December 19, 2024 • 19 mins
The best traders “stack” probabilities in their favor – using different types of analysis and multiple trading signals to increase their chances of success. They know how to manage risk. And they don’t dig their heels in when they face the “Right idea, wrong time” dilemma. Those are just a few of the pearls of wisdom shared by Blake Morrow, co-founder of Forex Analytix, in my latest MoneyShow MoneyMasters Podcast segment.
We begin by discussing Blake’s background in the capital markets, including stints as part-owner of a Dallas brokerage and chief currency strategist for Wizetrade Group and what is now Ally Financial. Blake then shares an overview of Forex Analytix, including the 30+ different markets and currency pairs its analysts track and talk about...and the educational and community-based features it offers.
We move on to trade relations next, discussing the impact of President-elect Trump’s tariff-focused policies, China’s stimulus toolbox and how currency devaluation fits into it, and what key levels to watch when it comes to the yuan. Then we cover the “divergent policies” theme and why it’s so important in the FX and related markets. Blake zeros in on recent policy moves the Bank of Canada, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and US Federal Reserve have made – and how traders should play what they do next. He also covers Bitcoin, gold, and why “buying the dips” should work in both asset classes.
Finally, we circle back to tactics and strategies. Blake outlines the five major schools of analysis his firm focuses on, how you can mix and match them to boost your probabilities of success, and the one thing that trips up traders the most – plus how to get past that pitfall. Blake closes with a preview of what he’ll cover at the 2025 MoneyShow/TradersEXPO Las Vegas, scheduled for Feb. 17-19 at the Paris Las Vegas. Click here to register: https://www.lasvegasmoneyshow.com/?scode=061246
We begin by discussing Blake’s background in the capital markets, including stints as part-owner of a Dallas brokerage and chief currency strategist for Wizetrade Group and what is now Ally Financial. Blake then shares an overview of Forex Analytix, including the 30+ different markets and currency pairs its analysts track and talk about...and the educational and community-based features it offers.
We move on to trade relations next, discussing the impact of President-elect Trump’s tariff-focused policies, China’s stimulus toolbox and how currency devaluation fits into it, and what key levels to watch when it comes to the yuan. Then we cover the “divergent policies” theme and why it’s so important in the FX and related markets. Blake zeros in on recent policy moves the Bank of Canada, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and US Federal Reserve have made – and how traders should play what they do next. He also covers Bitcoin, gold, and why “buying the dips” should work in both asset classes.
Finally, we circle back to tactics and strategies. Blake outlines the five major schools of analysis his firm focuses on, how you can mix and match them to boost your probabilities of success, and the one thing that trips up traders the most – plus how to get past that pitfall. Blake closes with a preview of what he’ll cover at the 2025 MoneyShow/TradersEXPO Las Vegas, scheduled for Feb. 17-19 at the Paris Las Vegas. Click here to register: https://www.lasvegasmoneyshow.com/?scode=061246
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The currency markets are in flux, and that's true whether
you're talking about the traditional FX market, but the cryptocurrency space.
Among the more noteworthy recent trends, the US dollar has
soared in the wake of Trump selection victory. The Chinese
one is getting a lot of attention following recent evaluation commentary.
But of course Bitcoin has punched through one hundred K
and vacillated around that big round number while investors try
(00:25):
to figure out what's coming next. Joining me and helping
make sense of the action is another all new guest
on The Money Show Money Master's podcast. He's Blake Morrow,
co founder of four x Analytics. Blake, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hey, thanks for having me, Mike, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, glad you could join me. A lot going on
out there. So I guess since I haven't had you
have the podcast previously, why don't you start by talking
a little bit about your background in the FX business
and what it is that you do there at four
X Analytics.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Sure, I'll just I'll try to make this brief. You know,
I started I started trading in the in the late nineties,
like a lot of people during the dot com boom bust.
As if you recall, and I started trading independently block
trading and back in nineteen ninety seven. Before that, I
had gotten my Series seven. So back in ninety five anyway,
(01:13):
you know, I was part owner of a brokerage firm
in Dallas. We eventually sold it. I was a chief
currency strategist for the Wise Trade group MB Trading, which
eventually became ally Financial and then I started for X
Analytics about eight years ago, and we provide analysis for
individual investors, banks, hedge fund managers, institutions globally. We have
(01:35):
a mobile app. We do analysis not just on currencies,
but we have thirty different instruments. We cover cryptos, We
cover bitcoin quite aggressively, a lot of different cross rates
in the currency market, buns or excuse me, boons, the
ten year Dollar Index, SMPS, dacks, you name it. We
(01:57):
cover a lot of different instruments. But you know, really
our point of view, From our point of view, the
currency market is the largest market in the world and
it's where a lot of correlations really develop and they start,
and these trends, when they develop, they tend to impact
every market around the world. So we obviously pay very
close attention. What's happening with the dollar. It's very much
(02:20):
going to be in focused the next four years, during
the you know, President Trump's second term. I think he's
got big plans for the dollar to move lower, and
yet yet all of his you know, his policies that
he's putting forward really don't don't really coincide with that.
