The Saturday Setup 3/15/25

  • Indices: Mixed between Neutral and Bear Quiet market regimes, we are only focused on daytrading these as there are no swing trading or longer term setups.
  • Metals: We are currently long Gold and Copper, both are in the Bull Quiet market regime and signaled longs this week. Silver is potentially setting up for a mean reversion short.
  • Energy: Neutral action and looking for mean reversion moves higher, except for Natural Gas which is in the Bull Quiet regime but behaving like a high volatile asset — looking for longs in RBOB.
  • Currencies: Currency pairs remain in Bear Quiet or Neutral regimes. Euro and Swiss Franc are setting up for mean reversion shorts.
  • Bonds: Neutral regimes but like Indices, no setups.
  • Ags and Softs: Corn, soybean oil, feeder cattle and live cattle are all setting up for long trades, either mean reversion or trend.
  • Crypto: Long Bitcoin, flat on all altcoins.

Last week I shared the Weekly Market Overview in the weekly email and I got a lot of good feedback.

So we decided to merge the two.

You can read this email or watch the video to get the same information about our process and how we are preparing for next week.

The equity markets took a solid beating this past few weeks with the SPX having a -10.50% drawdown from its recent highs after being up about +3.5% on the year.

Meanwhile, our Quant portfolio is currently at +2.5% in profits for 2025, down from its peak of +5% while our Macro Discretionary portfolio is up +10.3% on the year. You can find real-time alerts for both ports in our Collective.

Our total drawdown was about -4.4%, while SPX total drawdown from peak is about -14%

I posted this update in the Swing Alerts Channel in the Collective.

Since posting that, we have got long gold (again) and copper, with decent profits already locked in.

During a pretty challenging environment, simply adapting to the market regime changes, following our systems, and taking the trades as they come has allowed us to easily outperform the market and remain positive for the year.

And that’s what we’ll work through in this week’s Weekly Market Overview video.

We go chart by chart through the different indices, fixed income, currencies, metals, energy, agriculture, soft commodities, and cryptocurrencies.

First, we establish their regimes using the SQN indicator (I have a video coming out explaining how I use it).

When we know the market regimes, we can select the appropriate system to apply to trade each asset.

We don’t have to guess what to trade and how to trade it.

Each market regime behaves differently, so we trade each regime differently.

And not only do we use the appropriate system for the market regime, but the regime also defines our risk.

In higher volatility regimes, we size down; in low volatility regimes, we size up.

You can watch me go through the process in this weeks video HERE

In the next section, our Regime Dashboard is where the universe of assets we trade is categorized by regime and what type of system we’re using to trade that regime. 

The results of what we’re focusing on for the upcoming week are included at the end of this email in the Setups for Next Week section.

Remember that simply because we are tracking setups in different assets doesn’t mean we are entering any trades at this time. We still have to wait for the setup conditions to trigger and for the tape to pull us into the trades.

Whatever we talk about in the videos or emails is what we are looking for, not what we are doing, unless otherwise stated.

Regime Dashboard

Current Positions

Long $GC (Gold) – Trend
Long $HG (Copper) – Trend
Long $BTCUSD (Bitcoin) – Trend

Setups for next week

Energy-
The energy complex is in the Neutral market regime and setting up for a long trade.
RBOB is setup for a Curvy Long. 

Currencies-
Euro was a long we were in for the past month or so and it gave us a nice 3R winner. At this point in the regime, with its current overextension, I’m looking for a Curvy mean reversion short.
Swiss Franc is also setting up for a Curvy short in the neutral regime.

Ags-
Corn is in the Bull Quiet regime and setting up in a Curvy long.
Soybean Oil is in a Neutral regime and also setting up for a Curvy long
Feeder Cattle and LIve Cattle are both in a Bull Quiet market regime and setting up for Swing Beast trades long.

If you are interested in the strategies that I use.

And you can work with me on building out your trading business in the Trading Thunderdome

Until then, stay disciplined.

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Brandon Beylo

Value Investor

Brandon has been a professional investor focusing on value for over 13 years, spending his time in small to micro-cap companies, spin-offs, SPACs, and deep value liquidation situations. Over time, he’s developed a deeper understanding for what deep-value investing actually means, and refined his philosophy to include any business trading at a wild discount to what he thinks its worth in 3-5 years.

Brandon has a tenacious passion for investing, broad-based learning, and business. He previously worked for several leading investment firms before joining the team at Macro Ops. He lives by the famous Munger mantra of trying to get a little smarter each day.

AK

Investing & Personal Finance

AK is the founder of Macro Ops and the host of Fallible.

He started out in corporate economics for a Fortune 50 company before moving to a long/short equity investment firm.

With Macro Ops focused primarily on institutional clients, AK moved to servicing new investors just starting their journey. He takes the professional research and education produced at Macro Ops and breaks it down for beginners. The goal is to help clients find the best solution for their investing needs through effective education.

Tyler Kling

Volatility & Options Trader

Former trade desk manager at $100+ million family office where he oversaw multiple traders and helped develop cutting edge quantitative strategies in the derivatives market.

He worked as a consultant to the family office’s in-house fund of funds in the areas of portfolio manager evaluation and capital allocation.

Certified in Quantitative Finance from the Fitch Learning Center in London, England where he studied under famous quants such as Paul Wilmott.

Alex Barrow

Macro Trader

Founder and head macro trader at Macro Ops. Alex joined the US Marine Corps on his 18th birthday just one month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He subsequently spent a decade in the military. Serving in various capacities from scout sniper to interrogator and counterintelligence specialist. Following his military service, he worked as a contract intelligence professional for a number of US agencies (from the DIA to FBI) with a focus on counterintelligence and terrorist financing. He also spent time consulting for a tech company that specialized in building analytic software for finance and intelligence analysis.

After leaving the field of intelligence he went to work at a global macro hedge fund. He’s been professionally involved in markets since 2005, has consulted with a number of the leading names in the hedge fund space, and now manages his own family office while running Macro Ops. He’s published over 300 white papers on complex financial and macroeconomic topics, writes regularly about investment/market trends, and frequently speaks at conferences on trading and investing.

Macro Ops is a market research firm geared toward professional and experienced retail traders and investors. Macro Ops’ research has been featured in Forbes, Marketwatch, Business Insider, and Real Vision as well as a number of other leading publications.

You can find out more about Alex on his LinkedIn account here and also find him on Twitter where he frequently shares his market research.