Right, I'm going to get started. Thanks very much for attending this monthly market webinar with me, Michael Huston and Colin Szczewczynski. This is just generally a Q&A where Colin and I basically go through the various markets. Look at the trends, look at the drivers of the trends and really I think try and pick a direction for the next move in the markets. Now before I get started I'll allow you all to peruse the risk warnings for the various jurisdictions, namely UK, Canada and Ireland and wherever else you happen to be listening in from and once I've done that I will basically jump these out of the way. I think one of the good things about these webinars Colin is coming on the back so closely off the back of non-farm payrolls and it gives us a chance to really digest what we saw last week which was an OK jobs number but the revision lower was a little bit troubling and once again we've seen a fairly positive number from the US jobs market but a very poor number from US retail sales. We're not getting confirmation from anything else really in terms of what the retail sales and we talked about durable goods and some of the others. It's really interesting that we're seeing the jobs had a nice rebound but really nothing else has in any meaningful way yet and anything related to consumer spending in particular has still come in quite softly of late. Which is all the more surprising when you consider what inflation is doing. Those PPI numbers that we saw earlier this afternoon were very, very weak minus 0.2 and we're expecting a positive number there so once again it does I think back the Fed into a corner with respect to what it can do with interest rates so we've got a June meeting coming up. I think we can all safely assume that they're not really going to do anything about meeting but I think it's also pushing the prospect of a weak Q2 and that's going to make it very, very difficult with the Fed to even consider hiking in September whether or not you have a different view on that is another matter. I know it's really looking that way to me. I don't see how they can do it before September at least if Q2 stays because I think they're going to have to raise their growth forecast before they start raising interest rates because they cut them in March and at this rate we may not see them raise them in June either and the other thing that concerns me with the Fed, the other way is that they are painting themselves into a corner where we're down at, we've had three weeks in a row now of substantially below 300,000 jobless claims so you've got the employment markets going apparently really well for them but at the same time what happens if things go the other way and soften on them, they've got absolutely no firepower whatsoever with all the left after all the QE programs and zero interest rates so they really are getting themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place here I'm thinking. I'm a three month average for jobs who's 190,000 so unless the first time is dropped below 200,000 since the beginning of 2014 so that again feeds into the narrative of what I would suggest is a slightly weakening job market particularly if you look at the ADP numbers as well where since the peaks that we saw in November each subsequent month has been slightly weaker than the previous month so while we've been adding jobs it's been at a much lower rate and that's really been reflected I think in the S&P we look at this chart in front of us here and we're in a range we're not going anywhere the top of the range is 2120 the bottom of the range is I would suggest probably 2075 2085 on the wide of it you're looking at 2035 you know at the moment I think investors are very very unsure about the next move for US markets and I think if you actually look at this this particular chart here the Dow is fairly similar as well it's pretty unremarkable in the NASAC as well and I think what you're you're running into this time it's a little different is that in the past you'd have if you came in with a weakening US economy well people would go great lovely it means the Fed will come in with more QE or delay tapering or whatever and keep the liquidity piling in but but this time around there's no sign of the new liquidity piling in so when people are seeing the bad news now instead of or weaker news instead of saying great we'll keep the liquidity party going drive the market higher instead it's like oh well what does this mean for corporate earnings and what does this mean for valuations and and we probably reached a point where for now the the valuations have kind of gotten stretched and the end with the then no new liquidity at the very least even if they don't raise interest rates it doesn't look like they're likely to come in with a QE for either so the markets kind of topped out here and then on the bottom side the the economy has slowed but it's not crashing either so you do have some fundamental support as well and then you end up stuck in a trading range and it's not uncommon that we've had these the the last one was in 0405 and the previous one was in 9495 and we do you do kind of get these in in what I call kind of mid-cycle where when the central banks start pulling back on the liquidity and people are figuring out is the economy really strong enough to stand on its own or what have you but the point is these things can go on for the better part of a year so and we're if I go back to February we're about three months in now so we probably go we could have another row we could see this go on right through the summer yeah I certainly think I'm I certainly think that's a valid assessment you compare that though to what we've been seeing in the US bond markets and actually it's quite similar in terms of the range that we've been if we look at say for example the 10 year I'm struck by how similar the prices have been relative to the stock market you know again we're in a range in terms of the US Treasury 10 year yield which suggests to me that you know US interest rate expectations are fairly stable even though markets are trying to second guess as to when we're going to get you know a fed rate rise you know you and I have disagreed about the timing of the other of a fed rate rise you know for the past five months I'm still of the opinion they won't do anything this year you know your comment about the fact that they won't move on rates or won't give a signal on rates until they upgrade their inflation or growth forecast I think is a very valid one which suggests to me that there isn't a meeting between June and September which means that if they don't do it in June I move their forecasts and given the fact that we've just seen a fairly weak payroll number for April they're only going to have visibility on just one more payrolls number and that's the May one in early June they're not likely to change them on the basis of one payrolls number are they so that would then suggest to me that they would have to then revise their forecast up in September and they're not going to move on rates at the same time as moving on their forecasts yeah that's right it's pretty unlikely that's why I figure it is that they would probably signal by changing their forecasts first and then and then they're in there and then you would perhaps a following meeting yeah looking at October October or December yeah exactly yeah and then you've got the speakers they're arguing over well do we move sooner and take our time or do we go later and act more aggressively they're still turning through trying to turn through that as well and and they would you know the one thing I notice in all this is that the markets not really reacting to it anymore you know in the past we know we know the you'd hear tons of talk about well you know this Fed governor said this and this Fed governor said that and you know and it would spark some fairly significant moves in the markets and now them of late the the market that the the reaction to all of this has been has been much more muted where the market is like is almost like okay let us know when you're ready to raise them and I think that's really being reflected in the move in the euro against the dollar the dollars weakening because the thing the markets starting to push that out but I think what's more interesting and this is something that I've covered in my videos recently is the sharp correlation that we've been seeing with respect to the German DAX the German Bund and the euro dollar I mean what we've seen here if we look at the daily chart don't know how many of you can actually see this but this is this is the daily chart if we change it to a weekly chart here we've got a very strong downward move on the weekly candle right here right in there this this down move here we can see my my cursor that's very bearish we've got a tweezer top we've taken out the lows of the previous two weeks here if we then change this to a monthly candle it's even more nasty in terms of what we've got there a bearish reversal on the German DAX okay so we've got that now if we look at the German Bund and it's a similar sort of story again even more marked and it's important to understand what's happening here we've seen a significant sell-off in German Buns which is pushing German yields higher relative to US yields so basically what it's doing is it's actually making it less attractive to hold dollars that relative to euros if we also look at the