So you put all that together, and I think we're
going to have a very very volatile twenty twenty five
(02:42):
and beyond, and I think the dollar is going to
be in the epicenter of the entire move.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I agree, there's a lot to unpack there, and I
definitely want to kind of go through those points one
by one. But first one to ask you, I mean,
you've done a lot of work of trading yourself, obviously
in educating traders and the equities in FX space. You've
had the show of the Morning Edge and so on.
So what are your thoughts on this trading in mar
market environment versus what you may have seen, you know,
in previous years that you've been at.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
This well volatility. You know, I can just kind of
backtrack pre pre COVID. You know, pre COVID, I I
traded for an independent fund where you know, it was
a private, private fund and and you know, volatility, euro
volatility was at five, which is ridiculously low. It was
(03:25):
a very very tough environment and I and I traded
with them for four and a half years and it
was great, but volatility was super low. Now after following
like the COVID lockdowns and everything else, volatility in currency
markets really exploded. And what we've seen is we've seen
in a consistent incline uh in volatility as we're as
(03:45):
we're approaching you know, the twenty twenty five you know,
calendar year. One of the things that I think is
really moving the markets, and one thing that will continue
to move the markets moving into the next couple of
years is these divergent policies that central banks have. You know,
you have the Bank of Japan, which is desperately trying
(04:05):
to raise rates first time you know, they've you know,
come off the zero bound or negative rates and in
over a decade. And then you have you have other
central banks like the FED that's trying to lower rates
where they probably really shouldn't be. And then you have
other central banks like you know, the ECB that's trying
to aggressively lower rates because their manufacturing sector is completely slumping,
(04:27):
and yet we all are facing uh, you know, persistent
and annoying inflationary pressures globally. So this divergent central bank
theme is going to continue to play out into next
year as well. So I think those are going to
be the dominating themes in the currency market at least
moving forward.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Okay, let's talk about you know, the Chinese you want
situation I brought up at in the intro is kind
of talk. You know, they seem to be maybe trying
to push back at tariffs by talking about allowing the
currency to do value. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, that's that's one of the one of the lovers
that China has. And and you know, I'm sure your
your listeners are very well aware that the Chinese economy
has been in the toilet and and you know, China's done,
you know, kind of a shotgun approach in in stimulus,
and uh, you can see obviously if you look at
you know, uh, you know, the China fifty or any
(05:19):
any Chinese index you want to you want to benchmark
investors really want to see more of a bazooka from
from China. Now one of their big levers that that
they have is is uh manipulating if you will, and
I'm using that term uh rather loosely, you know, manipulating
(05:39):
their pegged currency to the dollar. And one of the
release valves that they have is you know, they can
we can the remembe weak in the wand and you
know a lot of people think that that is a
next year's story China, and and my my my analysis
analyst team excuse me at Fox Analytics believe that the
(05:59):
China is going to be more of a let's wait
and see what kind of tariffs come our way and
if it's something that that needs to be dealt with
U through the means of the currency market, they will
do that and they'll devalue their currency. I believe if
you're looking at the and I should pull up the
chart really quick just for so I don't reference the
(06:20):
wrong exchange rate. You know, you start you start seeing
a move above seven forty in the US r C
and H and that's that's UH. That that means that
China is really starting to you know, weaken their currency
and combat uh tariff tariffs or tariff threats or or
maybe even a more substantial slowdown. You know, they want
to weaken their currency. They want to weaken their currency
(06:41):
to pick up uh, you know, you know demand globally
for for their for their exports.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, let's talk about the Trump tariff and the sort
of the dollar impact. Obviously we've seen you know, usd
take off after the election, kind of stabilizing a little bit. Now,
what are your thoughts there longer term? I mean, you
know on tariff policy. Is this dollar rally going to law?
Is it going to cause pushback here in the US?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, I believe, Well, first of all, I believe it's
not a one size fits all scenario when you're dealing
with different I was just just having a conversation actually
about twenty minutes ago with the forx analytics community at
about the ECB, and everybody just watched the Bank of Canada.
