Trading System Signals on 01-23-2026

With the winter storm warning, big cap tech earnings and the FOMC meeting next week, the initial Friday surge in stock indexes "died out". The stock indexes remain sloppy and difficult to trade. The metals continue to go parabolic and also difficult to trade. The metals have a less liquid order book that would require very active and constant monitoring for the duration of strategies you are trading (up to 23 hours per day) if you did actively trade it with algorithms.

The market is in a "wait state" creating some churn for active traders with a VIX crush back to the 15 handle today after posting a high earlier this week at 20.99.

Trading small or not at all is one philosophy we use during times like this. Smaller position size, less strategies to preserve capital when markets cycle to "almost untradeable" mode. Working with strategies that are in tune with this market such as V-Reversal or an option selling program that takes advantage of "nothing happening" is a consideration.

V-Reversal NQ is a highlight and continues to do well. It hit equity peaks on Wednesday and is positive for the month. It did not trade on Friday and after being off of those recent equity peaks on Thursday with two losses in a row.

Institutional option-selling after the initial volatility window—particularly at the open—appears to act as a damping mechanism on subsequent price action. Early directional impulses attract positioning, but the market often fails to sustain momentum, and realized movement tends to decay into a low-activity, range-bound afternoon.

A useful physics analogue is the underdamped response of a system whose oscillations diminish over time (an exponentially decaying sinusoid):

f(x)=exp⁡(−0.25*x)*sin⁡(2*x)

In this framing, the exponential term exp⁡(−0.25x) represents the rate at which the “amplitude” of intraday movement dissipates, while sin⁡(2x) captures the oscillatory nature of repeated attempts to push price that increasingly lose force as the session progresses.

Once the options expire then the moves continue in the after hours.

Some general stock index observations:

-Very small percentage of moves that persist long enough to capture

-Trend is up overall. Net gains overnight session. Market "not allowed to go down"

-Day trade session is down, Market "not allowed to go up during the day session"

-Net moves are not significant so far in January

-Very compressed range bound market

The hypothetical trading system signals for 01-23-2026:

Diversified Portfolio 57 (NQ Only) = +$1,070

Stock Index Portfolio 37 = +$1,970

Stock Index Portfolio 18 = -$330

Two System Portfolio NQ = $0

Silver Portfolio = -$1,600

50K Portfolio = +$160 (without Gold and Silver)