All year, people have complained that crypto is going nowhere and underperforming everything. But pull up the XLF financial ETF and you’ll see the exact same story across the entire financial sector. Crypto isn’t the outlier. It’s moving in lockstep with the rest of finance.

For years people have tried to compare the crypto sector to a software ETF or the Nasdaq. Let’s call it what it actually is: financial technology. Once you look at crypto through that lens, you can draw far better conclusions about what’s happening, why, and when it changes.

Start with the XLF.

It's traded essentially nowhere since November 2024 — almost completely flat.

Now overlay BTC price action from the 2022 low, and you'll see a close correlation with the financial sector. There are deviations, but the pattern holds: when XLF is in a big bull trend, so is crypto. And when XLF struggles so does crypto.

It's no wonder crypto has struggled since late 2024 — the entire financial sector has been struggling right alongside it.

So Why Should That Change Now?

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So let me keep this simple. A little ranting this week, but here’s the deal.

The Date We Called Six Months Ago

We outlined this time factor back in December. I’m not here to beat a dead horse — anyone following us knows we said June 3rd was the most important date of the year, and we said it six months ago. Here we are. I think the low came in on the 5th. Nothing has changed.

People love to panic. They love to think the sky is falling at moments like this. But this is our bread and butter — being able to act calmly and rationally with a plan while everyone else is screaming that it’s all over.

Was I wrong on my most recent Bitcoin view? Yes, I thought the bottom was in and it would keep going up. However, I did highlight the risks repeatedly — I said a low of the quarter was coming in June, though I expected a higher low. We got a slightly lower low instead. But the way people are acting is ridiculous.

I’ll Say It: This Is The Bottom

I see a lot of people saying “now we know it’s the four-year cycle, the market’s going down, it’s November, I’ll just DCA lower.” Nonsense. I’m going to say it right here: this is the bottom. It just happened — in Bitcoin, and just Bitcoin.

And here’s the other point. Everyone’s been whining about crypto all year, but there have been a lot of bullish moves — Hype, Near, Zcash, the list goes on. There’s a bull market here. This is exactly what we’ve been calling since January/February: the risk-on trade was shaping up, and sure enough it has been, despite all the doom and gloom.

It goes back to the phrase: watch what’s actually happening, not what you think should happen.

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The Timing: Every Degree Is Hitting

Let me just show you the time on the monthly Bitcoin chart. You’ve got a double bottom — and forget the price, look at the time symmetry stacking up. This is time by degrees:

• 30 months ago — the ETF bottom (Dec/Jan)

• 60 months ago — June 2021, the major panic bottom, 50% drawdown, everything crashed

• 75 months ago — COVID panic (half of 150)

• 90 months ago — December 2018 bottom

• 120 months ago — June 2016 top, big two-month reversal

• 150 months ago — December 2013 major top

• 180 months ago — another major top

Every single monthly time-by-degree going all the way back to the start of this chart has hit and reversed the market. That’s exactly what we’re getting now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite literally every single monthly time factor align with one month like this.

Zoom into the weekly and it’s the same story:

• 60 weeks ago — panic bottom, market trading at 60K — time and price squaring

• 120 days ago — the February bottom (the 120-degree time factor laid out in the annual forecast)

• 240 days from the top

• 180–182 weeks to the prior bottom (three and a half years), plus major support all the way through

The 120-degree dates to watch were February 3rd and June 3rd. Both hit. This is unquestionably a reversal bottom.

What We’ve Been Saying All Year

Everything we’ve been watching this year has been playing out. We’ve been trading a bear move — not a ton of upside, but some phenomenal calls in a very tough environment. Remind yourself what we’ve actually been saying:

• End of May / early June is the biggest time factor of the year

• Alts and the risk-on trade will outperform Bitcoin

• Bitcoin is done — you need to be in altcoins

• The Q2 outlook from April → May → June played out to the tick, to the day

Don’t get caught up in the hysteria that crypto’s dead. This is a better opportunity than 2022, because in 2022 we never actually got an altcoin bull market. Now we’re going to have altcoin outperformance for a very long time — likely through the end of 2027.

The Bottom Line

Bitcoin is bottomed. (Foundry members already have the next important date in the signal report.)

This is going to be a good summer for those who are vigilant. The people who checked out all year due to the four-year cycle missed Zcash, missed Near, missed Hype — they missed huge moves. Stop letting Bitcoin drag this market down. Crypto is not Bitcoin. It’s a totally different asset with totally different use, and that’s what’s going to start being priced in with the Clarity Act, stablecoin adoption, and everything else coming.

This is going to be an ugly fake-out for bears — barely sweep the lows, take the lows, then start going higher while everyone’s still waiting to buy lower and calling for Armageddon. It’s not going to cascade into Armageddon. This is the bottom.

I’ll own it — I was wrong about Bitcoin having an explosive upside move. It had an explosive move, just in the direction I’d flagged as the downside risk. But this is a macro bottoming process that started back in February. From here, bitcoin underperforms, alts way outperform, and the real opportunities — altcoins, meme coins, and on chain small caps — have extraordinary weeks and months ahead.

Ask yourself: what’s the market going to look like six months from now? Twelve months from now? That’s how you should be thinking.

When you have a plan, and it works step-for-step, you don’t abandon it because you got emotional. Our annual forecast has been right step-for-step — not directionally, but from a timing standpoint, which matters more. When you get this much emotion, this bad sentiment, on a key date, with this ugly-looking price, you get a major reversal.

Keep your head about you, stick to the plan, and everything’s going to go beautifully.

Time is the edge.

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The Timing: This Is The Window

The Q2 outlook called for a low between the 28th and the 6th, and that’s exactly the zone the market is grinding through right now. The cycles converging here are hard to ignore:

• ~240 days from the October top (within two days now)

• Balancing against the February low — the bottom that came in 120 days later

• 60 days from the April 7th bottom

• Sixty weeks from that April 2025 bottom, which also lines up as 60 months from the June 2021 monthly low

A lot of time symmetry stacking into one window. We’re still holding above the 50% retracement of the run (~71,473) and haven’t closed below the key 1x1 level — which is what we want to see hold. I’m looking at the end of this week to bring in a significant low.

Bitcoin: I Don’t Love It, But The Plan Holds

I’ll be honest about the negatives, because two things I didn’t want to see both happened: Bitcoin closed three weeks red, and last month’s monthly closed red with a reversal after only two months up. That’s not what you see in a strong uptrend.

Volatility is extremely low right now — and low volatility is just a forecast for high volatility. The market is doing everything it can to put everyone in a state of uncertainty.

I’ve been wrong on the timing of a big impulse move. But I’m now firmly in the camp that there’s still a squeeze coming in June — much like the June 2023 bottom that ripped higher. I think we still see that 84–90K level off a June low in the next few days. Beyond that, my base case is a low-volume, low-volatility, mostly range-bound market into the fall low, then a much stronger market taking shape into 2027.

This is a 2023-style environment — before the full re-acceptance of crypto as a thing. These two fractals (the 60-week cycles from 2023 and 2024–25) suggest a long year to get to the fall.

