My Trading Game Plan | August 17, 2026

My name is Gareth Soloway and I was a
losing trader until I mastered technical
analysis. Logic and charts [music] beat
hype and narratives every time. Now I
teach investors the same techniques 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.
Now, of course, as always, we're going
to dive into the data. We're going to
see where the markets are trading. We
were mostly higher early, but we've seen
something occur here that continues to
be a major concern. Now, while the
charts on the S&P and the NASDAQ remain
neutral to bullish, the yields, the
yields continue to push up. Those are
interest rates. So in spite of the Fed
watch tool basically saying there's
likely not to be a rate hike from the
Fed, the markets are saying, "Damn the
Fed, we're going to do it anyways." And
that's kind of concerning. We talked
about this on Friday because what it
shows you is the Fed may have lost
control. And if they do lose control,
then you have bond vigilantes coming in
potentially also demanding higher
interest rates and could cause a
catastrophic error in the market. So
again, when I look at the 30-year today,
new 25-year highs, the 10-year basically
at multi-year or close to at least 52-
week highs, and that is again pushing
the S&P futures lower over the last 30
minutes. Let's take a look at the charts
right now and see what we have here. So,
you can see overnight the S&P futures
were actually floating nicely higher and
then all of a sudden we got this
reversal selloff right around 6 a.m.
Eastern time. time and it's really
accelerated to the downside. Now,
listen, the S&P is essentially back to
the flatline or fractionally negative.
So, it's not a big thing yet, but it is
concerning. And a couple of those
concerns, like I mentioned to you, are
the dollar and the 10-year and the
30-year yield. All right, so let's take
a look at those right now. So, number
one, the dollar continues to break down.
Now, the dollar going down is not bad
for US companies. It's bad for you and
I. Okay? So, let's be clear on this. If
you're a company that sells a lot of
goods overseas and you convert those
back and the dollar has weakened, you're
going to get more dollars in the
conversion back. So, believe it or not,
a weaker dollar helps earnings a little
bit. But for you and I, our dollar goes
less far and it can breed kind of
imported inflation in a way. And so
again, a breakdown on the dollar to me
is a signal with yields going up that
ddollarization
continues to slowly unfold. All right,
so the dollar again, this is a concern.
We're breaking this trend line that goes
back to January of this year. Pivot low
here um in let's see here. This one's in
May of 2026. And then this low right in
here, it kind of hovered on, hammered,
and is now breaking down. This likely
tells us we're headed down to this area
on the dollar around 98 to 9780.
Now, combine that with the 10-year yield
pushing up basically hovering right here
at again, if we zoom out, I mean, you
have to go all the way back to January
of 2025. So, about a year and a half
ago, the last time the 10-year yield was
hovering up here. Okay? Now, if we do
pop up, this will be your next
resistance at 4.80%
on the 10-year yield. Now, even more
concerning is the long end, the very
long end, the 30-year yield, new 25year
highs today. And this is bad for
housing, mortgages, and just in general,
it spells trouble, right? And I've
talked about this before, but when you
see investors that would buy, and I'm
not talking about you or I, but like
sovereign nations or pension funds or
people or players that would buy the
30-year bond and look for that interest
rate when they are saying, "Hey, listen.
We demand a higher interest rate for the
risk that the US is going to or is
already out of control in terms of their
spending and their debt levels.
That's an issue and that's going to make
it very costly for the US to carry the
US debt load if interest rates continue
to go up. I mean again, everyone always
says, "Oh, well just print your way out
of debt." Well, look at Venezuela. How
well did that work? I mean, their people
are living in massive poverty because
they see a,000% inflation a year. Yes,
you can print your way out of it. And
you know what it does? It literally will
crush every citizen via massive
hyperinflation. So, is that really an
outlet here? I don't think so. Because
you and I, if you're in the US, we're
going to vote against that. We're going
to vote for fiscal responsibility at
some point. We haven't yet,
unfortunately. Some of us have, granted,
but generally, obviously, based on who's
in charge, that has not been the major
point at this stage. Now, at some point,
it will, but the point again goes back
to this is not good. And this continues
to point to ddollarization. It's you're
seeing the US dollar break down while
the yields go higher. It is not because
of a strong economy. Mark my words. It
is because of a lack of faith in the US
dollar and the amount of debt that the
US has. All right. Sorry to get on my
soap box there and go off on a rant, but
these are things like at some point that
30-year if it continues up will cause a
market collapse. It may not happen. I
still think the S&P can go up to about
81 to 8,200 before we at we are at risk
of that. But that's only about 4 to 6%
away. So, we must keep an eye on the
10-year and the 30-year yield as well as
the US dollar. All right, let's continue
on here, guys. We've kind of gone over
that. We are seeing oil today pushing up
just a tiny bit, but notice it's still
staying inside of the wedge pattern. So,
yes, oil's creeping up. there's been no
movement uh on this the kind of the
conflict between or stalemate between
the US and Iran at this point. And so
oil honestly is probably just going to
stay in here. And my hypothesis would be
is that it probably stays in here
through the midterms because I don't see
I don't see Iran coming to the table
unless the US gives in so much that it
becomes politically unpalatable for the
US and the president to give that much.