Bund chart on a monthly chart we have got a fairly similar outcome here in terms of the bearish monthly reversal which would suggest then to me that that's going to be fairly positive for the euro in terms of the yield differentials so I've looked at that that particular chart is pushing down which suggests that we could well see further losses on German Buns therefore higher yields which should be euro positive if we now look at euro dollar monthly chart again we've seen a break higher but we look at the monthly chart again a bullish reversal in this case which it would seem to suggest we're going to get a break higher in the short to medium term and we did get an initial indicator that might happen beginning of February sort of beginning of March now we've broken higher if we can now look at the saves chart that I've got here which is the four hour chart we can see that we've ratcheted this move up quite nicely on the four hour chart and our and our initial channel higher is now broken above the channel and it's now basically drawing itself finding support at the upper at the upper end of that line there so if I just redraw that because sometimes these lines do have a tendency to need redrawing I draw that there snapping on the low snapping on the low there and then snapping through those levels there you can see that we're running into a little bit of resistance at the moment we are overbought I put in a horizontal line up here as a bit of a guidance threshold for us we can see that coincides with the February peaks so we're going to get a little bit of little bit of resistance in the short to medium term but we still remain well away from the 200 day moving average that's just to me that overall I think we've seen the lows in euro dollar in the short term and the bias now remains very much a case of buying dips on euro dollar buying dips on the pound against the dollar or alternatively looking at another way selling rallies on any dollar gains so then you're going to climb up out of a double bottom too when you look back at the daily chart that's pretty solid bottom absolutely through here channels now obviously so if you've got a double bottom the measuring objective really is from the lows to the highs and you project that higher well that's 110 that's 105 give or take that's 500 points so we're pretty much almost all the way there to around about 115 so we pretty much on the sorry you're getting overbought in the stochastics in your approach to a measured objective probably tells you at some point you might need a bit of a pause or maybe a bit of a pullback but you're right I mean this does look like a definitely a solid trend of higher lows and I think when you talk when you're talking about things like that it's important to look for confirmation and I think that's why I've looked at the bund and the topping pattern there which suggests to me that yields aren't probably going to go down that much more again you know in in German bond markets which then really sort of throws into question the the yield differentials with respect to German bonds and US treasuries and I think it's very important to understand the relationship between yield differentials when you're trading something like euro-dollar because when when when the yield when the yield differential widens in favor of one currency over another you usually get more currency flow into the higher yielding currency or not necessarily the higher yielding currency but as the yield differential narrows you start to get an adjustment process take place in favor of either the narrowing or the widening of the differential and I think you can really make that distinction quite nicely if we look at my Bloomberg here and I think this is why it's very very important in the context of what we're looking at in terms of government bond yield differentials if I look at this page here hopefully you guys can see this and you'll understand where I'm coming from this is the current yield differential between German tenure and US tenure is 154 basis points in favor of US treasuries that in itself is not the important number what's important is the direction of travel and this bottom chart here which is the spread which I'm now going to put on the chart in front of you there now if you see this 190 basis points level here that level there coincides with when euro-dollar was at 104 50 so that's basically when yields were widest in favor of the dollar and against the euro what we can see here ladies and gentlemen is the fact this differential is starting to narrow in favor of the euro therefore it's pushing the euro higher so if this differential continues to move lower it's going to support the euro relative to the US dollar and this is what I've been looking at over the past two to three weeks two to three months in fact to try and derive a direction for euro-dollar and at the moment you can see this trend here it is definitely moving in the euro's favor yes there are 154 basis points in favor of the US dollar in terms of the yield differential but it's narrowed quite considerably from where we were when euro-dollar hit 104 50 and we've taken out these loads through here which suggests that we've certainly got more scope to come in more more positive in terms of the euro you got anything you want to add to that Colin yeah I wanted to talk a little but I thought we could talk a little bit as to why that's the case and and why it peaked back at the beginning of February because I find that peak really interesting it's right around the time the ECB started their quantitative easing program and I've been tracking this on a weekly basis and so if you went with it what the ECB said we're going to do 60 billion euros a month would be 15 billion a week right but if you say okay fine well it's there's actually 13 weeks and a quarter and you have 180 billion over 13 weeks works out to about 13.8 billion they've been running at 12.0 so the ECB bond buying has been running below expectations and and the other side is I'm increasingly thinking this at least for the last little while that that Greece is continuing to be noise my thinking is the drivers that this that this QE program has not been as not been coming in as as strong as people thought it was going to be and and that they've been that they've been telling the world they've been buying less bonds and that's what I suspect is has been driving this the rebound in the euro the drop in the yield spread and but maybe there's other factors that I haven't thought of as well do you have any thoughts Michael well there is I mean I think it's a case of you know sort of sell a room of buy the facts they've been front running this QE program since the beginning of 2014 and the market's got ahead of the facts and it's pretty much all priced in now US 10 year sorry German 10 year yields were at 0.05 cent and most of the German yield curve was negative we've seen a rally in oil prices which would seem to suggest that these concerns about deflation that everyone was worried about are overblown and that's why you've seen yield start to rise simply because I think the concerns that a lot of people had about deflation in the euro area were overpriced and now you're seeing a realignment in people's expectations and that's why you're seeing a sell-off in German bonds and that's why you're seeing euro push higher because people's expectations that we were going to see a significant amount of deflation in the euro area aren't being borne out in the economic data that we've been seeing coming out that's not to say that you know Europe is going to come rebounding back like a lion out of the cage but what I am thinking is that maybe people were pricing in far too much deflation relative to what we're seeing and I think that combined with the rebound in the oil price has caused an awful lot of people to take some of that risk off the table and that's pushed bonds down and that's pushed yields up and narrowed the differential between US treasuries and the 10 year and more importantly I think there has been significant indications that the US dollar really I think has run out steam US economic data is softening so the attraction of the US dollar is starting to diminish so I think you've got a bit of a push pull going on in terms of interest rate expectations in Europe and interest rate expectations in the US and that's what's basically sending the dollar higher sorry dollar lower after the massive gains that we've seen in the past 12 months it's a similar sort of story if we look on the Australian dollar as well if we look on the monthly chart on the Australian dollar it's an even bigger monthly reversal there again it's a bullish engulfing it's a key reversal day and that suggests to me that I think there's more risk of Australian dollar going back to 90 than going back down to the lows that we saw at the you know in the middle of last month it's not just the Australian dollar that's showing us these sorts of reversals it's the euro dollar it's also the pound against the dollar and when you get a whole host of charts telling you the same thing in complaint against the dollar to yeah pretty much everything except in in Norwegian corona to pretty much the only one that's been soft has been the Kiwi dollar and even they've shown signs of life but they're looking at it at a rate cut yeah a lot of the dollars are and resource currencies are all turning they've