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Our annual outlook flagged this exact window as the most anticipated time factor of the year, and as we cross into it, the setup is shaping up in a big way. The plan has been executed cleanly so far — we called the April low, the May high, and now the low we’re sitting on. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I have no reason to believe June won’t be extraordinary.

But the intermarket picture has shifted. The opportunity is no longer with Bitcoin. It’s with alt coins.

Let’s start at the top of that food chain.

ETH: Hated at Exactly the Wrong Moment

Ethereum has taken a beating in the press this past week. Part-time tourists and long-time holders alike have capitulated and dumped. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for them.

This is what people do. They bail at the bottom and buy back at the top. This story will be no different.

ETH sold off right into the bottom of a major macro supertrend channel — and right onto a major macro price support box. That’s not where you exit. It’s also the second bottom out of a major low, and one rule we don’t break is selling the second bottom.

There's more wrong with the bearish case. We had a two-week reversal after a strong uptrend, mirroring the 12-day sell-off after the BTC ETF and the Genius Act. History keeps rhyming — only this time, ETH is the one positioned to benefit most, with the Clarity Act now in play.

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Bitcoin: The Plan Is Still The Plan

I don’t see a huge sell-off coming. The April 7th low remains the key level to hold, and the structure here has too many time cycles converging to ignore:

- **~100 days into this rally** from the November low

- **50 days from the March 29th low** (the yearly low) — right at the midpoint of that 100-day cycle

- **180 days from the November bottom**

That’s a lot of time symmetry stacking up in one window.

My base case hasn’t changed since the Q2 outlook went out in early April: we got the mid-May top, and now we’re looking at the potential for one more flush into **May 26–28** before a much larger move kicks off into June. Sixty days off that March bottom lines up perfectly with that window.

What I’m watching: sentiment is *extremely* fragile right now. People got fearful on a 2% pullback. Now that we’re getting a little more, the “I told you so, four-year cycle” crowd is piling out and piling into shorts. That’s exactly the setup that squeezes hard to the upside.

We’ve seen this movie before. The Bitcoin ETF and the Stablecoin Genius Act both gave us two-week reversals before even bigger bull trends started. The Clarity Act is shaping up the same way.

Ethereum: This Is The Long

ETH is where the real risk/reward sits right now.

Ethereum topped *before* Bitcoin back in August, and we’re now closing in on **270 days from that top** — a clean 90-degree cycle. Go back 180 days, you hit a bottom. Go back 90 days, another bottom. That cycle is aligning with:

- The 50-day and 100-day cycle lows we just discussed for BTC

- A 30-day correction that’s looking complete (wave 1, wave 2, panic wave 3 down)

- The April 7th level — ETH is sitting right on it

- A major macro red-box absorption zone that’s been hit repeatedly through this cycle

- The 50% retracement line at the top of that red box

Everything is hitting at once. Oversold, trendline support, multiple cycle lows, major macro level. That’s the checklist for a reversal.

You can already see relative strength showing up: Bitcoin’s down, ETH is up. ETH dominance is pivoting at its own 270-day cycle, and Bitcoin dominance is rolling over off a four-day reversal at 240 days from its bottom.

The weekly chart on ETH/BTC tells the same story — same setup as the prior bottom: big resistance, break through, full retest, then go. We’re at the retest.

Positioning

We were primarily long Bitcoin through May 14th. As of now, I’ve rotated into:

- **Long ETH**

- **Small caps and on-chain plays** on Ethereum and Base

The Others/ETH chart is back in the zone where we historically see huge moves and on-chain activity light up. That’s the key tell.

Bottom Line

Don’t fall asleep here. The weekly trends are still strong. The Q2 plan has been nearly flawless, and I see no reason to abandon it now. We may already be near the bottom, or we get one more flush into late May — either way, the inflection is days away, not weeks.

Things have been slow. They can pick up in the blink of an eye.

Time is the most important factor in the market.

Not just in markets, but in understanding trends, cycles, sentiment, and the larger structure behind major moves.

Over time that idea became more than just part of the research. It became the foundation of everything we do.

Today I’m announcing that Digital Asset Research is officially rebranding to Temporos.

Why Temporos?

Because the work has evolved far beyond traditional “crypto research.”

What we’ve really been building is a timing-focused research framework designed to identify major market inflection points before they become obvious to the broader market.

Cycles. Convergence. Seasonal structure. Time-by-degree analysis. Macro timing. Structural turning points.

That is the real edge.

The name Temporos reflects that evolution directly.

Going forward the brand will become much more focused around:
→ Timing intelligence
→ Convergence Reports
→ Structural cycle analysis
→ The Temporos Terminal
→ Real-time probability and timing models
→ Major market inflection points across crypto and global markets

The research itself is not changing. If anything, this is a doubling down on the philosophy that has driven our biggest calls over the past several years.

The 2024 low.
The April 2025 yearly low.
The October 2025 top.
The ongoing cycle work we’ve been tracking into 2026 and beyond.

All of it came from the same underlying principle:

Markets move in cycles.
And time defines the structure behind those moves.

The new Temporos Terminal is a major part of that future.

For years you’ve read the analysis here on Substack. The terminal is the live model behind that research — timing windows, probability scores, resonance clusters, and directional timing frameworks running in real time.

This rebrand is not about changing direction.

It’s about aligning the brand with what this research has actually become.

A time-based market intelligence platform built around one principle:

Time is the edge.

More updates soon.

— Stefan

While everyone argues over bull market or bear market rally, we’re letting time tell the story — and time never lies. By the end of this report, you’ll see why most people are about to get caught on the wrong side of what this market can do to those who ignore the trend and don’t understand time.

This is one of the most important forecasts of the year. Not because we’re calling a major cycle top — but because those who don’t respect time and trends are going to be fighting this market far longer than they think. And that is a recipe for disaster.

This is the same framework that called the 2024 low six months in advance. The same one that timed the April 2025 bottom to the day. The same one that went public with the October top call this time last year. Back in March, we flagged the April window as a major turn — and now we’re following it up to show, purely through our time signals, just how long this move is likely to run.

To be clear on what this call is and isn't: I'm forecasting the yearly high for 2026, not a major cycle top. I don't expect the 2025 all-time high to be taken out on this run. What I do expect is the strongest move of the year completing in a specific time window, followed by a corrective phase into late 2026.

So let’s look at the next major convergence window through the lens of conditions, cycles, and timing — and see why this one window stands out to call the yearly high.

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We’ve been talking extensively about expectations for this market from May into June and right now, it probably feels like watching grass grow.

Price is slowly grinding higher, nothing explosive yet.

But this is exactly why it’s worth stepping back and looking at prior cycle bottoms for context because what we’re seeing right now is not unusual at all.

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Over the last three months, the focus has been on timing this cycle correctly — and now we’ve entered the window where it all comes together. The late April → early May seasonal turn is here, and the conditions across crypto, equities, and on-chain are lining up exactly how you want to see them before a major move.

