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- Anxiety Alarms 🚨
Hello March!
2 out of 12 months down…anxiety kicking in yet? 🥴
Anxiety is a word that carries weight, feelings of unease, worry, and fear.
But what if it doesn’t have to be?
What if we saw it not as an adversary to be feared but as an alarm within our body, designed to agitate us, wake us up, and get our attention?
As if your body is saying:
"Hey, listen up! There's something you need to take care of."
Think about it – when you're feeling anxious your heart races, your palms sweat, and your mind gets overwhelmed with a million different thoughts.
I. Mindset
Anxiety can strike unexpectedly, triggered by countless situations – from looming deadlines and financial worries to social pressures and relationship conflicts. It leaves you feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear, robbing your peace of mind.
Most of us freeze up, panic and are afraid when our anxiety alarm goes off because it makes us uncomfortable.
We don’t know how to deal with it so we choose to ignore it or suppress it by drinking, doing drugs or “staying busy” which only makes it worse as it builds internally.
It’s like a car at an intersection and the light turns green and you step on the gas and the brakes at the same time.
Let’s change that so when your anxiety alarm goes off you stay calm and collective in order to focus on giving yourself what you need in that moment- love and reassurance.
In moments when your anxiety alarm goes off:
Learn to embrace it by turning towards it: face the discomfort.
- This is a signal from your body and mind telling you something needs your attention.
- Anxiety is a natural and adaptive response to stress; it is going to happen.
- When I began facing it head on it taught me how to navigate it skillfully and develop greater resilience, adaptability and emotional intelligence. I’m not saying it’s easy…but it is doable.
Practice Mindfulness: techniques can help you observe your thoughts and feelings without judgement allowing you to develop a more compassionate accepting attitude.
- Meditation, body scans, and breathing exercises will help slow things down so your head clears up and your heart opens up.
- Sometimes the alarm just means you need a little reassurance or love.
- I mediate at least 2x a day (morning and right before bed), it not only puts me at ease but the habit has had compounding benefits in my daily life.
Reframe Negative Thoughts: it’s common for them to surface, practice cognitive reframing techniques to challenge them.
- For instance, instead of catastrophizing about the future, remind yourself of how strong you are and think of a time you successfully coped with a similar challenge in the past.
- I’ve noticed how often people speak negative or doubt themselves: for instance, “I’m not smart enough”, “No way I can do something like that” etc you have to learn to be your biggest supporter because only you can turn these negative thoughts into positive ones.
Seek Professional Support: if anxiety is significantly impacting your daily life or functioning, don’t hesitate to seek professional support from a therapist, doctor or mental health professional.
- Therapy can provide you with tools, techniques and support to better understand and manage your anxiety, allowing you to live a more fulfilling balanced life.
Everything needs to start with addressing the feelings that we have within.
II. Money
Anxiety can significantly impact our financial well-being, leading to stress, uncertainty, and fear about our financial situation.
Here are 3 common examples of money anxiety and how to manage them:
Debt Anxiety - excessive debt makes you feel like you are drowning worrying about your ability to repay it. Take deep breaths to gather yourself and come up with proactive steps to manage and reduce the debt.
- Such as: creating a realistic repayment plan or exploring debt consolidation options.
- Practicing mindfulness and focusing on small achievable goals at a time will alleviate that overwhelming feeling and empower you to take control.Job Insecurity - concerns about job stability, unemployment or how “happy” your job actually makes you will trigger an anxiety alarm.
- Focus on building an emergency savings to provide a financial buffer just incase.
- Look into establishing other forms of income whether its investing or pursuing a hobby.
- Update your resume, network or explore new job opportunities to increase your sense of control.Financial Comparison - constant comparison to others’ financial success or social media portrayals of wealth can exacerbate feelings of inadequacy and anxiety about one’s own financial situation.
- Instead of doing the norm, cultivate gratitude for what you have, then set and execute realistic goals based on your values and priorities.
- Not happy about where you are financially? Do something about it.
- Learn how to make money on the side besides your job, like we spoke about here or here if budgeting is more of a challenge for you.
Taking proactive steps to address financial challenges and build resilience will reduce anxiety and increase peace of mind about your financial future.
III. Markets
The Nasdaq Composite closed at fresh all-time highs last week. It was the last major index to reach a new record as the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average did it earlier this year.
February marked the 4th consecutive green month for the major indices as investors await the most anticipated pullback in a very long time.
Most of the nervousness last week was on the PCE report which did not force the market to rethink its rate-cut view for the year.