all been turning higher as well absolutely and when you've got all of those indicators and people still saying they think the dollar is going to go higher that tells me that people are the wrong way around they're talking their book but they essentially want one and when you've got position values like that it also tells me that people are the wrong way around you know you are 83% of the cash position in Aussie dollar short of Aussie long of dollars if we look at the same thing with respect to euro dollar again we're looking at a very similar story 80% top clients cash positions a short euro that's not to say they're wrong but it just tells me that the market I think is overly bullish on the dollar and overly bearish on everything else and when that happens I tend to start to worry about the fact that people are to one way you know and we've got the election out of the way and again I think that had an awful lot of people short sterling and once again I think people are the wrong way around I think they were overly concerned about the prospect of a Labour government yet the markets weren't pricing that in you know if we looked at what cable was doing over the course of the last few weeks even before last week's vote it was showing signs that it bottomed out which I thought was strange given how much uncertainty there was around the polls but look at look at this bear bullish reversal on the weekly charts that we saw four or five weeks ago that was telling me that the pound was looking very well supported despite the fact that there was a prospect we could get a Labour government and that wrangle arm bells for me it told me that if we did get in any way conclusive result we were going to get a move higher and that's exactly what we got so you know in terms of the dollar story we now are above the 5100 and 200 day moving average on the cable for the first time since the Scottish referendum that for me is fundamentally bullish and that also suggests to me that you know as long as we stay above you know sort of 154 155 then we could well go to 160 which you know every fiber of my being tells me wrong but the charts don't lie or telling us that the US dollars into a into a pretty serious correction here I mean it had such a relentless move last year against pretty much everything that we're now into I think was a pretty solid countertrend reversal here I mean we've got the US dollar index back down under under 95 94 now I mean it could easily retest 90 at least it's it's quite a quite a pullback we're starting to get in the in the dollar index here and look at the top and then just the bottom is just falling right out from under it yeah I mean we can have a quick look at the dollar index I think on the Bloomberg which I'm going to pull across in a minute see you carry on talking Colin and I'll just call this up and then we can have a look at the dollar index sure so we had a major rally in the US dollar and then that was basically driven by two things one was expectations that the Fed would start raising interest rates in June that's pretty clear that that's not going to happen and and then of course we saw other things collapsing all around it so there was you know there was concerns about the UK election there was concerns about what's going to happen with Europe and pricing in a big Kiwi program and there was the collapse in the oil prices and other commodity prices drove all the retail the resource dollars down so you ended up with it was like this golden moment for the US dollar and a perfect storm for everybody else and we had this huge rally in the dollar and that's pretty much started in say last summer about the time crude oil started heading south and you know kaboom that's like nine months just solid straight-up trend a double top and now you're seeing it start to go back and yeah you know like well you can almost even make a case that this could be a head and a head and shoulders with a shoulder in May a shoulder in January and a double top head and basically that's looking anyway it's like that's looking pretty awful it is for a serious retrenchment this for me I think 93 40 and the dollar index equates to around about 115 euro dollar I think when you look at the dollar index you got to be aware that it's it comprises about 57 percent euro dollar so there is a significant correlation between the dollar index and the euro dollar to the tune of around about 55 if we change this also to a weekly chart we can see again there's a little bit of a reversal there but if we then change it to a monthly chart I think it's even more notable look at that that is a significant bearish reversal on the dollar index now we've seen them before we saw one here and we saw a significant decline we saw a little bit of a one here if we blend those two candles and again we saw a significant decline over the course of the next few months so that for me is a warning sign that we're going to see further declines in the dollar index over the course of the next five to six months that's five to six months it's important to you know articulate that we're not going to see it over the next two or three weeks we're going to see an awful lot of noise in between but I think overall as long as euro dollar stays above one ten and a half we get a pullback from where we are now I think you know any dips are probably a fairly decent buy low risk buying opportunity certainly on the basis of that chart anyway right before I'm Colin and I move on to other assets ladies and gents do you have any questions about a market that we haven't covered yet otherwise what we're going to do now is we're going to go on to crude oil prices and then we're going to go on to to gold prices because crude oil is actually also been fairly interesting as well sorry about that I think I've just gone and got rid of there it is we're back again back in the room so crude oil prices I haven't the opinion that potentially we may have seen a top I'm sure you actually I think we're we maybe actually we've had a pretty good run here and and it's crude oil starting to look a little more weaker to me technically and there's a couple of things going on so we've had a huge run in the crude oil price the crude oil prices can benefit from some of the some of the weakening in the US dollar but but something we got to watch for here is you know basically we had a massive massive sell-off in crude oil we've had a significant what we can call a trading balance a countertrend rally here an upward correction whatever we want to call it but at some point it looks like we may be starting to run out of gas and there's a few things that that are going on and if we don't just look at it from the the fundamental side for a second we had no people expecting that that US inventories we're going to build forever now now US inventories have started to to level off and come back down a little bit but the most important thing is to pay attention to as people have been saying well US drilling activities gone down US productions gone down and that's going to boost the price of crude oil but there's there's one big problem with that which is that the Saudis have increased their production more than the US has cut theirs so the and in the last couple of days the international energy agency came out and basically said that and overnight the Saudis have been going around clucking saying basically we're winning the market share war we've driven out that the higher-cost US production and and replaced it with ourselves and and the bottom line is that that overall crude market supply has not gone down this price war is going to go on for a long time so then and if crude oil does start going up much farther you do run into the risk of how long is it going to take for the the US shale producers to figure out oh the basically that the the Saudis have have done a number on us and and basically we should just go ahead with anything that's profitable and and so at some point I think you are going to see this this turn again and we are starting to see signs and if we look back to the top one then actually Michaels highlighted it here the gravestone doji and the evening star which are I think it looks like it's the topping of the pattern and coinciding with an overbought stochastic so maybe you want to talk about that a little more Michael yeah I mean as I say we've got the evening star formation here with the gravestone doji now we have had a little bit of a pullback and the thing with these patterns is these patterns require confirmation they're not hard and fast so for me the bottom of the gravestone doji formation is this horizontal line through here around about 63 dollars a barrel so what we need to do is we need to stay below these two peaks here this peak here and this peak here for this pattern to unfold so we need to come lower and we need to break down through here towards this long-term trend line over here the thing with candlestick patterns is unlike specifically with respect to a combination of candles like this is they require confirmation so they're not as strong in terms of the signals that they give out but say something like a bullish engulfing pattern a key reversal day a bearish engulfing pattern and a key reversal day they're not they're not as strong they need confirmation so what you're looking for on a pattern like this is a break through here okay so a break below this line to suggest that we've seen