Download Big Picture Trading Chartbook : https://bit.ly/4sQKUO3 ✓Sign up for a FREE 14-day trial at Big Picture Trading: …
Transcript
Listeners, we're going to keep bringing on the second guests as conditions warrant until the Iran situation eventually settles down. Now, you're going to find the download link for this week's trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, it means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage and look for the red button over Simon's picture saying looking for the downloads. Patrick, everyone's focused on oil as the inflation driver right now, but Simon made an interesting point that food might actually be the bigger story. Then Rory Johnston echoed that from a completely different perspective having to do with fertilizer. How are you thinking about that and what is the trade of the week to express it? Eric, the key insights from Simon is that the real inflation risk isn't the first order energy shock. It's what comes next. In the 1970s, food inflation ultimately had the more persistent impact on CPI. And we're starting to see the early pieces of that same transmission through today's rising fertilizer costs, supply chain disruptions, and emerging weather risks. So, if this is the beginning of that second wave, I think the cleanest way to express it is in wheat. The trade of the week is to go long Chicago SRW wheat where tightening export flows and a still netshore positioning backdrop create the potential for a sharp repricing if that food inflation narrative starts to get recognized. Now for more advanced traders this can absolutely be expressed directly in the wheat futures markets where the liquidity is deeper and the execution is more precise. But for simplicity and accessibility, I want to frame this through the Tukrium wheat Fund ETF, ticker WAT, which is trading around $23.15. Given that implied volatility is already elevated and the option surface is showing a clear right tail skew, this lends itself well to a call spread structure rather than outright calls. Specifically looking at the October 16th, 2026 expiration, you can buy the $25 call for roughly $2 and sell the $30 call for about $1, creating a $5 widespread for a net debit of $1. This means you're risking about 4% of the underlying ETF value to gain exposure for the potential of a $5 payoff, giving you roughly a 4:1 payoff ratio over a 212day window. The idea here is straightforward. Use the skew to your advantage and define the risk while still maintaining meaningful upside if the food inflation narrative begins to repric. So the idea here is simple. By using the defined risk call spread, we're able to position for that upside while keeping the premium outlay relatively small in a market that is already pricing in elevated volatility. It is a straightforward way to gain exposure to a potentially underappreciated macro theme with a payoff structure that becomes increasingly attractive if this narrative starts to gain traction in the months ahead. Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now, let's dive into the postgame chart deck. All right, Eric, let's dive into these equity markets. Patrick, Wednesday was a major riskoff day across most markets except of course the dollar index and crude oil with equities, gold, copper, and several others down and down hard, closing near their lows of the day. That of course, as I said in the introduction, is an ominous sign that more downside is likely still to come. The S&P 500 was sitting below its 200 day moving average as of Wednesday's 4 pm cash close. It continued to trade lower than that after the cash close. It did trade lower than today's cash close on an intraday basis back on March 9th, but today was the lowest closing price of 2026 for the S&P 500 futures contract. So, my take on this equity market is that it really depends on your geopolitical outlook and your expectations for what comes next in this Iran conflict. I'll strive to leave my own personal politics out of this and focus on yours instead. So, if you think that the Trump administration has this whole situation completely under control, it's going to be over in another week or so, just like the president and Secretary Hegsth say it's going to be, then in that case, if that's what you think, then this is a terrific buy the dip setup. It probably sets the stage for a rally to new all-time highs. If President Trump can really get this all under control and wrap it up and there's no lasting impact from it, and to be sure, in order for there to be no lasting impact, it really needs to get wrapped up pretty quickly here. If you think that's what happens, then it's time to buy this dip and buy it in size because we're we're going much higher. On the other hand, if you don't think that, if you think that the Trump administration has started a fire that they won't be able to put out and that this is not under control and that this Iran conflict might turn into a repeat of the Iraq debacle that began in 2003, well, if that's what you think, because we're leaving my politics out of this one, uh that would pretend a very very different equity market outcome. We could easily be looking at a cyclical bare market and the worst case would be if oil transit through the state of Hormuz stays impaired for many months. In that scenario, without exaggeration, it could lead to an oil price surge well over $250 a barrel. That would the global economy and lead to a global financial crisis on the scale of, if not bigger than 2008. Now, I strongly doubt that that would be the outcome because this is a problem that can be solved sooner than that. We're not going to see the Straits of Hormuz closed for years