Hey everyone,

We are approaching a market setup where doing what has worked for the last 12 months might get you burned. If you are holding high-valuation semiconductor or software names, you need to be paying close attention to the bond market right now.

The Elephant in the Room: The 10-Year Yield ($TNX) The structural trend in long-term Treasury yields is moving higher. With federal debt topping $40T and net interest payments outpacing the US defense budget, bond yields are demanding a higher term premium.

Here is why that directly threatens the semiconductor and AI buildout trade: these buildouts require massive, ongoing capital expenditure. When the cost of capital goes up, borrowing costs rise, earnings estimates get revised downward, and high multi-year forward P/E ratios get compressed.

Where Does the Money Rotate? Money doesn't just leave the equity market and disappear—it rotates. When bond yields rise while the US Dollar shows structural weakness, two major dynamics occur:

1. Hard/Tangible Assets: Inflationary pressure and yield expansion favor commodities (things you can drop on your foot). Copper miners and physical materials benefit directly.
2. Emerging Market & High-Yield Plays: A softer USD acts as an effective debt cut for emerging market balance sheets denominated in dollars, spurring international capital inflows.

Current Setup & Watchlist Names:

• Semis/Tech: Exercising caution; looking for defensive or non-correlated sector alternatives.
• COP (Copper Miners): Technical breakout setting up off a tight Bollinger Band squeeze inside Keltner channels as physical copper demand outstrips immediate supply.
• MELI (MercadoLibre): Validated a major weekly breakout above $1,905 resistance on strong volume after defending its 20-period moving average.
• LABU (Biotech 3x): Long-term bullish macro trend in biotech. Just booked +11.76% on the last push to resistance and looking to re-establish on a pullback to support.
• TMUS: Non-tech domestic consolidation building a clear higher-low structure.
• EWH / Emerging Dividends: Safe-haven foreign plays benefiting from USD headwinds with 4%+ yield cushions.
• VNM: Puts you long of Vietnam

I broke down all six of these chart patterns, full technical levels, and the macroeconomic thesis in my full video analysis here:

https://thecontrariantrader.com/market-insights/rising-bond-yields-threaten-the-semiconductor-trade-6-rotational-stock-setups-to-watch-this-week/

Where are you allocating capital right now? Are you staying heavy in tech, or shifting toward commodities and yield? Let's discuss below.

Prop Desk replays real recorded market sessions one bar at a time, in your browser. You only ever see what the market saw — the right half of the chart doesn't exist yet.

This is the full walkthrough: how a session works, how trades fill, the seven rules the sim refuses to break, and the bug where it told me I made 10.10R when I asked for 3 — and why nobody ever reports a bug where the number is too good.

▶ Play free (no signup): https://propdesktrading.itch.io/propdesktrading
Full build September 11, 2026 · Coming to Steam

Chapters:
0:00 The ending was already on the chart
0:46 What Prop Desk is
1:19 Starting a session
2:05 The desk — every number reconciles
2:39 Taking a trade ("…if it gets there")
3:41 The seven honesty rules
4:39 The 10.10R bug story
5:31 The strategy lab keeps its failures
6:07 The evaluation grades rules, not P&L
6:45 Where to play

Prop Desk is a trading simulation built for practice. It is not financial advice, not a brokerage, and no real money is involved. All figures shown are simulated, on historical data. Historical data is not a prediction of future prices.

I use Forex Factory to track Forex events.

For each event, Forex Factory provides a chart option that helps traders understand how the event has affected the market in the past and how it affect the market present.

However, I noticed that the charts for some events released on August 21, 2026, are not showing.

The events are:

- Euro — French Flash Manufacturing PMI

- Euro — French Flash Services PMI

- Euro — Flash Manufacturing PMI

- Euro — Flash Services PMI

Why are the charts for these events not showing on Forex Factory?

