1. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. This is really the talk of the town this morning. This does not affect the stock market directly, but it makes traders and investors question their confidence in the current administration. I personally believe the Federal Reserve controls the market action with their current QE $120 billion/month program. 

2. Options expiration for August is on Friday. As you should all know by now, this is a week of institutional game playing. It's also a week where you will hear a lot of rumors, geopolitical events and lots of ridiculous up/down grades. Expect the unexpected. Watch Tesla and see what they do to it. This is the real shark week. 

3. Gold/Silver they were hammered in June during options ex. Nick said not your normal gold slam. Big traders were in there driving it down. More upside now to 1840 potentially. The miners stopped leading and still are not. Mining stocks are negative today while gold is up $9.

4. Cryptos have had a good move. They’re up slightly and now Bitcoin is at resistance. It’s a nice retrace, but wait for the pattern. 

5. Inflation is back with a vengeance. Commodities made lifetime moves. You can see the inflation on the charts. Inflation is here to stay. The lockdowns are the catalyst when the global economy shutdown. Gold, lumber, food, copper, etc had huge moves. Watch the price of copper. Copper tells all. And so was lumber. Copper topped in May and has pulled back a bit. Next wave coming in 2023-2024.

6. These policies are the exact opposite of what the economy needs. Lot’s of market volatility. You need to be a stock picker. Next year or two will be very tough. People have gotten used to raging bull markets. 

7. Dollar has been strong and it bottomed out in May and has been making higher lows. Within the next 10 years it will lose its reserve status. Will the US stop cryptos? 

 

8. Europe is a disaster. European banks’ charts are extremely weak. Look at Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse. There’s a problem in the European bank. Their bond market has been killed by negative.