(07:23):
They cut rates, front basically front loaded a jumbo rate
cut today and the Canadian currency actually strengthening, strengthened post
Bank of Canada. And the reason why they did that
is because everybody's like, oh, look, the Bank of Canada
is going to cut rates, and they frontloaded it, and
now they're going to sit on the sidelines for a
while and a lot of people are worried that the
(07:43):
ECB could do that tomorrow as well. They could, they
could actually you know, cut rates, you know by fifty
basis points, which the market's not expecting. But say, you know,
and we're going to stand pat But you think about
different countries and how they're dealing with President elect Trump,
it's going to be different, and terf are going to
be different. You know, you look at the you look
at sterling or the pound, the pound currency, it has
(08:05):
been very much insulated from the tariff threats. Why because sorry,
if you live in the UK, you guys just don't
make a whole lot you know where you know, you
have a lot of European goods that are that are
probably going to be tariff quite quite aggressively. But that
doesn't mean it's going to happen. I mean, I'm sure
your listeners are very well aware. You know, Trump's threats
(08:26):
right now are just threats. They they're they're they're going
to get him to the They're going to get them
to the table. And what he decides that his administration
decides to do with each individual country, whether it's Mexico
and they just said, hey, we want to work, you know,
more aggressively on immigration and UH and and drugs and
the cartel. So we're not going to teariff you as much.
(08:47):
You know, we will let you. We'll let you get
by with some of the automotive stuff that you're doing
with China. Blah blah blah. You know, maybe Canada is
a little bit different as well, you know, being that
he just called Canada the Great State of Canada yesterday,
you know, so you can see he's going to be
approaching different different countries differently. But the whole tariff threat
(09:07):
it is right now, it's just a threat. What comes
from it in twenty twenty five is what's going to
make twenty twenty five interesting, not only in not only
in the currency market, but individual markets globally. Whether you
know so, it's going to affect you if you're trading
the CAC forty or the ibex or the dacks. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Let me ask you about bigcoin. I mean, obviously you've
talked a little bit thing on X about this kind
of range ninety to one hundred k and trading the
range makes sense. Do you think we break out of
that eventually if so, or do you think this is
more kind of rangebound environment.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I know, I do. I think it's been I think
it's well. First of all, if anybody who's been in
our community for any number of last couple of years
knew that the upside target for the big cup and
handle technically was one hundred and three thousand, and we
one hundred three thousand, eight hundred, we suppressed it by
like two hundred dollars. We hit one O four and
(10:01):
then we backed away that you know, a lot of
this buying of crypto and bitcoin, and you know a
lot of these alt coins has been all on anticipation
of you know, Trump coming back into office. He is,
and I think he's going to be very crypto friendly.
So I do believe longer term targets actually pointing to
one hundred and thirty thousand from what I can see
right now. But I believe that you want to buy dips,
(10:22):
and that's why, you know, dips below one hundred thousand.
Yesterday dipped to ninety four thousand, and we were like, well,
this is the place you want to be long and
then you know, we started scaling out again as it
was approaching one hundred thousand this morning, and I think
that's the approach that you need to take with crypto,
is you want to be a buyer on dips. You know,
it's going to be a friendly environment. And you know,
(10:45):
I know there's a lot of people that believe that
crypto is going to change the way that we all
do business in the future, which it very well may.
But I don't know about you guys. I do very
little transactions in crypto, that's outside of trading, so and
I do a couple, but I know the rest of
the world doesn't. So unless you're looking at it as
(11:07):
a store of value, like like a gold asset, Yeah,
well then you know, if you're looking at it like gold,
we'll look at look at what gold's done. I think
bitcoins could could mirror that too.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So yeah, and that's that's why I want to ask about.
I mean, the one thing we hadn't talked about yet
was precious metals gold here. You know, obviously we blew
out to that high, we've pulled back scene of volatility.
What are your thoughts there.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I love gold, I mean, you know, what's not to
love about a gold that's I mean, how what what
percentage did we put up this year? Like eighteen percent
or whatever the rally has been. I mean in the
gold market, when's the last time we've done that? And
you know, the trends are quite solid, the diversification, the
diversification and the UH the purchasing of central banks purchasing
(11:52):
a lot of gold has been substantial, you know when
you're talking about China or India or other central banks
that are that are putting away gold is reserves. So
I like it. I just the biggest issue that I
have is at this stage, and it has been for
the last couple of months, is how probably poorly positioned
(12:15):
it is from a from an institutional and even a
retail point of view. You know, when you can easily
go to down the street about a mile away from
my home as at Costco, and I could go pick
up a gold bar. It worries me because I know
so many people that know nothing about the markets and
friends of mine since I live in I live in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(12:36):
If you don't know that, you know people that I
know that know nothing about the markets are you know,
talking to me about gold and they have been for
the last couple of months. And you know, when when
the shoeshine person, is uh is talking to you about stocks,
it's the time you want to sell shoes. Maybe when
when your neighbors are talking to you about gold, it's
probably the time that you want to be a little
bit more cautious. So I believe buying in dips. But
(12:59):
you know how far we go from here? Is uh?
