On Merlin, Drones, the year ahead, and markets
Merlin's Best Practices, a Grand Spectacle into an inauguration, why markets will go higher in January
Index
I. Forward
II. Reflection
III. Markets
IV. Analysis and Commentary
WIZ CHARTS CHAT
Education & Resources Page
Forward
I have a really fascinating reflection in today’s article, I hope you enjoy reading on UAP’s, the US Government and the thought experiment of running technology research in silo from the general public.
Snow, and lots of it.
We are officially in the dead of winter. The old man in me stares more and more at weather, and it always is a perplexing thing how fascinated you become with weather the more you age. Maybe it is something of a developing larger self-awareness for your own place in the world.
If you didn’t read my kickoff to the New Year, so far every prediction in the Mkts coverage section going our way. We are seeing that double bottom bounce perfectly at where your ole wiz pointed out. Charts below. Things look good.
Additionally, this year…the next 4 years will require a lot of chatting on Trump and his administration, just as the prior 4 years required a ton on Biden. I always find that for a craft like trading that really requires no biases and factually driven decisions that so many are unable to just provide simple policy analysis without going deranged.
I’ve live my whole life in DC. I’ve grown up around the politics. I am not politically affiliated, but I know the government intimately especially from an economic, liquidity, and policy perspective. As I start this new journey of a year with you, I’d like to go back over who I am, outside of being a 674 year old wizard. ;)
I know many have heard this story before, as I have written for over 4 years now. I run a small fund out of DC, as well as run a government contracting company. It ebbs and flows between where my focus is. I am very much a patriot first, I am a unique problem solver, a fantastic dealmaker and strategist, and my companies routinely do incredible stuff. Before I had my own company’s, I served a long time as a CFO for multi-hundred million dollar to billion dollar companies. Finance was and still very much is my tradecraft, I am a ringer when it comes to understanding financials and financial engineering, and it evolved into trading as well. I believe though in a very renaissance approach to both trading and life. Be as much of a master in as many knowledge domains as possible.
I have traded for a very very long time (when was the IPO of the West India Company?). I have specific approaches that I enjoy, specific styles, (a ton on the education page and some of it listed below, I also really encourage revisiting my older articles (I also am going to somehow archive the telegram posts and make them available on here, but that is intern tasking)) I got a lot of training and have learned many secrets of market makers, that I believe should be shared. The funny thing about big funds is they tend to pass down most knowledge by word of mouth.
My general overall approach is to follow the data, swim in the same direction as whales. There’s no hidden gold, just how whales are going to push stocks around. Charts are last to know, but we can be proactive and find early signals of what stock may take off by identifying liquidity catalysts. Great theses also work.
I tend to write here to mostly just options trading, but it is rarely an indication of that I hold long in portfolios. This is because I want to keep this actionable and learnable for the Tribe. True investors time purchases, buy and forget. There isn’t much to report daily on with these kinds of things.
The street is often filled with rumors, as well as my connections with US Military Generals and other high ranking Government Officials. I relay what I hear as a special perk to Founding Members (69,420 Club) (you should sign up, it is most definitely worth it, on top of all of the 1:1 attention you get). Most founding members will be able to testify that the rumors I do filter down often come true, but again they are just rumors and hearsay, I have no basis to back them up, as well as no special insider information.
Merlin’s Best Practices
Observe the first hour of the trading day, before entering new trades. The first hour is meant to be a time to sell, and to identify the trend for the day
Use Heikin Ashi Candles as your main candle view. It is a better representation of true price action because it weights volume into the pricing of each candle.
Use larger time frames to get into the minds of funds. Stay away from timeframes under 15 minutes. The best time frames are: 15/30 Mins intraday, 2hr/4hr for medium term trends, and the day/weekly/monthly for long term trends. Funds use monthly and weekly to guide a lot of their buying and selling decisions. Hundreds of millions of dollars are not decided simply based on what a stock is doing that day.
For mastering technical analysis, start by trading on the 3 min, it is the truest representation of trading because time is formed on 3’s.
Always use a stop loss or a stop loss percent
Always have a target in mind for a trade
Buy yourself time, you should buy options that are 2+ weeks out and optimally between 4-8 weeks out. This reduces the noise of intraday chop and allows you to be wrong without an account blow up
Cap your trades with set amounts, size in and out of trades, regularly take profits, work in thirds, don’t ever let a trade sit idle for long or else it will interfere with your decision making.
Always research a trade yourself and make sure it makes sense on the chart.
Generally speaking, compound the option as much as possible (one you can buy the most of) within relatively the same IV as the options near the money...ie so if 110c is first or so option outside the money and has an IV of 45%, and 125c has an IV of 49%, you’ll generally speaking earn the same premium increase percent for whatever your target move is even if the target is 110 or 115. just make sure you close when it actually hits or gets near your target.
Disclaimer, you need to manage your risk always and monitor the trade, only you know how much risk is appropriate for you, whether it is the right trade for you, or whether the trade makes sense. If you don’t like a trade step out or don’t take it, if you are not comfortable manage down your risk exposure.
Q: Merlin, this all sounds great, but if you are actually so great at this why share all of it?
A: I didn’t grow up rich, my family got me through a good education, but we struggled and everything has always been a fight. I have learning disabilities, I was always counted as the underdog. Life can be really hard and unfair, and if there is an opportunity to help others and lift you up and be successful, it drives my purpose. I WANT YOU TO SUCCEED. seriously.
