Price action.
Sector context.
No noise.
Market interpretation without noise.
A public market journal — observations on what I see, what I sense, and what I think deserves attention. Written when something is worth saying, not on a fixed schedule.
No indicators for the sake of indicators. No jargon to appear technical. What appears here is what I actually use: price action, sector leadership, macro context, narrative, and the behavioural reading of markets under pressure.
Not a prediction service. Not a rulebook with fixed entries and exits.
What guides this is something harder to formalise: sustained attention to how markets behave — how they absorb news, how they move when they shouldn't, how they refuse to move when everyone expects them to. That, over time, builds a feel. Not a system — a reading.
How decisions are made
No models. No fixed rules. Just sustained attention to what the market is actually doing — or should have done — and when the moment arrives, the discipline to wait and the nerve to act.
Reading the tape
Most decisions come from continuous observation of how prices react to news, events, and stress. That daily attention, accumulated over years, is central to how I act.
Context & decision
What matters isn't the news event itself but how the market receives it. Does it react? Does it shrug? Does it move the wrong way entirely? That response is where the real trigger lives.
Trained intuition
Hundreds of hours following cycles, phases of euphoria and panic, watching how specific assets behave under specific conditions. Experience, not impulse.
Emotional mileage
Every cycle observed, every mistake absorbed — it all compounds. The sample grows, the subconscious processes, and over time the decisions get quieter and sharper. Earned, not given.
What you won't find here
RSI. MACD. Overlapping indicators. Predictions dressed as analysis. If a certain period only had one thing worth saying, that's what gets written — and nothing else. Selectivity isn't a limitation. It's the point.
Price Action
Sector Leadership
Macro Context
Narrative
Behavioural Reading
Thematic Flows
About
The person behind
the observations.
Macro & Thematic Investor · Since 2020
Since 2020, I've been developing a macro-driven approach to markets — looking for inflection points in monetary policy, credit, earnings, and liquidity cycles, and expressing those views through leveraged ETFs over a multi-week to multi-month horizon.
The interest in markets never fully disappeared. It followed me from early on — dormant at times, evolving in others — but always returned with more depth and more questions than before.
What I've developed isn't a system with fixed rules and absolute values. It's closer to a reading — of tape, of context, of the moments when news should move a market and doesn't. That gap, between what should happen and what actually happens, is where most of my attention lives.
The instruments are deliberately simple: liquid, transparent, easy to execute. Index ETFs as the base — US large caps, direct exposure to market sentiment — and sector ETFs when a specific area offers a clearer asymmetry than the broad market. Semiconductors, technology, energy, financials — wherever the narrative and the macro backdrop are most aligned. Leveraged versions of both when conviction and conditions justify it.
The intuition that informs those decisions isn't random — it's the reflection of hundreds of hours following cycles, phases of euphoria and panic, and watching how specific assets behave under specific conditions. It's not a system. It's pattern recognition built slowly, without shortcuts.
But the market also taught me things about myself. The ability to act with clarity under pressure, to resist euphoria in fast rallies, to stay objective when things go against you — these took longer to build than any framework. And they matter more.
I'm Tiago, based in Vancouver, Canada and Lisboa, Portugal.
This writing is also, honestly, for me. A way to ventilate what I observe, let it sink in, and be precise about what I actually saw — versus what I thought I saw.
Nothing here is financial advice. These are personal observations, written to think clearly — not to instruct.
← Observations
Macro · Inflation · 17 May 2025
The ghost may not go back into the closet.
17 May 2025 · 4 min read
A week that may have marked an inflection point — not necessarily in the upward trajectory since the post-Liberation Day rebound, but above all in the near-vertical climb of the indices most associated with growth: the S&P and the Nasdaq.
Structural risk vs. geopolitical noise.
Having now witnessed two sessions — Tuesday and Friday — of sharper reactions to the threat of a higher-for-longer rate environment, driven by not only stickier but also higher-than-expected inflation data, what's interesting is that the market may have found here a far more structural reason to make a u-turn than anything related to the US-Iran conflict. With geopolitical risk, wishful thinking comes easily. With inflation risk, it doesn't — the ghost doesn't necessarily go back into the closet because of a few tweets.
What the tape said.
The "good feeling" that Tuesday's price action gave us — a solid rebound off the session lows — didn't replicate on Friday. There was a recovery attempt mid-session, but the close simply didn't hold, and didn't try to. Sectors that had climbed almost vertically, semiconductors chief among them, were among the most penalised in both sessions.
What to watch next week.
Next week should give us valuable clues about whether sentiment can hold — or will yield — to the shadow called inflation. Wednesday, the world's most valuable company reports earnings. The fanfare around this quarterly event isn't what it used to be, but the current momentum around semiconductors could make it a catalyst, particularly if the over-deliver trend that peers have shown in recent weeks continues. Elsewhere on the calendar: initial jobless claims and housing starts on Thursday, and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment to close the week — notable but not decisive, in my view.
Have a great trading week — and keep your cameras on.
#markets
#macroeconomics
#investing
← Observações
Macro · Inflação · 17 Maio 2025
O fantasma pode não voltar para o armário.
17 Maio 2025 · 4 min de leitura
Uma semana que pode ter marcado um ponto de inflexão — não necessariamente na trajectória ascendente desde o rebound pós-Liberation Day, mas sobretudo na escalada quase vertical dos índices mais conotados com growth: o S&P e o Nasdaq.
Risco estrutural vs. ruído geopolítico.
Tendo agora assistido a duas sessões — terça e sexta-feira — de reacções mais violentas à ameaça de um ambiente de taxas mais elevadas por mais tempo, impulsionadas por dados de inflação não só mais persistentes mas também acima do esperado, o que é interessante observar é que o mercado pode ter encontrado aqui uma razão bem mais estrutural para inverter a trajectória do que qualquer coisa relacionada com o conflito EUA-Irão. Com risco geopolítico, o wishful thinking vem facilmente. Com risco de inflação, não — o fantasma não volta necessariamente para o armário por causa de alguns tweets.
O que a tape disse.
A "boa sensação" que a price action de terça-feira nos deu — um rebound sólido dos mínimos da sessão — não se replicou na sexta. Houve uma tentativa de recuperação a meio da sessão, mas o fecho simplesmente não conseguiu, e nem quis, segurar. Os sectores com escalada quase vertical, com os semicondutores à cabeça, foram dos mais penalizados nestas duas sessões.
O que observar na próxima semana.
A próxima semana deve deixar-nos pistas valiosas sobre se o sentimento consegue aguentar — ou ceder — à sombra chamada inflação. Na quarta-feira, a empresa mais valiosa do mundo apresenta resultados. A fanfarra em torno deste evento trimestral já não é o que era, mas o momentum actual em torno dos semicondutores pode torná-lo num catalisador, caso se mantenha a tendência de over-deliver que os seus peers apresentaram nas semanas anteriores. No calendário: initial jobless claims e housing starts na quinta-feira, e a fechar a semana o Michigan consumer sentiment — relevante, mas não decisivo, na minha opinião.
Boa semana de trading — e mantenham as câmaras ligadas.
#mercados
#macroeconomia
#investimento