a short-term top and a move down towards this line here and potentially even lower through here I don't think we're going to come crashing off but there's also an additional factor at play in here with respect to crude prices there's an OPEC meeting next month and what we've seen this morning is that the non-OPEC members like Venezuela Russia and Iran and Iraq have ramped up production quite significantly simply because they need the hard currency and we've seen we've seen that reflected in the way the ruble is recovered against the US dollar as well so it's all very well for the Saudis to basically turn around and saying they've raised prices now that's and they think they've seen off US shell producers but also you're not factoring in the non-OPEC producers who are not bound by the OPEC quotas so we have a we have an OPEC meeting in June and I think what we're going to see there is probably not dissimilar to what we've seen over the past few months in that the Saudis will sit on their hands and you know you can certainly see that born out in the uncertainty or the corridor of uncertainty that we've got in Brent crude prices here between 63 and $68 a barrel but also if we look at WTI it's a similar sort of story on the WTI chart here and you can see that the candles have reacted in a slightly different way which is why it's always important to say these sorts of patterns need confirmation so you can see where the big support level is on the WTI is basically around $57.50 right through those series of lows through there so we haven't quite taken out that high but obviously what we have we have got here is some we have some form of selling pressure around about $61.62 a barrel and it would take and move through those highs to suggest that we're going to kick on higher so markets are a little bit worried about being overly long crude oil at these levels so I'm also looking here at a bit of a double possible double top there above $61 on the shadows and of course a rollover in the in the stochastics tells you your upward momentum is starting to weaken as well so we are at a point where we had a great run up in crude which is which is which is nice and it certainly has helped to take some of the pressure off some of the crude producing areas and the crude producing currencies but but at the same time we're not looking at a situation where this is ready to go back to to 100 or even 80 or even 75 at some point it we're getting to a point where it could potentially start to level off and and go back the other way because after this kind of a generational crash that we had which was the first time we've really seen it driven by a by a supply war since 1986 it wasn't over in a few months it took years for the oil market to to sort itself out and I think that's going to be the same thing again you can get some pretty substantial moves clearly up and down within it and you could get you $20 trend trend moves but but it's not a you know happy days are here against scenario this is more of a we've had a big sell-off we've had a right basically an upward correction and and at some point that's going to run into gas need you level off or start going back the other way again but but certainly this whole supply war situation is that is really just getting started in my opinion yeah I think we're just stabilizing it slightly higher levels after the after the sharp sell-off and gold is quite interesting in that we've ratcheted higher let me just get rid of that line because it's pretty old now and it doesn't really had anything to the overall analysis but certainly I think the breaks about these peaks is trying to break out here which again feeds into the weaker dollar narrative if we can basically draw a line through there that 1225 I mean we do have peaks here between 1233 but certainly I think what we're seeing here given this last three days we've seen a very strong short squeeze in gold prices and I think there was a story out earlier today about Germans buying gold coins on mass over concern that a Greek default or a forthcoming Greek default could actually destabilize monetary union which I think is probably slightly overstating things but I certainly think at some point we are getting very close to an end game on Greece and while the euro doesn't appear to be reflecting that uncertainty I certainly think that you know at some point over the next two or three weeks we could get some form of resolution and even if we don't I think they're merely delaying the inevitable which is a quick default yeah I think at this point time the Greeks the degrees is they're just so far and then I mean the solutions that were proposed four years ago to to improve things so that they could pay their debt only made things worse so it to me it's only a matter of time before they yeah before they have to do a default and people have to take serious serious right down even regardless of whether they they actually end up leaving the euro or not we've got a bit of a bit of a break out here as well on on the silver silver and a huge move up we had a huge move up on silver and my colleague Jasper's done a video on that which is now on the CMC markets YouTube channel which you can all have a look at and get Jasper's take on what's happening with silver it's at youtube.com forward slash CMC markets PLC where we post all of our videos and where we will be posting a recording of this of this webinar once we've once we've concluded it but certainly we've we've got a bit of a break out on the on the 200 day moving average traded above that for the first time since July last year so from a technical point of view that could be a leading indicator for a break higher in gold so certainly worth keeping an eye on that as well Colin is there anything else you want me to add before we look at anything else I know these are good at this point I should just be curious because I haven't looked at them myself can we take a quick peek at platinum platinum yeah sure I haven't looked at that in a while I have to say so it's been fairly quiet I mean it started to pick up a little bit you could you could make a case it's trying to break out of a out of a downtrend here but and let's just put some moving averages on that yeah put some color on it because I always think these movies sometimes as well for for confirmation that of renewed interest in precious metals and and so far it's been in the downtrend so it hasn't moved up quite as quick because sometimes it trades like an industrial metal and sometimes it trades like a precious metal it's a bit like silver silver does that as well yeah I was actually a trend line I was just kind of seeing in my head they're the one you just drew it does look like it's trying to break out here I think it has changed it to a weekly chart yeah it's starting to break out as well yeah it's not conclusive but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on that particular one there was actually something that I was looking at earlier this week with respect to the Nikkei the Nikkei in particular I think some of the Hong Kong markets look what we've got here ladies and gents potentially only potentially I might add we've got potential head and shoulders reversal forming here we've had a very strong up move throughout 2015 at the moment at the moment there's nothing to see here what we've got is potentially a head and shoulders we've got the left shoulder here we've got a small little peak there and we've got a right shoulder potentially forming here first indication that momentum was starting to fail here was when we broke this up trend line from the lows in 2015 now we're starting to track lower or be it very very slowly but what we've got is a potential neckline through here and what we're looking for is the confirmation of a head and shoulders reversal will be a break lower through this trend line here now at the moment we are we are struggling to make any headway one way or the other we've traded above 20,000 that's proved to be a bit of a barrier I think there is a significant prospect that you know we could carry on trading sideways for quite some time but certainly overall on the downside I would be keeping an eye on this particular neckline here given given some of the hysteria for one of a better word about Asian equity markets and there was there was a talking about Asian equity markets in particular the Australian ASX 2000 the all-ordinaries look at this here we've had a double top breakout on the all ordinaries three or four attempts to break above 6,000 we've broken below it the end of last week we've bounced off the 200-day moving average and at the moment we're finding resistance between 5,700 and 5,750 now if this is a classic double top breakout then you've got 6,500 750 250 points the target is down here at 5,500 I've basically taken this move projected it from the breakout point downwards that's our minimum price objective at the moment the 200-day moving average is supporting it we've rebounded off it what we don't want to see happen here is just a break back into this price corridor otherwise it negates our downward objective so at the moment the ASX looks as if we could be set for another move lower what could cause that a wiki US dollar and a stronger Aussie certainly worth keeping an eye on or a rebounding commodity prices one of the two so the number of there's a number of very nice patterns either started to form or in