or anything like that. The question is how long this goes on, how much damage it causes and how long it takes to unwind that. In other words, how big is the backlog of global logistics that have been disrupted by the Straight of Hormuz closure? How long does it take to get things back to flowing as normal again? That's really, I think, what's going to drive equity prices. And frankly, I don't think anybody knows for sure what's coming next in this market. So, it really comes down to your geopolitical outlook. I think all of us are vulnerable to allowing our personal politics to bias our judgment as investors. So, remember this uh market reaction is not going to depend on what you think or what I think should happen. It's going to depend on what actually happens and I don't think any of us know with any real certainty exactly how this is going to play out. Eric, I'm going to keep my analysis very simple from a technical perspective. We're remaining below the 50-day moving average. Uh we're breaking lower highs and lower lows. There is clear distribution. The bears are in control and uh in the driver's seat on the short term on that distribution side. We continued to see all rallies failing uh at Fibonacci zones which is all indicating uh that generally the distribution cycle is still in play. Now while we have seen uh substantial increases in bearishness as uh the sentiment is pivoting. We've seen huge spikes in volatility index and other things that are signs that you typically would see from oversold conditions. But right now with enough of this global uncertainty here, uh this could be an overhang that keeps this market distributing. Now Eric, we certainly can't rule out that at some point the bulls will reverse this and counter trend it. This is again the environment where hedges are in critical and we've talked about them over the last couple of weeks with our listeners and I continue to advocate that uh portfolio insurance here makes a whole lot of sense. All right, Eric, let's talk about that US dollar. Well, Patrick, by recording time, we were back down to a high 99 handle uh after surging above 100 and then below 100 intraday on Friday. I think by the cash close, we were back over 100 again. So, we're right on that hairy line between 99 and 100. The question to ask is whether we're topping out here at overbought resistance on this uh technically overbought market or if the strength that we've seen in the dollar so far is just be the beginning of a new bullish trend. Once again, I think the answer depends on your geopolitical outlook. Sorry folks, that's going to be the answer for most things this week and there are plenty of strong arguments to be made in either direction. I don't see any fundamental bullish drivers for the dollar here other than the flight to safety trades into the dollar which are only going to intensify if the situation in Iran worsens from here and if equity markets take a nose dive. So there's plenty of room for much much more upside in the dollar index. But ultimately I think that upside would be driven by flight to safety trades in the Iran conflict. Someday when the Iran conflict wears off or or winds down, then I think it becomes a bearish it's time to sell the dollar there because I think it will be overbought and ripe for a major correction, maybe resuming the primary downtrend that was in play before this conflict arose. The question is timing. How much longer before this Iran conflict is over? Whenever it's over, that's the time I think you want to sell the dollar index. Well, Eric, when looking under the hood of the dollar, the key thing is to observe that the predominant weakness is coming from the euro and the yen, which happen to be very large waitings in the dollar index. But the story isn't uh the US dollar strength and all crossurrencies weakening against it. We continue to see resilience in a lot of the commodity based currencies like the Aussie dollar and the Canadian dollar and and that euro is really where the drag is as there continues to be growth concerns at a time when obviously their energy prices are under a lot of pressure which is uh stressing uh the euro right now on the downside. If we see euro breaking some of these key levels that is going to be a huge bullish tailwind for this dollar index. and we're at a the top of a almost a 10month trade range. Uh and if the dollar index makes any progress above this 100 level with momentum, we've got ourselves some sort of a strong uh US dollar counter trend move and so uh we have to watch whether or not this gains momentum from here. All right, Eric, let's touch on crude oil. Well, as I already discussed with Rory Johnston, the Oman benchmark traded over $180 this week. Obviously, logistic complications are part of that, but it's still an important price signal. I'm sorry to sound like a broken record, folks, but it's the geopolitical outcome with Iran that's going to drive everything. As Rory Johnston said, I think it would be foolish to assume that, hey, it's going to be just a couple more days and the Trump administration is going to completely end this thing. Even if it ends this week, we still have probably a couple of months at minimum just to clear the system out and get things back to flowing as usual. And the longer that the conflict wears on, the more that effect is compounded and the more of a mess we're going to have to unwind. So the longer this continues, the more it's going to affect oil prices and cause a continued increase in oil prices and the inflation signal that that drives. And eventually it becomes a self-reinforcing vicious cycle of increasing inflation driving even more uh extraction cost price