A Personal Note for My 40th Birthday
Dear Traders,
On this special day, my 40th birthday, I want to share a personal and private life journey with all of you. Take a look at the picture below:
On the left, you see me at the age of 25—overweight, no father, an international student, broke, with no family wealth, and struggling. Life dealt me some tough blows, but I refused to stay down.
On the right, it’s me at age 40—standing atop Mount Everest, running 3 successful multi-million-dollar businesses, exploring 75 countries, conquering the highest peaks on five continents, and leading a team of 50 amazing employees worldwide.
I was born in Iran, during the longest war of the 20th century, the Iran-Iraq War. My childhood involved spending many nights in air raid shelters with dozens of other children and adults, while sirens in the background and anti-aircraft guns roared in the darkness. Time to time we walked with other kids to see an unexploded Iraqi cruise missile near our neighborhood.
My father, not a very successful businessman, struggled with addiction and severe depression for many years and he was disabled for the last two years of his life after a stroke, unable to talk, speak, or walk. After two years of severe disability, he passed away when I was 23. My widowed mother, who had been a stay-at-home woman, tried helping three brothers put our lives back on track with no financial support or family wealth. I knew I couldn’t rely on anyone, and I had a mother and a younger brother to care for. Despite these challenges, I chased my dream of financial independence, traveling the world, and supporting my single mother.
Take another look at the picture and remember, it’s never too late to pursue your dreams and rewrite your story. Life’s challenges are stepping stones to greatness.
Keep pushing, keep climbing, and most importantly, keep believing in yourself.
You have the power to turn “impossible” into “I’m possible”.
At Bear Bull Traders, we are here to support you on your journey. While there are no guarantees of success, the pursuit is honorable, even if there are setbacks.
I genuinely wish for everyone following us on social media, reading our books, or joining our community to find success, and I wish we could do more. We contribute by building tools like Trading Terminal, hosting weekly webinars, publishing books, presenting at conferences, and sharing our journey.
If you are not yet a member, I hope you choose to join us and share your life and trading journey with our community.
Turning to trading, the stock market is currently in a volatile period. The bond market has experienced a 2% gap down (looking at TLT), and stocks continue their retracement. More stocks are declining than showing strength in the market, as seen on the Trading Terminal overview page.
The Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) meeting was held yesterday, and while the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at their 5.25% to 5.50% range as expected, Chairman Powell’s hawkish tone dampened optimism, allowing sellers to take control. They are determined to bring down inflation to 2%, even if it means making difficult choices.
The economy and labor market have held up better than expected. However, tighter financial conditions are taking longer to impact the economy than anticipated. As a result, the Fed’s only option is to keep rates higher for a longer period until it achieves its desired effect. With inflation projected to remain above the Fed’s 2% target for at least the next year, tighter financial conditions are here to stay. Powell is avoiding giving the “doves” any reason to loosen these conditions.
Today, the market continued its weakness. The 5-year returns of SPY, QQQ, IWM, and Dow Jones are charted above, and as you can see, real returns are not that impressive. Inflation-adjusted returns are even less so.
This underscores the importance of active trading for investors and traders to benefit from the current range-bound market. The bond market is heating up, with coupons becoming valuable more than ever for now. If rates start to decrease, bond values will significantly increase.
That’s why Ardi is focusing on bond trading and plans to offer education and insights on this platform soon through the Education Center and Trading Terminal Academy.
My trading today went well, despite a heavy loss at the opening, followed by a successful reversal with TQQQ. Brian also had a fantastic double bottom on AMD at almost the same time I traded TQQQ. Make sure to watch our recap here and share your feedback in the comments section!
Tonight, we have Thor mentorship sessions, and Paras soon will be adding an additional Sunday evening mentorship session for the community.
There’s no better time to join a community of serious traders. If you’d like to benefit from a 50% discount code, check out our offer for one year of full access to the trading community.
See you in the chatroom!
Andrew
