{"id":80006,"date":"2026-08-14T16:46:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/?p=80006"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:46:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:46:48","slug":"your-unique-talent-is-your-greatest-asset-in-trading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/2026\/08\/14\/your-unique-talent-is-your-greatest-asset-in-trading\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Unique Talent Is Your Greatest Asset in Trading"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 1920px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-80006-1\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XLE-Patience.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XLE-Patience.mp4\">https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XLE-Patience.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Money grows when it\u2019s allocated deliberately, not constantly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d &#8211; Jessie Livermore<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Professional speculation, at its core, is a game of questions and deductions: questions are posed, deductions are made, and bets are placed. We know we\u2019ve deduced correctly when a profit is shown and wrongly when a loss occurs. It\u2019s always been the difficult questions that lack apparent answers that have interested me. In the act of deductive reasoning to answer difficult questions is where the profitable opportunities lie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Life outside the stock market has the same quality: it\u2019s in searching for answers to the existential questions that are difficult to answer where the most opportunities lie. The most difficult question I\u2019ve ever had to think about came from a friend some years ago. Over lunch he asked me a seemingly simple question, but I fumbled for an adequate response: \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">what is<\/span><\/i><b><i> your <\/i><\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">talent?<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That question sent my neurons jumping across synapses in all directions inside my brain, but none were able to come back on a return path with the correct information to articulate a clear response. I ended up blurting out something rather incoherent about being \u201cable to interpret reality properly.\u201d The cynical look on his face betrayed his genuine incredulity that my response had been formed with any modicum of introspection.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That question was posed to me over seven years ago, but now I have a veracious reply: <\/span><b><i>it\u2019s patience<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. My talent is that I\u2019m able to exercise extreme patience after I\u2019ve deduced that an outcome is certain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scrolling through thousands of charts a week, I\u2019ve deduced several certain outcomes are now developing. Below are three charts of prices that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">want<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to move higher: the TNX, the USD\/JPY, and the AW futures contract.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TNX, (10yr yield):<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-80012\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TNX-Move-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">USD\/JPY, (the quote of this contract is inverse of the convention so the price is actually yen per dollar; the higher this price is, the weaker the yen):<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-80013\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/USD-JPY-Move-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\/AW (Bloomberg Commodity Index Futures):<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-80008\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AW-Move-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The difficult question the speculator must ask is: \u201cwill these prices be <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">allowed<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to move higher?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the case of the dollar\/yen and the 10yr yield, it\u2019s obvious <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/2026\/08\/07\/treasury-secretarys-memo-to-market-bears-drop-dead\/?_bhlid=b032932f841f83b280e0aa81dfb9817cb64aa26c\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">after last week\u2019s intervention that the answer is a hard NO<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. That leaves only commodities as the most fertile ground for the speculator to toil in. Commodities are the only asset that policy makers cannot influence indefinitely because they are tethered to the physical world, whereas fiat and bonds are purely abstractions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the appeal of commodities is probably obvious to most market participants by now, their risk is perhaps less frequently discussed. I\u2019ve learned that professional speculation requires one to think risk first. If one produces enough well-reasoned trade ideas, managing the loss on the incorrect ideas will ensure a steady profit, given enough repeatable trials. Speculating in commodity stocks requires an extra degree of focus on risk because of the commodity producers\u2019 pronounced boom\/bust cycle and tendency to trade with valuations inversely correlated to the cycle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This means that buying commodity producer stocks is not as easy as buying a growth stock and holding. Commodity stocks have to be bought deliberately and sold intentionally. Theoretically, they should be bought when their trailing twelve month PE is highest or even negative, because that will be an indication that they are being bought at the bottom of the cycle after economic weakness reduces their earnings to almost nothing. They should be sold when their earnings are accelerating after a period of increase.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ostensively we can look at the gold miners as a recent example of how commodity producers should be bought and sold. In 2023, NEM had lost $2B but traded at about a $40B market cap. The sky-high PE was due to many years of depressed earnings with a gold price that refused to move above its cost of production. This was the time to buy. In 2025, NEM made $11B in pretax earnings, and traded at a very cheap 10x PE. That was the time to sell. I had the trade of a lifetime in gold miners from 2023 to March of 2026, and while I\u2019ve still got a chunk of my original position in the big 5 miners, I\u2019m in no rush to build back my position. If metals and mining stocks aren\u2019t yet in the right buy point of the cycle, why is the Bloomberg Commodity Index drawing my attention?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s the question the astute speculator must now ask: \u201cwith <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/2026\/06\/26\/for-every-stock-there-is-a-season\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the business cycle clearly entering the contraction phase<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, why is the Bloomberg Commodity Index trying to break higher?