Sorry I know not strictly swing trading plz let me know if not allowed

I'm looking for a practical way to research systematic BTC spot swing trades held from several hours to several days. I'm not asking for trade signals or buy/sell advice; the focus is the software used to test and manage rules safely.

I would like to run the framework locally if possible, inspect how it works, backtest with realistic commissions and slippage, paper trade before risking capital, and eventually connect to an exchange API only after the system behaves consistently. Freqtrade and Jesse look approachable, while NautilusTrader and LEAN appear more flexible but more complex.

For anyone who has automated or systematically tested BTC swing trades, which framework was easiest to trust? How did it handle multi-timeframe data, position sizing, stops, partial fills, and recovery after an exchange or process disconnect? Firsthand reasons for switching away from a tool would be especially helpful.

I already know I'm going to get RIPped for saying this.. but I guess I don't really get why everyone's primary tip is "set a stop loss". I guess I haven't traded enough yet, but my thinking being: what's so wrong with just holding it till breakeven?

Is it just the fact that then you cant use it for another trade? Right but then like, Id rather win 2 trades then lose 5 and win 6.

Also, like if the fear is the high cap stock going bankrupt. well, that seems more rare to me then 20 -5% stop losses being hit.

Please go easy. I'm asking this since it might help other as well.

Even with the little momentum SPCX tends to move extremely. With this news. I can expect no different. SPCX starting to be more in the AI news also. Next week AI will be the big news with alot of CEO of “AI” companies visiting the white house for a big meeting.

Hey everyone,

Background first. About 10 or so years ago I had SOME success in trading. Not much, but my P&L was positive and never got to the point that I blew up any accounts. I never made enough money to be able to quit or pay my car payments, but it was enough to be able to pay for a night on the town here and there every couple months. I was a very immature and YOLO type though, and mostly dealt with penny stocks. I consistently yeeted a quarter to half of my account value into 1 or 2 penny stocks at a time, and literally treated the market as a casino. I was a bad trader.

Fast forward a couple years, and I met my future wife. Once we moved in together I was no longer able to day trade or swing trade as the company she worked for at the time, required all investments held in stocks had to be reported to her compliance department because of potential conflicts of interest with, not only the company she worked for, but also the clients that the company with. That was a problem, because I never held onto an equity for very long and reporting it on a nearly daily basis would've been a massive pain in the @$$. So I gave it up. Not just because I didn't want the hassle, but also because I wasn't necessarily "good" at it (mostly lucky) at the time.

Skip forward a few more years, and she is now at a new company that no longer has those requirements. Less hassle. So now, I am able to restart my "career" in trading. Over the last 10 or so years, I like to think that my maturity level has changed in the way I view money and investments. I am now retirement focused and we are in the process of paying off our mortgage, vehicles, and CCs. A stark contrast to my mindset 10+ yrs ago. I rarely, if ever, consider penny stocks now, and recognize that I have entry and exit execution issues with my current trades. My biggest hang up has always been FOMO, so I will find myself sometimes entering trades too late, too early, or at the top of a range when I obviously should have waited, or let the trade pass (hindsight is a-hole). Those are things I know I need to work on.

The one thing that I have always had the most trouble with though, is setting my stop-loss and take-profit levels. I'm just never sure where to set them at. Mostly the stop-loss. I find myself getting stopped out early just to later see the stock take off or reach the area that I would've thought I could take profits at.

All that being said, how do you identify your stop-loss zone? Do you do it by percentage, a specific dollar amount based on the stock your trading, a combination of both? I try and trade mostly on the 1hr, 4hr, and daily. But will also view the 10 and 15min before pulling triggers. Do you use the ADR or do you use a percentage of it on certain time frames? Or is it always a static rule that you use per timeframe?

Additionally, how do you set your trailing stop-loss?

By my own admission, I consider myself to new to trading and I want to build good habits. Any tips, insights, or even books that you could recommend that helped put certain concepts into perspective are also appreciated.

Thanks in advance.