increases, higher oil prices, and so forth. Hopefully we don't get to that point where that self-reinforcing cycle kicks in. All right, let's move on to gold here because we just got ourselves a little bit of a a down day here on Wednesday. Uh what's your take of what's going on? The low print on the January 30th correction was 4423 4423. That was a near-perfect test of the 50-day moving average at the time. But that happened in the middle of the night in very thin liquidity. So, something I said right here on macrovoices just a few days later was we should watch for another test of the 50-day moving average during regular trading hours, not extended trading hours. Well, we got that on Wednesday and it also coincided almost perfectly with the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level of that January 30th correction. There was also a trend line there as well. So, three major support lines all broken at the same time. So, there's a very good technical argument that could be made here, which is that that regular trading hours test of the 50-day moving average was the buy signal. The bottom could be in already, except we went right through it and we're trading considerably below it at recording time. I'm looking at 48.24 as we're uh recording right now. Selling off more in futures trading after the close. These are all ominous signs and frankly there's not a lot of obvious support until we get to the 100 day moving average at 45914591. So I I think we're probably headed in that direction unless there's a sudden change in the fundamentals. But it's also clear that there's been a breakdown of correlations between precious metals and the usual, you know, if it's a increase in tension in Iran, more geopolitical upset, that would normally be up on precious metals. That broke down on March 2nd. Gold is not trading up on geopolitical escalation the way it was before March 2nd. And frankly, I've yet to hear a really good explanation for why it isn't. So, I don't pretend to know what comes next, but it sure looks to me like we might be headed towards a 45 handle, if not lower. That's the next obvious support level uh below the current market. So, either we get a bounce here and the 50-day really was the the trading signal that it should have been. or if we continue to see this uh weakness below the 50-day continue through the day on Thursday, I think we're probably headed down to 4591, maybe 4600 on the 100 day moving average by the time we get there. Well, Eric, my view on gold has uh remained unchanged for the last month after we saw that key blowoff top on gold and that huge reversion. uh typically uh if if we look at the last four consolidations of gold, it took as much as two to four months of gold consolidating before it attempted to break to fresh new highs. At this stage, that analog is the one that we continue to see here on gold as we saw some retesting of highs and this sideways consolidation continuing. Overall, um after this consolidation finishes, there's lots of room for gold to go higher, but uh at this stage, I think it'll be deeper into the second quarter before we see a a meaningful turnup. Could how low could this uh gold correction go? Well, uh the first level to watch on the support side is this 4,800 level we're trading down to right now, which is a a fib zone uh of this retrace. Um, if that doesn't hold, I mean, there is always the possibility we head back down toward that 4500 level and $4,400 level below, but if that was to happen, that would probably be a compelling buy on dip uh to take advantage of. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts here on the fact that uranium continues to just consolidate sideways inactively? Well, Patrick, the fundamentals are uber bullish and they're only getting better by the day as we see more and more nuclear announcements. The nuclear renaissance is on and it's on strong. And the market for uranium and uranium miners is holding up pretty darn well considering how bad everything else is going. We didn't see as big of a downside as I was fearing we might see on uh the uranium stocks on Wednesday. We're still looking at 49 spot.05 at the close on Wednesday on the URA ETF, which is the one that's most followed. That's uh still well above its 200 day moving average, whereas uh the indexes have moved below their 200 day moving averages, but frankly, I think it's headed for its 200 day moving average, which is at 46 spot 03. So, we'll see what happens next. broad market uh riskoff event is obviously going to take everything else down with it including the uranium miners. I think it just sets up better and better buy the dip opportunities. The question is how big is the dip before it's time to buy uranium. Uh I I think the next obvious target is 4603 on the URA ETF. But let's see what happens with the broader risk markets because if we get an outright market crash here as could happen if uh the oil prices continue to rise particularly if they spike over $150 setting new all-time highs at least on the major indices we're already there with some of the uh the other markets around the world but if we get there on Brent and WTI above 150 that probably brings on an outright crash in equity markets and anything could happen. Well, structurally the chart remains bullish. Uh oil consolidations are are being held. Higher highs and higher lows, but it's just been a quiet period. Maybe the the lack of liquidity in the broader asset markets uh could be uh just keeping this all contained. But overall uh the charts are still on the bull trend and uh at major support lines. Now Eric, I want to just quickly touch on copper here. Copper futures very decisively took