@adam-l I mean maybe, right? It’s a new paradigm so who knows what it will actually look like.

There’s more to, I assume, Russia’s isolation than their expansionism. For a start, the EU and member states almost committed suicide virtue signalling against Russia with the sanctions on Russian oil. The liberal hegemony of the EU has been so complacent over these decades that it hasn’t thought to buttress its position against aberrant behaviour from more powerful entities like the USA.

In short, Trump is calling it out. What the hell are you going to do about it? The EU can’t survive enforcing sanctions on the US, they didn’t prepare for it, like they didn’t prepare for Russian expansion.

Despite this reality, the EU still aren’t signalling a kind of unity or preparation. They’re absent, high on their own supply. In a pragmatic universe, that’s the definition of an unreliable partner. So “we” either shake of the malaise and face the reality of the situation, or we get consigned to the history books.

I know which I’d rather.

@deeplydisturbed Do you think there is a formula? I know there are a lot of formulae out there but soon enough everyone else has them and the bots are happily using them all over. I don't think formulae work well in market re-sets. A market re-set comes when hope, enthusiasm and greed have over run. Then communal fear snaps the market back. The big falls are usually emotional. People suddenly realise value has been exceeded by price and they bail out. The formulae that made the market rise suddenly don't work as people trade on fear not reason.

Guys who short falling markets trade on and add to the fear. I think they are actually reading emotion as well as value. They usually love to boast how they bought it all back cheap next week. They didn't actually think the stock was worthless, they just used the fear to put frightened people's money into their pockets.

I am sure there are ways people check for a strong down trend and check it is because of over valuing to start but then I think you have to go with "feels" (other people's). A lot of people having a justified fear at the same time usually produces hysteria -an irrational and over blown fear.

A very simple method of using other people's rational fear (and yes its too simple for the big guys but it still does work) is to think "where have most people set their stop losses?" People like round numbers. It depends on the stock or commodity but (talking about something I used to know about) gold is usually set by a lot of people at crossing the 200 day moving average. When the falling price breaches that lagging line there will suddenly be a heap of automatic sales. A wise man takes out a short contract when a strong trend approaches that line.