I think I think we continue higher.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Overall, we pivot a little bit to tactics in the
time we have left and sort of education facet of this.
And you talk on your on the website about five
different ways of analysis macro, candlestick, basic, technical, harmonic and
Elliott wave. You know, can you briefly discuss sort of
how those fit into a trader's toolbox and kind of
whether and how they can be mixed and matched.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Sure, we you know, we have a we have a
we have a pretty uh how should I say diverse
staff uh here of analysts at for X Analytics, and
everybody's got their their specialized analysis feature set, if you will.
And for us, we like to look at multitudes and
different types of analysis, whether it's a macro having a
(13:42):
macro theme backdrop behind what you're doing, maybe matching up
with some sort of elliot wave count or or harmonic
UH level that can show you when a asset class
may pivot versus basic technical analysis and kind of putting
it all together, and it's like it's like anything. You know,
as traders, what we do is we look for probabilities.
So if you stack probabilities in your favor and you're like, well,
(14:05):
you know, my elytician just saw this as you know,
completed four of five and it looks like it's about
ready to head back up and it's got a good
macro backdrop and the basic technical analysis as it's breaking out, well,
then your probabilities are stacked a little bit higher that
trade's going to work in your favor going long. And
that's the way we kind of view the markets, because
(14:26):
not everybody gets it right. And you know, anybody that's
been doing this for a substantial amount of time know
that you're going to be right and you are going
to be wrong. And so if you can get most
of the probabilities in your favor going in the direction
that you want to be going, your probabilities are going
to be better that you're going to make money. Your
risk management is probably going to be a little bit easier.
(14:46):
You're following an easier path of resistance when you trade,
and that's kind of our philosophy at for X Analytics.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
One of the questions I want to ask because I
know a lot of what you do is community based,
you know, bouncing ideas off of other people and kind
of getting their feedback. Any big questions you see popping
up a lot, and kind of mistakes people are making,
your tips, you'd suggest avoid that these days.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You know. Yeah, that's actually a really phenomenal question I've
you know, Mike, I've been working with. I got kind
of thrown into the retail space back in the early
two thousands when we sold our company to originally to
the Wise Trade Group, which we had a brokerage firm
and execution platform at that time in the late nineties,
going into right after September eleventh. Yeah, and so I
(15:30):
got thrown into the, like I said, retail space. I
started dealing with a lot of retail traders and and
and seeing the I've seen people come and go, and
I've seen people stick around for a long time, and
you know, I I what I find most problematic, Well,
you asked me a couple of well, you asked me
one question about like, what's you know, maybe what a
lot of people are asking about. Yeah, there's a lot
(15:52):
of there's a lot of interest obviously in crypto, but
I think that's more you know, it's more based around
what's happening in the current environment. But you know, as
far as traders go, and you know, some of some
of the things I see traders do is I just see,
for the most part, a lot of traders just have
very poor risk management. Some of the best traders I've
(16:15):
traded with over the years when I was trading on
an institutional size is most of the guys would would
come with the same the same thought process, right idea
wrong time. That means they weren't they weren't opposed to
getting out and taking a loss because it just wasn't
the right time. But they'll still stick with the idea.
(16:36):
They might just come back to it a day later,
maybe a couple of days later. Because if you executed
into a trade and you're like I'm going to get
long euros or I'm going to get short equities or whatever,
your your your your trade is a lot of people
have this this idea that I'll just sit in it
stick in it for a while and you know, eventually
go my way. But that's really the opposite of what
(16:58):
you know what I've seen some of the most successful
traders do. They tend to say, you know what, I'm
just going to cut my loss really, really small, and
then I'm going to keep that idea fresh and I'm
going to come back to it, you know, because it's
just the wrong time, maybe right, idea? Got it?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Last question, I want to run by you. I mean,
you're going to be joining us for the twenty twenty
five Money Show Traders Expo Las Vegas in February. I
know markets can change a lot, especially for our more
trading oriented speakers, but your current topic is inner market
trading in the new economy. You give people a sneak
peak about, you know, kind of what you're going to
be talking about there, what they'll walk away from if
they attend your session.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm looking forward to looking
forward to being there. I'm going to be speaking with
one of my colleagues, Tracy's Shoe Shoe Cart, and she's amazing.