out their 100 day moving average to the downside on Wednesday, closing near the print of the day, and they continued to trade substantially lower even uh after the cash close as I'm recording. So, we're looking actually already we're halfway down from the 100 day, which was the hopeful support line today. The next support is all the way down at the 200 day moving average at five spot 38. We're halfway there as of recording time. So, uh, it looks like that may be where we're headed next on copper, unless we get a sudden resolution to the Iran conflict and a real resol resolution here. Lots and lots of signs across the board from equities to precious metals to Dr. Copper all closing down hard on Wednesday near or at their low prints of the day. uh and continuing to trade even lower on after hours future trading. Those are all ominous signals that uh these markets are still headed lower. Now, of course, they can all turn on a dime on news flow. If there is a sudden resolution to the Iran conflict and the straight of Hormuz is flowing freely and oil prices are rapidly correcting back down into the 60s, then uh obviously this is all going to reverse. But until they do, all of the markets, including Dr. Copper, are telling us we've got a serious problem on our hands. >> Now, Eric, I want to focus in on some bizarre price action that we've seen in copper when it's overlaid on gold. Now, typically precious metals trade in correlation. And a lot of times these industrial metals uh tend to uh march to their beat of their own drum independently. But when I uh here show an overlay of the gold and copper charts, for some odd reason, copper almost day by day, tick by tick has actually been correlating with gold. Now, why I really actually don't have an explanation. Uh it's and I and I certainly don't know whether this will continue, but certainly as of this moment when we're looking at this chart, uh it's undeniable that right now copper uh is just uh trading tick by tick with gold. I'm very curious to see whether or not this trend continues in the weeks and months to come. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's podcast, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. What we've seen here is that it's uh trading right up toward the 230 level. Uh we had the FOMC meeting and the first reaction after the post FOMC was uh yields rising up to their uh one month ranges or multimonth ranges. It'll be very interesting to see whether this has started a new follow through and we see yields push higher from here or whether this was going to just a fake out retest of the highs. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Bigpictur Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup. Well, in this week's research roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview. You're going to find the slide deck that was put together by Simon White. And you'll find the trade of the week chart book we just discussed here in the postgame, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. That does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners, and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. Now, for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email at researchroundup at macrovoices.com and we will consider it for our weekly distributions. If you have not already, follow our main account on X at macrovoices for all the most recent updates and releases. You can also follow Eric on X, Eric S. Townson. That's Eric spelled with a K. And you can also follow me at Patrick Serzna. On behalf of Eric Townson and myself, thank you for listening and we'll see you all next week. That concludes this edition of Macrovoices. Be sure to tune in each [music] week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds in finance and macroeconomics. Macrovoices is made possible by sponsorship from bigpicturetrading.com, the internet's premier source of online education [music] for traders. Please visit bigpicturetrading.com for more information. Please register your free account at macrovoices.com. Once [music] registered, you'll receive our free weekly research roundup email containing links to [music] supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research [music] team could find on the internet each week. You'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and [music] research library. And the more registered users we have, the more we'll be able to recruit high-profile feature interview guests for [music] future programs. So, please register your free account today at macrovoices.com if you haven't [music] already. You can subscribe to Macrovoices on iTunes to have Macrovoices automatically delivered to your mobile device each week free of charge. You can email questions for the program to mailbag macrovoices.com [music] and we'll answer your questions on the air from time to time in our mailbag segment. Macrovoices is presented [music] forformational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented on macrovoices should not be construed as investment advice. Always consult a licensed investment [music] professional before making investment decisions. The views and opinions expressed on macrovoices are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the show's hosts or sponsors. Macrovoices, [music] its producers, sponsors, and hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Serzna [music] shall not be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on Macrovoices. Macrovoices is made possible by sponsorship [music] from bigpicturetrading.com and by funding from Fourth Turning Capital Management LLC. For more information, visit macrovoices.com.
Trade of The Week – MacroVoices #524
