It's been almost a month since I did an outlook, so I'll keep it short and blast through it.

Tradfi did what I said, and stayed weak

No major updates on equities. We're trend respecters at our core, and fading the trend isn't in my wheelhouse.

The summertime thesis has played out more or less exactly how I thought it would.

The momentum loss we started seeing in May is now fully set in. Stronger risk assets go sideways, like the SPX, weaker ones probably trade down.

If you get a dip into the SPX range lows, call it 7,300 down to 7,100, that's value, bid territory right now.

If we trade down there, I’ll take it and add to positions. Top of my list: SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, IBM, maybe Google or Apple.

The doodle: compress into October

Bitcoin macro is a continuation of what we've been talking about.

I expect price to keep building this range and compress from here until October. August should be low volatility ahead of that Q4 rally I expect in October.

Then close to October, a fake-out move would be my reason to get aggressive on the long side into a bullish Q4. If I'm wrong and we lose 57k, I'm mentally prepared for that.

Riding the long, then a swing short

On medium timeframe we've been in this composite since early June.

70k is the obvious next target, so we either front run it around 68k or blast through to 72k, maybe 74-75k.

I've been in this long about 20 days, not top ticking the exit, just squeezing one more leg up, maybe closing in the upper 60s or holding into the mid 70s. From there we set up for a swing short to target these lows.

The pattern has been grind upward, elevator down, and that panic can make a fantastic dip buy.

Value buys are sub 60k. If we get one more chance to long below 60k in the next two months, I'll be aggressive.

Same 2024 value framework as all year.

We're opening up towards our two-month composite value area high, a lot of stacked resistance overhead from 65k to maybe 70k.

The wall overhead

That composite value high is perfectly confluent with the 2024 VWAP.

We used it as support in Q1 to open Q2, and now it's resistance at the end of Q2. We've been attacking it the whole month and getting rejected, but bouncing beautifully off the monthly VWAP every touch.

Above it, 66k is the previous month's value high, then the weekly trend. Not easy for bulls.

Took some profit on the swing

I'm still in the swing from 59k, and I took a little profit Friday around 64.2k at the monthly value high, mainly due to the cancer this swing has been, testing the exact same price over and over.

Would I feel worse roundtripping after taking nothing, or booking it and watching us go higher? I decided to pay myself a little. Target's still 66k.

One more FUD event

A move up into the weekly trend is probably my last chance this bear market to hedge or go net short.

What flips me bullish high time frame is when, not if, we flip the weekly trend, like in 2023.

I don't buy the up only bull market imminent crowd. We're still compressing and building value underneath the weekly trend, so right now I'm a price optimist and a time pessimist, open to one more FUD event into the 2024 value area low around 50k.

The books are thickening up top

Every time we've dipped into the monthly VWAP, bulls defend it, but then run into supply above, unable to get through 64k.

What's optimistic this morning is the bids are thicker as price gets towards the highs, last time that happened we were at 61k. People are refilling spot bids, like this large 63k bid on Coinbase spot.

On the perps there's a new sell wall around 65.4k. Breaking it takes active bidders eating into the asks and getting rewarded rather than absorbed.

I like the momentum loss at the lows this morning. Largest sell of Asia on the Binance spot book made a higher low and went unrewarded, a decent long off the previous week's VWAP.

TLDR

• Rotational day at last week's value area high. Need active bidders through it towards 66k, otherwise we range again.

• Pullback to last week's value low near 63k lines up with the monthly VWAP, that's the dip buy.

Right, it's the 20th of July, the World Cup's done and dusted, congratulations to Spain.

Now it's back to markets, which isn't half as entertaining.

Reclaim 65k or there's nothing to do

Bitcoin on the 4-hour is rejecting from resistance and has put in a nice new lower high. It's painfully slow, this grind up, isn't it.

For me the long is the reclaim of 65k. Once we've broken above 66k, 67k and reclaimed the 65k, we can say we've cleared this area for good and we're ready to move into a structural uptrend.

I keep banging on about the same thing, I know, but it is what it is. I can't change the markets.

Pump was the one to catch

There was a nice move on Pump, which looks like a very coordinated shill if you ask me.

