Happy New Year & Welcome to 2024!

What’s something that happened in 2023 you are grateful for?

I am grateful for my summer spent discovering Costa Rica and ALL of your support with the creation of our Mindset Money Matters newsletter.

In order for us to see what’s in front of us clearly, we must understand and appreciate what we’ve gone through.

I. Mindset

As we embrace a new year, we often find ourselves in a relentless pursuit of money, not realizing it's time that we should really focus on.

We know, we know… time doesn’t pay the bills, but keep reading for a second.

Time is the intangible jewel we all possess, yet its value is often overlooked. Unlike money, time cannot be earned or recovered once spent. And think about it — we have so little of it, what, 75-100 years if you’re lucky?

Think of your most valuable moments from the last couple of weeks; did they come from money (after the quick dopamine hit) or from moments with loved ones, learning or doing something new?

We sacrifice our health early on in life in order to make money, only to sacrifice our money to recuperate our health when we get old.

II. Money

Here’s an eye opening Money vs. Time fact:

If you make $80,000 a year, you’ll need $2 million dollars to retire (today) at the same standard of living you live today.

If you make $80,000 a year and plan to retire in 20-30 years, you’ll need $5 million dollars- thanks to inflation and the value of your buck.

Are you on pace to retire and not be scared or do you plan just to keep working until you can’t any longer?

Unfortunately, saving 10%-20% of your annual income won’t be enough. The median American has $5,000 in savings. The average American (take all the affluent and the median) have $100,000.

That’s a problem especially when the average American has about $114,000 of consumer debt- credit cards, car and/or student loans.…not including mortgages.

Living a financially peaceful life is good enough — house paid off and living off your investments or assets.

III. Markets

The stock market closed higher marking its tenth week of gains in 11 weeks. The S&P 500 briefly traded above its all-time high on Friday, recovering all of last week's losses.

Market participants recalibrated rate cut expectations despite the generally mixed economic data, suggesting the market doesn't believe inflation is likely to reaccelerate.

The fed funds futures market now sees a 79.4% probability of a 25 basis points rate cut at the March FOMC meeting versus a 68.1% probability last week.

🚨 All eyes this week will be on: 🚨

Existing Home Sales for December are expected to hold as expected 3.82 million annual rate, same as November. Low inventory of homes for sales along with high prices and high interest rates have been constraining sales.

Existing home sales tally the number of previously constructed homes, condominiums and co-ops in which a sale closed during the month. Existing homes (also known as home resales) account for a larger share of the market than new homes and indicate housing market trends

Fed speeches by several FOMC members: Christopher Waller, Michael Barr, Michelle Bowman, John Williams, Raphael Bostic, Mary Daly

$SPY: has been consolidating in a 10pt range 466-476 since December 13th; bullish above, bearish below.

Will earnings season carry markets to new highs or initiate a bigger pull back?

Banks may give us an indication of what’s to come as they continue reporting Q4 earnings this week, before it’s Tech’s turn in a couple of weeks.

$QQQ: is also consolidating in a 395-410 trading range; bullish above, bearish below. Probably needs another week or 2 to pick a direction.

Swing Trades Update 📊

Here are how some of our swings did last week:

Interested in making your money work for you by getting our swing trade alerts ahead of time?

Comment at the bottom of this post or reply “I am interested” for more information

$TGTX: traded our $23 price target for +83% return on your money from our $12.87 entry callout here.

$CCCC: swing trade tagged our $8 price target last week from a $4.78 entry for a 69.46% return on your money. 

$BTC: Bitcoin traded through our 47,000 price target for a +86% return on our money on the peak of the Spot-BItcoin ETF approval. The sell the news event will give us a good opportunity to add to our sign once it triggers an entry in our buy zone.

Watchlist 👨‍🏫

Here are some charts we are watching this week:

🏦 $FAS: Financials kicked off earnings on Friday and continue this week. After a huge run up since November they are trading in a $80-$85 range. If banks report decent earnings and guidance this move can just be getting started as they have a lot of catching up to do.

🚘$TSLA: Tesla has pulled back 17% since the end of December on negative headlines. It finally filled the gap we have been speaking about for weeks, let’s see if buyers step in and what kind of bounce we get this week.

$SQQQ: Hedging the Qs incase markets pull back on earnings after such a big run-up the last couple of weeks. If QQQ can’t breakover and hold above 410-412 resistance and fail to hold 405 support, this sets up a hedge play for a move lower.

*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.*

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.

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See you next week!👋