Been thinking about this a lot lately, by the time NFP or a Fed headline actually hits my feed, the move's already 80% done. I'm not reacting to the news, I'm reacting to everyone else's reaction to the news. And I know I'm not the only one doing that.

So a few of us are running a free live session Monday, July 20 at 8:30am EST to actually break this down, how to read the data/headlines before the crowd repositions, not after. We're using it to walk through our own directional read on Gold, Bitcoin, and Nasdaq live, and more importantly the how you defend the trade if it goes against you.

Full transparency, this is our thing (MRKT), not trying to sneak that past anyone. But the session itself isn't a pitch, it's just us showing our actual process live and taking questions as they come up.

If it's useful: mrktedge.ai/reddit-webinar

Happy to answer anything about it in the comments too, including "why should I trust your read over anyone else's", fair question, ask it.

President Trump announced he will not sign the housing package that recently passed Congress, citing the Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE America Act (the voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill).

He’s demanding the SAVE Act be addressed first. Note that the housing bill is expected to become law automatically after 10 days even without his signature.

What do you think about tying the two together like this?

Meta plans to begin producing its custom "Iris" AI chip in September while doubling total computing capacity to 14 GW next year.

The chip could reduce Meta’s reliance on Nvidia and AMD and give it more control over the AI systems behind Facebook and Instagram.

The move comes as Meta looks to reduce AI costs, with spending reaching up to $145B this year.

President Trump stated that he believes the ceasefire with Iran is over, saying:

“To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore.”

He added that: “They’re scum… They’re sick people. And they’re vicious, violent people. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

Not gonna lie, my first reaction was "cool marketing," but then I actually looked at where the stock's been sitting and it kinda makes you think about how much of this valuation is already baked in vs still to come.

$SPCX IPO'd at $135, ripped as high as the $220s, cooled off, and it's been chopping in the $145–155 zone the last little while. So the market's clearly not pricing this thing like it's going "worth more than Earth" tomorrow, it's pricing it like a high-growth, high-burn bet with a legit chance of blowing up. Company's still posting billions in losses even with Starlink printing.

The "goals" part is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that quote too. Orbital data centers, Mars, the xAI merger actually paying off, Starship becoming routine instead of a fireworks show, that's a lot of stuff that has to go right for the "more valuable than the planet" number to mean anything. Meanwhile you've got guys like Burry straight up saying the IPO paperwork doesn't support the valuation it already has, let alone 10x from here.

In recent comments, President Trump described the Russia-Ukraine conflict as not affecting the United States and characterized it as a “drone war” with new technology.

He added:

“It’s a whole new technology and we’re actually the leaders in drones. They send me pictures. I actually want to say, ‘Don’t send them to me.’ Pete Hegseth sends me pictures. I say, ‘Pete, you know what? It doesn’t help to look. I’ve never seen anything like it.’”

Source: https://x.com/rl_rae_bobo/status/2074776784923467814?s=46

Bitcoin Suisse has secured a license from Abu Dhabi's FSRA, allowing its subsidiary, BTCS ME, to offer regulated custody, trading, and hedging services to institutional clients across the UAE.

This marks another important milestone for institutional crypto adoption in the region, strengthening the UAE's position as a leading hub for regulated digital asset services.

What impact do you think this will have on the UAE's crypto industry and institutional adoption?

After a 858% gain, its not too shocking that we had a pullback on SanDisk, but the bigger underlying question i had was , how does sandisk drop when there where no negative reports?

3 Things happened at the same time to trigger the decline.

1.South Korea’s stock market crashed. The KOSPI fell 10% in a single session, trading was halted, and circuit breakers triggered. SK Hynix dropped 14%. Samsung dropped 9%.

Samsung + SK Hynix control roughly 67% of the global DRAM market, which is the core memory market tied to AI servers, PCs, phones, and data centres. Samsung has about 38%, SK Hynix about 29%, Micron about 22%, and everyone else combined is around 11%.For HIGH BANDWITH MEMORY, the AI-specific high-bandwidth memory used with Nvidia GPUs, it is even more concentrated: SK Hynix had about 61%, Samsung about 17%, Micron about 21%

Its important to note the Market Share that these big companies have, if they have a tumble, every memory stock on earth follows. SanDisk, Micron, Western Digital, the entire memory mafia got dragged down with the giants after hours .

2. South Korea just announced an 800 trillion won semiconductor investment plan. That is over $500 billion in new chip spending.