the process of forming all that have completed over the past three or four weeks so you know it's been it's been quite exciting watching some of this stuff play out because it's playing out an awful lot in the way that I expected it would yeah we're really seeing a lot of the you know these are some pretty substantial trend reversal patterns that are forming here whether we're looking at quadruple tops and and double bottoms and and a lot of these signs are just showing that we kind of well stocks have kind of gone sideways in the US and other markets are starting to roll over it does seem as though this whole big trends that we've had particularly through late 2014 early 2015 are now starting to reverse themselves as we head into the into the summer here and Michael could you bring up the the Hang Seng please the Hong Kong candidate yep that's a whole other one that was just screaming recently and now has started to roll back over it looks so toppy it's not it looks so toppy it's not true but it's like a little hat really because it had that explosive move up I that was on the that was kind of market driven that was increased increased trading back and forth between Hong Kong and Shanghai they loosened up some of the restrictions and yeah and so that's what caused that that massive rally there but now if you look at it does look like a pretty serious top forming there in the in the Hong Kong yeah I think someone once said that if that breaks down that'll be a vomiting camel so that's the head and that's the hump and then if it breaks below down we go so again you know I think in Asia some of the markets are looking a little bit tired for one of a better word and what you're seeing here is what I is a pause for breath and I think if you break below 27,000 with any significant degree of impetus then we could see a whole host of stocks stops triggered all the way down to 26,000 so you know you know for me everyone saying well stocks should go higher someone and so forth that may well be true but certainly I think in the context of what we've seen at the moment there are there is some evidence that stocks are starting to look a little bit tired we are in May and I'm not a big believer in selling May and go away but certainly looking at the FTSE 100 in the UK 100 again we're right on this line we did break below it earlier this month but we didn't close below it but what we do appear to have is this is almost like a rounded top it's not quite a head and shoulders we've got a left shoulder here a little bit of a head here and a right shoulder here when we rallied post-election on Friday what we didn't do with any degree of confidence is they basically take out that March peak in May we went slightly above it but we didn't close conclusively above it so there's certainly some evidence of a little bit of a topping pattern there but we still have very very solid support at the 200 day moving average and at the trend line support that we tested earlier this morning okay ladies and gents I'm going to wind this up now unless you have any other questions you'd like to direct to me or Colin if you do want to follow up on anything that we've discussed in this Q&A please feel free to tweet us I'm at mHusen underscore CMC Colin is at C. Sosinski underscore CMC don't ask me to spell his name because I can't sorry Colin but yeah but please feel free to either you know or either that would or drop us an email otherwise thanks very much for your time we'll talking to you again non-farm payrolls in June that should be interesting otherwise we don't speak to you in non-farm payrolls in June we'll talk to you same time same place next month absolutely have a great day everyone thanks for joining us thanks guys


We developed an ensemble data assimilation system to optimize initial conditions for carbon monoxide and aerosols, while quantifying emission fluxes with distinct attribution of anthropogenic and wildfire sources using Moppet CO profile V9 retrievals and MODIS AOD collection 6.1 from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer, MODIS, instruments. The assimilation system is built on the data assimilation research test bed, DART, and includes a meteorological ensemble to assimilate weather observations within the online community atmosphere model with chemistry, CAM-CAM. Inversions indicate an underestimation of CO emissions in CAMs, GLOB ANT underscore V5.1 in China for 2015, and an overestimation of CO emissions in FIN version 2.2, especially in the tropics. These emissions increments are consistent between the MODIS AOD and the Moppet CO-based inversions. Biasis and hydroxyl radical, OH, chemistry, dominate the CO errors. This article was authored by Benjamin Gaubert, David P. Edwards, Jeffrey L. Anderson, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


What's up everybody, Jason from jazkiescasebrakes.com. We just sold out 2023 Panini Prison and Football Hobbies, six box, half case braid, PYT number seven, from a fresh, fresh case. And that's rock and roll. Actually, let me also, gotta adjust my camera focus. Awesome. Here's everybody that bought in, guys. Last one, Mojo was Ryan, got the Raiders. Thank you guys for selling out this first half here, guys. Really appreciate it. Like I said, hopefully this starts with momentum, guys. We have two RMBs for NT Football Guys 2019 and 2022. That is just spots away, guys. The second half of this prism's already down to 10. So I think we can easily get those breaks done, guys. Let's have a nice Friday night. So one, two, three for the left, four, five, six for the right. Five, one, two, three, four, five, six. So these six boxes here, guys, will be for the next break, which is already on the website, down to 10 left. And then we'll use these six boxes here for this break. All right, guys, this house was fun, man. First one, look at that, start us off with Jameer Gibbs. With a beautiful purple ice Jordan Addison. Beautiful, man. Viking's gonna mark to 225. This would have been a great pack to get. Retro Jameer Gibbs Silver as well. And we got a Will Leviss rookie right there too, as well. And George Pickens autograph for the Steelers, man. What a great pack. Or that probably would have been the second pack, actually. First two packs right there. We got DJ Chark, number to 175, Jordan Addison, Quest Walkins, there we go, last one for the Raiders, Jacobi Myers, number to 149, hopefully a lot, lot more than that. Then we got Bailey Zappie, number to 60, Anthony Richardson rookie, and a nice Tim Bigsby Silver, and Odell Beckham Jr. for the Ravens. Scott with the Ravens to 225. Look at that, I see gold. Yep, gold. Vikings. Oh wait, no, yeah, Vikings. Cam Acres. That is nine out of 10 for the Vikings. I know it shows Rams there, but again, I think he was traded to the Rams, and usually it tells you right there. Traded to Vikings on 9, 30, 2023. So remember that goes to the Vikings. Our work's there. And we got Drake London for the Falcons. CJ Strout, we got Anton Harrison. Rookie there for the Jaguar to 49. And how about a Warren Zapp to 50? One of the cheaper teams going to Ron. Look at that, Wester. Franchise Legends. We got Khalil Mack, Chargers to 175. And nice Tyree Kill for the Dolphins. Wester got the Dolphins as well to 249. Dalvin Cook, who's now a Baltimore Raven. Tyler Scott, rookie autograph there for the Burrs. Winner, Eric. Dustin Tucker for the Ravens. They were the second to last team taken. Winner, Scott. Mr. Automatic. Got Jaylen Phillips for the Dolphins. 249. Wow, look at that. Bryce Young for the Panthers. Very nice purple ice. 71 out of 225. There you go, Sean. Very nice one there to start us off in this box. Jaylen Petrie. Chad Johnson for the Bengals. Going to Kev. Hype, Rock Purdy. Then we got Josh Jacobs for the Raiders. Green Scope. Daniel Hunter, little color match there for the Vikings. And look at that. All about our little Legends, Antonio Gates to 25. For the Chargers and Omar. We got the Chargers. There you go, man. We got Dakota Prescott there for the Cowboys. Going to add Drew Tranquil for the Chiefs to 175. Guys, next one. Nice Bryce Young Silver. Heart stuck right behind it. And look at that, Michael Mayer. Great pack. For the Raiders, Last Ball Mojo. 10 out of 225, Michael Mayer. There you go, Ryan. A little more of something for you there. And a Bryce Young base too. Here, Mayfield for the Bucks. Tyreek Hill, Purple out of 225. Oh, Snake Skin, baby, Snake Skin. Jets. Carl Lawson for the Jets, Snake Skin. That's Stephen Schwartz with the Jets. Antoine Whithill Jr. for the Bucks. And how about for my Eagles, Quez Lockins. Cup with that one. Dalton Kincaid. Amon Rossin Brown for the Lions. Another Michael Mayer, Purple. It's just the same box. I feel like it's the same box. 76 out of 225. Look at that man. I know we haven't got any ink yet for the Raiders, but color is very nice. That's what we want to see. Javon Holland. Luke Keekley. We got Dylan Horton for the Texans. 