So he's not going to do that. And then
on the other side of the coin, there's
not going to be fighting again of
significance because then that would
shoot oil up before the midterms. And
now we're already in late August or
second half of August. We're not that
far from the midterm elections. All
right. So, chances are you'll see a lot
of sideways chop, but my guess is oil is
going to hover between these two trend
lines of this wedge going into that
midterm period. So, probably around $80
a barrel. All right. Couple other things
here to go over. We'll look at gold and
silver in just one minute. But a couple
stocks in motion today. We are seeing
the semiconductors gain some traction
here. Uh take a look at SanDisk. SanDisk
is up a little bit in the pre-market. It
was earlier on up more. You could see it
traded as high as almost 1750. It pulled
back with the market, but I continue to
think the bounces will likely continue
in names like SanDisk and Micron and
some of these other ones. Now, you might
say, well, why? Well, just because
anytime you see a big sell-off where it
flushes out, it's almost like a
liquidity flush where it takes out
people with that have a lot of leverage
and we saw that hedge fund um get wiped
out essentially. So, when that happens,
at some point the narrative starts
flipping back to bullish and then people
that got wiped out, they jump back in
the trade trying to catch it again and
that will push it up. But for me as a
technical trader, I'm now eyeing my
Fibonacci retraces. So on something like
SanDisk, when we do our fibs, I take my
high here. I stretch the fib down to the
low. Then I just move it sideways so I
can get my lines to go all the way
across. Notice we're right at the 50
moving average or 50 Fibonacci retrace
right now. What I'm looking for is the
618. The 618 is where I start to get a
little bit more conservative on the
SanDisk setup. Okay, so I do think
there's further upside. This would take
us to about 1840 1835. It might go a
little bit higher than that. You have a
gap fill right here at 1923. But right
up in this range would be where I would
consider shorting these things again. Uh
slowly inching in. Same thing with
Micron. We look at Micron getting a
great bounce, big sell-off here.
Remember this bounce, these sell-offs
were very large. Micron dumped 41%
in a matter of a month before this
bounce. But the bounce is ensuing and
that's not, believe it or not, that's
not surprising. Uh, considering the
narrative flip and we're basically right
at the 50 retrace again, I'm going to
look for the 618 right in here. Uh,
there is a gap fill at the 786. So, we
got to be open to that potentially
getting up there. But suffice it to say,
for me as a technical trader, I'll start
looking at a short in this range up
here. This is what I'll be looking for
right there. All right. couple other
stocks. Take a look at this. This is one
of the most fantastic charts that I can
teach off of, guys. And so I want to go
over that. So number one, when we were
falling on Astera Labs, look at where it
went to. It fell down a whopping look at
the drop on this thing, right? So from
peak to trough, it was a 51% drop.
Incredible decline. Incredible. But look
at what it did. It filled a major gap
right here. See, closed to open. So went
right to gap fill. And if you take your
Fibonacci tool and take your low here to
your all-time high. So basically your
entire bull run. Where is the retrace or
where was the retrace? Look at this
guys. It was literally right there. 618.
Look at that 618 popping up again. So
there was your retrace. So when you talk
about a two-factor trade, this was a
fantastic trade for a long on Astera
Labs at that level. I mean it just had
two factors. I mean it is just
remarkable. All right. Now looking
shortterm, what do we have here? Well,
we have a classic rally up and look at
this. What we would call this? We would
call this an inspir of bull flag. And
Astero Labs today is gapping up and I
think this has further upside to go in
the near term. So you can see how the
different patterns dictate. So you had
this kind of almost what I would refer
to as a cup and handle, right? Like
there's your cup, there's your handle.
Okay, well that's bullish now. So you
have your buy here for the pop, then it
consolidates, you get your bull flag,
and then boom, to the upside it goes.
Very, very cool on that front. Just to
kind of show you guys how to break down
this chart. Now, where would I expect
this to go before I would start to get
bearish? Well, let's do a Fibonacci same
thing. Let's do it from the high here to
the low here. Let's take that. We'll
draw it down. We'll drag it across. And
look at this. There's a gap fill right
here with the 618. I know it's hard to
see cuz the uh the line the the candles
go over it, but here's your 618 in
orange. And right above that, there's a
gap fill. That would be my target zone
of where I would expect this to start to
run out of a little bit of strength.
Very cool stuff there. All right, let's
move on here, guys, to a couple others.
We're going to take a look at gold
today. Uh gold, if we zoom in on it,
getting a little bit of a pop today.
Again, what we're seeing is weakness in
the dollar. I also have to wonder if the
latest action where we've seen weakening
dollar, but yields going higher. Now,
usually yields going higher is a
negative for gold, right? But recently,
it hasn't been, especially on the
30-year. And you have to wonder if
there's a certain like if you go back to
what I said at the beginning of this
broadcast of this game plan and we talk
about how ddollarization is is what
we're starting to see here slowly and
remember ddollization takes literally
probably decades to fully play out. So
it's not something that happens
overnight. But yields going up would
show us a lack of confidence in the
financial system in the US, which in
theory would be actually good for gold.