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We also have a key inflection point on deck as we close out this week and head into the May window so we will take a look at just how that is shaping up within our game plan and Q2 outlook.

I also want to remind you of our new terminal we launched this week. Just a brief overview of what that looks like and where we are heading with it.

And finally we will go over our positions as well as some key reminders for how to think about the chaotic alt coin and meme coin market as the intensity picks up into May.

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This isn’t complex. It’s not indicator-heavy. But it’s something that, once you see it, completely changes how you read trend shifts.

Most traders wait for price confirmation. By the time they get it, the move is already well underway.

This is how you get ahead of that.

It’s a simple framework—but it’s one of the most powerful tools I use to identify when the market is about to transition, not after it already has.

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Most people think this has been a weak year for crypto. That’s a surface-level read.

What’s actually happened is far more important: the market has spent the last several months building structure, resetting positioning, and compressing in time while conditions quietly improve in the background.

We’ve been tracking this since January. Based on time, structure, and macro alignment.

And now, for the first time in five years, those three are starting to line up at the same time.

And that’s where the biggest asymmetric opportunities are created.

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The Ethereum Structure: Same Setup, Bigger Scale

Starting with a chart I shared back in January. Ethereum has a remarkably consistent structural pattern across cycles — the time ranges keep expanding, but the structure is identical.

Each parabolic move has been preceded by the same footprint: a cycle demand zone formed by a liquidity gap from the previous parabolic rally, then the next parabolic move. Here’s what’s telling — before each of the two previous major bull runs, ETH printed two major cycle corrections before going off to the races:

• 2016 cycle: a 61% crash, then a ~60% secondary crash, then liftoff

• 2020 cycle: a 66% crash, then a ~70% crash into the COVID bottom, then liftoff

• Today: a 66% crash, then a secondary 64% crash

Pattern wise, this is no different from the prior two structural moves. The only difference is that the entire cycle is getting bigger and longer.

Bitcoin Dominance: Late-Stage Rotation

Now let’s overlay Bitcoin Dominance against ETH in a few charts to look at the structural setup headed into this major cyclical rotation period.

The last cycle, BTC Dominance peaked, went through a ~52-week drawdown, then rallied into 70 weeks to a blow-off top. During that run, ETH traded absolutely nowhere for 43 weeks — today its in a similar pattern.

In the chart below, we're now 43 weeks off the BTC.D top and ETH has traded exactly flat the entire stretch. Same behavior we saw 43 weeks off the top of BTC.D last cycle — ETH sat flat before ripping into a major bull move.

Next looking at BTC.D (inverted in blue) in the same chart as ETH again highlighting the recent 43 week move in the red boxes to show the comparable setup. You can see ETH structure has been slowly forming that base while BTC.D went up and it was right around this time last cycle where BTC.D broke down and ETH went parabolic.

Finally, to paint the full picture look at this chart of BTC.D (blue) overlaid on the ETH/BTC chart. You see the pattern, big alligator jaws formation. Divergence begins forming (green lines) and the timing is nearly the exact same 51 weeks to the next major move up in ETH.

BTC Dominance topped, and ETH is now 43 weeks into the exact same pattern against bitcoin that preceded the major bull market in alts last cycle.

Dominance can absolutely make another run higher — we haven’t cleared this double top yet, and that could extend into later this year. But remember: last cycle, 43 weeks of flat ETH is exactly when alts started to move. By the time Dominance clearly tops, ETH had already run +300%. At this point, you don’t want to be in Bitcoin.

The Broader Macro Backdrop

This isn’t just a crypto setup. The conditions are showing up across risk assets. Something we initially wrote about in January but it’s time to see how those same conditions are shaping up.

Small Caps, Consumer Behavior, and ISM

To give us a brief picture of the overall economic backdrop at the moment lets take a look at the three charts that define risk appetite, consumer behavior, and business activity. IWM, JETS, and ISM

Each red level with orange corresponding bubble in the charts below marks the level and time at which a major risk on move in cryptos began.

As you can see in the previous two bubbles when IWM broke out of a multiyear consolidation, and JETS begins a strong move above the 23.50 level, and ISM gets to the 57 level in an uptrend all conditions are satisfied that signal risk appetite is turning up, consumers are spending, and the business cycle is gaining momentum which historically has translated into a boom in alt coins.

Below is a closer look at ETH corresponding to the ISM in an uptrend and at the 57 level.

Same pattern. ETH bottoms, the business cycle starts ticking up, you get a divergence, and then once ISM breaks out to a certain level — ETH takes off like a rocket ship. Both 2016 and 2020 faired similarly on this measure.

So again, all the conditions are setting in place. the ISM is not quite to where we typically see big moves yet but it looks promising and has only gotten stronger in the last 3 months.

ETH vs. Small Caps

In the below chart we have the RUT small cap index relative to SPY over ETH price. There have been three major breakouts in the RUT against spy in the last decade. Each one of those breakouts is shown in the orange bubble and corresponds to the same orange bubble on the ETH chart.

This current breakout is by far the biggest after coming off of a five year downtrend very similar to how alt coins have behaved in the last five years against BTC. Whats interesting is that the green lines on the ETH chart correspond to the same time of the green lines on the RUT/SPY chart. Both show how ETH traded flat from peak to breakout on RUT/SPY.

Back in January we pointed out that Ethereum was “the biggest liar in the market” — everything else was going up while ETH went down. The only other time we saw that divergence was during the 2016 move, which resolved with a massive reversion to the mean.

Why This Isn’t 2023

Here’s the key distinction most people are missing.

Yes, there are similarities to the 2023 bottom. We’ve already outlined the time factors and structural alignment. But in 2023, we did not have macro risk indicators breaking out. We did not have Bitcoin dominance in a late-stage rotation. That move happened without full confirmation.

This time is different.

Now you have structure, timing, and macro conditions all aligning at once. That’s the difference between a reflexive bounce and a true cycle low.

And when all three line up, the upside is not comparable.

The “Others” Chart: The 60-Week Cycle

Here’s where it gets really clean. “Others” — total crypto market cap excluding the top 10 — is essentially altcoin small caps.

There is an almost perfectly consistent 60-week cycle in this market. It doesn’t matter how you slice it:

• Major top to major bottom: 60 weeks

• Major bottom to major top: 60 weeks

• Regime change: every 60 weeks

You can measure nearly any significant point on this chart and the the regime flips just about every 60 weeks. We just completed a 60-week drawdown from the top to the bottom.

Here’s the key: when we have a major top-to-bottom 60-week down move like the one we just completed, the opposite move has been at least 90 weeks — often longer.

• 2016 bottom run: 109 weeks

• 2019 bottom run: 144 weeks

• 2023 bottom run: 101 weeks

Even being conservative, we’re looking at a 90-week run from here, which projects a top mid-to-late 2027. Obviously there will be pullbacks along the way, but the timing of this is irrefutable.

Zooming Out: The 45-Month + 60-Month + 90-Month Cycle Convergence

On the monthly timeframe, Others has proven to hold a very strong 45 month, 60 month, and 90 month cycle all throughout its history.

