My Trading Game Plan | July 29, 2026
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My name is Gareth Soloway and I was a losing trader until I mastered technical [music] analysis. Logic and charts beat hype and narratives every time. Now I teach investors the same techniques [music] that made me a multi-millionaire. This is my trading game plan. Good morning everybody. Welcome to my trading game plan. My name is Gareth Soloway, chief market strategist here at verifiedinvesting.com. Today is an epic day. We have the Federal Reserve announcement at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time followed by the press conference. Now this is a unique announcement and the reason why it's unique is the odds of whether or not the Fed will hike rates are not as low as they normally are. Usually by the day of, it's almost zero chance that they're going to do anything other than what the market expects. But take a look at this. This is fascinating guys. The Fed rate hike, there is a 38% chance as of now and obviously numbers will adjust over the course of the day. 38% chance that they're going to hike. Now I don't think they will. You can see there's a 62% chance that they will hold rates steady. That is what I expect, but it is worth just taking it into account, right? I mean we have to be aware that there is a chance for a curveball. And so really, if we got a curveball, I think it would unnerve unnerve the markets. Um, I think the market wants slow and steady Jerome Powell while Kevin Warsh is more about not giving enough information, not giving too much information, and keeping the markets a little bit more on their toes. And I think that can be something that worries the market just a little bit. So, again, looking at this graphic, you can see right now current rate target is 3.5 to 3.75. If hiked, it would go up to 3.75 to 4%. The decision is at 2:00 p.m. We'll know there, and then the press conference will be at 2:30 p.m. And that will be a big event for the markets. Now, it's not the only event today. After hours, we're going to have Meta and Microsoft reporting earnings. We're going to get also a bunch of semiconductor stocks to report after hours. So, there will be fireworks there as well. Now, speaking of fireworks, SK Hynix, which is that monster company over on the Kospi in South Korea, they reported last night, and the stock initially flushed, then went green, and is now basically trading around the flat line. That's keeping semis in a mixed picture here as we go into the open. But, let's get into the S&P futures and kind of take a look at what we see. The S&P futures, you can see yesterday we closed right around here. This is all your overnight action. So, you can see again, initially the futures fell on SK Hynix, then popped up overall, then kind of faded as in the overnight the semis sold off. Now, what's interesting about this, and you can see again where the we are. We were up a little bit on the S&P. We've now gone negative on the futures going into the trading open. But, overnight it was a wild ride led by the South Korean stock market, which for the second day in a row got halted with limit down. And so now, and this is this drives me nuts. So, there are officials over there that are now saying, "Hey, we're going to have an emergency meeting. The stock market has come down so much." And I'll show the chart of the Kospi in just a second. But, it's like, "Dude, the market ran up incredibly for months and months and months, and now it's having a normal correction, and now you're worried about it?" Well, it's like, "What did you expect to happen?" When bubbles form, they have massive corrections. So, let's go to that chart, in fact. Let's go to the Kospi and take a look here, and I'll show you what I mean. And if we go to the daily chart of the Kospi, this is the chart, right? Now again, this is a nasty collapse on this stock market over there. From peak to trough, 44% decline, closed in the overnight down about 40%. Now, normally we'd all be saying, "Oh my goodness, that is an absolute crash." But, remember, there are two stocks on that stock market that make up over 50% of that entire index. And they've all both of those stocks have gone up hundreds of percentage points in the last year, like 400%. So, it's like, you know, even if you correct 44% or 40%, you're still up in the last year well over 100% and you could see that on the chart here. Look at this run. I mean, this is incredible. If we just take where we were in April of 2025, so just over a year ago to the highs, it was up 300%. Now, what I like to do is I like to do my fibs. I say, "Okay, well, what if we take a fib here and you could see we've pierced the 50% retrace with the 618 right here. And so, for me, this is a huge viable opportunity on the Kospi and the likely we're very close to major bounces in some of our semiconductors here. Now again, I inched in a little bit yesterday on some semiconductors that were down big, but I will continue to do that today and it's not believe because I believe that the correction is over. I just think we're due for a 20 to 30% bounce and as a swing trader, I want to take advantage of that, right? But really remarkable. But going back to what's going on over there, it's that, you know, when you have a market that goes up 300% in a year, you know, you're going to have a correction, especially when it's so concentrated that two stocks make up over 50% of that index. So again, to have all these emergency meetings about this, oh my goodness. And by the way, what they're blaming, which is valid, is double and triple ETFs. They launched all these double and triple ETFs, which are great on the upside, right? Cuz if someone buys it, then that ETF has to buy three shares of the underlying asset, like the semiconductors. But you know what happens? Is if it's really causes a massive move up because people are buying this and they have to buy three shares, guess what happens on the way down? It's kind of like, "Duh." Like you didn't think this was a possibility? Like no offense, but how dumb can they be? And how dumb can you Listen, we have the same problem here in the US, which is very, very scary. We're just more diversified than two stocks equaling 50%. Now again, crazy stuff, guys. All right. Oil is the