• Current read is 42 on the fear greed index vs 39 last week.

• A little less fearful this week in the market as we bounced a little higher. Even though this shows fear, it’s not IMO. Market is basically at ATHs. This is why I made a much more accurate fear/greed index for discord members.

• Market Fearful = Potential Opportunity/Deals. (consider buy calls/sell puts/buy shares)

• Market Greedy = Potential Over Valuation. (consider buy puts/sell shares/take on less risk)

• I like to be bullish when there is extreme fear

• I like to be bearish when extreme greed.

• Opportunity is out there, just gotta find it!

• 30 year fixed mortgage rate held at 6.72% Today, vs 6.72% last week.

• 10 year treasury bond yield increased to 4.71% Today, vs 4.68% last week

• 2 year treasury bond yield decreased to 4.26% Today, vs 4.33% last week.

• Not much action in rates this week. Fed didn’t hike & the market is all stressed about the Iran/oil situation & its impact on inflation/rates.

• As I always say, interest rates are gravity!

• As interest rates/bond yields INCREASE, stocks become LESS attractive because bond yields go UP which makes the risk free bond look MORE attractive.

Hope everyone had a good week!

The stock market has been all over the place lately, and I don’t think the volatility is going away anytime soon.

Maybe it calms down a little bit, but I would not expect the market to suddenly start moving straight up again without any pullbacks.

There is simply too much for investors to process right now.

We have earnings, interest rates, inflation, jobs data, oil, Iran, AI spending, data center funding and questions about whether the earnings growth we are seeing is actually sustainable.

That is a lot for the market to price in at the same time.

But the good news is that we are slowly starting to get more answers.

Earnings season has been pretty good overall. Some stocks still fell after reporting good numbers, but in many cases, I think the problem was the valuation going into earnings.

This is something investors constantly forget.
A company can report good earnings and the stock can still fall.

That does not automatically mean the report was bad. It could simply mean the stock price was already expecting perfection.

You do not just need to find a good company. You need to find a good company at a good price. You need BOTH!

Right now, the biggest story in the market is still AI.

Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and many of the other largest companies in the world are spending an unbelievable amount of money on chips, data centers, power and infrastructure.

Investors see all of this spending and immediately start worrying that these companies are burning too much cash.

That concern is fair, but we also need to understand what they are actually building.

A portion of the spending is going toward chips that will eventually need to be replaced or upgraded. But a lot of the spending is going toward the physical infrastructure itself.

The buildings, electrical systems, cooling systems and everything else that goes into a data center could potentially be used for decades.

Once more of that physical infrastructure is built, the spending should eventually become less aggressive.

These companies will still spend money upgrading chips, but they should not need to rebuild the entire data center every few years.

That is why I do not believe the current level of spending is going to continue forever.

The bigger question is what these companies can eventually earn from everything they are building.

Meta has talked about offering businesses more than just computing power.

The bigger opportunity could be selling businesses an entire package that includes computing, intelligence, software and AI agents that can actually help them operate.

It is almost like giving somebody a business in a box.

Amazon is seeing a similar opportunity.

These companies are choosing to spend heavily today because they believe the future return could be substantially larger than the return they could collect right now.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed.

But when some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world are all seeing the same opportunity, I think we need to pay attention.

The other good part is that earnings are still growing.

Some of the headline earnings growth numbers have been boosted by accounting gains from private investments. That makes the headline number look a little better than the underlying businesses are actually performing.

But even after removing some of those gains, the underlying earnings growth is still solid IMO.

That is important because valuations are not nearly as crazy as some people are making them sound.

The market is not extremely cheap, but I also do not think the entire market is sitting in some massive bubble where nothing is supported by the fundamentals.

In my opinion, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are currently trading somewhere around fair value.

That does not mean the market cannot fall another 10%, 20% or even more.
Anything is possible.

It simply means that the long term setup is starting to become more attractive than it was a few months ago.

The market pulled back, earnings continued growing and more companies are beginning to trade at reasonable prices.

This is where your mindset matters.

When stocks are moving straight up, everybody feels like a genius.

