Weekly markets update - 11 August 2025

“Letting your emotions override your plan or system is the biggest cause of failure.” – J. Welles Wilder Jr., inventor of RSI – Relative Strength Index, 2007 Interview for TradersLog.com

J. Welles Wilder Jr. was an engineer and a highly successful real estate developer before turning his attention to commodity trading. He started strong, booked solid profits, but then learned the hard way that you can also lose money in commodity markets. Methodical and driven, he studied technical analysis to truly understand market behavior. And at the time, technical analysis was neither advanced nor widely used, so he developed his own trading system. This work led to the publication of “New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems” book (1978, self-published). The rest is history. He is now considered the father of modern technical analysis and is best known for creating the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Average True Range (ATR), Directional Movement (DMI), and the Parabolic Stop and Reverse (SAR).

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I chose this quote because Wilder’s work was fundamental to my own market journey. It helped shape my process, which is built entirely on logic and strict reasoning. The goal is to determine what arguments are valid, weigh the evidence, and assign probabilities to arrive at the best possible conclusions.

The process is straightforward. I read the trend using techincal analysis, overlay market participant positioning, weight in fundamentals and allocate accordingly. When all these factors align, I go big, I make the position matter, and stick with it until the underlying setup changes. Those who have been following for a while will remember some of the key turns we caught: the gold and silver breakout in 2024, the summer 2024 carry trade unwind, the dollar surge late last year, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq collapse in April, the recent platinum and palladium moves, and the copper tariff rug pull. And more importantly - when the time comes I will follow the process and I will exit, no matter how uncomfortable, I will sell even my favorite names or sectors if the setup changes, regardless of how strong the long-term story appears to be.

This sets the tone for the week. Short enough to read, but hopefully useful. Here is what is ahead, with highlights before Monday. This is update number forty-seven. Over the last year, I have shared trades, setups, and insights with a focus on what matters. The summary table remains clear, covering indices, forex, treasuries, metals, energy, and agricultural commodities.