45 Months

This is something we have shown many times before but 45 months from a major turn has always marked a significant macro change in the market. We saw that exact 45 month time factor call the October flash crash low.

60 months

60 months is another very strong time cycle that has worked its power on this chart. 60 months is 5 years a cycle we are pounding the table on.

You have both a 60 month top to bottom cycle as well as a 60 month bottom to bottom cycle at work right now. That is all in confluence with the 45 month cycle.

90 month cycles

If 45 month cycle work then it only makes sense that the even bigger 90 month cycle would show up. And sure enough it shows up in all three phases below.

• 90 month bottom to top cycle

• 90 month bottom to bottom cycle. (this bottom gave us the 2023-24 run)

• 90 months from top to bottom exactly on the October 10 crash.

30 Month Bull Markets

If we have a major macro confluence happening right now between the 45, 60, and 90 month time factors then surely the 30 month cycle also shows up.

And sure enough the bull markets in this chart have lasted right on the 30 month mark.

But here’s the real setup. We have ALL 4 major high-timeframe cycles converging right now:

• A 30-month cycle from the last major bottom

• A 45-month cycle that has marked every major inflection point — 45 months to a major liquidation bottom, 45 months to a major top, 45 months to this current bottom

• A 60-month (5-year) cycle — altcoins are in a 5-year cycle, Bitcoin is in a 5-year cycle, and every 5 years is where we really shift into altcoins

• A 90-month cycle from the May 2018 top

When we get all cycles on a monthly time frame converging like this you can guarantee a major market shift is happening.

Historically the bull market moves that followed lasted 30 months. Using the 60-week cycle framework gets us to mid-to-late 2027 and using the monthly cycle framework suggest late 2027 early 2028 before the next major top.

We are in the very early innings after a 5 year drought in alts.

Stablecoin Dominance: Confirming the Bear Bottom

One more chart worth sharing to confirm this view is the USDT.D chart. This chart shows the market cap dominance of the largest stable coin issuer. When stables are up it signals a flight to safety, but when stables go down it signals a shift back into risk.

Right now we are breaking down out of the uptrend in this chart. You can see what the TOTAL3 market cap did each time this uptrend broke down. The result is a major move up. Stables just peaked near the 2022 bear market low levels.

You can see this relationship is directly inverse to what alt coins do.

What this tells us: the market did top in December 2024, and we’ve had a 14-month on-chain bear market. Most of us have felt that. But the cycle is rolling over.

The Setup, In Plain English

Let me pull it all together:

Structure is in place. ETH has consolidated sideways for 60 months — the same range it traded in 5 years ago. That’s a huge flat consolidation and the same structural setup we saw before the last two parabolic moves.

Conditions are in place. IWM breaking out of a 5-year base. ISM rolling up. Gold topping. Copper-Gold ratio bottoming. ETH divergences resolving. Stablecoin dominance breaking down. Broader risk backdrop mirroring an overlap between late 2016 and late 2020 conditions.

Timing is finally satisfied. 60 months of ETH consolidation. A 60-week down cycle in Others complete. Four high-timeframe cycles (30, 45-month, 60, and 90-month) converging for only the third time ever. (previous two were the 2021 top and the 2023 bottom)

And sentiment couldn’t be better. Nobody believes alt season happens again. Most people are strictly staying in BTC. Everyone is still mentally anchored to a “four-year cycle” that’s been obsolete since 2021.

Price Targets and Timeline

• ETH: $16,000 over the next 12–18 months (the 90-week cycle projection)

• Altcoin cycle top: mid-to-late 2027

• Path: not a straight shot — expect pullbacks — but the major trend is turning up for the first time in 3 years

The next 12–18 months are likely to deliver more than the last five years combined. This is a massive asymmetric opportunity and it’s setting up while nobody wants anything to do with crypto.

Final Thought

At a certain point, you have to make a decision.

Either you continue reacting to short-term noise like the majority of the market—or you start positioning around high timeframe structure, timing, and asymmetric setups like this one.

Everything I’ve laid out here is what I’m personally using to position for what I believe will be the next major phase of this cycle.

This is one of those moments where getting it right actually matters. And the last five years haven’t given us many of them. This is one.

The big takeaway: the behavior of this market is genuinely different now. We’ve ran up longer in time and further in price than the previous leg, and if the week closes as it stands now, we get something we haven’t seen since July 2025. While I still see people calling this a bear market rally the market continues to confirm otherwise.

In this one, I cover:

• Where I think Bitcoin and ETH can go from here, and the time window I’m watching into next week

• Why the meme and alt charts are flashing a much bigger signal than most people realize

• A few portfolio moves — what I’m adding, what I’m cutting, and where I’m still leaning

• The narratives I want to be positioned in for the second half of the year

• The two chart patterns I trust more than anything else

Plenty going on right now — you don’t have to wait for confirmation. Watch the windows, trust the patterns, and if you’re playing risk-on, learn to fish for yourselves. That’s the whole point of what we’re building here.

The updated watchlists are below

More next week.

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We have been sizing up the risk on trade for the last 60 days and with the major bitcoin low this week confirming right in our time window I expect a strong continuation of this move with people only beginning to chase these setups we have outlined.

We are now seeing very strong indications from alt coin leaders as to whats coming and by time we reach the tail end of the risk curve we will be light years ahead of the crowd.

This update I’m covering the development of our game plan and going over all the setups in both of our portfolios to show you why this is a major moment in time for the market.

By time most realize what is happening in a few weeks it will be far too late for positioning. This is where all the hard work and patience proves that it does not take a long time to make a lot of money, it only takes a long time to get ready for it.

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We are now entering the most important time window of the year.

Not approaching it.

Entering it.

Since December, I’ve been laying out the roadmap for Q2—April, May, June—as the phase that would dictate everything that follows. And now the time is here. Not one or two… but clusters of major time factors stacking on top of each other.

These are the kind of moves that can define and entire year in one quarter.

And those turns don’t come gradually—they come through sharp reversals, failed moves, and aggressive rotations that leave most people on the wrong side.

If you don’t understand the timing behind those shifts, you won’t be able to navigate this quarter effectively

You’ll react to it and by then the news will already be priced in.

Below is the exact Q2 timing roadmap—every key date, every major window, and how I expect this to unfold.

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April

I’m not going to beat a dead horse on April we have been very vocal about this being a big rebound month and if you want to go back and look at why we said this exact time window of the 4-7th for a major reversal look back at this post.

That said its only the beginning of the month and if we are in for a sort of whipsaw quarter we need to know the next most likely candidate for a reversal off of a rebound.

We already know that Trump issued an ultimatum of 48hrs to Iran 10 days ago and then for whatever reason extended it to April 7. Coincidence? I don’t know but these things always have a way of calling out the major timing of key news events.

Below is a table of key Monthly, Weekly and Daily time cycles that fall in April.