Summary
Download Big Picture Trading Chartbook : https://bit.ly/4sQKUO3 ✓Sign up for a FREE 14-day trial at Big Picture Trading: …Transcript
Listeners, we're going to keep bringing on the second guests as conditions warrant until the Iran situation eventually settles down. Now, you're going to find the download link for this week's trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, it means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage and look for the red button over Simon's picture saying looking for the downloads. Patrick, everyone's focused on oil as the inflation driver right now, but Simon made an interesting point that food might actually be the bigger story. Then Rory Johnston echoed that from a completely different perspective having to do with fertilizer. How are you thinking about that and what is the trade of the week to express it? Eric, the key insights from Simon is that the real inflation risk isn't the first order energy shock. It's what comes next. In the 1970s, food inflation ultimately had the more persistent impact on CPI. And we're starting to see the early pieces of that same transmission through today's rising fertilizer costs, supply chain disruptions, and emerging weather risks. So, if this is the beginning of that second wave, I think the cleanest way to express it is in wheat. The trade of the week is to go long Chicago SRW wheat where tightening export flows and a still netshore positioning backdrop create the potential for a sharp repricing if that food inflation narrative starts to get recognized. Now for more advanced traders this can absolutely be expressed directly in the wheat futures markets where the liquidity is deeper and the execution is more precise. But for simplicity and accessibility, I want to frame this through the Tukrium wheat Fund ETF, ticker WAT, which is trading around $23.15. Given that implied volatility is already elevated and the option surface is showing a clear right tail skew, this lends itself well to a call spread structure rather than outright calls. Specifically looking at the October 16th, 2026 expiration, you can buy the $25 call for roughly $2 and sell the $30 call for about $1, creating a $5 widespread for a net debit of $1. This means you're risking about 4% of the underlying ETF value to gain exposure for the potential of a $5 payoff, giving you roughly a 4:1 payoff ratio over a 212day window. The idea here is straightforward. Use the skew to your advantage and define the risk while still maintaining meaningful upside if the food inflation narrative begins to repric. So the idea here is simple. By using the defined risk call spread, we're able to position for that upside while keeping the premium outlay relatively small in a market that is already pricing in elevated volatility. It is a straightforward way to gain exposure to a potentially underappreciated macro theme with a payoff structure that becomes increasingly attractive if this narrative starts to gain traction in the months ahead. Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now, let's dive into the postgame chart deck. All right, Eric, let's dive into these equity markets. Patrick, Wednesday was a major riskoff day across most markets except of course the dollar index and crude oil with equities, gold, copper, and several others down and down hard, closing near their lows of the day. That of course, as I said in the introduction, is an ominous sign that more downside is likely still to come. The S&P 500 was sitting below its 200 day moving average as of Wednesday's 4 pm cash close. It continued to trade lower than that after the cash close. It did trade lower than today's cash close on an intraday basis back on March 9th, but today was the lowest closing price of 2026 for the S&P 500 futures contract. So, my take on this equity market is that it really depends on your geopolitical outlook and your expectations for what comes next in this Iran conflict. I'll strive to leave my own personal politics out of this and focus on yours instead. So, if you think that the Trump administration has this whole situation completely under control, it's going to be over in another week or so, just like the president and Secretary Hegsth say it's going to be, then in that case, if that's what you think, then this is a terrific buy the dip setup. It probably sets the stage for a rally to new all-time highs. If President Trump can really get this all under control and wrap it up and there's no lasting impact from it, and to be sure, in order for there to be no lasting impact, it really needs to get wrapped up pretty quickly here. If you think that's what happens, then it's time to buy this dip and buy it in size because we're we're going much higher. On the other hand, if you don't think that, if you think that the Trump administration has started a fire that they won't be able to put out and that this is not under control and that this Iran conflict might turn into a repeat of the Iraq debacle that began in 2003, well, if that's what you think, because we're leaving my politics out of this one, uh that would pretend a very very different equity market outcome. We could easily be looking at a cyclical bare market and the worst case would be if oil transit through the state of Hormuz stays impaired for many months. In that scenario, without exaggeration, it could lead to an oil price surge well over $250 a barrel. That would the global economy and lead to a global financial crisis on the scale of, if not bigger than 2008. Now, I strongly doubt that that would be the outcome because this is a problem that can be solved sooner than that. We're not going to see the Straits of