She deals a lot in commodities and I deal in currencies,
and like I mentioned earlier, I think the currency market
is going to be central, the big central theme around
what we're doing in the next year, and I think
(17:52):
you're going to have to be watching the dollar very closely,
and those a lot of traders have seeing correlations and
they think that correlations, ohwas stick, And the fact of
the matter is they don't. But what we do is
we see divergences and convergences from these correlations. And if
the dollar is this central theme behind everything, then I
think the dollar is gonna tip you guys off as traders.
(18:13):
You're gonna it's gonna tip you off on what might
be happening in other markets. So I'm gonna be using
the dollar as like the base called base currency, that's
what US currency traders would call it, but really the
base thesis of your central point, if you will, and
how it might spin off different trading opportunities just based
(18:36):
on what the dollar is doing alone.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Well, listen, I really appreciate you taking some time out
here to watch and viewers if you'd like to learn
more from Blake again, he's going to be speaking at
that money show. Traders Expo Las Vegas runs February seventeenth
to nineteenth at the Paris, Las Vegas. You can find
out more in the link below or go you find
out more in the description below. Also flick on the
link if you want to register and subscribe to this
channel if you want to get updates like these. Thanks
(19:00):
again for joining the podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Look forward to seeing it there well. Thanks Mike, and
I look forward to seeing all of your attendees in
my breakout session. See you guys here.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We'll have more interviews for you every week, so I
encourage you to subscribe to The Money Master's podcast so
you can stay up to date with the insights from
top money experts. You can follow me on Twitter at
real Mike Larsen and follow money Show for more investing
and trading content on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at money Show.
Thanks for listening, See you next time.
The currency markets are in flux, and that's true whether
you're talking about the traditional FX market, but the cryptocurrency space.
Among the more noteworthy recent trends, the US dollar has
soared in the wake of Trump selection victory. The Chinese
one is getting a lot of attention following recent evaluation commentary.
But of course Bitcoin has punched through one hundred K
and vacillated around that big round number while investors try
(00:25):
to figure out what's coming next. Joining me and helping
make sense of the action is another all new guest
on The Money Show Money Master's podcast. He's Blake Morrow,
co founder of four x Analytics. Blake, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hey, thanks for having me, Mike, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, glad you could join me. A lot going on
out there. So I guess since I haven't had you
have the podcast previously, why don't you start by talking
a little bit about your background in the FX business
and what it is that you do there at four
X Analytics.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Sure, I'll just I'll try to make this brief. You know,
I started I started trading in the in the late nineties,
like a lot of people during the dot com boom bust.
As if you recall, and I started trading independently block
trading and back in nineteen ninety seven. Before that, I
had gotten my Series seven. So back in ninety five anyway,
(01:13):
you know, I was part owner of a brokerage firm
in Dallas. We eventually sold it. I was a chief
currency strategist for the Wise Trade group MB Trading, which
eventually became ally Financial and then I started for X
Analytics about eight years ago, and we provide analysis for
individual investors, banks, hedge fund managers, institutions globally. We have
(01:35):
a mobile app. We do analysis not just on currencies,
but we have thirty different instruments. We cover cryptos, We
cover bitcoin quite aggressively, a lot of different cross rates
in the currency market, buns or excuse me, boons, the
ten year Dollar Index, SMPS, dacks, you name it. We
(01:57):
cover a lot of different instruments. But you know, really
our point of view, From our point of view, the
currency market is the largest market in the world and
it's where a lot of correlations really develop and they start,
and these trends, when they develop, they tend to impact
every market around the world. So we obviously pay very
close attention. What's happening with the dollar. It's very much
(02:20):
going to be in focused the next four years, during
the you know, President Trump's second term. I think he's
got big plans for the dollar to move lower, and
yet yet all of his you know, his policies that
he's putting forward really don't don't really coincide with that.
So you put all that together, and I think we're
going to have a very very volatile twenty twenty five
(02:42):
and beyond, and I think the dollar is going to
be in the epicenter of the entire move.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I agree, there's a lot to unpack there, and I
definitely want to kind of go through those points one
by one. But first one to ask you, I mean,
you've done a lot of work of trading yourself, obviously
in educating traders and the equities in FX space. You've
had the show of the Morning Edge and so on.
