cap, you have tech, you have a broad 30 stocks in the Dow, industrial stock, and stocks, and then over here in the Russell, you've got small to mid cap. So a variety of indices that you and I can expose our capital to. And right now sellers look like they're in control. I do not look for another day down tomorrow, like today. Tomorrow's Friday. Do people wanna go home short this market? That's part of what we're gonna see tomorrow in the price action. But unless we get new news and we could, we got numbers coming out tomorrow that could have an influence here. But right now I'm not looking for a big day down. Here are currencies. This was a previous sell level for the Euro. Just yesterday it traded above that buy level. The dollar value there in that market was $3,000 a contract. And you can see it's trading below its sell level right now. And look at the Swiss, it fell out of bed. And I don't look for the same kind of move tomorrow. It needs new fuel to create lower prices, yes, but to create this kind of move, low probability. The dollar value there was 2,250 over in Japanese yen. This was $875 a contract in a sell level. And then maybe I need to move that there. So you see it traded above its buy level. It's failed, right? So today it's not closed trading below its bearish level. Same thing here for our friends in Australia. Oh my gosh, isn't this interesting? I just find it fascinating. If you look at our friends in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, United States, India are the largest customers for the resources of that country. They're like Canada in terms of resources. But anyways, as fast as we went up, we came right down. It's what I call rejection setup, equal and opposite. The dollar value here in that market was $1,900 a contract over here in the British pound. You can see this was a sell level, again, a buy level, kind of similar setups, hasn't it? And the ones you and I have been looking at, this was $2,625 a contract and now it's trading below its sell level. Then look at our friend here, the Canadian dollar. You know, we buy more crude oil from Canada than any other country. Mexico is number two. And what we do is they have tar sand. It takes a lot of processing. So does Mexico, they have heavy sour crude. In our Gulf Coast, we have the refining capability for those products, we refine it and then we sell it back to them. So you know what's going on with that. But anyways, you can see it was stronger and it also fails. The dollar value here in that market was $800 a contract. And Bitcoin, we've had a number of trades on this one on both sides. This is a market now that's weaker. You know, what is the true fundamental driver? People say, well, Bitcoin's a substitute for gold. I gotta tell you, I just don't see it. Here's interest rates. This is a yield futures contract. So these are percentages for the 10 year yield curve. So we're looking at 10 year note yield. And right now it's above 3.1%. Here it traded below its bearish level. Just a few days ago, that was from the long side. Yesterday it traded below it, that exited that position. Here was the next level for a buy level and son of a gun, we're trading above it. Same thing over here with just the opposite, right? Yields are going up, price is going down. And what we're seeing here is that was a previous sell level. This was a buy level from yesterday. And that was $500 a contract. And now we're trading below its sell level. Wow, isn't that interesting? And over here in bonds, the same thing. Here's the sell level, then it traded above its buy level. Today, boom, we're below its sell level. And that was $750 a contract. Let's talk about metals. Look at gold. Now, holy, gold's supposed to be a measure of uncertainty, right? In times of uncertainty, gold should be taking off because it's supposed to hold value. And that's why capital flows towards it. Well, what's going on here? This previous, that sell to that buy level, just to give you a reference, was $7,000 a contract. Here, the difference between this sell level and this buy level, that was $800 a contract. But today, it's failed. This buy here is now underwater. It's fascinating. And look at silver. It's silver gone at this one yesterday. I just find it fascinating also. Don't you love these markets? Everyone has a story. And silver, here's a sell level, there's a buy level. Yesterday, it traded above it. And that was $14,000 a contract. The next action that we're seeing here, it's getting close to its next sell level for silver. Wow, times of uncertainty, high inflation, weaker dollar. That's when you look for these markets to move. And copper. Boy, this is one, I'm so bullish on it. But price dictates what you and I do. And what we see here, the difference between that sell and buy level and copper was $7,000 a contract. This difference right here is $800 a contract. And now we're trading below its sell level. Whoa. Fundamentally, it's so bullish for that market. We gotta talk about energy. I like what crude oil is doing. I do look for weaker prices. It just traded above its bullish level here in that market. This dollar value, by the way, was $2,000 a contract. I do look for weakness. I do look for a down day going into the weekend with that market. And over here in that gas, here's a buy level previously and that was the sell level. Is it traded below that green candle right there? And that was, what was that? $18,200 a contract was that value. And what we're looking for, I am looking for further movement to the upside. I just don't think we're done with this market moving up. And the last one's over here, beans, corn and wheat. And these are ones also that fundamentally I would think would be much stronger. But again, price dictates what we do. I'm very bullish on bean contract. And yet, we've seen it rotate back down. Here, the difference between that buy level and that sell level in beans was, I'm looking at my worksheet just so you know what I'm doing. $5,350 a contract. And here it traded above its most recent buy level and it backed off. It's failing today. But I look for a sideways move here. Same thing for corn. This dollar value between that dotted green line and the sell level was $1,700 a contract. Bottom line is I look for a sideways move. I don't look for a follow through to the downside. Wheat, the last market here, we traded above. I should say, here's the buy level. There's the sell level in that market. And that difference was $4,400 a contract. And I do look for further movement to the upside. Remember what you and I were talking about wheat? Fundamentally, globally, it's bullish for this market. But if it wants to go down, I'm happy to sell it because price dictates what you and I do. My fundamental opinion is just that I may be bullish fundamentally, but if this market goes down, I make money by selling, by following price, not my opinion. So those are a few ideas to think about. Patrick, I know we're getting near the end of our time here today. And I was hoping we have more time for questions, but I know we need to finish here. And thank you for setting things up, Patrick. And by the way, thank you, everyone. I know you've probably talked about, as always, fantastic information. There's one question that I know prior to the session, we talked about this offline. One of the attendees wants to know about setting stop-loss positions. This is the question, I know stop-loss is an opinion base, but are there principles to be followed? Well, I have to tell you, when you think about stop management, it's stop management for risk, a loss. Stop management also to capture profit. And if you go back, for example, and watch the video, you can go back five years, I think, in the videos on the website. So you can go back and say, all right, what you would see here, for example, after that, the red line would be below it, because that would be risk. And then it would be a manage, manage the ability to manage profit. So there's a couple of things that I think to think about. When it comes to placing stops, techniques, it can be time, it can be volatility, it can be price, for example. When it comes to time, I use a filter for some trades that I do, that the trade has to perform within two to five periods. There are some trades, I can give it a little bit more time. Other trades, if it's gonna work, it's gonna work now or relatively quickly. If it doesn't, then the probability is it won't, and I give it the big adios and stand aside. So time can be a very important parameter. A volatility, is there a seasonal aspect to the volatility of the market that we're trading that we should be aware of? When it comes to price, I look at price in a couple of different ways. We could use price as a magnitude objective, which is what I use in these videos. So if it moves a certain amount of the capture, let's say we bought it at 50, it moves to 70, 20 points is our magnitude objective, 70 sold, move our stop up to 50, the worst we can do is break even on the second half of our trade, but we've captured 20 points and we put it in our pocket. That's the way I oftentimes trade. Yeah, I find that helpful. The question also continues that, and this is a common problem, I think, for a lot of less experienced or retail traders find that maybe they put their stop-loss level too close to the market and they find themselves getting stopped out before the trade then runs on in the direction of anticipators. I totally agree. And you know something, Patrick? What's so critical about that is that people, the person who does that is they're focused on money, not on the trade. Oftentimes, that's the case. So you should go back and say, whenever you take this technical signal, it doesn't matter what approach you use, but whenever you take this technical signal, does the market ever trade against you? If it does, that's the heat you take on the trade. The maximum heat should be where your stop is, but let's talk about an example. Let's say in the S&P 500, it takes 30 points of risk to do a trade, a swing trade. 30 points on the E-mini is $1,500. Now imagine, which is what you just said, Patrick, imagine the trader who says, my strategy requires 1,500. I don't wanna do 1,500. Right there, don't do the trade. But they say 500, you know, I could do 500. I'm comfortable with 500. So they do 500. The strategy requires 1,500. What happens, they get stopped out at 500, then the market goes in their favor and say, dog on it, see those stops? They just always get me. Well, they always get you because you're not following your strategy. And you should have determined that. And also they can be over-leveraged. They could use micro-programs instead of using the mini. Exactly, you're right on target. They used a micro, that 1,500 would be 150. If they were comfortable at 500, well, they should be very comfortable at 150. It's a dramatic change because what it does at that point, their focus is not on the 150 anymore. The focus is on following the strategy. So you're right, the micros open the opportunity for traders to truly follow their strategy. And also allows retail traders, if they were trading the minis, certainly many wouldn't be capable of trading multiple contracts, but it opens up the multiple contract approach. Excellent point. Yes, you're right. They can peel them off, add to it, or they can peel them off. 10 micros equal one mini. So there's a variety of trading techniques you can use around it, but that's a good point, Patrick. You're right. You can build positions in ways that you may not have been able to do before, either because of capital or comfort. Good stuff. Dan, as always, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for your time. We will be hosting another session in about four weeks' time. You'll receive information from TITML regarding that. You'll also, everyone who's registered for the webinar will receive a recording so you can go back and review this excellent information that Dan has provided for us today. And we look forward to seeing you all on our next session in a few weeks' time. Dan, once again, thank you very much. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you, everyone, for sharing part of your day with us. Look forward to being with you again. Thanks again, Patrick. Cheers, Dan. Cheers. Great work, Dan. Thank you. Great to be with you, Patrick. And I'll be in touch shortly. Okey-doke. Take care now. Thanks.