Hormuz closed for years or anything like that. The question is how long this goes on, how much damage it causes and how long it takes to unwind that. In other words, how big is the backlog of global logistics that have been disrupted by the Straight of Hormuz closure? How long does it take to get things back to flowing as normal again? That's really, I think, what's going to drive equity prices. And frankly, I don't think anybody knows for sure what's coming next in this market. So, it really comes down to your geopolitical outlook. I think all of us are vulnerable to allowing our personal politics to bias our judgment as investors. So, remember this uh market reaction is not going to depend on what you think or what I think should happen. It's going to depend on what actually happens and I don't think any of us know with any real certainty exactly how this is going to play out. Eric, I'm going to keep my analysis very simple from a technical perspective. We're remaining below the 50-day moving average. Uh we're breaking lower highs and lower lows. There is clear distribution. The bears are in control and uh in the driver's seat on the short term on that distribution side. We continued to see all rallies failing uh at Fibonacci zones which is all indicating uh that generally the distribution cycle is still in play. Now while we have seen uh substantial increases in bearishness as uh the sentiment is pivoting. We've seen huge spikes in volatility index and other things that are signs that you typically would see from oversold conditions. But right now with enough of this global uncertainty here, uh this could be an overhang that keeps this market distributing. Now Eric, we certainly can't rule out that at some point the bulls will reverse this and counter trend it. This is again the environment where hedges are in critical and we've talked about them over the last couple of weeks with our listeners and I continue to advocate that uh portfolio insurance here makes a whole lot of sense. All right, Eric, let's talk about that US dollar. Well, Patrick, by recording time, we were back down to a high 99 handle uh after surging above 100 and then below 100 intraday on Friday. I think by the cash close, we were back over 100 again. So, we're right on that hairy line between 99 and 100. The question to ask is whether we're topping out here at overbought resistance on this uh technically overbought market or if the strength that we've seen in the dollar so far is just be the beginning of a new bullish trend. Once again, I think the answer depends on your geopolitical outlook. Sorry folks, that's going to be the answer for most things this week and there are plenty of strong arguments to be made in either direction. I don't see any fundamental bullish drivers for the dollar here other than the flight to safety trades into the dollar which are only going to intensify if the situation in Iran worsens from here and if equity markets take a nose dive. So there's plenty of room for much much more upside in the dollar index. But ultimately I think that upside would be driven by flight to safety trades in the Iran conflict. Someday when the Iran conflict wears off or or winds down, then I think it becomes a bearish it's time to sell the dollar there because I think it will be overbought and ripe for a major correction, maybe resuming the primary downtrend that was in play before this conflict arose. The question is timing. How much longer before this Iran conflict is over? Whenever it's over, that's the time I think you want to sell the dollar index. Well, Eric, when looking under the hood of the dollar, the key thing is to observe that the predominant weakness is coming from the euro and the yen, which happen to be very large waitings in the dollar index. But the story isn't uh the US dollar strength and all crossurrencies weakening against it. We continue to see resilience in a lot of the commodity based currencies like the Aussie dollar and the Canadian dollar and and that euro is really where the drag is as there continues to be growth concerns at a time when obviously their energy prices are under a lot of pressure which is uh stressing uh the euro right now on the downside. If we see euro breaking some of these key levels that is going to be a huge bullish tailwind for this dollar index. and we're at a the top of a almost a 10month trade range. Uh and if the dollar index makes any progress above this 100 level with momentum, we've got ourselves some sort of a strong uh US dollar counter trend move and so uh we have to watch whether or not this gains momentum from here. All right, Eric, let's touch on crude oil. Well, as I already discussed with Rory Johnston, the Oman benchmark traded over $180 this week. Obviously, logistic complications are part of that, but it's still an important price signal. I'm sorry to sound like a broken record, folks, but it's the geopolitical outcome with Iran that's going to drive everything. As Rory Johnston said, I think it would be foolish to assume that, hey, it's going to be just a couple more days and the Trump administration is going to completely end this thing. Even if it ends this week, we still have probably a couple of months at minimum just to clear the system out and get things back to flowing as usual. And the longer that the conflict wears on, the more that effect is compounded and the more of a mess we're going to have to unwind. So the longer this continues, the more it's going to affect oil prices and cause a continued increase in oil prices and the inflation signal that that drives. And eventually it becomes a self-reinforcing vicious cycle of increasing inflation driving even more uh