249, All Purpose. Jalen Ramsey. Well, they're for the Dolphins. The Dolphins are getting a lot of color so far in this. CJ Strout and autograph-wise behind Drake London. How about a Bijan Robinson? There you go. West or with the Falcons. Officially halfway through. Nice Mahomes. Silver Retro. Throwback, Flashback. We got Calvin Austin. Steelers, but no Michael Vellucci. Nice prism break, Bryce Young. With a Wes Walker for the Patriots to 99. Nice Flashback autographs there. It's going to Karen. Bijan, very nice. Chuba Hubbard. Calvin Austin again. Sam Laporta. Evan Hall for the Colts. Dentevon Wicks and Israel for the Jets. Wow. Look at that guys. Gold Vinyl. We'll see that for the last. Matt Judon. Daniel Carson for the Raiders. To 249. And we got Jeremy Shockey for the Giants. There we go. Jervine for the Giants. Jamiro Gibbs. Jair Alexander. And Derrick Hall. All right guys, here we go. That should just be either Rookie or Veteran Gold Vinyl. So we got 49ers. And it's Christian McCaffrey. Very nice. Nice to be there for the 49ers Jose. Two out of five. And I was lucky hoping that was a Raiders here for you, man. The Raiders have been doing pretty well so far. No ink, but a lot of nice Michael Merrick color. But so far guys, we've only just really hit a snake skin as like a case hit. And then of course that Gold Vinyl and then that Gold. Still plenty out there guys in these last two. Yeah, for sure, man. The color's been great. That's been great. And that's beautiful. That's the great thing that I like about Prism Guys is that at least you can get some good return back with just color. You don't even need the autographs. Jack Campbell. And really sometimes the color sells for more than autographs. That was 60. Nice Devon A-Chan right there. True Silver. And then how about a Jalen Lotto blue Campbell? I mean, Dolphins have been getting a lot of nice color. Ron, we're just missing the ink there too. With a lot of nice color. Alan Lazzard for the Jets. Trey Hendrickson for the Bengals. Trayne Kev. There's Pukka Nakua. Patrick Queen for the Ravens. Here we go, first auto. Oh, maybe not. Actually, whoa, is this a flashback autograph? No. And it's from my Eagles, Nolan Smith. Goldbergs, baby. Adam Copperman. We got my Eagles. Jordan Addison. Evan Hall. Derrick Henry. Richardson. Retro climbing up. 49ers, Purdy. And then we got a Travion Williams.  Jaren Hall to 149 for the Vikings. Mark with that one. Wow, more Jordan Addison too. 240 men. And John Randall. And there's our Aiden O'Connor, which we don't really see too much of him, but hopefully in this last box, baby. On the last box, yeah. So like I said, the only little case hit we've gotten so far, guys, has been just really the snake skin. You know, we haven't hit a mango. We haven't hit a profiles. We haven't hit a color blast. We haven't hit a patch autograph either. All right, we've seen like at least RPAs and mango or a color blast in every case. So we don't hit any here. That second half is looking pretty juicy. And obviously some teams that hit here might continue to hit in the second half. I'm sure there's plenty of teams out there that maybe didn't hit much in this half that will hit in the second half. Obviously we don't know until we open up the boxes, but you know, depending on what we get here, guys, it could be pretty wild in the second half. Yeah, maybe one-on-one in this last box. Yeah, autographs haven't been that crazy. Really only Bijon has been the nicest one. It was just the base two, it wasn't even colored. So also I think it was a Jordan Madison, but again, also a base. Justin Fields for the Bears. So like I said, if you have a team in this half, guys, and they're available in the second half, I would go grab them just to be safe, guys. Tanner McKee for the Eagles. Copperman has them in the first and second half, so he's securing all the Eagles' hits. Pickens. Oh, sorry, not Pickens. This is George Carloftus. CJ Straut, Zadaria Smith. Derrick Hall for the Seahawks. Jigarda 225. You got Darnell Mooney. CJ Straut Prismatic and Rahim Moster. Portals, Silver, Bijon Robinson, and a Dolan Cook for the Jets. So also Will Levis. Oh, I see that man. Now we've got a true camel here behind Jackson Smith and the Jigba. Jaguars, nice, Trevor Lawrence. Wester with that one, a five out of 15. Very nice little camel right there. And then obviously the Jackson Smith and the Jigba is the flashback to 2012. We'll save the autograph. Zach Hertz for the Carnals. And a Ricky Williams for the Saints. 235. She-Rice and Dalsing Pinkade. All right guys, I don't know how many spots have sold in the second half since we started this, but I feel like it should be some good stuff. Cowboys. And it's DeMarvion Overshawn. Autographs are gonna be so much better in the second half. Alrighty guys, well I'll do a quick little recap here. Lot of great color though, I will say. Tons and tons of great color for a lot of teams. T-Laws nice, right? We got the McKee Autograph, Jordan Anson color, Devon HN, Nolan Smith autograph, Jerren Hall, of course, the Christian McCaffrey. We got the Wes Walker flashbacks autograph. Prison Break Silver, Bijan autograph. Just the snake skin as the case hit. A couple, Michael Mayer, purple ice. All right, that was a cool one too, Antonio Gates. Bryce Young color, gold cam acres, Pickens, and then that Jordan and Addison color match there. So again guys, I do expect the second half to be pretty nice, let's get it going. Jaspy's at casebreaks.com guys.


What's up everybody Jason here for jazzy's case breaks calm this sells on the football mixture guys We're giving away the last six spots in the full mixer away with this 2020 mosaic football hobby pack break number 162 and we're also giving away six spots free in this break if you bought a full spot in here, so First before we do any anything guys. We have a dice roller here We use the same dice roller for the list of random names and teams for the break and the giveaways so Here's the 26 spots that we sold So we're gonna randomize the 26 cousin were names the top six win free spots We'll add the six names into this list and then we'll do random teams names Do the break then we'll paste the names as well to the end and give away those last six spots in the football Mixer guys, so let's roll it remember same dice roll for both It is a five and a four nine times. Good luck top six get free spots one two three four five six seven eight eight nine Boom nine times five and a four nine Ron Ron Kevin Ron Justin and Ron congratulations After nine times top six get free spots Let's paste in your name here and put a little character sign at the end Let's you guys know that you guys want those for free And if you guys end up in the top six at the end of the night break And you know is because of your free spots Let's paste those names into the end of the list randomizer for the end of the break All right now nine times here on the list because her names and teams one two three four five six seven eight nine nine times Nine times Kevin down to Ron nine times one two three four five six seven eight nine nine times nine times Jets down to the bangles There and again just a quick pack filler. So stick to what you got. Let's do pack filler. Oh, is that almost is that a white? I love those white parallels Roger Staubach Stairmasters and I think the stair masters is a white pair. Oh nice 18 out of 25 Switch scenes and give away spots on the football mixer. Remember top six get spots guys. Good luck Roll it Four and a six ten times top six get in one two three four five six seven eight nine ten Boom four to six ten top six Just missing I was will console down to Justin. Sorry guys but top six Justin Justin Ron will Ron and Jimmy Congratulations, boom. There you go guys after ten times top six in Coming up next is the football mixer


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overlord here? So we're gonna be talking about scream six here in this video here again today So scream six has dropped a new TV spot that has highlighted some very important details related to the upcoming movie I will say this. I don't know if this is what they're gonna show at the Super Bowl I don't know if we're gonna get something different at the Super Bowl I would bet that there's a high chance. This is what we are going to get the Super Bowl But also there's a strong chance that what we see at the Super Bowl is probably much longer than this This seems to be our very first TV spot And I think what we get at the Super Bowl could just be maybe a little bit longer It might be a featurette of sorts even I would love for us to see a Featurette like trailer where we can see the cast talking about how excited they are about the upcoming upcoming movie Just have something like that play during the Super Bowl halftime show that would be amazing So just to jump into some of this TV spot and what it highlighted for one We know Marine Prescott is going to get referenced once again If you pause the TV spot in all the right places like many of you have Done and pointed out to me There is indeed drawings of Sydney and Marine in the shrine that I'm still going to refer to as ghost faces layer in that Layer-esque location that is a shrine as Gail Weathers referred to it as Somebody has drawn up very great replicas of what looks like the image of Marine Prescott when she was Reno Reynolds standing outside the back lot of Sunrise Studios from Scream 3 and Also images of what looks like great replicas of the drawings or not drawings But images we saw of Sydney and Marine standing to get standing together not only in Scream 3 But in the original scream when Sydney turned the TV off and went to go look at a picture of her mother So Marine Prescott will be briefly referenced Randy's employee shirt from the video store is also spotted in this TV spot in that shrine layer-esque location And it appears that Halloween night isn't the only