So what are your thoughts on this trading in mar
market environment versus what you may have seen, you know,
in previous years that you've been at.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
This well volatility. You know, I can just kind of
backtrack pre pre COVID. You know, pre COVID, I I
traded for an independent fund where you know, it was
a private, private fund and and you know, volatility, euro
volatility was at five, which is ridiculously low. It was
(03:25):
a very very tough environment and I and I traded
with them for four and a half years and it
was great, but volatility was super low. Now after following
like the COVID lockdowns and everything else, volatility in currency
markets really exploded. And what we've seen is we've seen
in a consistent incline uh in volatility as we're as
(03:45):
we're approaching you know, the twenty twenty five you know,
calendar year. One of the things that I think is
really moving the markets, and one thing that will continue
to move the markets moving into the next couple of
years is these divergent policies that central banks have. You know,
you have the Bank of Japan, which is desperately trying
(04:05):
to raise rates first time you know, they've you know,
come off the zero bound or negative rates and in
over a decade. And then you have you have other
central banks like the FED that's trying to lower rates
where they probably really shouldn't be. And then you have
other central banks like you know, the ECB that's trying
to aggressively lower rates because their manufacturing sector is completely slumping,
(04:27):
and yet we all are facing uh, you know, persistent
and annoying inflationary pressures globally. So this divergent central bank
theme is going to continue to play out into next
year as well. So I think those are going to
be the dominating themes in the currency market at least
moving forward.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Okay, let's talk about you know, the Chinese you want
situation I brought up at in the intro is kind
of talk. You know, they seem to be maybe trying
to push back at tariffs by talking about allowing the
currency to do value. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, that's that's one of the one of the lovers
that China has. And and you know, I'm sure your
your listeners are very well aware that the Chinese economy
has been in the toilet and and you know, China's done,
you know, kind of a shotgun approach in in stimulus,
and uh, you can see obviously if you look at
you know, uh, you know, the China fifty or any
(05:19):
any Chinese index you want to you want to benchmark
investors really want to see more of a bazooka from
from China. Now one of their big levers that that
they have is is uh manipulating if you will, and
I'm using that term uh rather loosely, you know, manipulating
(05:39):
their pegged currency to the dollar. And one of the
release valves that they have is you know, they can
we can the remembe weak in the wand and you
know a lot of people think that that is a
next year's story China, and and my my my analysis
analyst team excuse me at Fox Analytics believe that the
(05:59):
China is going to be more of a let's wait
and see what kind of tariffs come our way and
if it's something that that needs to be dealt with
U through the means of the currency market, they will
do that and they'll devalue their currency. I believe if
you're looking at the and I should pull up the
chart really quick just for so I don't reference the
(06:20):
wrong exchange rate. You know, you start you start seeing
a move above seven forty in the US r C
and H and that's that's UH. That that means that
China is really starting to you know, weaken their currency
and combat uh tariff tariffs or tariff threats or or
maybe even a more substantial slowdown. You know, they want
to weaken their currency. They want to weaken their currency
(06:41):
to pick up uh, you know, you know demand globally
for for their for their exports.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, let's talk about the Trump tariff and the sort
of the dollar impact. Obviously we've seen you know, usd
take off after the election, kind of stabilizing a little bit. Now,
what are your thoughts there longer term? I mean, you
know on tariff policy. Is this dollar rally going to law?
Is it going to cause pushback here in the US?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, I believe, Well, first of all, I believe it's
not a one size fits all scenario when you're dealing
with different I was just just having a conversation actually
about twenty minutes ago with the forx analytics community at
about the ECB, and everybody just watched the Bank of Canada.
(07:23):
They cut rates, front basically front loaded a jumbo rate
cut today and the Canadian currency actually strengthening, strengthened post
Bank of Canada. And the reason why they did that
is because everybody's like, oh, look, the Bank of Canada
is going to cut rates, and they frontloaded it, and
now they're going to sit on the sidelines for a
while and a lot of people are worried that the
(07:43):
ECB could do that tomorrow as well. They could, they
could actually you know, cut rates, you know by fifty
basis points, which the market's not expecting. But say, you know,
and we're going to stand pat But you think about
different countries and how they're dealing with President elect Trump,
it's going to be different, and terf are going to
be different. You know, you look at the you look
at sterling or the pound, the pound currency, it has
(08:05):
been very much insulated from the tariff threats. Why because sorry,
if you live in the UK, you guys just don't
make a whole lot you know where you know, you
have a lot of European goods that are that are
probably going to be tariff quite quite aggressively. But that
doesn't mean it's going to happen. I mean, I'm sure
your listeners are very well aware. You know, Trump's threats
(08:26):
right now are just threats. They they're they're they're going
to get him to the They're going to get them
to the table. And what he decides that his administration
decides to do with each individual country, whether it's Mexico
and they just said, hey, we want to work, you know,
more aggressively on immigration and UH and and drugs and
the cartel. So we're not going to teariff you as much.