Right off the bat you can see that this month has a number of major monthly times including the all important 60 month time factor from a top which has historically brought in major bottoms. We can also see that 1/2 time of that move (30 months) also brought a major turn to the market. And then the 1/4 time of that move (15 months) also produced a significant monthly turn.

So when you have a clean cycle like the major 60 month cycle and you can divide it up into smaller cycles and each of those smaller cycles also produces a turn you have a strong cycle for a turn.

As for the weekly time factors there are not a lot of major ones here other than that last week of April which I will get more into for May because its really the weekly time factor that comes in the last week of April and first week of May that interests me the most this quarter.

Then looking at the daily time factors for April we know we are right now in the biggest window because it is 180 days off the top among other things we have discussed, but also the date of April 7th puts us 60 days off the February low which produced a low 30 days later in March. So you again have a very high probability Low in the works right now. Which may in fact be a quarterly low and possibly even a yearly bottom.

Lastly we have important anniversary dates in this exact time factor.

Going back the last five years in a row the market has made a major turn around the beginning of April without fail.

The key take away we have going into q2 is that we know the major turns from q1 now that its over. The two major dates were January 14th a quarterly top and February 6th a quarterly bottom.

Now that we know those we can measure our year out in 90 and 120 degree cycles to give us strong points for quarterly highs and lows in q2, q3, and q4.

That first date we get is April 14th which is 90 days from the high of q1. That will be a date to watch for a potential high although I don’t see too much significance around it.

To look for a more serious high we need to observe the time in May

May Time Factors

The time factors for May are of no lesser importance of emphasis.

As I said once we get into q2 it would be a very tough one to call because so many key dates appear in such quick succession.

That said lets look into the May time factors in the table below.

From a monthly standpoint the all important 50 month time factor stands out as we highlighted this in our annual forecast.

Historically the 50 month cycle has resulted in serious monthly declines and really the beginning of bear markets.

Next turning to the weekly dates we can immediately see that the first week of May stands out. Remember its the last week of April and first week of May we have discussed at length.

You can see in the chart below that every 30 week time factor since the ETF has fallen right at or near a major turn. The next 30 weeks from the top puts us in that last week of April first week of May.

In addition to that we have another major weekly time factor at that exact time which is the 180 week time from the 2022 bottom. You can see below how dividing this time factor up into 45 week intervals has proven to put us around major turns.

Lastly as we zoom into the daily time factors it’s clear the first few days of May will set the tone for the month.

Not only do you have the key weekly signals hitting on that week, but there is a seasonal time May 6 which marks the midpoint of the spring season.

This all falls on May 4-7 which is 210 days from the top as well as 90 degrees from the low of Q1.

Then measuring from the high of Q1 we get 120 degrees on May 14th to watch.

and lastly we have to talk about the last week of May first week of June which I’ll tie together in June.

June Time Factors

If you go back to our annual report you’ll remember our major point of emphasis for the entire year was the last week of May and first week of June.

So looking at the table below lets see how the dates line up.

First of all a lot of major monthly time factors coming together that should tell you its a big month and in my view if the yearly low is not already in it will be in June.

Then moving to the weekly you have that first week of June bringing together the all important 60 month and 60 week time factor which I have seen be so important over the years. You will also notice how that lines up with a daily time factor from the quarterly low in Q1 which came in feb 4th 120 days from the October top or exactly half way point to June 3rd.

Complete Q2 Outlook:

April 19-24th is a high

May 4-7 is a low

May 14th is a high

May 26-June 6 is a low

This is the type of quarter where everything we work for comes together. Time, price, sentiment—all of it.

Outside of the big slide in January, Q1 was very uneventful. That changes now. I expect some big moves in both directions with headlines and tensions flying.

We now have a clear roadmap for Q2. The key windows have been defined by our Q4 and Q1 turns and the structure is in place.

From here, it’s no longer about figuring out what’s happening. It’s about sticking to our plan and executing trades. Because over the next 60–90 days, a handful of decisions could matter more than anything else we do this year.

Make sure you’re on the right side of them.

One thing is very clear to me, right now the market is completely split. Everyone is uncertain, nobody wants to take risk, and the dominant view is that things still need to go lower and the war will drag on much longer.

But under the surface, our data and the market data is telling a different story. Positioning is shifting to risk, large players are getting long, and we’re hitting a cluster of major time windows while the market is due for a big move.

Most people are going to miss this because they’re waiting for clarity that won’t come until price is much higher. But when the market refuses to go lower on bad news and nobody is positioned for upside, that’s usually the tell. This is the type of environment where major moves start, and we are seeing that behavior reflected in the price action. It’s a classic instance of watching what is doing well versus what you think should be doing well.

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It challenges many of the most widely accepted macro assumptions of the last decade — and it does so based on structural intermarket evidence, not opinion.

This piece is not contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, this is a macro framework based on a fundamental conditional alignment with key relationships between markets. This is an extremely important point to understand for any long term investor and will show you why the consensus view point is potentially deeply flawed.

What is forming right now is a rare macro alignment between gold, the dollar, interest rates, and equities. This is not a short-term trade setup. It is not a call for next week or next month. It is a structural condition that has only appeared a handful of times in market history. Each prior instance marked the end of one major macro regime and the beginning of another.

The dominant view today is clear: currency debasement is permanent, hard assets will outperform, stocks are in a bubble and the financial system is in slow-motion decline.

But when you step away from headlines and examine the actual asset relationships beneath the surface — stocks relative to gold, gold relative to real rates, the dollar relative to liquidity — the data tells a very different story.

This is not contrarianism for the sake of being different. It is a serious examination of market structure that suggests the consensus trade may be closer to completion than continuation.

And if this rotation resolves the way it has in prior cycles, the implications for long-term wealth creation will be enormous.

The Dollar Is Reinventing Itself Not Falling Apart

If this macro shift is forming, it won’t begin with headlines. It will show up in relative strength relationships. And that means we start by looking at the dollar, not as a political symbol, but as a benchmark of global capital flows.

The widely accepted assumption is:

dollar down = risk assets up

and dollar up = bad for risk assets.

But a simple review of the dollar verses the DOW will immediately tell you, that is not true.

The arrows on the DJI above directly correspond to the major highs and lows in the DXY. It is clear that bottoms in the dollar coincide with bottoms in the DJI. As where tops in the dollar are more ambiguous with no clear correlation to tops in the DJI.

There is no evidence in this chart to support the idea that a weaker dollar is good for risk assets and equities. In fact it would be quite the contrary where bull markets in the dollar coincide with big upswings in the DJI.

So what then is the real driver of a weak and strong dollar?

For that we have to look at Gold versus the dollar.

When gold is up the dollar is down and when gold is down the dollar is up.

This is a much tighter inverse relationship than the dollar versus stocks or risk assets like BTC. Take a moment to see this in the chart.

So if gold has been in a 10 year bull market and the dollar has been losing ground to gold since the 2021 top. What then, are other assumptions that could be wrong?

How about the fact that everyone is calling for the collapse of the dollar, while simultaneously predicting a huge continuation of the gold bull market up to 10k per ounce.