extraction cost price increases, higher oil prices, and so forth. Hopefully we don't get to that point where that self-reinforcing cycle kicks in. All right, let's move on to gold here because we just got ourselves a little bit of a a down day here on Wednesday. Uh what's your take of what's going on? The low print on the January 30th correction was 4423 4423. That was a near-perfect test of the 50-day moving average at the time. But that happened in the middle of the night in very thin liquidity. So, something I said right here on macrovoices just a few days later was we should watch for another test of the 50-day moving average during regular trading hours, not extended trading hours. Well, we got that on Wednesday and it also coincided almost perfectly with the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level of that January 30th correction. There was also a trend line there as well. So, three major support lines all broken at the same time. So, there's a very good technical argument that could be made here, which is that that regular trading hours test of the 50-day moving average was the buy signal. The bottom could be in already, except we went right through it and we're trading considerably below it at recording time. I'm looking at 48.24 as we're uh recording right now. Selling off more in futures trading after the close. These are all ominous signs and frankly there's not a lot of obvious support until we get to the 100 day moving average at 45914591. So I I think we're probably headed in that direction unless there's a sudden change in the fundamentals. But it's also clear that there's been a breakdown of correlations between precious metals and the usual, you know, if it's a increase in tension in Iran, more geopolitical upset, that would normally be up on precious metals. That broke down on March 2nd. Gold is not trading up on geopolitical escalation the way it was before March 2nd. And frankly, I've yet to hear a really good explanation for why it isn't. So, I don't pretend to know what comes next, but it sure looks to me like we might be headed towards a 45 handle, if not lower. That's the next obvious support level uh below the current market. So, either we get a bounce here and the 50-day really was the the trading signal that it should have been. or if we continue to see this uh weakness below the 50-day continue through the day on Thursday, I think we're probably headed down to 4591, maybe 4600 on the 100 day moving average by the time we get there. Well, Eric, my view on gold has uh remained unchanged for the last month after we saw that key blowoff top on gold and that huge reversion. uh typically uh if if we look at the last four consolidations of gold, it took as much as two to four months of gold consolidating before it attempted to break to fresh new highs. At this stage, that analog is the one that we continue to see here on gold as we saw some retesting of highs and this sideways consolidation continuing. Overall, um after this consolidation finishes, there's lots of room for gold to go higher, but uh at this stage, I think it'll be deeper into the second quarter before we see a a meaningful turnup. Could how low could this uh gold correction go? Well, uh the first level to watch on the support side is this 4,800 level we're trading down to right now, which is a a fib zone uh of this retrace. Um, if that doesn't hold, I mean, there is always the possibility we head back down toward that 4500 level and $4,400 level below, but if that was to happen, that would probably be a compelling buy on dip uh to take advantage of. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts here on the fact that uranium continues to just consolidate sideways inactively? Well, Patrick, the fundamentals are uber bullish and they're only getting better by the day as we see more and more nuclear announcements. The nuclear renaissance is on and it's on strong. And the market for uranium and uranium miners is holding up pretty darn well considering how bad everything else is going. We didn't see as big of a downside as I was fearing we might see on uh the uranium stocks on Wednesday. We're still looking at 49 spot.05 at the close on Wednesday on the URA ETF, which is the one that's most followed. That's uh still well above its 200 day moving average, whereas uh the indexes have moved below their 200 day moving averages, but frankly, I think it's headed for its 200 day moving average, which is at 46 spot 03. So, we'll see what happens next. broad market uh riskoff event is obviously going to take everything else down with it including the uranium miners. I think it just sets up better and better buy the dip opportunities. The question is how big is the dip before it's time to buy uranium. Uh I I think the next obvious target is 4603 on the URA ETF. But let's see what happens with the broader risk markets because if we get an outright market crash here as could happen if uh the oil prices continue to rise particularly if they spike over $150 setting new all-time highs at least on the major indices we're already there with some of the uh the other markets around the world but if we get there on Brent and WTI above 150 that probably brings on an outright crash in equity markets and anything could happen. Well, structurally the chart remains bullish. Uh oil consolidations are are being held. Higher highs and higher lows, but it's just been a quiet period. Maybe the the lack of liquidity in the broader asset markets uh could be uh just keeping this all contained. But overall uh the charts are still on the bull trend and uh at major support lines. Now Eric, I want to just quickly touch on copper here. Copper futures