\u201d The answer to that question is that the largest components of the index are energy and agriculture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We all know the reasons crude started it\u2019s ramp this spring. Normally, after a move up on conflict escalation fears I would be inclined to dump my energy stocks like XOM and CVX and my agriculture stocks like NTR, but not this time. In fact, I\u2019m waiting with patience for the right spot to add. I\u2019ve also written about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/2026\/06\/26\/american-assets-worth-owning\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">my inclination to bid on pipeline stocks recently<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ve studied food and energy price spikes extensively this year, and there is one thing in common that all food and energy price spike periods share that the astute speculator can key in on: <\/span><b><i>a long period of supply drawdowns followed by a sudden supply crunch<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1971, Nixon introduced price controls on domestic oil, which caused a supply drawdown as it was unprofitable to increase production. The real oil price spike didn\u2019t occur until 1974 when Arab oil was under embargo. This is the pattern: <\/span><b><i>sustained supply draw down for a couple years, then sudden supply crunch, followed by a price spike<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pattern also plays out in food price spikes. While the pattern is similar, the motivations and human nature are more readily observed with the grain price spikes of the past. In 1988 there was an extreme grain price spike, and it fits the template: <\/span><b><i>a sustained period of supply draw down<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> starting in 1985 when agricultural legislation was passed to push more grain into export markets where prices were higher. Food security had been prioritized before then, so historically, stock piles were traditionally kept. Storage costs were rising and it became more profitable to sell grain through export markets, but it hadn\u2019t been allowed for domestic food security reasons. The long period of plentiful supply made policy makers comfortable, and they felt there was little risk in lowering domestic supply to make a large lobby industry happy. By 1988 grain stocks dwindled and a drought in the US Midwest and Canadian Prairie <\/span><b><i>caused a sudden supply crunch<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Prices spiked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The same thing happened in 2007. Biofuel mandates started to kick into effect in 2002 which decreased the supply of corn for calorie consumption in order to divert it to fuel production- <\/span><b><i>a prolonged supply reduction<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. By 2007, China\u2019s economic growth was rippling through all commodity markets as they bought up the world\u2019s food and energy supplies to fuel their growth- <\/span><b><i>a sudden supply crunch<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> due to outsized demand. Ag and energy prices spiked into the Beijing Olympics when they curtailed consumption to cut back on pollution right before the world came to Beijing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting with Janet Yellen\u2019s dumping of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022, and now through the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, <\/span><b>stockpiles of both energy and grains have been drawn down<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. To date, we have not seen the second part of the price spike equation: <\/span><b>a sudden and unexpected supply shock<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This is why the price of energy and food have not experienced the crushing rise that has been predicted since March, but the charts are setting up with price structures that are revealing market participants\u2019 intuitions that a sudden supply crunch is a real possibility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s been my experience that price structures often reveal an underlying truth that is not yet understood by market participants until after the fact. Jessie Livermore described this when he saw some inexplicable weakness in UNP the day before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The stock market broke the next day, and was weak until it crashed in 1907. We\u2019ve seen some terrible earthquakes in Venezuela and Colombia recently. Could tectonic plates be shifting in both the South American continent and Japanese FX markets?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ve got no way to know what event could occur to cause a sudden supply crunch in commodity markets, but I do know the conditions are set such that any single mishap, natural or man-made, would instantly tip over the balanced scales of supply and demand and prices would be let loose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The possibility exists that no such sudden supply crunch event will occur, so I\u2019m going to be deliberate where I build my energy and ag positions. I\u2019m only going to add where I\u2019ve got defined risk. The way I see it, this is my defined risk on those stocks:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">XOM:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-80014\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XOM-risk-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CVX:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-80009\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CVX-Risk-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NTR: <\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-80010\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NTR-Risk-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My trading style is not to constantly be taking trades, but when I see a set up I like, and that I can participate in with size, I will deliberately allocate capital to it. Right now, energy and ag have the set up I want to see, but no catalyst. I\u2019ve got the patience to build those positions when the risk is low, and wait for the underlying forces that are moving prices to eventually work through to the surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the meantime, I\u2019ve got to pay the bills, so I will take trades in smaller size for cash flow if the set ups are good enough. Right now, TEVA fits the bill as long as this breakout above $35.50 holds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TEVA:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-80011\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-150x91.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-768x465.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-1536x931.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-80x48.png 80w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-220x133.png 220w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-165x100.png 165w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-248x150.png 248w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-393x238.png 393w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-685x415.png 685w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-804x487.png 804w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA-982x595.png 982w, https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TEVA-Buy-SSMA.png 1609w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">August has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/2026\/07\/16\/how-this-stock-market-will-top\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">always been a tumultuous month for the stock market<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I\u2019m staying involved in the game, but I\u2019m staying patient, not making any large scale commitments outside of cash, and trusting that opportunities to grow wealth will always be plentiful as long as I\u2019ve got my capital intact to deliberately take advantage of them when they arrive. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By: Patrick G. Full-time independent trader in Atlanta, GA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Patrick G is a full-time trader. Worked for a decade in a money management firm as a trader for high net-worth individuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He invested his and his family\u2019s net worth into gold and mining stocks before the Covid money printing. Gold and commodity runs of the past 3 years allowed Patrick to trade full-time due to his gains.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Past performance does not guarantee future results. Trading involves significant risk of loss, and individual results vary. Positions mentioned are the author\u2019s own, disclosed for transparency \u2014 not individual investment advice.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMoney grows when it\u2019s allocated deliberately, not constantly.\u201d &#8211; Jessie Livermore Professional speculation, at its core, is a game of questions and deductions: questions are posed, deductions are made, and bets are placed. We know we\u2019ve deduced correctly when a profit is shown and wrongly when a loss occurs. It\u2019s always been the difficult questions that lack apparent answers that have interested me. In the act of deductive reasoning to answer difficult questions is where the profitable opportunities lie.\u00a0 Life outside the stock market has the same quality: it\u2019s in searching for answers to the existential questions that are difficult to answer where the most opportunities lie. The most difficult question I\u2019ve ever had to think about came from a friend some years ago. Over lunch he asked me a seemingly simple question, but I fumbled for an adequate response: \u201cwhat is your talent?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 That question sent my neurons jumping across synapses in all directions inside my brain, but none were able to come back on a return path with the correct information to articulate a clear response. I ended up blurting out something rather incoherent about being \u201cable to interpret reality properly.\u201d The cynical look on his face betrayed his genuine incredulity that my response had been formed with any modicum of introspection. That question was posed to me over seven years ago, but now I have a veracious reply: it\u2019s patience. My talent is that I\u2019m able to exercise extreme patience after I\u2019ve deduced that an outcome is certain.\u00a0 Scrolling through thousands of charts a week, I\u2019ve deduced several certain outcomes are now developing. Below are three charts of prices that want to move higher: the TNX, the USD\/JPY, and the AW futures contract. TNX, (10yr yield): USD\/JPY, (the quote of this contract is inverse of the convention so the price is actually yen per dollar; the higher this price is, the weaker the yen): \/AW (Bloomberg Commodity Index Futures): The difficult question the speculator must ask is: \u201cwill these prices be allowed to move higher?\u201d In the case of the dollar\/yen and the 10yr yield, it\u2019s obvious after last week\u2019s intervention that the answer is a hard NO. That leaves only commodities as the most fertile ground for the speculator to toil in. Commodities are the only asset that policy makers cannot influence indefinitely because they are tethered to the physical world, whereas fiat and bonds are purely abstractions.\u00a0 While the appeal of commodities is probably obvious to most market participants by now, their risk is perhaps less frequently discussed. I\u2019ve learned that professional speculation requires one to think risk first. If one produces enough well-reasoned trade ideas, managing the loss on the incorrect ideas will ensure a steady profit, given enough repeatable trials. Speculating in commodity stocks requires an extra degree of focus on risk because of the commodity producers\u2019 pronounced boom\/bust cycle and tendency to trade with valuations inversely correlated to the cycle.\u00a0 This means that buying commodity producer stocks is not as easy as buying a growth stock and holding. Commodity stocks have to be bought deliberately and sold intentionally. Theoretically, they should be bought when their trailing twelve month PE is highest or even negative, because that will be an indication that they are being bought at the bottom of the cycle after economic weakness reduces their earnings to almost nothing. They should be sold when their earnings are accelerating after a period of increase. Ostensively we can look at the gold miners as a recent example of how commodity producers should be bought and sold. In 2023, NEM had lost $2B but traded at about a $40B market cap. The sky-high PE was due to many years of depressed earnings with a gold price that refused to move above its cost of production. This was the time to buy. In 2025, NEM made $11B in pretax earnings, and traded at a very cheap 10x PE. That was the time to sell. I had the trade of a lifetime in gold miners from 2023 to March of 2026, and while I\u2019ve still got a chunk of my original position in the big 5 miners, I\u2019m in no rush to build back my position. If metals and mining stocks aren\u2019t yet in the right buy point of the cycle, why is the Bloomberg Commodity Index drawing my attention? Here\u2019s the question the astute speculator must now ask: \u201cwith the business cycle clearly entering the contraction phase, why is the Bloomberg Commodity Index trying to break higher?\u201d The answer to that question is that the largest components of the index are energy and agriculture.\u00a0 We all know the reasons crude started it\u2019s ramp this spring. Normally, after a move up on conflict escalation fears I would be inclined to dump my energy stocks like XOM and CVX and my agriculture stocks like NTR, but not this time. In fact, I\u2019m waiting with patience for the right spot to add. I\u2019ve also written about my inclination to bid on pipeline stocks recently.\u00a0 I\u2019ve studied food and energy price spikes extensively this year, and there is one thing in common that all food and energy price spike periods share that the astute speculator can key in on: a long period of supply drawdowns followed by a sudden supply crunch.\u00a0 In 1971, Nixon introduced price controls on domestic oil, which caused a supply drawdown as it was unprofitable to increase production. The real oil price spike didn\u2019t occur until 1974 when Arab oil was under embargo. This is the pattern: sustained supply draw down for a couple years, then sudden supply crunch, followed by a price spike.\u00a0 The pattern also plays out in food price spikes. While the pattern is similar, the motivations and human nature are more readily observed with the grain price spikes of the past. In 1988 there was an extreme grain price spike, and it fits the template: a sustained period of supply draw down starting in 1985 when agricultural legislation was passed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":79619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80006"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80017,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80006\/revisions\/80017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}