other headline today. Oil is big here, guys. This is actually putting pressure on why the S&P futures are rolling over a little bit this morning. Oil is trading up about 7%. Now you guys know we shorted it up here. I took my profits right down here. It went a little bit lower. Now it's moving up. Many people are already asking me, am I inclined to short oil again? The answer is no. I do not have a good read. Remember, when I shorted it, I had a 50% fib retrace and I had a major trend line, two factors. In technical analysis here at Verified Investing, we always look for every trade to have at minimum two factors. They have to be different factors. Um what we found statistically, and remember, Verified Investing is all charts, no BS, essentially data-based, is that when you have two factors that are legitimate based on the winning trader series that I put out, uh that's on my course, is that you have about a 75% chance of success. Not 100%, there's no such thing. But if I can win three out of every four times, it's golden. And essentially, that's what we're seeing here or what we saw on oil, so I took the trade. I don't have that now. There's not I I you might get one factor, but not two factors. And I want that second factor. So oil bouncing up here beautifully. Um it is putting a little pressure on the S&P this morning as we saw the futures rolling over, but no trade for me. But essentially what's going on here is the bombs are flying again. The US is attacking Iran, Iran shooting missiles back, and you had a couple days of calm. Now we're back to basically fighting again between the two countries, and that is pushing up oil. So we'll see where that goes. Again, I don't really expect oil to go significantly higher, but what we are looking at here, folks, is you could make a case that we're now starting to create a wedge pattern. So we can connect this low down here, and we could start to see that if we extend this out at some point in the future, right? Let's just draw these lines and continue to bring them down and up, is that this will continue to compress, right? And eventually we're going to have to see either a breakout to the upside or the downside. So again, that's how wedges work, right? They they compress prices price like a pressure cooker, and then ultimately, whenever it makes that bigger move, it's usually a big breakout or breakdown. So I'll keep that on my radar. All right, let's get into some earnings. We'll get back to the commodities in just a little bit of time. This is Bloom Energy. Bloom Energy again, big pop on earnings after the bell in the overnight was basically trading sideways, but look at the daily chart on this. The stock had collapsed, and we're talking a massive collapse here of essentially 55% in a month. And so again, think about the bar being lowered. When you're at all-time highs, you have to come out and beat earnings and say the most amazing things. I often use the the analogy of like you essentially have to cure cancer to keep going up. Once you've corrected 55%, the bar is lowered. Now they still reported great earnings and raised guidance, which is why the stock is up, but again, it just shows you how expectations were lowered. The other thing to point out, and this is why we had it in smart money stocks and ETFs as a long even going into earnings, look at all this technical support. 55% drop into all of that, guess what? Probability 75% or greater of a bounce, and it got that bounce. By the way, I already took my money off the table on that trade. Not to say it can't go higher, but listen, no I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Great gains in a short period of time, I'm out. All right, other stocks. STX, this is a semiconductor memory play. Great earnings, they raised guidance. Big pop initially on earnings, overnight it kind of chopped around. Still trading up about 5 to 6% in the pre-market. Is there a trade here? We look at the daily chart. Not really. I mean, aggressive traders gap fill at 8:14, 8:15, but it's been beaten down as well, so I'm not as interested in that. Um SK Hynix, here we go. So, SK Hynix last night reported earnings, the stock flushed, then popped and went green, then went even lower in the overnight, and is now stabilized. Basically, if you look at where it closed yesterday for the trading session, it closed right here. So, it's down just fractionally in the morning session. Now, this is going to be interesting because if this starts dumping, we're going to see all the semiconductors drop. And that's where we start to get into some major technical levels. By the way, the daily chart of SK Hynix since it essentially came public is not pretty much like SpaceX, but it just shows that investors are not willing to wait around and hold these things. They take their money and run. But, SanDisk. Look at this. Now again, SanDisk right now trading around the flatline pre-market, but look at these three trendlines converging right around this level. All right, that is very interesting to me. You have a horizontal line here, slight ascending trendline high pivot to high pivot, and sharper ascending trend line here. They all are right in this zone. In other words, if if Sandisk pushes down here, I believe as a swing trade it's a strong buy. Now, just because I believe it doesn't make it mean it's going to be a success, but again, we talked about multiple factors. So, my job is never and I and listen, you got to learn this the hard way. I I have to learn this the hard way. There's no sure thing in trading. And I think we all know that. I very rarely that you've ever find someone that hasn't taken a loss. And if they say they haven't, you got to be like, "Hm, okay, sure." You know, like that's yeah. But, the point is again is that that's a level where Sandisk would be down like 60% from its highs, and I wouldn't think it's not going to go lower later on, but for a good 20-30% bounce, that's what I'm looking at. If we get down there, I think you have a great chance at a bounce back to about 1285 to 1300 from a thousand pierce. All right, on to the next one here, guys. SoFi reported earnings this morning. That stock is down a little bit, not a huge move, but a decent move. If we look at the daily chart, again, there'll be some support right here at the lows