setting for the movie. This is highlighted in the TV spot as well There's more stuff in this TV spot I wanted to touch on this really quick people were thinking that scream 6 would take place in one night And we have a better idea that that's probably not going to be the case It could take place all in one night, but it seems as though this is not the case We know this because the TV spot shows Sam and Danny interacting with each other near a crime scene and it appears to be mourning now Of course, this could be again at the very end of the movie with chances are going off of The fact that the words that are used in this in this exchange like we have to fight back or something This is not at the end of the movie This is something very early on seems like this is taking place after the opening Sequence and whatever other crazy events happen on Halloween night because if you're not is already chimed in to let us know That a good chunk of this movie takes place During the same events as the opening sequence. I believe is what was tweeted out But some other cool stuff in the TV spot relates to an extended look of the bodega sequence where we can hear Sam or terror Shouting behind you to the clerk before Ghostface proceeds to snatch the shotgun from him And then we can see Ghostface load the gun prior to shooting the clerk Of course, we didn't see this last time the TV spot has also gotten Chad mix a lot of attention Which is great because viewer non has already shared that Chad will be the heart of scream six What does this mean? I do not know my my guess is that Chad is probably going to have the most development out of the twins Return this time around. I know everybody loves Mindy. I love Mindy to Jasmine does a great job of portraying Mindy But going off of viewer non's comments I think that out of the two Chad will be the one who's going to be the fan favorite this time And he will be not that he wasn't a fan favorite in five I just think this though if we're talking about which meek is going or meek's twin is going to get the most development Character-wise I think it's gonna be Chad. I think it's gonna be Chad. I think Mindy's development is going to be very minimal but what's The saving grace of that is that Jasmine just just does such a great job of portraying Mindy and making her such a Likeable character that you I always felt the need to see more or desire to see more of Mindy I want to know more about Mindy if it doesn't happen in Scream 6 I can always get more of that in Scream 7 if she makes it out alive, of course But I have a hard I have a good feeling that Chad will be the one who is going to stand out amongst the twins this time around So in the TV spot we see Chad getting into a scuffle of sorts but People have already started to say that it's revealing who the killer is because it looks like it's one of the Officers we know was involved to Mark Maroney's character detective Bailey I don't think it looks like detective Bailey if anything this looks like someone is Dressed his ghost face and it looks like Chad and just somebody else who has not yet revealed themselves have gotten into a scuffle Of course I have seen people say that maybe this aggression that he's demonstrated in the TV spot is because he's getting revenge for Mindy Who just died previously or died earlier to this exchange?  I'm digging how Billy is her Marine similar to how of course We know that Marine was very significant to Sydney's arc in the original trilogy I like how they're continuing to play this up in scream six because we know Sam is going to be in therapy She's dealing with that nasty rumor about her plus a new set of killing starts So she shouldn't make so that shouldn't make those allegations any better We see Mrs. Loomis's clothes in the TV spot as well, which I thought was very cool Here's a thought for everyone to consider if this ghost phase isn't a stab fan and just wants to kill Sam and her friends Why did they steal all this stuff and bring it to New York? We've already been told that the masks that are missing from the robe costumes aren't replica So a lot of this stuff inside of this layer must be genuine evidence Why still this stuff if you don't care about stab we'll get our answer very soon But I just thought that was a very intriguing question to propose to you guys or to raise to you guys Now the biggest talk point of the TV spot has been the bathroom sequence The extended look where we can clearly see ghost face struggling with the ladder as Anika tries holding on for her life Judging from how high up and the nature of her circumstances Anika's death has all but been unveiled to us. Thanks to this TV spot Sure, she could fall and land on something soft like Frankie Muniz and big fat liar But that's highly unlikely back in December when that first teaser drop I want everybody to go rewatch that teaser to get a gauge of what I'm talking about Mindy seemed very sad in the teaser I'm certain she's looking like that because her girlfriend just died moments prior Sincerely go look at her face during that TV spot or during that teaser I meant to say that dropped in December this TV spot that we just got last night Didn't show too much, but it at least gave us more certainty of who will die during the Ladder sequence in the movie. I'm certain it's not going to be Mindy It's going to be her girlfriend and that would of course explain why She looks so sad in the teaser the very first teaser that drop right before a ghost face grabs Mindy She looks very sad about something as if something is bothering her But you guys can let me know what you think about the TV spot down in the comment section below if you haven't already Of course, make sure you subscribe turn on post notification at never miss a video in the description I will have links on my social media accounts. I am on Facebook Twitter and Instagram You can message me there of course to let me know if there are any movies news or reviews you let me to cover in the future And with all that in mind guys, I will see you in the next video


Hello, hello, writers! I'm Christine Kiefer, author of fantasy fiction and creative writing resources, and you are listening to the Well-Storied Podcast, where I share insights, encouragement, and actionable advice designed to help you craft sensational novels and build your best writing life. Always in 30 minutes or less, so you can get back to writing, of course. Ready for the show? Let's get talking! Welcome once again to the Well-Storied Podcast, friends! Today is December 6th, 2019, and as always, today's episode translates the latest article from the Well-Storied blog into audio. Today we are talking about three lessons I learned from a first three chapters critique, and if you would like to read along as you listen in, you can head on over to well-storied.com slash first three chapters. That's three spelled out, not the number. Alright, without any further ado, let's dive in. The opening chapters of your story are doubtless some of the most important you'll write. When crafted with care, a strong opening sequence effectively hooks readers into your story, encouraging them to keep turning pages to learn more about your character's plot and story world. A poor opening sequence, on the other hand, can lead readers to toss your book aside in boredom or frustration before your story ever gets off the ground. Knowing the vital importance of a strong opening sequence, I jumped at the opportunity to work with freelance editor Isabel Lanz when she offered me her first three chapters service in exchange for an honest testimonial and review. I'm currently working on the fourth draft of my adult medieval fantasy novel, Lady Legacy, and here's a quick peek at the book's blurb. With her medical training complete, ambitious healer Kleana Gottrick sets out to become a world-renowned physician by earning a commission at Royal Court. But when her first prominent patient dies mysteriously within her care, Kleana must salvage her legacy by mending the heart of a grief-stricken prince, quelling the suspicions of his superstitious companion and finding the cure to a strange and deadly power taking root within her. Being four long drafts into this project, it feels like I've rewritten and revised my opening chapters a thousand times. Before working with Isabel, part of me was terrified that her critique would reveal the need for another major rewrite. Still, I knew that I'd rather overhaul Lady Legacy's opening chapters yet again than to settle for a lackluster opening sequence. Looking back, I am so grateful I seized the opportunity to receive Isabel's first three chapters critique. Though she didn't call for a complete overhaul of my opening chapters, thank goodness, Isabel's critique did reveal several key steps I could take to transform Lady Legacy's opening chapters from decent to well done. In fact, most of the feedback Isabel shared with me boiled down into one of three key pieces of advice, and it's these lessons learned that I'd love to share with you today. Your first three chapters might not need improvement in the same ways that mine did, but these are doubtless important lessons for any writer to bear in mind when crafting their novel's opening chapters, so let's dive in. Lesson number one, it's okay to take your time. Generally speaking, the more quickly an opening chapter can hook readers in, the better. But many writers mistakenly