Seasonal Context & Events

We’re technically still in earnings season—though at this point, it’s more of a slow drip than a flood. No holidays to break up the week, no end-of-month inflows or outflows to mess with the tape. The only calendar blip worth noting? Third Wednesday of the month, which means it’s time for the 20-year bond auction—one of those background events that doesn’t always move the Market, but can quietly shift the mood if the numbers surprise.

Key events include:

• 20th August 18:00UTC FOMC Minutes
• 21st August 12:30UTC Initial Jobless Claims

Those events may or may not influence the opening direction and subsequent days.

The Trading Week Recap

Completely non-technical thought this week—so if you came here hoping for some shiny new tool for your arsenal, you might want to check back next week. But as my instructor likes to remind me (and I mean relentlessly), “Trading is 5% technical, 95% mindset.”

I’m subscribed to this free newsletter—not stock market related at all—but every Saturday, it drops a handful of quick thoughts from the author and people all over the world. I’d love to share the name, but since I’m not a lawyer, I’ll play it safe and skip linking. What I can tell you is the author: Shane Parrish, the mind behind Clear Thinking. Solid read with plenty of gold nuggets. Personally, I think some sections could have been one-fourth the length—concepts don’t always need a TED Talk to make a point—but still worth picking up.

Last week, in the “Tiny Thoughts” section, Parrish wrote:

People think good decision-making is about being right all the time. It’s not. It’s about lowering the cost of being wrong and changing your mind.

When the cost of mistakes is high, we’re paralyzed with fear. When the cost of mistakes is low, we can move fast and adapt.

Make mistakes cheap, not rare.

He wasn’t talking about trading—but man, if that doesn’t hit home here. I’ve said it before: cut your losses. My first profitable year wasn’t because I suddenly became the Nostradamus of trading —it was because I ruthlessly slashed my average loss size. Less time in losing trades, less stress, less “hope trading,” fewer capital drains. The winners were already there; I just stopped letting the losers chew up the gains.

With stocks, you can always stubbornly hold and pray for a rebound—tying up your capital for years. With options? No such luxury. Time decay will eat you alive while you wait. If you’re wrong, you don’t wait—you click “sell” and move on. The faster you do it, the cheaper the lesson.

Bottom line: make your mistakes cheap. And then make fewer of them by cutting your losses early.

What happened last week? Forecasts were calling for a push up toward R1 and R2, followed by a potential high-volatility stall once we got there.

Yep, nailed it—rise to R1 and R2, then range-bound in that zone. The only miss? No “volatile Friday” like I’d called for. Still, giving myself a pat on the head and moving right along.

Support & Resistance Levels

R3	6569
R2	6547
R1	6496
Close	6449
S1	6322
S2	6297
S3	6198

Forecasts

Call me whatever you like, but I’m seeing red for next week. My only DOI for August is still parked on the 22nd—Friday—and I’m sticking with the view that if we do slide, that date marks the bottom of the month’s drop. And while September, along with August, ranks among the Market’s two worst-performing months, I don’t see prices dipping below where we’ll land at the end of August.