While yes, these could both be true if that were to happen, the reality is that this trade has become way too overcrowded at what has already been a 10-20 year bull market in gold returns.

Remarkably, these same conditions were present in both 1980 and 2008, the other two moments when gold marked major secular tops and both equities and the dollar carved out significant lows.

In each instance, sentiment was overwhelmingly one-sided. The consensus was fixated on debasement, inflation fears were elevated, and the belief in endless hard-asset outperformance felt unquestionable, much like it does today.

Yet, if we step back and take an objective look at the chart of the DXY, you can see it’s doing the same pattern it has done since the 2008 lows.

In both prior instances, the dollar had two significant peaks followed by a drop down to the range lows and a sweep of support at previous range highs. That’s exactly the same pattern its in today.

But how could this possibly be that the dollar is not actually going to hell and the global regime isn’t shifting? They told us we are in a currency debasement crisis and the US is losing global superpower status.

Well to answer that theres a lot we have to consider. For starters I want to share this Economist cover from last month.

This is very interesting depiction of the dollar as a snake to say the least. Many of you are probably aware of the magazine cover trading theory but here we can go a bit deeper into the symbolism.

Just last month we saw the Chinese new year bring an end to the year of the snake. But the real symbolism behind the snake year ending is that snakes shed their skin.

In other words when the snake year ends, the idea is that you are supposed to evolve to a better form by shedding off your old skin, metaphorically speaking. So is it just a coincidence that they decided to use this cover? I think not.

Before we look any further into the current situation let’s remind ourselves that the US has reinvented itself many times over throughout its history in a great 80 year cycle.

Beginning with the revolution in 1780, then the Civil War in the 1860s, followed by World War 2 in the 1940’s, which brings us to today in the 2020s.

This is why the US can remain a dominate super power for decades to come because unlike many empires of the past the US has shown a unique ability to evolve.

This could not be more apparent than if we look at the global restructuring we have seen in the last two months with the US seizing control of Venezuelan oil, threatening to take over Greenland, threatening Cuba, and ultimately trying to wrestle and reign in Iran, there is one clear theme going on and that is the struggle to secure massive amounts of natural resources that will be needed to build out the ai revolution.

From oil and rare earth minerals to critical shipping routes and transportation lanes, this broader tariff strategy and overall aggression is about far more than trade balances — it is about leverage and keeping the USD on top.

The US once weaponized the dollar through direct sanctions, that was the old model. Now the strategy is evolving. Instead of targeting countries outright, control is shifting toward strategic chokepoints in energy, critical resources, and most importantly, compute.

The leverage is no longer just exclusion from the system, but control over access to the infrastructure that powers global trade and the AI revolution.

The message is clear, if you want entry into global markets, if you want access to the compute layer defining the next technological era, you operate inside the dollar framework. It’s the same reason the US has to be the global super power in crypto because they are aiming to keep the world on a USD (stablecoin) system.

USD dominance isn’t being imposed the same way anymore instead its reinventing itself. It’s being engineered through control of the inputs that matter most.

The DXY is not failing, but rather shedding its old skin and reinventing itself for a new era of American power.

But the dollar alone doesn’t tell the full story. Its movements only make sense when viewed against the asset it has historically competed with for monetary supremacy: gold. If the dollar is repositioning, gold will be the confirming variable.

Gold Is the Macro Indicator

Gold is the ultimate piece to this puzzle we are putting together. We already covered how the DXY does not in fact tell you much about the stock market regimes but is instead a much better counter to gold regimes.

That said, there are also many false assumptions about GOLD, what it is, and how it moves markets.

The mainstream thinking is that gold is bad, whenever its in a bull market that means a crisis is brewing, wars, currency collapse etc etc. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t go up when wars or crises happen but it is not the root cause of gold going up.

Again, a simple observation will show you that the prevailing narratives around gold are just not true.

Gold has had three major bull markets in its history if you include today’s bull market. The previous two bull markets lasted around 120 months which puts today’s gold market squarely into that time factor. Will this be a top? We don’t know yet, but the cycles suggest its closer to the end than the beginning.

Taking our time analysis a bit further and looking at the time it took gold to top, from the time it broke out of the green consolidation boxes in the image below, and you will see we are again in a late stage time frame.

In the first two cases, it was 23 months and 34 months respectively. The average of those two times is exactly 28.5 months which is exactly where we are now…

Finally, you will note that gold had a 27 year range after the 1980 top and now has been in a 27 year bull market off the 1999 bottom. Quite the confluence of 27 to 28 time cycles coming together.

But if gold is approaching a major top, what then, does this tell us about the overall market cycles?

Well, as I said before, most people have been misled about the role of gold and nothing makes that more apparent than looking below at the chart of the DJI index over the chart of gold.

When we do this, we get a very clear picture just like the dollar relationship, that when gold is in a big bull market stocks effectively go no where. And conversely, when gold tops stocks begin huge bull markets (after an initial correction phase).

But even this image is not enough to understand whats going on here. Because on the surface, this has been the correct viewpoint up until now as you can see the 2018 bottom in gold where stocks have also gone up…or have they?

This is an important distinction we will cover later in this article when we review equity performance relative to gold.

But for now its enough to see that major tops in gold actually start major bull markets in stocks (after an initial pull back) which is not what people have been led to believe.

Said another way, gold going parabolic actually signals that we are getting closer to a new secular bull market in stocks.

But why is that the case?

Well, if we think about what gold really is, and who holds it, it may become more clear.

Gold is the largest single asset in the world at a market cap of over 30 trillion dollars. For reference the entire market capitalization of all US stocks is around 50 trillion dollars.

So let’s think about why thats so important and why it actually enables the major macro regime shifts that last 20+ years.

Who is the largest holder of Gold in the world? It’s central banks.

So who benefits the most when the price of gold goes on a 10 or 20 year bull run? The central governments.

So while everyone in crypto thinks the government should have BTC as a store of value, the reality is that they already carry the most gold in the world and when gold outperforms everything the way it has they actually get much wealthier in real terms even if it doesn’t appear so in nominal debt terms.

So the smoke screen is that the government has the ability to devalue their own currency while simultaneously holding the one asset they need to maintain wealth in REAL terms.

So could it be the case, that even though debt skyrockets in dollar terms they are knowingly holding the one instrument they need to keep pace with it? It would appear so.

Which is why, when the ultra wealthy gold holders have secured decades worth of real value capture while dangling the nominal value thinking in front of everyone else, they can then open the spigots for real returns to catch up to gold returns for decades at a time.

Understanding gold’s cycle is critical because it dictates where real returns reside. And that brings us to the most misunderstood part of this entire framework — the difference between nominal gains and real wealth creation in equities.

The Illusion of Nominal Wealth

Before I dive into this section lets just be clear that everyone sees how I’m defining real and nominal returns.

The generally accepted economic view is that real returns are returns adjusted for inflation. In other words if you have a 5% return and inflation is 2% the real return is 5%-2%= 3%.