(08:47):
You know, we will let you. We'll let you get
by with some of the automotive stuff that you're doing
with China. Blah blah blah. You know, maybe Canada is
a little bit different as well, you know, being that
he just called Canada the Great State of Canada yesterday,
you know, so you can see he's going to be
approaching different different countries differently. But the whole tariff threat
(09:07):
it is right now, it's just a threat. What comes
from it in twenty twenty five is what's going to
make twenty twenty five interesting, not only in not only
in the currency market, but individual markets globally. Whether you
know so, it's going to affect you if you're trading
the CAC forty or the ibex or the dacks. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Let me ask you about bigcoin. I mean, obviously you've
talked a little bit thing on X about this kind
of range ninety to one hundred k and trading the
range makes sense. Do you think we break out of
that eventually if so, or do you think this is
more kind of rangebound environment.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I know, I do. I think it's been I think
it's well. First of all, if anybody who's been in
our community for any number of last couple of years
knew that the upside target for the big cup and
handle technically was one hundred and three thousand, and we
one hundred three thousand, eight hundred, we suppressed it by
like two hundred dollars. We hit one O four and
(10:01):
then we backed away that you know, a lot of
this buying of crypto and bitcoin, and you know a
lot of these alt coins has been all on anticipation
of you know, Trump coming back into office. He is,
and I think he's going to be very crypto friendly.
So I do believe longer term targets actually pointing to
one hundred and thirty thousand from what I can see
right now. But I believe that you want to buy dips,
(10:22):
and that's why, you know, dips below one hundred thousand.
Yesterday dipped to ninety four thousand, and we were like, well,
this is the place you want to be long and
then you know, we started scaling out again as it
was approaching one hundred thousand this morning, and I think
that's the approach that you need to take with crypto,
is you want to be a buyer on dips. You know,
it's going to be a friendly environment. And you know,
(10:45):
I know there's a lot of people that believe that
crypto is going to change the way that we all
do business in the future, which it very well may.
But I don't know about you guys. I do very
little transactions in crypto, that's outside of trading, so and
I do a couple, but I know the rest of
the world doesn't. So unless you're looking at it as
(11:07):
a store of value, like like a gold asset, Yeah,
well then you know, if you're looking at it like gold,
we'll look at look at what gold's done. I think
bitcoins could could mirror that too.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So yeah, and that's that's why I want to ask about.
I mean, the one thing we hadn't talked about yet
was precious metals gold here. You know, obviously we blew
out to that high, we've pulled back scene of volatility.
What are your thoughts there.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I love gold, I mean, you know, what's not to
love about a gold that's I mean, how what what
percentage did we put up this year? Like eighteen percent
or whatever the rally has been. I mean in the
gold market, when's the last time we've done that? And
you know, the trends are quite solid, the diversification, the
diversification and the UH the purchasing of central banks purchasing
(11:52):
a lot of gold has been substantial, you know when
you're talking about China or India or other central banks
that are that are putting away gold is reserves. So
I like it. I just the biggest issue that I
have is at this stage, and it has been for
the last couple of months, is how probably poorly positioned
(12:15):
it is from a from an institutional and even a
retail point of view. You know, when you can easily
go to down the street about a mile away from
my home as at Costco, and I could go pick
up a gold bar. It worries me because I know
so many people that know nothing about the markets and
friends of mine since I live in I live in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(12:36):
If you don't know that, you know people that I
know that know nothing about the markets are you know,
talking to me about gold and they have been for
the last couple of months. And you know, when when
the shoeshine person, is uh is talking to you about stocks,
it's the time you want to sell shoes. Maybe when
when your neighbors are talking to you about gold, it's
probably the time that you want to be a little
bit more cautious. So I believe buying in dips. But
(12:59):
you know how far we go from here? Is uh?
I think I think we continue higher.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Overall, we pivot a little bit to tactics in the
time we have left and sort of education facet of this.
And you talk on your on the website about five
different ways of analysis macro, candlestick, basic, technical, harmonic and
Elliott wave. You know, can you briefly discuss sort of
how those fit into a trader's toolbox and kind of
whether and how they can be mixed and matched.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Sure, we you know, we have a we have a
we have a pretty uh how should I say diverse
staff uh here of analysts at for X Analytics, and
everybody's got their their specialized analysis feature set, if you will.
And for us, we like to look at multitudes and
different types of analysis, whether it's a macro having a
(13:42):
macro theme backdrop behind what you're doing, maybe matching up
with some sort of elliot wave count or or harmonic
UH level that can show you when a asset class
may pivot versus basic technical analysis and kind of putting
it all together, and it's like it's like anything. You know,
as traders, what we do is we look for probabilities.