believe that the key to a good hook is to drop readers into the middle of a major conflict, a fistfight, an argument, a horrifying murder. These high stakes conflicts are gripping, right? Well, maybe not. Are readers really going to care who wins the duel if they don't even know who the characters are or what's at stake? Will your character's bitter argument have any emotional impact if your readers can hardly discern which character is which? A good hook always begins with character, not conflict. This is a lesson I bore in mind when writing the first chapter of Lady Legacy, but what I failed to understand is that an opening chapter will always fall short of gripping readers if you set too fast of a pace, regardless of the type of scene you open with. To hook readers, I thought I needed to move through my first chapter as quickly as possible, creating a strong sense of forward motion that would draw readers into the heart of my story. Sounds good, right? The only problem is that this belief led me to cut or withhold vital pieces of information that ultimately would have helped me craft a more compelling opening scene. The key lesson I learned here is that it's okay to take your time in the first draft. A good hook isn't necessarily a fast paced hook. Rather, it's one that simply deeply intrigues readers. And as I'll share with you in my next two lessons, you can't intrigue readers if they fail to connect with your protagonist or your story world, which leads us to lesson number two. Don't skimp on internal dialogue. There's a lot that a good opening sequence must accomplish. It needs to introduce the protagonist and their everyday world, show why the protagonist is dissatisfied with that world in some way, and set the scene for the conflict that will push the protagonist into the journey to come. As you can see, character is truly the backbone of story. It's your protagonist's actions that will drive the plot and their motivations that will make readers care. If readers fail to connect with your main character during your story's opening chapters, then you will fail to hook readers into your story. One of the easiest ways to encourage this reader-character connection is to let readers peek inside your protagonist's mind. In an effort to keep my opening sequence gripping, I failed to do just this. The readers were able to see and experience the opening scenes through the eyes of my protagonist, Kleana Gotrick. I rarely allowed them to glimpse what Kleana was thinking or feeling. Big mistake. By working back through my opening chapters to sneak in small bits of internal dialogue, I was able to craft a far more personal and compelling narrative, which will always make for a stronger hook. Finally, friends, let's talk about lesson number three. Find ways to establish key exposition. Relating exposition in your novel's opening chapters can be tough. Too much exposition, the context information that helps readers make sense of your story world, can slow the pace of your story to a crawl, while too little exposition can leave your readers feeling lost and confused. In trying to maintain a fast-paced narrative, I made the mistake of cutting too much exposition from Lady Legacy's opening chapters. In fact, most of the feedback in Isabel's editorial letter addressed this key lack of context. Isabel noted that she was unable to discern my character's ages and appearances, my protagonist's position in society, the type of relationship that two prominent characters shared, the meaning of many of the world-building terms that are unique to my story, and more, unfortunately. Readers certainly don't need to understand every facet of your story world upfront. In fact, it's usually better to sprinkle expositional details throughout a story than to info-dump in a way that disrupts the story's pace. But as evidenced in my own novel, a failure to share basic expositional details early on can lead to an opening sequence that feels rushed and confusing rather than gripping. At the end of the day, applying these three lessons to my manuscript was an easy task that made a huge impact. In just a few short days, I was able to review my first three chapters and add in key pieces of inner dialogue and exposition that cut down on rear confusion while making Lady Legacy's opening sequence much more compelling. Talk about a better hook, right? If you aren't sure whether your opening chapters are the best that they can be, then don't be afraid to seek feedback from an editor, beta reader, or critique partner. The receiving feedback can be tough, it's also essential. Truly constructive criticism exists to help you make your story the best that it can be, and in the process, it helps you become a better writer as well. Isabelle's first three chapters' critique didn't just help me polish Lady Legacy's opening sequence too high shine. It also helped me improve my knowledge of the craft and further develop my critical eye. Because of this feedback, I know I'll be able to craft even stronger opening chapters right out of the gate the next time I draft a new story. If you're eager to receive feedback on your novel's opening chapters, don't miss Isabelle Lan's first three chapters' critique. Isabelle has worked as an editor both in-house and freelance and now focuses primarily on historical fiction, fantasy, crime, and mystery genres. She also has editing membership and qualifications from UK training providers, the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. So if you would like to check out her work and maybe check out her first three chapters' critique service, I will leave a link to her website for you in today's episode description. But regardless writers, I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the podcast and I hope that these three lessons give you some serious food for thought that may help you improve your own opening chapters as well. Remember, your opening chapters are some of the most vital to get right. They have the power to hook readers in or to make them set aside your book before they even get started. So don't hesitate to give your opening chapters some serious consideration and maybe to seek feedback if you think that it would be helpful to your writing process. Until next time, happy writing. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the podcast writer. I hope you found it helpful to your writing journey. If so, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode and to give the podcast a quick rating and review. Doing so goes a long way toward helping the podcast reach new writers and lets me know that you're enjoying what I'm creating. You can also give me a shout out directly on Twitter at christen underscore keeper. For additional guidance as you work to craft sensational novels and build your best writing life, be sure to head on over to www.well-storied.com where I share blog posts, workbooks, e-courses and other helpful resources for writers. Again, that's w-e-l-l-s-t-o-r-i-e-d.com. Thank you again for tuning into today's episode, my friend. Until next time, happy writing!


Hey guys, it's MJ the student's actually and in this video I want to look at the actuarial seminars that will be taking place in Cape Town in 2016 All the seminars will be taking place in Cape Town's University known as UCT The time will be between 1 and 2 p.m. In upper campus. I've got all the details there and it's going to be happening every Thursday and this video I'm just going to go through the dates and the topics of the various seminars So first up on the 18th of February The seminar will be on childbearing in a context of high child mortality the experience of mosin beak On the 25th of February this the topic will be generalized additive Gaussian models of the term structure On the 3rd of March the topic will be a detailed analysis of calendar data Understanding contraceptive use dynamics and the implications for reproductive behavior in eastern Africa On the 10th of March the topic will be the effect of financial position on happiness in retirement On the 17th of March the topic will be estimating level and trend in old age mortality in South Africa on The 7th of April the topic will be modeling the effect of IPv and IPv prevention on HIV incidence On the 14th of April the topic will be declining dispersion despicable or desirable On the 21st of April the topic will be childbearing among women living with HIV in Guguletu On the 28th of April the topic will be asset pricing with myopic loss aversions to credit default On the 5th of May the topic will be assessing men's level of education on women's reproductive health and child well-being in developing countries and Then finally on the 12th of May the topic will be the equity risk premium and its influence on Pre-retirement investment strategy Now I know I read through that quite quickly so my final slide I do just have a summary of all the topics who the presenter is going to be and the date that they're going to be on I went to one of these back in 2014 there are a lot of fun. They're a great way to meet other activities So if you're in Cape Town And you're available during the lunch break on Thursdays then I would encourage you to pull through and Just see what what research is being done on actuarial science in Africa and It's gonna be an enjoyable time But that's all thanks for watching and stay tuned and subscribe for some more actuarial science videos. Cheers