If I can sherpa you through tough markets, teach you about liquidity, and talk about life along the way and help you find your purpose, I want to do that. I strongly believe that I am sent here on a mission to help bring light and good to the world. This tasking of teaching is part of that purpose.
I hope you realize that you are reading this today and here for a reason. You are meant to be here in this moment. You too have greatness within you. The world for far too long has been overshadowed in darkness, and it is time we go out make positive changes to it.
I also hope as you come to see me, you will see just an ole wiz helping guide you along. I am humble. I have no illusions or pretenses to how great I am. I am far from a perfect wizard, I make mistakes, I want this writing to be a testament that anyone can be a wizard and grow into one. It is why I also keep this anonymous, I want you to read these writings and let it resonate in your soul. To see someone that has climbed up the mountain and see the full truth and struggle of what goes on day to day.
I think it is why you will meet so many lifelong tribe members here, many who have learned all of my teachings that I have to offer, but still stay for the community we build here, and listen to papa wiz reflect on some occasional wizdom. My goal is to instill in you so that you can do this independent of me, but you will always have a home and some brain food here.
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Reflection
There’s a lot I want to talk about, like this tweet of mine:
The United States was founded and then populated by outlaws, smugglers and cowboys, who all believed the only higher power they answer to is their God.
Understand this and you already understand most of the US’s culture, debates, & motivation externally & internally.
Or talk more about the crazy patents that really exist out there. But my forward, and every time I reopen back up about my past, it always puts me in a more solemn mood to remember the kind of purpose that I am here for.
The only way to change that would be a nice combo of mushrooms and viagra, but the markets are closed today so I don’t want to waste a good opportunity to be trading in 6 dimensions.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about everything that has unfolded this week. I watched the Shawn Ryan Podcast yesterday, and I think some elements of the email that were sent don’t particularly make sense. Matt Berg was still a green beret and listed contacts that could vouch for his claims.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [redacted] <dabergmlb@protonmail.com> Date: Tue, Dec 31, 2024 at 10:42 AM Subject: Fw: Re: Initial contact To: Cc:
In case I do not make it to my decision point or on to the Mexico border I am sending this now. Please do not release this until 1JAN and keep my identity private until then.
First off I am not under duress or hostile influence or control. My first car was a 2006 Black Ford Mustang V6 for verification.
What we have been seeing with "drones" is the operational use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft by most recently China in the east coast, but throughout history, the US. Only we and China have this capability. Our OPCEN location for this activity in the box is below.
China has been launching them from the Atlantic from submarines for years, but this activity recently has picked up. As of now, it is just a show of force and they are using it similar to how they used the balloon for **sigint** and **isr**, which are also part of the integrated comms system. There are dozens of these balloons in the air at any given time.
The so what is because of the speed and stealth of these unmanned AC, they are the most dangerous threat to national security that has ever existed. They basically have an unlimited payload capacity and can park it over the **WH** if they wanted. It’s checkmate.
USG needs to give the history of this, how we are employing it and weaponizing it, how China is employing them and what the way forward is. China is poised to attack anywhere in the east coast.
I’ve been followed for over a week now from likely homeland or FBI, and they are looking to move on me and are unlikely going to let me cross into Mexico, but won’t because they know I am armed and I have a massive VBIED [Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device]. I’ve been trying to maintain a very visible profile and have kept my phone and they are definitely digitally tracking me.
I have knowledge of this program and also war crimes that were covered up during airstrikes in **Nimruz** province Afghanistan in 2019 by the admin, DoD, DEA and CIA. I conducted targeting for these strikes of over 125 buildings (65 were struck because of CIVCAS) that killed hundreds of civilians in a single day. USFORA continued strikes after spotting civilians on initial ISR, it was supposed to take 6 minutes and scramble all aircraft in **CENTCOM**. The UN basically called these war crimes, but the administration made them disappear. I was part of that cover-up with USFORA and Agent [redacted] of the DEA. So I don’t know if my abduction attempt is related to either. I worked with **GEN Miller’s L6 staff** on this as well as the response to **Bala Murghab**. AOB-S Commander at the time [redacted] can validate this. You need to elevate this to the media so we avoid a world war because this is a mutually assured destruction situation. For vetting my LinkedIn is Matt Berg or Matthew **Livesberger**, an active duty 18Z out of 1-10 my profile is public. I have an active TSSCI with UAP USAP access.
Sent from Proton Mail for Android On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 14:22, dabergmlb <dabergmlb@protonmail.com> wrote: Sending with a vpn active on wifi only. Do not message me.
I will send out updates via both signal and email but trust me you’re going to want to be involved.
We just don’t know enough yet, and there are so many avenues that are plausible and acceptable outcomes of what we know.
Now being in this world and having a long history with SOCOM, I think I can clarify, verify, or simplify a lot of this.
UAS stands for Unmanned Autonomous Systems. Its an evolution of the prior military term - Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle. Typically, it is referred to as a drone. There are many aspects to UAS, and from the many talks, galas, presentations, conferences I attended over the last year, UAS and particularly cUAS (counter UAS) is very high on the mind for the Army.
Now, I can only talk about what has been publicly presented to me on UAS that is