Here are the main points from last week:
PCE Price Indexes were in-line with expectations, showing year-over-year disinflation of 2.4% (from 2.6%) and the core-PCE Price Index to 2.8% (from 2.9%).
Semiconductors lead the rally jumping 6.8% lead by $AMD +14.8%, $AVGO +7.93%, $MU 10.64%, $ON 6.50%, $NVDA +4.39%
Apple $AAPL cancelled efforts to build an electric car after +10yrs, instead will focus on generative artificial intelligence.
New York Community Bancorp $NYCB acknowledged that it has identified material weaknesses in the company's internal controls related to internal loan review.
S&P 500 Heatmap for last week
🚨 All eyes this week will be on 🚨
February ADP Employment Report - Forecasters see employment number at 150,000 which would compare with January growth in private payrolls reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of 317,000. ADP's number for January was a distant 107,000.
- ADP payroll data offers advance indications on the U.S. workforce. ADP's data cover more than 500,000 companies totaling more than 25 million employees.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell - to deliver semiannual monetary policy testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.
Consumer Credit - is expected to increase $9.3 billion in January versus a lower-than-expected increase of $1.6 billion in December.
- The dollar value of consumer installment credit outstanding. Changes in consumer credit indicate the state of consumer finances and portend future spending patterns. The report includes credit cards, vehicle loans, and student loans; mortgages are not included.
Most Anticipated Earnings this week
$SPY: S&P 500 continues its grind past 5! February marked its 4th consecutive green month +5.22%
Looks like it wants to trade to 520-530 leaving investors frantic, awaiting the most anticipated pull back in several years.
Fed Chairman Powell speaks twice this week, will he spook markets with his hawkish rates rhetoric?
SPY over 513 trades to 518,520,525,530. Under 505 pulls back to 498,493,488,484
Trades Recap📊
Here are how some of our callouts did last week:
Interested in making passive income while you’re at work?
Comment at the bottom of this post “Swing trading” for more information
$RNA: our swing from $7.28 tagged our $18 price target last week for +158% return on your money Over $20-$25 is a big breakout for it.
$UBER: Uber our swing trade from $30 entry tagged our $80 price target last week for +162% return on your money.
$HIMS: our swing from $9.21 entry tagged our $13.50 target last week on earnings for +50.70% return on your money.
$LABU: Biotech’s have been on a tear the last 3-4 weeks up +12.57% and we were able to capitalize swinging LABU, a 3x leveraged Biotech ETF. It tagged our $165 target last week from a $114.80 entry for +45.75% return on your money.
Now $170-$190 is big resistance for it from May 2022 so wouldn’t be surprised if it cools off and consolidates some for a few weeks.
$BTC: Bitcoin has been doing 10k jumps thanks to the Spot Bitcoin ETFs and the halving coming up in April. It tagged our 62,000 price target from our 24,980 entry last June for +139% return on your money. Careful having FOMO tho up here, the party doesn’t always end great for the late arrivers.
$CART: Instacart / Maplebear our swing trade from $25.66 entry tagged our $34 price target last week for +33.53% return on your money.
Watchlist 👨🏫
Here are some charts we are watching this week:
$TGT: Target is reporting earnings on Tuesday before the open, it has lagged some of its competitors such as Walmart and Costco but looking to play catch up.
Wall Street is looking for EPS of $2.39 and revenue to be $31.81 billion, showing a drop of 4.6% compared to a year ago.
TGT over 156 trades to 160,165,170. Under 150 pulls back to 145 and 140
$IWM: Russell 2000 small caps, as we have been have been talking about during our weekly Monday zooms, has been lagging markets for 2 years!
It is looking to breakout of a BIG basing pattern which will be HUGE for swing traders! Trust us…you don’t want to miss this incredible buying opportunity! 🤑
IWM over 206 trades to 210,215,218,220. Under 200 pulls back to 195
$AFRM: If IWM can breakout we really like Affirm, it is in a falling wedge since reporting earnings couple of weeks ago. If it can reclaim $40-$45 watch out, as it is setting up for a +30% move!
AFRM over 40 trades to 42,44,48,50. Failure to hold 36 pulls back to 30
*None of these stocks above are recommendations to buy, sell or trade. We do not give financial advice, you should always do your own due diligence and practice proper risk management. For educational purposes only*
If you are interested in getting our swing trade alerts ahead of time, comment “I am interested” at the bottom of this post for more information
This segment is brought to you by Ceni Capital which was founded as a way to foster a community of like-minded individuals and empower them to create long term wealth by capitalizing on shorter term investments.
Photo by Jayy Torres on Unsplash
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