around $15 pierce. As a day trade, I'm intrigued by that, but as a swing trade, I will not go near this in the near term. Um, just not a big enough fan of the chart yet. Don't have enough factors overall. But, that 15 pierce level is intriguing. VRT, big flush on earnings. It has recovered quite a bit. That takes a little bit of the opportunity away from us, but again, there's going to be a big gap window around 231 right here. And then if it fills the gap, this is where I actually would consider a swing trade. It's such a major you have a pivot high and a gap fill right there, right around a 200 even number pierce. That would be a multi-factor level. That would be my swing trade level. All right, so again, a going on. We've seen this happen over and over again. You've got again oil popping. We have earnings coming out. We have the Federal Reserve today. Uh semiconductors continue to generally be under pressure or close to their lows, but really are either hitting or knocking very close to very key support. And what I love about the semi trade, you guys know I was hating on the semi trade. When SanDisk was north of 2000, I was like, "Guys, get the heck out. This is the scariest thing. This is a bubble. It's going to collapse." Well, guess what? Now we're down 50 50 55% potentially going down 60%. Now, we've seen the mass greed that told me that, "Oh, no, Micron, you know, at an 8 PE, it can't go down." I'm like, "Yeah, but that's when it does go down. It's because when margins are highest, that's when PE is going to be lowest. When margins compress and come down, that's when the PE goes up. And you actually want to buy it at the worst PE. It's very counterintuitive to a normal company because it's a cyclical company. Cyclical stocks you have to be careful of. And that's this situation with Micron, SanDisk, and these others. But ultimately, we're now getting to very fearful in the semis, which you guys know me, I start to get slightly more bullish. Once I see people panicking, blood in the streets as they say, uh hating on these things, that's when I start to say, "Hmm, let's let's look at the charts. Let's see if we have two factors." Cuz then with that sentiment, it creates a bounce opportunity. All right. Let's look at gold real quick. Gold is down slightly today, creeping down just a tiny bit. Incredible wedge just continues here. I mean, this is remarkable to see this wedge just holding to such an incredible point here. Again, basically by August 14th, we're going to have to see a breakout. And that's only 2 weeks away now. We're basically nearing August per I think Saturday is August 1st. So, this is going to make a move in the next 2 weeks, guys. And it should be a big move. Um again, which way it goes, let's let the chart tell us. Silver, not such a good chart. It's already kind of moved a little bit lower. It's been sideways chop. As of now, I would favor a move down. But like I said, we are very close. Like for me, listen, I'm not going to pretend to be able to know exactly where the bottom is on silver or gold. But, I know where I start to inch into the position. And really anything around 50 bucks to me on silver is a starter position. Anything below every X amount of dollars, I'll just accumulate. And same thing with gold. Gold gets down towards that 3,500 level, and I'm just going to start slowly legging in. Again, the mindset of a great trader is not to hit the exact bottom and go all in. Those are those are unfortunately the traders that lose all their money. A great trader, a Warren Buffett, uh you know, these other great hedge fund managers out there, they start small positions. If the thesis is still there and it goes against them, they keep adding as long as the thesis holds. We can learn a lot from that, folks. It took me a long time and so many errors. So, don't feel bad if you've had a ton of mess-ups. We've all done it. Trust me. I've been I'm I'm like the worst. I you know, 27 years it's taken me. And listen, I I was good 5 years ago, but I'm saying, you know, if you're like 2 years in, 5 years into your investing career, and you're still struggling a little bit, totally normal. Took me longer. So, you're on a good pace. I'll put it to you that way. Okay. Um natural gas here, guys. Let's take a look at that. It is getting a small bounce. I was looking at this and this this natural gas chart is not the spot natural gas. And I want to start using this one because this one is the one that actually is the spot, the Pepperstone here. This is the one that I'm more intrigued on because this one actually has a better trendline for us. And spot price is much more important to me. So, it could still come down again 250-60 to this trend line here versus the other chart is made up of other things. So, I'm going to try to use the Pepperstone from now on as our go-to for this. But again, this down here would be your next support around 256 to 255 on natural gas. Bitcoin inching up a little bit today. It's still holding up in this upper range here. Again, if we look at these lows kind of down here, you kind of want to see it hold this 62-563,000 level and eventually break above 70-67. If it does that, next target is 71. So again, overall I still like the chart of Bitcoin and I'm still optimistic that it still has a potential upside move. But remember, I'm beholden to the charts. So, whatever I like is based currently on what the chart is showing us. Every day we get a new daily candle. If one daily candle breaks a level, it's like, "Okay, well, the view has to change." Those of us that hold our views no matter what the charts do, and and I can speak from experience again on this, those are the ones that are our biggest losses. And I've had many of those and even to this day I still have a few of those. I mean, it's just you Unfortunately, we're human. All right, in any case, you guys are rockstars for hanging with me, watching my game plans every day. I can't tell you how much we appreciate here at Verified Investing the support, the the positivity you guys bring. So, thank you again, guys, and as always, we try to bring our A game. We're not always going to be right, but we're going to do it off data and charts, not nonsense and narratives. Have a great rest of your day, guys. Thanks again for tuning in. Take