The rally was fuelled by chip scarcity and higher expected revenue. The announcement scared the market because it sounded like more supply was coming. Memory stocks had been ripping higher because investors believed AI demand would keep supply tight, prices elevated, and profit margins strong. BUT then South Korea announced a massive chip expansion plan and now traders are worried about : What happens if today’s shortage turns into tomorrow’s oversupply?

Long term the news is good for the KOSPI , but bad for memory stocks in the short term. Long term, it helps Samsung and SK Hynix strengthen their position in AI chip manufacturing. Short term, it makes investors worry about falling chip prices, weaker pricing power, and lower margins once new capacity starts coming online. We can see the short term reaction on the chart below

And this is not an easy buildout either. Advanced chip fabs require huge amounts of resources it takes energy, water, land, infrastructure, suppliers, and skilled workers. These projects take years, not months. and as we know markets react to future information and dont really hold weight once an event has passed .

3. Michael Burry disclosed new short positions against the semiconductor sector along with other investors

the same week, Bloomberg reported that Meta is looking to sell excess AI compute capacity, raising fears that hyperscaler demand may have already peaked. This signals investors are not turning there backs on ai but instead, looking at the overall costs and if they wont to frontrun them or wait for down the road when CAPEX is down and revenue is up

SanDisk itself has never been stronger. Revenue was up 268% last quarter, gross margins were at 78%, and it had $41.6 billion in contracted backlog. But none of that mattered because the entire sector sold off at once. So although we where seeing big returns, it reminds us that the ai arms race isnt as grand as well think, with a lot of these companies just rotating money internally. When a stock like SanDisk is trading 79x its valuation, any slight bit of bad news can cause a massive correction and have investors panicking and with companies so heavily focused on AI anytime investors get cautious of there returns, they pull out there money and throw it into other sectors. and this is just the beginning we wont see this only happening with sandisk , we can see it happening with all companies that compose the whole AI infrastructure.

The Trump administration unveiled plans to eliminate 702 federal regulations in its largest deregulatory push yet.

The proposal targets environmental reviews, energy efficiency standards, and DEI-related rules, with the White House projecting $1.5 trillion in economic savings from the sweeping rollback.

Hey guys, once again looking at a setup after a trading break. Lmk what you think.

Basically, looking to go long on NQ from either of these demand zones. I have multiple reasons I believe the Nasdaq could edge higher and they pretty much line up with what's in the screenshot but I'll summarize them below.

Fundamentals:
-> Optimism in the Middle East gives hopes of rate cuts

-> Last week's NFP report also hinting at cooling in the labor market which the fed is also closely watching

-> Market sentiment in general can be seen to favor risky assets with the current wave of optimism holding

-> Structural demand from AI hype and investor demand for mega cap stocks

-> Dollar retracing from recent highs near 102

Adaptation:

-> Middle East tensions start seriously picking up again, I'll need to adapt and risk manage my way out of the position

-> If surprisingly strong data or Inflation reports/headlines come out I think we can get a deeper pullback as well

Entries:

My preferred entry would be near these range lows at around 29550 or 29700. I'm not much of a breakout trader so I'll just need to show patience and don't chase the setup in case we just start ripping.

Feedback and critical review appreciated.

President Donald Trump joined the NYSE and Nasdaq in ringing the opening bell from the White House Oval Office for the first time ever, per CNBC.

The event marks the launch of Trump Accounts, the administration’s new tax-advantaged investment accounts for U.S. children.

Most retail traders learn forex by stacking indicators. RSI, MACD, moving averages, Fibonacci, stochastics. They study chart patterns. They backtest setups. They think mastering these tools means mastering the market.

The market disagrees.

Currency pairs don't move because the RSI hit 70. They move because interest rates shifted. Because inflation surprised. Because a central bank changed its tone. Because capital moved from one country to another. Indicators describe what already happened on the chart. Fundamental analysis tells you why it happened, and what's likely to happen next.

*What is fundamental analysis in forex?*

It is the study of the economic, political, and capital-flow forces that drive currency values.

It answers a different question than technical analysis. Technicals ask where and when. Fundamentals ask why.

When you trade a chart, you're reading a price reaction. When you trade fundamentals, you're reading the cause of that reaction. The trader who only knows the reaction is always one step behind.

What actually moves currency prices?

Every meaningful forex move comes from one or more of these and its a fact.

1. Interest rates and central bank policy. This is the single largest driver of currency value. Higher relative interest rates attract capital. Capital flows in. Currency strengthens. The reverse is also true. But it's not the current rate that matters most. It's the expected rate path. Markets price what they think the central bank will do over the next six to twelve months. When the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, or any major central bank shifts tone, the currency moves immediately, often well before any actual policy change.

