Trading
The trades this week have been mediocre at best. All loses creating a dip in my balance. I think I was too eager to place trades when the setup was not present. I am particularly ashamed of one trade that I put on Tuesday. What happened it that I wanted to go long and once JOLTS job openings report came out positive the price tanked. I thought it was a good idea to catch a falling knife and cut myself pretty bad.

The rest of the week has simply been bad decisions. I guess at the same time my bias for the week was bearish and the beginning of the week has been trending higher leading to all trades getting stopped out. However, by the end of the week the trend's true colors showed and price fell off.

What I learned
A strong dollar is generally negative for risk assets. Reasons for this are the following:
1. Increased Cost for global borrowers: Many countries issue debt denominated in USD, as the USD gets stronger it creates the cost of servicing debt greater in local currency terms. This leads to financial horrors for those needing to pay. It's like your debt is getting larger on top of the interest owed on it. This leads to less money flowing around the economy and risk assets.

2. Tighter Global Financial Conditions: A stronger USD is tied to higher interest rates, making it more attractive for investors to buy and hold USD. More USD being held and bought mean people aren't using that money to invest into stocks or crypto, reducing the liquidity in the markets along with their risk appetite.

This may be obvious to many but what stood out to me is that a higher GDP environment leads to higher inflation which then results in rising interest rates. As GDP declines interest rates follow. This system is much like a water valve where GDP is the water and interest rates is the valve that controls the flow of water. If the economy is thirsty then let it rip and once its overflowing the water has to be tapped out.

When investors get cold feet, they don't just buy fuzzy socks, they also ape into a safe haven asset such as the dollar and leave risk assets such as growth stocks and crypto off the table. I admit to taking part in this phenomenon. When I feel the economy is not doing good or interest rates are rising, I'll jump into cash until it comes time to flip the risk-on switch.

I remember hearing Macro dudes on twitter yell out that Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE program is actually bad for the markets and at first, I thought they were crazy because ever since DOGE has been announced my $DOGE has only mooned along with the entire crypto market. However, once I started to read into it more and learning the points mentioned above it is pretty clear that DOGE's goal is to cut the government spending excess fat in hopes to reduce US debt. When a company reduces spending and debt, wouldn't that look like an appealing investment to hold for a while? It does. So, then this is going to be the mindset of investors as they look at the US Dollar. My point is that DOGE will increase the strength of the dollar leading to a chock hold into risk assets. More inflows to the dollar, reducing liquidity in the markets.