frankz

S&P 500 down 1.5%. Nasdaq down 2%. Dow lost 50,000. None of this was a surprise if you were reading the Daily View. Individual stocks had been screaming chop, not trend since January. This week, the indexes finally caught up. The Daily View Called It Feb 10: “The most enticing setups are the single stock inverse ETFs: DAMD, AVS, IREZ, TSLZ, MUD.” Feb 11: “BREADTH SAYS RISK ON, ACTUAL SWINGS STILL SAY DEFENSE.” Feb 12: “Inverse stock ETFs are working better than most individual names and better than index ETF shorting.” Feb 13: S&P drops 1.6%. Nasdaq drops 2%. Dashboard [...]

1. Momentum News hits. Volume expands. Price moves fast. This is where amateurs pile in. Professionals?They wait. 2. Contraction (The Opportunity Zone) Stocks digest gains.Ranges tighten.Volume fades.Volatility compresses. 3. Expansion Breakout → range expansion → emotional buying. Now you sell into strength. Buy tight. Sell loose. After decades in the market, I’ve learned that trading is less about prediction and more about recognizing cycles.When you train your eye to spot contraction, you stop chasing — and start positioning. What contraction looks like: • 10–25 day consolidations• Higher lows• Range tightening• Declining volume• Support respecting the 10 / 21 day Never [...]

Single-stock inverse ETFs can be incredibly effective trading tools — but only when used properly. Do not chart the ETF. You must chart the underlying instrument. When positioning for downside in Silver, the analysis was done on Silver itself — the ETF was simply the execution vehicle. THE ZSL TRADES — THE STORY OF THE MONTH The two biggest wins in January weren't stocks. They were ZSL — the ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF. Two separate trades. Two separate entries. Same read on the same market. Trade 1: Entered 01/29 at $1.51. Out 01/30 at $2.29. +42.06% in a single session. [...]

Silver was down as much as 35% from the peak. From the moment I woke up and saw silver futures, I locked in. We’ve seen this movie before. I’ve written about it countless times—the only thing that ever changes is the symbol: https://frankzorrilla.com/is-tesla-parabolic-move-a-concern-for-the-overall-market/ What Always Happens in Parabolic Phases I’ve written this many times, across cycles and symbols: Logic disappears. The language gets extreme: “This time is different.” Price targets go vertical. Every pullback is “the last chance.” Sound familiar? If you been around long enough, you can actually feel it in the air. The weapon of choice was ZSL. [...]

I run two scans. They’re the same ones I primarily used last year when I joined the U.S. Investing Championship. You can read about that here → (USIC) They’re also the same two scans I’ll rely on again as I compete this year. In this 3-minute video, I briefly walk through: What the two scans are Why I use them How they fit my trading timeframe If you want to go deeper, I’ve broken this process down in much more detail across other videos on my YouTube channel.

If you’re not catching themes, you’re just trading tickers. Risk management keeps you in the game.Position sizing keeps you solvent.But catching 2–3 real themes a year is what compounds capital. I made this point clearly almost 6 years ago in a video most people watched and then ignored:👉 The market hasn’t changed. Human behavior hasn’t changed.Only the themes do. Over the weekend, markets digested major geopolitical news: The arrest of Nicolás Maduro Most traders made the obvious move: Chase oil stocks That’s first-order thinking. Second-order effects are where the money is made. The Stocks That Reacted Immediately (and Why) MercadoLibre [...]

In 2025, I entered the U.S. Investing Championship. 579 entrants Tracked for 11 months Ranked #42 Return: +28% That’s the result. Here’s what matters more. This Was Not a YOLO account. I did not trade differently than I trade client capital. No leverage games.No leaderboard chasing.No style drift. Same process. Same risk rules. Risk and Recovery Returns without context are meaningless. Max drawdown My account: 13.14% S&P 500: 18.76% Recovery time My account: 24 days S&P 500: 57 days Largest percentage winners STSS entry date (9/8) DFLI (10/13) ETHA (4/24) LDI (9/5) QUBX (9/17) IONZ (11/19) UPXI (7/17) Largest dollar [...]

I’m always focused on bases. Not because they’re pretty on a chart, but because compression is what funds expansion. Markets don’t move in straight lines—they coil first. Long-term bases, especially multi-year ones, are where some of the most powerful trend moves are born. We’ve talked about bases extensively here because they remain one of my highest-conviction technical setups. Stan Weinstein, in Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets, defines a basing area like this: “After a stock has been declining for several months, it eventually will lose downside momentum and start to trend sideways. What’s actually taking place is [...]

Last night I posted something simple: “Critical mining has my eye.” No headline.No news.Just what the screens were telling me. Less than 12 hours later, Bloomberg hit with this: The Trump Administration is planning to take additional stakes in U.S. minerals companies. That’s the narrative. But the important part is this: The trades were already on before the story broke. This is exactly what “finding stocks before they break out” actually means in practice — not prediction, not hype, just theme → execution → confirmation. The Theme Came First Critical metals and domestic resource independence have been quietly tightening under [...]