Nominal returns are returns not adjusted for inflation. So a 5% return is a 5% return without accounting for any inflation.

However, for the purposes of this article real returns are going to be considered returns adjusted for gold as a store of value.

In other words if gold is the store of value and not USD wouldn’t you want to know if you are getting richer in gold adjusted terms rather than dollar denominated terms? Because if your assets aren’t appreciating against gold then the logical answer would be to just own gold…

So lets dive in.

On the surface it would appear that stocks have been in a great bull market since the 2009 bottom.

But upon further review we may see why that is all just a smoke screen to whats really going on under the hood.

Looking at the below chart of the Dow Jones industrial average going back to 1880s we can see that there have only been four secular bull markets in history. Each of these bull markets was preceded by a decade long consolidation.

So right off the bat we can tell something is off about this structure because isn’t everyone under the impression that 2008 was a great bubble? Thats not at all what the chart actually says. Of course some sectors like housing may have had a moment, but the reality is that it was clearly not an asset bubble as indicated by the charts.

How can we confirm this? Well again, by looking at gold performance against equity performance the intermarket relationships become quite clear. Each colored box below on gold reflects its same colored box on the DJI.

Each one of these long sideways periods in the stock market coincided exactly with major bull markets in gold. When gold topped, secular bull markets of REAL returns began in equities. We’ve already proved this.

So now lets turn our focus to the actual chart of the DJI index paired against gold and this relationship becomes even more startling.

There is a lot we can take away from this chart so lets go through the observations

1. There have only been 4 times in history where equities have truly outpaced gold on a macro scale. Late 1920’s. 1932-1966. 1980-2001. 2011-2018.

2. Equities valuations have never come close to passing their 2000’s high relative to gold and in fact topped out against gold in 2017/18 or nearly a decade ago…

3. This is a 3 month chart and we are now in historically oversold levels relative to gold that has only been seen three other times in history.

4. Each of these times was a massive bear market bottom in equities which ushered in a macro top in Gold and a macro bottom in real equity returns.

It’s very important to understand whats going on here. Not only is gold at conditional levels for a major macro top, but at the same time equities are at conditional levels for a macro bottom on a relative basis. Now as you can see by the chart this is typically a 18-24 month process. Which means we should see this massive rotation beginning to play out now through 2027.

The key eye opener, is that if you start measuring real returns in assets against a true store of value like gold instead of in nominal terms like USD denominated inflation. You see that we have been in a near 10 year bear market of real returns in stocks. Pretty shocking.

The takeaway is very clear, unless you own the correct stocks on a 10-20 year basis like NVDA or META (to name a couple stocks of the very few that outperformed gold), when gold is in a macro bull market you should only own gold because real returns in other assets get crushed.

The opposite is also true, that when gold enters a macro top you want to be back in equities because thats where the true wealth gets built.

This is a lot to digest and I personally find it very eye opening and contrary to what everyone is taught to believe about gold and real returns from mainstream economics.

Gold is THE store of value and only real returns happen in gold during these periods where nominal returns happen in stocks with few exceptions. When this macro regime shifts as its only done less than a handful of times in history, then you want to own equities for real returns.

This is hard to believe since everyone thinks we have been in a major equities bull market, which we have…in nominal terms, but against real value? It’s clear we have not, at least since 2018.

I find a good analogy would be looking at the stock exchange of Zimbabwe or the price of bitcoin in Argentine pesos and concluding that everyone must be rich in those countries. However, if you paired those same markets against gold you would see a much different picture and the true reality of the situation.

Bitcoin in Real Terms

If gold is the true store of value benchmark, then equities are not the only asset that must be examined through that lens. The same logic must be applied to bitcoin — particularly if it aspires to compete as a monetary asset.

We talked the other week about how bitcoin can act as a store of value and what that may mean for the future of it.

But here let’s look at the real return of bitcoin relative to gold which appears to be the default SOV.

Again, several key takeaways from this chart but the first being the fact that BTC is flat against gold since its 2017 top. Not exactly the 10 year bear structure stock indexes have faced but it also hasn’t gone anywhere over that time period.

In other words, it’s not keeping pace with gold, but at the same time, it is doing better than stocks.

The other thing to note is that just like stocks, BTC is in a historically oversold level against gold while also matching a cyclical time factor for a low.

We now have multiple asset classes sitting at historically oversold levels relative to gold, while gold itself is stretched into historically overbought territory — yet the consensus insists it is headed dramatically higher on the back of money printing and a commodity supercycle narrative. The data suggests the opposite.

When every major asset is historically oversold against gold while gold is extended to extremes, the higher-probability outcome is not an endless continuation of the gold bull market, but the late stage of it — a macro topping process that sets the stage for a broad real bull run across risk assets. That may not be the popular view, but it is what the intermarket conditions are implying.

Real Rates and the Liquidity Pivot

So far we’ve examined relative value between assets. But there is one variable that determines when liquidity shifts between them: real interest rates. This is the pivot point that turns gold regimes into equity regimes — and vice versa.

Since 2022 everyone has become an expert on what the fed needs to do and what rates should be at. But lets look at what this relationship between gold and rates has signaled in the past.

Historically, when real rates are below 2% gold is where the money stays because why be in bonds when you can get a better real return on your gold?

Let’s look at this in the chart below and the relationship couldn’t be more clear. Each green arrow corresponds to each green arrow in all three charts and the same for each red arrow.

What you see is that during the period of the 80s and 90s rates were going down but ABOVE 2%. This corresponded exactly to a 27 year gold bear market and a 27 year real return bull market in equities. The key is that real rates were ABOVE 2% while going down.

Then everything changed in 2000 when real rates fell below 2% and kept declining. The bond market could no longer keep pace with gold returns. Gold began a massive bull market and stocks returns collapsed against gold.

Then you can see from 2011 to 2018 real rates began to rise again and stocks outperformed gold while gold fell quiet. Then in 2018 it stopped. Real rates fell off again while under 2% and gold resumed to a bull market while stocks have been losing the battle ever since.

You can even see the exact U shape move on rates from 2020 to 2022 corresponded exactly to the U shape move on the DOW against gold. But as soon as real rates stopped rising in 2022 and were still below 2% gold took control and has been in the drivers seat ever since.

The Ultimate Test

In no way can we complete this study without an in depth look at the 1970’s which we’re characterized by rising rates, rising inflation, rising gold prices, and stagnant stock prices.

At first look this would seem to derail our above data but when we take a closer look at what really went down we will see the relationships did exactly the same thing.

The below chart show the relationship between the US 10yr bonds, gold, and then DJI versus gold.

You can clearly see that from 1970 to 1974 rates were rising but real yields were still falling as inflation ramped up. So according to our view real rates declining while under 2% means gold outperforms. Sure enough thats exactly what happened. Gold went up while the DJI went no where and ultimately declined relative to gold.

Then in 1974 what happened? Real rates bottomed and began to rise as inflation peaked during the 1974 oil crisis. As real rates climbed for the next two years, gold declined over the same period while stocks went up.