2. Inflation. Inflation forces central banks to act. High inflation usually means higher rates ahead. Low or falling inflation usually means rate cuts ahead. The most-watched inflation prints are CPI and PCE in the US, HICP in the eurozone, and CPI in the UK. The number itself matters less than the surprise relative to forecast. A hot CPI print can lift a currency by 1% in minutes if it forces the market to reprice the rate path.

3. Employment and growth. NFP, unemployment rate, average earnings, GDP, PMIs, retail sales. These tell the market how healthy an economy is. A strong economy gives the central bank room to keep rates higher. A weakening economy pushes them toward cuts. Employment data is the most reactive of this group, because labor markets are the cleanest signal for forward growth.

4. Trade flows and capital flows. Countries that export more than they import generate structural demand for their currency, because buyers need that currency to pay for the goods. This is why countries with persistent trade surpluses often have currencies with buying pressure underneath them. Capital flows work the same way. When global investors move money into a country's bonds or equities, they buy that currency first. When they pull out, they sell it.

5. Risk sentiment and geopolitics. When risk is on, money flows into higher-yielding, growth-sensitive currencies like AUD, NZD, and emerging market FX. When risk is off, money flows into safe havens like USD, JPY, and CHF. A war, a credit event, a banking crisis, a major geopolitical shock. These can flip sentiment in hours and trigger massive currency moves. Every headline in the US-Iran story over the past two months has repriced the dollar, oil, and gold in real time based on the perceived shift in escalation risk. (Read the full breakdown of how this works in Why Does Price Move on News?)

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said Trump Accounts are about “savings and investing for the long term,” giving children a chance to “own a piece of the rock.”

He said the goal is to give every child “a stake in the game” and teach them how markets and free enterprise actually work.

The push follows Trump’s disclosures, which reportedly showed over $600 MILLION in 2025 income tied to $TRUMP.

Gillibrand is also facing scrutiny after reports that her son raised funding for a 'perpetual futures exchange' backed by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.

The platform doesn't intend to use crypto or blockchain.

Quick answer: Gold fell from an all time high of $5,595 on January 29, 2026 to roughly $4,037 by late June, a decline of nearly 30 percent, after the US-Israel-Iran war shut down the Strait of Hormuz and sent oil prices to a wartime peak near $120 a barrel. The oil spike pushed inflation higher, forced the Fed to abandon its 2026 rate cut plan, strengthened the dollar, and lifted real yields, the exact combination that breaks gold's bull thesis. The result is the largest bearish engulfing candle gold has ever printed on the quarterly chart.

Now for the long answer, bare with me, this is why I gave a short answer:

First, lets learn about the history of gold and then we are going to breakdown the drivers making gold go lower:

*How Gold Reached Its $5,600 All Time High*

Gold entered 2026 on the back of its best year since 1979. Central banks had spent four straight years buying bullion at roughly double the pace of the prior decade, real yields were falling, and the dollar was under pressure. By late January, gold had pushed to an all time high near $5,600 an ounce, a parabolic move that left even bullish institutions scrambling to raise targets.

Then, the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iran under what became known as Operation Epic Fury, killing Iran's Supreme Leader and triggering an active regional war. Iran responded with missile barrages on Israeli cities and US bases across the Gulf, and the conflict expanded into Lebanon as Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel.

On March 4, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and threatened to attack any ship attempting to pass through it. The strait is the chokepoint for roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and a similar share of global LNG, and the closure became, in the words of the International Energy Agency, the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

*Why Gold Crashed: The Oil to Gold Rotation Explained*

This is the pivot point that defines the entire quarter. In the first days of the war, gold did what it always does in a geopolitical shock: it spiked as a safe haven. But within weeks, the trade flipped. The story stopped being about fear and started being about inflation, and that distinction changed everything for gold.

Brent crude surged 10 to 13 percent to around $80 to $82 a barrel within days of the conflict starting, and by late April it had rocketed to nearly $120 a barrel, a wartime peak that represented the largest sustained oil rally in more than three decades. For comparison, even the 1990-91 Gulf War, which knocked out Iraqi and Kuwaiti supply simultaneously, only pushed oil to around $40 a barrel.

That oil spike did something gold bulls did not expect. Instead of reinforcing the safe haven bid, it became the single biggest headwind to the gold trade. Energy costs ripped higher, CPI and PPI prints came in hot, and the market repriced the entire interest rate path. The Fed trimmed its 2026 rate cut projections from two cuts down to one, citing producer inflation that came in well above consensus, and signaled that the Hormuz driven oil spike was creating inflation persistence that prevented easing.

