3X Capital
Market Context

Price action.
Sector context.
No noise.

There's a difference between watching prices move and reading what they're saying. That distinction took years to be fully appreciated.

A public market journal — written when something is worth saying. What appears here is what I actually use: price action, sector leadership, macro context, narrative, and the behavioural reading of markets under pressure.

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 — quieter, sharper, earned through repetition.

How decisions are made

Markets rarely reward constant action. Most decisions come from patience, context, and waiting for moments where you have more conviction about what price behaviour is telling you. Sometimes it whispers — but sometimes it screams. Once the subconscious dashboard starts to light up, all you need is the nerve to act. You will always need the nerve.

Reading the tape
Price behaviour reveals more than headlines. The way markets react — or refuse to react — often says more than the event itself. Over time, I've forced myself to focus more on price action than on price level.
Context
Context shapes conviction. Sector leadership, macro conditions, and thematic flows help distinguish temporary noise from structural change. Making sense of this puzzle creates a feeling that is hard to describe — and that is precisely what keeps me engaged.
Trained intuition
Hundreds of hours following cycles, euphorias, panics, and regime shifts — observing how specific assets behave under specific conditions. It is difficult to measure how much that daily exposure improves decision-making, but over time I have come to believe that sustained observation trains perception — and eventually polishes intuition.
Emotional mileage
Markets teach you things about yourself that few other environments can. The deep lows, the fast gains, the emotional swings — over time they leave scars, but also perspective. You learn to stay rational when positions move hard against you, and to remain grounded when everything suddenly works. Earned — from my observation deck.
Price Action Sector Leadership Macro Context Narrative Behavioural Reading Thematic Flows
About

The person behind
the observations.

Macro & Thematic Investor · Since 2020
What keeps pulling me deeper into markets is not only the opportunity, but the complexity itself: the different trends that you ride, the traps, the emotional swings, the deep lows, the moments where everything changes in a single session — and the constant challenge of learning to navigate all of it with more clarity, discipline, and humility.

Since 2020, I've been developing a macro-driven approach focused on market behaviour, sector leadership, liquidity cycles, and the relationship between narrative and price action. What matters to me is rarely the headline itself, but how markets absorb it — or refuse to.

The 3X in the name comes from the instruments themselves. Three-times leveraged ETFs gradually became my own asset class — volatile, demanding, emotionally unforgiving at times. They are not instruments for everyone. Liquidity, risk management, and emotional control matter enormously. Over time, however, I realised this was the arena that matched my risk profile. They remain diversified baskets at their core, but with a velocity that demands both hands on the wheel — exactly the way I like it.

Over time, the focus shifted away from constant action and toward sustained observation. A significant part of that evolution came through screen time — including an intense period of day trading that eventually reshaped the way I look at markets. I became less interested in reacting to every move and more interested in staying close to the tape itself: watching how behaviour develops from the open to the close, day after day. Most of the work happens before action is taken.

Markets also teach you things about yourself that few other environments can. The deep lows, the fast gains, the emotional swings — over time they leave scars, but also perspective. You learn to stay rational when positions move hard against you, and to remain grounded when everything suddenly works.

I'm Tiago, based between Vancouver and Lisboa.

This writing is, honestly, also for me — a way to ventilate what I observe, let it settle, and become more 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.
Annual Laps

One year at a time.

Not a track record. Not a highlights reel. Just what each year was — what it taught, what it cost, what it clarified.

2020
From interest to conviction
Markets had been on the radar since 2017 — modest positions, slower instruments, learning the language. But 2020 was the year everything changed: larger exposure, first leveraged ETFs, real skin in the game. And the most volatile market in a generation to test it all against. The COVID crash and the fastest recovery in history didn't start the interest. They turned it into something deliberate.
2021
First real stakes
A strong year with a clear theme — US oil & gas, through a single 3x leveraged ETF, in and out several times. The first time the positions had real weight and the decisions started to feel like decisions. Everything was still going up, which made it hard to separate skill from luck. But something shifted: the reading became more deliberate, the moves more considered, the results more meaningful. Not yet a process. But no longer just watching.
2021
First consistency
First year of clearer readings and more consistent results. Everything went up — which made it easy to confuse luck with skill. Started paying attention to what was actually driving moves beneath the surface, not just the direction.
2022
Reality check
Difficult market, inevitable drawdowns — and one position that tested everything. A leveraged bet on tech, Mag7-style, right into the rate hiking cycle. Monetary policy tightened faster than most expected and narratives that had seemed unshakeable collapsed one by one. Watching paper losses mount, deep enough to reach the part of the ocean where the fish glow in the dark. Hard to breathe. But held. The most instructive year by far — learned more from what went wrong than from everything before it combined.
2023
Finding the rhythm
The year the process started to click. Fewer trades, more deliberate — re-entering tech at lower prices after 2022, adding US small caps and US banking to the mix. The reading became more patient, the sizing more intentional. Less reactive, more selective. Another positive year — and the one where something quietly settled.
2024
Expanding the playbook
The universe widened — not for the sake of it, but because the macro reading had become specific enough to justify it. For the first time, individual names alongside the leveraged ETFs — mega-cap tech, bonds, small caps, financials, and an inverse play on China. Different theses, different horizons, running in parallel. It was also the year of serious reading — first real exposure to technical analysis and the idea of combining it with fundamentals. One of those individual names was entered on a textbook chart pattern. Beginner's luck, perhaps. But the kind that teaches something real. Also tried day trading for the first time. Learned a great deal about myself — emotionally, behaviourally — but ultimately concluded it wasn't for me. More activity rarely means better decisions. Closed the year positive regardless, and ahead of 2023.
2025
Conviction, tested
The clearest year yet — and the most concentrated. Almost entirely in a single leveraged semiconductor ETF, a theme that had been building in the macro backdrop for months. The ride wasn't smooth — there were moments that tested the conviction — but held through the volatility and came out the other side. The results were the strongest to date, nearly matching everything from the previous years combined. Not without some noise — a brief detour into crypto-adjacent territory that fortunately ended up marginally positive. But the most important decision of the year happened early: stopping day trading. The focus that returned with it made everything else sharper.

Over these years, the process evolved in a clear direction: learning to manage volatility, to read cycles, to navigate drawdowns, and to avoid reactive decisions. The emotional discipline that is now central to how I operate wasn't given — it was built across easy periods and difficult ones, each teaching something about risk, patience, and the difference between conviction and noise.

The Rules

What I keep
in front of me.

Principles pinned to my trading dashboard — some mine, some collected over time, all earned. They appear in my notes when relevant, not as theory but as lived reminders.

Timing & Patience
01
Wait until the end of the session.
02
Patience is a position.
03
Be patient when it is hard.
04
Enjoy the sidelines.
Reading the Market
05
Trade what you see.
06
Price action, not price level.
07
Ride the trend. Do not fight it.
08
Beware of falling knives.
Conviction & Risk
09
Size should match conviction.
10
To trade is to manage risk.
11
Be the sniper. Have ammunition.
12
Do not try to be a hero.
Execution
13
All that matters is what you do.
14
P&L is only what you sell.
15
A great trade is effortless.
Notes

The Log

Macro · Inflation · 17 May 2025
The ghost may not go back into the closet.
A week that may have marked an inflection point — not in the post-Liberation Day rebound, but in the near-vertical climb of the S&P and Nasdaq. Two sessions. One structural shift.
17 May 2025 · 4 min read
→
← Notes
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
← Notas
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