very decisively took out their 100 day moving average to the downside on Wednesday, closing near the print of the day, and they continued to trade substantially lower even uh after the cash close as I'm recording. So, we're looking actually already we're halfway down from the 100 day, which was the hopeful support line today. The next support is all the way down at the 200 day moving average at five spot 38. We're halfway there as of recording time. So, uh, it looks like that may be where we're headed next on copper, unless we get a sudden resolution to the Iran conflict and a real resol resolution here. Lots and lots of signs across the board from equities to precious metals to Dr. Copper all closing down hard on Wednesday near or at their low prints of the day. uh and continuing to trade even lower on after hours future trading. Those are all ominous signals that uh these markets are still headed lower. Now, of course, they can all turn on a dime on news flow. If there is a sudden resolution to the Iran conflict and the straight of Hormuz is flowing freely and oil prices are rapidly correcting back down into the 60s, then uh obviously this is all going to reverse. But until they do, all of the markets, including Dr. Copper, are telling us we've got a serious problem on our hands. >> Now, Eric, I want to focus in on some bizarre price action that we've seen in copper when it's overlaid on gold. Now, typically precious metals trade in correlation. And a lot of times these industrial metals uh tend to uh march to their beat of their own drum independently. But when I uh here show an overlay of the gold and copper charts, for some odd reason, copper almost day by day, tick by tick has actually been correlating with gold. Now, why I really actually don't have an explanation. Uh it's and I and I certainly don't know whether this will continue, but certainly as of this moment when we're looking at this chart, uh it's undeniable that right now copper uh is just uh trading tick by tick with gold. I'm very curious to see whether or not this trend continues in the weeks and months to come. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's podcast, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. What we've seen here is that it's uh trading right up toward the 230 level. Uh we had the FOMC meeting and the first reaction after the post FOMC was uh yields rising up to their uh one month ranges or multimonth ranges. It'll be very interesting to see whether this has started a new follow through and we see yields push higher from here or whether this was going to just a fake out retest of the highs. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Bigpictur Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup. Well, in this week's research roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview. You're going to find the slide deck that was put together by Simon White. And you'll find the trade of the week chart book we just discussed here in the postgame, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. That does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners, and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. Now, for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email at researchroundup at macrovoices.com and we will consider it for our weekly distributions. If you have not already, follow our main account on X at macrovoices for all the most recent updates and releases. You can also follow Eric on X, Eric S. Townson. That's Eric spelled with a K. And you can also follow me at Patrick Serzna. On behalf of Eric Townson and myself, thank you for listening and we'll see you all next week. That concludes this edition of Macrovoices. Be sure to tune in each [music] week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds in finance and macroeconomics. Macrovoices is made possible by sponsorship from bigpicturetrading.com, the internet's premier source of online education [music] for traders. Please visit bigpicturetrading.com for more information. Please register your free account at macrovoices.com. Once [music] registered, you'll receive our free weekly research roundup email containing links to [music] supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research [music] team could find on the internet each week. You'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and [music] research library. And the more registered users we have, the more we'll be able to recruit high-profile feature interview guests for [music] future programs. So, please register your free account today at macrovoices.com if you haven't [music] already. You can subscribe to Macrovoices on iTunes to have Macrovoices automatically delivered to your mobile device each week free of charge. You can email questions for the program to mailbag macrovoices.com [music] and we'll answer your questions on the air from time to time in our mailbag segment. Macrovoices is presented [music] forformational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented on macrovoices should not be construed as investment advice. Always consult a licensed investment [music] professional before making investment decisions. The views and opinions expressed on macrovoices are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the show's hosts or sponsors. Macrovoices, [music] its producers, sponsors, and hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Serzna [music] shall not be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on Macrovoices. Macrovoices is made possible by sponsorship [music] from bigpicturetrading.com and by funding from Fourth Turning Capital Management LLC. For more information, visit macrovoices.com.