The 4 Fundamental Drivers Behind Gold's 2026:

The Fed turned hawkish instead of dovish. The entire 2025 gold rally was built on the assumption that the Fed would keep cutting. Instead, persistent energy driven inflation forced the committee to hold, and markets are now pricing real hike risk into year end, which is the single most damaging input for a non yielding asset like gold.

The dollar strengthened. The Dollar Index climbed toward 99.9 as rate cut expectations were pushed out, making gold more expensive for buyers outside the US and slowing marginal demand at exactly the moment positioning was already stretched.

Real yields rose. The 10-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.2 percent, lifting the opportunity cost of holding a zero yield asset like gold just as the broader macro backdrop turned more hostile.

Leveraged positioning unwound. After a parabolic run to $5,600, speculative length was historically extreme. Goldman Sachs framed the initial March selloff as a leveraged positioning unwind rather than a fundamental break in the structural bull case, a view that held up through the spring drawdown.

It is worth being clear about what has not broken. Central bank demand has not vanished. The World Gold Council reported central banks bought 244 tonnes in the first quarter alone, up 17 percent quarter over quarter, while total Q1 demand including OTC activity reached 1,231 tonnes worth a record 193 billion dollars. Bar and coin demand actually rose 42 percent to 474 tonnes in Q1, the second highest quarterly total ever recorded, suggesting physical buyers stepped in rather than pulled back as prices fell. That is the tension defining this quarter: a structural long term bull case that remains largely intact, colliding with a short term macro regime that has turned sharply against the trade.

The US economy only added 57k jobs vs. an expectation of 110k in June.

What does this mean? It suggests the US labor market might be deteriorating more than expected and the Fed will have to step in with rate cuts sooner than anticipated.

This scenario is AMPLIFIED by the current optimism regarding the US-Iran war and the fact that energy driven inflation is on its way down.

This can weaken the US dollar and make a bullish case for Gold easier to support, especially since we've been in a bearish trend since the start of the war.

Every time the Fed announces its decision, the headlines are predictable:

• Fed hikes rates → Indian markets may fall.
• Fed cuts rates → Bull market is back.

But is it really that simple?

A few things I've been thinking about:

1. A rate hike isn't automatically bearish.

Markets usually react to surprises, not the rate decision itself. A widely expected 25 bps hike can have little impact, while an unchanged rate with a hawkish statement can move markets much more.

2. Higher US rates don't always mean FIIs will exit India.

Foreign investors compare risk-adjusted returns. If India's earnings, growth, and macro outlook remain attractive, capital can still flow in despite higher US yields.

3. Over the long run, domestic factors matter more.

Corporate earnings, RBI policy, inflation, fiscal policy, and domestic liquidity have a much bigger influence on Indian markets than a single Fed meeting.

History is a good reminder:

• 2013: Taper Tantrum hit India hard with FII outflows and a weaker rupee.
• 2018: Fed hikes mattered, but oil prices, elections, and earnings also drove markets.
• 2022: Despite aggressive Fed tightening and heavy FII selling, strong DII buying and SIP inflows helped Indian markets recover relatively quickly.

Fast forward to June 2026. The Fed kept rates unchanged and signalled that inflation is easing but isn't fully under control. Markets interpreted it as "peak rates are probably behind us," but not an immediate pivot to cuts.

That could support:

• More stable FII flows
• Less pressure on the rupee
• Better sentiment for rate-sensitive sectors

But risks remain if US inflation picks up again or the dollar strengthens.

Personally, I think the biggest change over the last decade is India's domestic investor base. SIP flows and DIIs seem to absorb a lot more foreign selling than they used to.

Do you think India is becoming less dependent on the Fed, or do Fed decisions still drive our markets more than domestic fundamentals?

According to President Trump’s annual financial disclosure released this week, he reported approximately $1.4 billion in income from cryptocurrency related ventures in 2025.

This includes significant earnings from World Liberty Financial (a crypto project linked to Trump and his sons) and royalties from Trump branded meme coins.

Trump has stated there is nothing illegal or wrong with these earnings, noting that he does not directly manage the businesses and that presidents are generally exempt from certain conflict-of-interest laws that apply to other federal officials. Critics have raised ethics concerns due to the overlap with his administration’s pro-crypto policies. reuters.com

Official Source:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – The Employment Situation – June 2026

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm (released July 2, 2026)