Then again in 1976 real rates peaked, causing gold to bottom, and stocks underperform for the rest of the decade.

Then as inflation collapsed into the 80’s while rates were still rising, real yields rose and gold made a major peak while stocks hit a major low and began a real secular bull market.

Now Gann called the 50 year cycle the great cycle as it was the culmination of five 10 year cycles. 50 years ago was yes, the 1970s.

So is it any coincidence we find ourselves in a very similar situation today? Trouble with Iran causing an oil crisis, leading to higher inflation, forcing the fed to raise rates, all while gold appears to be in a topping scenario and stocks are massively oversold versus gold?

If these are in fact the conditions, which they do appear to be, then is it a stretch to consider a scenario in stocks like we saw in the 70s with a 2 year lag?

Oil crisis leading to higher inflation this year causes rates to rise leading to a huge bottom in stocks which results in a big move up into 2028 while gold has peaks in 2026 and underperforms. Then the real reckoning happens from 2028 to 2032 and from the 2030s on stocks go into a massive secular bull for 20+ years.

The conditions are eerily similar but only time will tell. What we do know is what to expect when these relationships do turn a corner.

The Verdict

The mainstream economic theory says low rates are good for business and good for stocks.

But once again, a simple observation of the actual intermarket relationships suggests otherwise. Gold has consistently been the preferred asset in low-rate environments, and that only tends to change when real rates begin rising meaningfully or move above roughly 2%. In other words, the issue is not simply whether rates are falling or rising in nominal terms. What matters is whether the bond market is offering a real return strong enough to compete with gold.

That makes perfect sense if you stop thinking about gold as a crisis asset and start thinking about it as the global liquidity engine.

When gold is outperforming real yields, it functions like a vacuum for liquidity. Large pools of capital know they cannot earn durable real returns elsewhere, so capital concentrates in gold. That is why gold bull markets are so powerful and so persistent. They are not just emotional reactions to fear. They are structural periods where liquidity has nowhere better to go.

That dynamic only changes once rates rise enough to restore competition. When real rates move high enough, particularly above that 2% threshold, capital can begin flowing back into bonds. And from there, it can ultimately spill back into equities. That is the real pivot. Not lower rates helping risk assets, but higher real rates pulling liquidity out of gold and redistributing it across the financial system.

So where is the misunderstanding?

The popular assumption is that stocks and crypto should perform best when rates are falling. But the historical relationships do not support that view. Lower rates may sound supportive on the surface, but if they also allow inflation to stay elevated or reaccelerate, then real returns in bonds remain too weak to challenge gold. In that environment, liquidity stays trapped in the gold regime.

That is why the real pro-business backdrop is not simply lower rates. It is higher real rates paired with contained inflation. That is the condition that allows liquidity to leave gold, move into bonds, and eventually expand outward into equities and other productive assets.

This is also why a major policy mistake may be forming. Trump has now installed a new Fed chair who appears committed to cutting rates, but that may prove to be exactly the wrong move at the wrong time. If rate cuts arrive into 2027 and inflation begins rising again, the market may start discounting that outcome well in advance. The result could be a selloff driven not by tight policy, but by the realization that easy policy is preventing real yields from becoming competitive.

In that scenario, bonds still do not offer enough real return, gold retains liquidity dominance, and the broader rotation into productive assets gets delayed.

That, in my view, is the real macro pivot to watch into 2027 and 2028.

And it is all right there in the intermarket relationships above.

When Gold Tops, Regimes Change

When you connect the dollar, gold, equities, bitcoin, and real rates, a single relationship sits at the center of everything.

Gold is the fulcrum of the system, and real interest rates are the force that tips it.

I have tried to punch holes in many ways in this framework but there’s simply no denying it. The main argument is that stocks still go up and people have gotten richer since 2000 but thats just not true.

This is extremely important to understand if you are a long term investor in a retirement account or any vestment period that is longer than 10+ years.

At the 2002 low the SPX traded at 729 today it trades at roughly 7,000 or a 811% gain in 24 years. Gold on the other hand, had you bought that at the 2001 lows, is up 2,100% in 24 years to $5,500.

A $100,000 dollar investment in the SPX would give you $811,000 today. A $100,000 dollar investment in gold would be worth $2,100,000 in the same time period. A $1.2 million dollar difference.

You think that might be important to know if you are 25 year old college graduate and putting all your money into the indexes every month? It’s clear, it makes all the difference in the world.

So as long term investors think they are safe just throwing money at the SPX every two weeks they have been taking in the shorts for 20 years without even knowing it. On paper they are up, but in real terms, against real value? they are down over 50% in two decades. Thats a big deal.

Even in the last 10 years, unless you owned the Mag 7, you have been getting smoked by gold.

The verdict is clear,

When gold enters a secular bull market, real returns across financial assets compress. Liquidity gravitates toward the monetary asset that cannot be diluted. Nominal gains may appear impressive, but when measured against gold, wealth creation stalls. That is the environment we have largely been in since 2018 if not since 2001.

However, this is not the time to panic and rush into gold. As demonstrated above it would be more likely at this point in time that this major 20 year bull market is coming to a close sooner than most gold bugs will realize

and the implications of that are enormous,

when real rates rise, gold tops — not temporarily, not cyclically, but structurally — and liquidity begins to rotate. The bond market becomes competitive again. Capital flows outward from the monetary reserve asset and back into productive risk assets. That is when true secular equity expansions begin.

This has only happened a handful of times in modern financial history. The late 1920s. The post-1932 expansion. and then again in the 1980s. Each marked the end of a gold regime and the beginning of a multi-decade wealth cycle in equities.

Right now, gold is extended on long-duration time cycles. Equities and bitcoin are historically compressed relative to it. All while real rates are at a pivot threshold that has previously marked major transitions.

This is not about being bullish or bearish next quarter. It is about recognizing that we may be in the late stage of a monetary-dominant cycle and on the verge of a productive capital cycle.

If gold is completing its secular move, then what follows is not another nominal bounce. It is the potential beginning of a real bull market that we haven’t seen in over 20 years — one measured not in weeks, but in decades.

That shift will not happen overnight. It is a process. Gold will top in a long distribution phase after a 10 year run. Equity bases will be forming. The dollar is reinventing itself and liquidity rotates gradually before it accelerates.

This is all what I see coming in the next 18-24 months. A potential policy error by the fed, a sell off in stocks, higher rates, a top forming in gold, and ultimately a new and real bull market beginning in equities and lasting long into the 2030’s and 40’s.

The decennial pattern of this century has been clear 2008-2010 was a rough period 2018-2020 was rough and that setup is emerging again in 2028-2030 as this massive macro rotation takes place. That doesn’t mean we wont see a big move up in stocks before then but it does suggest a big reset button is coming.

Then, when the rotation completes, the opportunity is asymmetric.

The last decade may have been a smoke screen — nominal highs masking real stagnation. The next decade, if this framework is correct, could look very different.

Because when gold releases its grip on global liquidity, capital does not disappear.

It flows.

And where it flows next will define the next 10 to 20 years.