Every man and their dog posting the same format tweet, "I'm buying Pump here." If that's not a coordinated paid shill I don't know what is.

Still, it's undeniably in play, one of the very few coins worth trading. Same giraffe consolidation, run it up, consolidate, run it again.

Did I catch any of it? No. Did I want to? Yes. I don't trade weekends and this was a clean breakout on the weekend, so I was too busy preparing for World Cup glory.

It can do the same thing again though, consolidate and then the reclaim or the breakout.

Long crude, moving my stops up

Crude's running, thanks to Mr Trump and his continual bombings of Iran. Nice to profit off war, isn't it. Not really, but you get the point.

My stops are under here and I'll probably move them up, because I don't want to retest the range, I want this trending move to just keep going. I'm not looking to round trip 50% of my profits.

Zcash rotations are probably done

ZEC is starting to look actually pretty bad.

The 4-hour uptrend held consistently, every dip bought up, but this one's different. We've got a lower high, momentum weakening, and we've lost the 50 for once. Lowest RSI it's been in a while.

I'm not looking to short it, it just makes me want to sit back and say the Zcash rotations are probably done.

VVV, the one I'm tempted to buy

We flagged the structure break on VVV last week and it still looks great.

We've broken the downtrend, broken out of the range, and we're hovering just above what was pivotal resistance. It's one of the only coins with decent potential for this to be some form of low, so I'll likely buy a bit of spot and go for a little swing.

I'd love to see it on relative strength to really size in, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Still short HYPE

Still got my HYPE short running.

We've flipped bearish on the daily, a series of lower highs, and you can see the general weakness on RSI, extremes going down and to the right. That gives me confidence in the position.

Reclaim the pivot and I'll happily flip it, but until then I'm following the trend.

As for Ethereum, everyone's suddenly gone "ETH is the future now." It's broken the downtrend, so it's not a terrible place to take risk, but it's just a bit boring. I've got bits and pieces dotted about, I'm not sticking a chunk of my net worth in it.

Otherwise it's waiting for triggers on spaghetti, which is on my left screen all day. Or we all retire as crude multimillionaires. Job done. Au revoir.

Everyone wants this range to be the low. It's the same range that shows up around month nine of every bear market, but none of those were the bottom.

The drawdowns have shrunk each cycle, from 94% down to 54% at the June extreme, but the time from peak to low hasn't moved. The timing models converge on October to December.

What breaks a range floor is always a specific forced seller, and this cycle's candidate is identifiable: DAT credit stress, Saylor's choices looming behind it.

The flywheel that works up only, buy and let the NAV premium widen and repeat, runs in reverse and creates reflexivity to the downside. If it gives way, expect fast selling toward the 40s, and then a bottom formation.

None of this refutes the conventional playbook. A Q4 flush into the low 50s or high 40s, a few months of base, a breakout into 2027.

So I stay cautiously optimistic, on a longer time horizon. Predetermine your discounts and buy them slowly to avoid bad emotional decisions.

Nothing worth trading on BTC

Still nothing spectacular happening on Bitcoin. This looked like a breakout to me, I thought we were ready to expand higher, then we traded right back inside the inflection point. Not all too inspiring.

There was never an incentive to trade that Bitcoin analysis anyway. The incentive was elsewhere, Hyperliquid and Ethereum, where I did well. Just because you can make analysis doesn't mean you have to execute it.

I'm not here to trade 5-10% measly relief rallies. I'd rather throw a frisbee with my dog than chase an 8% move into a bearish retest of range highs. As Bitcoin trades lower, I feel vindicated in the discipline.

NEAR setting up

Same read as before: 12H 200s reclaimed, sitting on massive range lows. The trigger now is the 4H 200s.

Break local resistance and convincingly reclaim them, and that confirms the higher low is in. Then we run range lows, mid-range, range highs, a 50% move, not 22%.

Bitcoin is at the lowest of the lows right now. NEAR is still up 100% from four months ago, even after selling off 30%. That's relative strength.

Did I trade it perfectly? I don't have a cool story for you. But focus on the right assets and even a mundane market gives you a chance to perform.

ENA on the 6H

ENA is a clean trigger trade on the 6H 200s.

Hasn't fired yet, but about as clean a trend as you'll ever get.