People take on too much leverage, buy companies at ridiculous valuations and assume the market is going to keep going higher forever.

Then the market falls 10% and those same people act like the world is ending.

The market has a funny way of making people feel the most confident near the top and the most scared near the bottom.

That is why risk management matters so much.

You should never build a portfolio that only works when the market goes up.

You need to understand how much risk you are taking and what would happen if the market fell 20%, 30% or even 40%.

If a normal market correction can wipe out your portfolio, the strategy was already broken before the correction happened.

The goal is not to avoid every pullback.
That is impossible.

The goal is to build a portfolio that allows you to survive the pullbacks, remain patient and take advantage of better prices when everybody else is panicking.

The best opportunities in the market usually do not feel comfortable.
The best days often happen shortly after the worst days.
That is why panic selling is so dangerous.

People sell when everything feels terrible, and then they miss the recovery that follows.

My outlook from here is still bullish over the long term.

Earnings are growing, valuations are reasonable and the largest companies in the world are investing into opportunities that could create substantial growth in the future.

But I also expect the road to be extremely bumpy.
There will be days when everybody says AI is a bubble.
There will be other days when everybody acts like AI is going to make every company worth trillions of dollars overnight.

There will be days when investors think interest rates are going to destroy the economy, and there will be days when nobody thinks interest rates matter at all.

You cannot build your portfolio around the emotion of the day.

You need to understand what you own, why you own it and how much risk you are taking.

Inside my course and Discord (called 10 Day Stocks & Options Transformation Training), we go much deeper into the individual companies, valuations, portfolio ratios and the strategies I am personally using to beat the market over the last decade.

But the high level message right now is pretty simple.

Be patient.
Keep your risk in check.
Focus on good businesses at reasonable prices.
And remember that you usually have to make it through the hardest parts of the market to participate in the best parts that come after.

Keep your emotions in check.
Keep your risk in check.
Do not do anything stupid.
And remember that the money is usually made in the patient long game.

Simple and to the point this week!
See you next week!
- Brandon

Want access to my step by step training + Discord community + Stock Sheet + Access to me + so much more?
CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE 10 DAY STOCKS & OPTIONS TRANSFORMATION TRAINING

10 DAYS IS WHAT’S STANDING BETWEEN YOU & A CLEAR PATH TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM.

• If you get value from my content, you'll love my 10 Day Stock & Options Transformation Training.

• Over the course of 10 days of training (you can finish faster if you want), you'll learn exactly how you can scale your portfolio to millions with Stocks & Options in a low risk way.

• This is the exact same system I have used for the last decade & scaled to millions with tens of thousands in monthly cash flow.

• No day trading.

• No swing trading.

• No BS.

• Just stocks & options the right way.

• THIS INCLUDES ACCESS TO THE TRAINING, DISCORD COMMUNITY, ME TO ASK QUESTIONS, STOCK SHEET, PLUS MUCH MORE!

• HUNDREDS of 5/5 star reviews!

Economic/Earnings Calendar For August 3- August 7
(all times in pst)

Monday August 3
7a ISM Manufacturing PMI
7a Construction Spending
Palantir Earnings (post market)

Tuesday August 4
5:30a US Trade Balance
7a Jolts Job Openings
7a Factory Orders
CAT Earnings (premarket)
AMD Earnings (post market)
SpaceX Earnings (post market)
Arista Networks Earnings (post market)
Zeta Earnings (post market)

Wednesday August 5
5:15a ADP Employment Report
6:45a Services PMI
Shopify Earnings (premarket)
Uber Earnings (premarket)
Eli Lilly Earnings (premarket)
Applovin Earnings (post market)
IONQ Earnings (post market)
Sandisk Earnings (post market)
CocaCola Earnings (post market)

Thursday August 6
5:30a Weekly Jobless Claims
5:30a U.S. Productivity & Labor Costs
Celsius Earnings (premarket)

Friday August 7
5:30a Jobs Report
Oklo Earnings (pre market)
Vistra Earnings (pre market)

Everything will be broken down in real time in Discord!