So if you stack probabilities in your favor and you're like, well,
(14:05):
you know, my elytician just saw this as you know,
completed four of five and it looks like it's about
ready to head back up and it's got a good
macro backdrop and the basic technical analysis as it's breaking out, well,
then your probabilities are stacked a little bit higher that
trade's going to work in your favor going long. And
that's the way we kind of view the markets, because
(14:26):
not everybody gets it right. And you know, anybody that's
been doing this for a substantial amount of time know
that you're going to be right and you are going
to be wrong. And so if you can get most
of the probabilities in your favor going in the direction
that you want to be going, your probabilities are going
to be better that you're going to make money. Your
risk management is probably going to be a little bit easier.
(14:46):
You're following an easier path of resistance when you trade,
and that's kind of our philosophy at for X Analytics.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
One of the questions I want to ask because I
know a lot of what you do is community based,
you know, bouncing ideas off of other people and kind
of getting their feedback. Any big questions you see popping
up a lot, and kind of mistakes people are making,
your tips, you'd suggest avoid that these days.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You know. Yeah, that's actually a really phenomenal question I've
you know, Mike, I've been working with. I got kind
of thrown into the retail space back in the early
two thousands when we sold our company to originally to
the Wise Trade Group, which we had a brokerage firm
and execution platform at that time in the late nineties,
going into right after September eleventh. Yeah, and so I
(15:30):
got thrown into the, like I said, retail space. I
started dealing with a lot of retail traders and and
and seeing the I've seen people come and go, and
I've seen people stick around for a long time, and
you know, I I what I find most problematic, Well,
you asked me a couple of well, you asked me
one question about like, what's you know, maybe what a
lot of people are asking about. Yeah, there's a lot
(15:52):
of there's a lot of interest obviously in crypto, but
I think that's more you know, it's more based around
what's happening in the current environment. But you know, as
far as traders go, and you know, some of some
of the things I see traders do is I just see,
for the most part, a lot of traders just have
very poor risk management. Some of the best traders I've
(16:15):
traded with over the years when I was trading on
an institutional size is most of the guys would would
come with the same the same thought process, right idea
wrong time. That means they weren't they weren't opposed to
getting out and taking a loss because it just wasn't
the right time. But they'll still stick with the idea.
(16:36):
They might just come back to it a day later,
maybe a couple of days later. Because if you executed
into a trade and you're like I'm going to get
long euros or I'm going to get short equities or whatever,
your your your your trade is a lot of people
have this this idea that I'll just sit in it
stick in it for a while and you know, eventually
go my way. But that's really the opposite of what
(16:58):
you know what I've seen some of the most successful
traders do. They tend to say, you know what, I'm
just going to cut my loss really, really small, and
then I'm going to keep that idea fresh and I'm
going to come back to it, you know, because it's
just the wrong time, maybe right, idea? Got it?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Last question, I want to run by you. I mean,
you're going to be joining us for the twenty twenty
five Money Show Traders Expo Las Vegas in February. I
know markets can change a lot, especially for our more
trading oriented speakers, but your current topic is inner market
trading in the new economy. You give people a sneak
peak about, you know, kind of what you're going to
be talking about there, what they'll walk away from if
they attend your session.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm looking forward to looking
forward to being there. I'm going to be speaking with
one of my colleagues, Tracy's Shoe Shoe Cart, and she's amazing.
She deals a lot in commodities and I deal in currencies,
and like I mentioned earlier, I think the currency market
is going to be central, the big central theme around
what we're doing in the next year, and I think
(17:52):
you're going to have to be watching the dollar very closely,
and those a lot of traders have seeing correlations and
they think that correlations, ohwas stick, And the fact of
the matter is they don't. But what we do is
we see divergences and convergences from these correlations. And if
the dollar is this central theme behind everything, then I
think the dollar is gonna tip you guys off as traders.
(18:13):
You're gonna it's gonna tip you off on what might
be happening in other markets. So I'm gonna be using
the dollar as like the base called base currency, that's
what US currency traders would call it, but really the
base thesis of your central point, if you will, and
how it might spin off different trading opportunities just based
(18:36):
on what the dollar is doing alone.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Well, listen, I really appreciate you taking some time out
here to watch and viewers if you'd like to learn
more from Blake again, he's going to be speaking at
that money show. Traders Expo Las Vegas runs February seventeenth
to nineteenth at the Paris, Las Vegas. You can find
out more in the link below or go you find
out more in the description below. Also flick on the
link if you want to register and subscribe to this
channel if you want to get updates like these. Thanks
(19:00):
again for joining the podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Look forward to seeing it there well. Thanks Mike, and
I look forward to seeing all of your attendees in
my breakout session. See you guys here.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We'll have more interviews for you every week, so I
encourage you to subscribe to The Money Master's podcast so
you can stay up to date with the insights from
top money experts. You can follow me on Twitter at
real Mike Larsen and follow money Show for more investing
and trading content on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at money Show.
Thanks for listening, See you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!