Three things happening in one week. Big Tech earnings. A Fed meeting. Inflation data. The financial media treats this like a royal flush when it's just Tuesday.
Retail traders will watch all three events. They'll read every headline. They'll check their portfolios forty-seven times between Monday and Friday. They'll move money around based on Jerome Powell's eyebrow position during the press conference. Then they'll wonder why their returns look like a cardiac arrest chart.
Here's what actually happens. Apple reports earnings. Stock goes up or down. Doesn't matter which. Someone on CNBC says the word "guidance" like it means something. Microsoft beats expectations. Stock drops anyway because the cloud growth number had a 3 instead of a 4 in front of the decimal point. Meta posts whatever Meta posts. Zuckerberg wears a t-shirt. The Fed either raises rates, cuts rates, or does nothing. All three outcomes were already priced in last month. Inflation comes in hot or cool or exactly as expected. Markets react for ninety seconds.
Every single one of these data points will be forgotten by the following Monday. But some guy named Derek will definitely blow up his account trying to day-trade the Fed statement because he read that volume precedes price on a Reddit thread.
Technical analysts don't care about any of this. The chart doesn't know what Powell said. The chart doesn't read earnings reports. The chart just shows you where Derek panic-sold at the exact bottom.
This week will generate approximately four thousand news articles. Zero of them will help you make money. All of them will make you feel like you're missing something important. You're not missing anything. You're just watching rich people's quarterly book reports while your stop-loss orders get hunted like it's f*cking safari season.
Photo by Tyler Prahm on Unsplash
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