So think about that is like usually
yields going up because of a strong
economy,
that's bad for gold. But for the reason
that I just mentioned in terms of a kind
of an unnerving or or lack of confidence
in the US financial system, the debt
load, etc., it actually is good. Are we
starting to see that flip here in the
charts? Again, just thoughts to keep in
mind as we continue to go through. Now,
before we go on to silver, I'm going to
get to silver because silver has some
really interesting stuff. I also think
Bitcoin could be getting the bull move
that I've been talking about. Before we
do that, I do just want to mention,
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the description. All right, back to the
charts we go. Let's jump over to silver.
Silver continuing to struggle at this
trend line. Look at this trend line
right here from this pullback low. So,
we have a nice retrace here. Kind of
connects right through this low here,
breaks, retraces, and then it gets
through this trend line, but stalls
right out there again. Now, the positive
for silver, get this guys, the positive
for silver, right now, the pattern on
silver is a bull flag in the starting
stages. Now, when I say starting stages,
you have two differences. you have a
immature pattern which has a little
higher risk of failure because it's not
a mature it hasn't matured fully. It's a
little more erratic if you will. Um but
right now we're starting to put that
pattern in on silver and if it continues
to mature this will start to favor the
upside. Now it's again it's not fully
matured yet but it's getting there and
again look for that potentially to
mature and if it can break out above
here silver does have some upside. Now,
if it fails, then you just look for a
retrace back here, and that would be my
buy level. A great retrace to the scene
of the crime. Love that chart setup as
well. So, what's nice about this is this
has two potential bulls bull setups. And
it's all based on what the chart does
that determines whether I jump in here
if it continues to consolidate or do I
wait for the retrace? And I love the
fact that I can let the chart tell me.
So many people out there and this was me
years ago, many years ago. I would be
like, "No, I believe in this and my my
portfolio's position this way. So, I
will not even pay attention to what the
chart's saying. I'm going to focus on
exactly what I want to happen." And no
one can tell me otherwise. I mean,
listen, we've all been there. I don't
care what stage you might still be
there. You might be in your mid level.
You might be more advanced like I am
now, but we've all been there. We've all
been like, "No, that's where my money
is, so I don't care if someone tells me
anything that makes sense. I'm going to
ignore it and go with my bias
essentially." Um, but the beauty is once
you let the charts talk to you, they're
going to start to tell you what the
likely scenario is, when to enter, and
all of these things. And I teach a lot
of this in the winning trader series,
which is fantastic. But again, keep that
in mind. Understand our own problems.
Being human is wonderful, but at the
same time in trading it can have
drawbacks. And if you can recognize and
correct those drawbacks, you will become
a great trader. Not perfect, I certainly
am not, but at least a great trader. All
right, let's go into a couple other
things here. We have we looked at oil.
Let's go to natural gas real quick here
on natural gas. Um, let's see where
that's trading. And it did dump a little
bit in the overnight. is starting to
bounce back up. But remember what we
talked about last week. We have
resistance here, here, right? And we
have support down here and here. Now, we
didn't hit the support line just yet,
but if we were to fall down, this area
here becomes our longerterm trend line
of support. So, really, as a trader,
this chart is telling me just to kind of
watch, see what happens here. I still
like natural gas mid to long term. We're
coming into the seasonality, which is
winter. Um there's also a major shortage
in Europe right now, which again may may
mean it drives up the na gas spot price.
Um and then there's also the data center
need. More and more data centers are
saying, okay, it's so unpopular to pull
from the grid. We need to just buy
natural gas and use that as our own
energy source, which I think is a much
better now. Listen, it's going to
eventually drive up a price of natural
gas. But at least natural gas is pretty
darn cheap right now. Um but keep that
in mind. the data center usage could be
something that pops up more and more.
Bitcoin, this is what we're watching
here, guys. We continue to hold the
longer term trend line of the breakout.
And again, we're starting to uptick
today. Is this the lighting of the fuse
or is it just a green day? I I don't
know that. The chart has not told me
that yet. We'll need to watch the chart
today and into tomorrow to really know.
What I do know is that we've broken
above this trend line. It's now
consolidated, gaining energy. Now, we
need to see a move up. The first thing
I'll be looking for on this is do we
take out these highs here at around
65,300.
If we can take out those highs, this
should really rip to the upside
significantly. Right now, it's a wait
and see. All right, guys. As always, I
love being here for you on Monday
through Friday at 900 a.m. Eastern time.
I always try to bring some alpha to the
game, some extra learning, something. I
always my my hope is always everyone
watching will always see something new,
something like, "Oh, that makes sense
now." Or, "Oh, I didn't know that was a
technique." Or, "Oh, Fibonacci retrace,"
right? But either way, thank you guys
for your support here at Verified
Investing. Please spread the word, like,
share, all of those fun things. Go have
a great trading week, folks. I'll talk
to you soon. Take care.