Welcome back. This is our third panel today on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. All conference materials are available for download at the bottom of the events page, and there's a link to that in the chat. This conference program has the full bios available and the agenda for today. This event is being recorded and will be available in the Naval War College YouTube page after the event. I really look forward to this talk today on IUU fishing with our experts. Our moderator is Commander Michelle Shalup. Commander Shalup serves as a special assistant to the 32nd Vice Commandant of the US Coast Guard. She has completed five of float tours, including plank owning commanding officer of US CGC Kobaya, an 87 foot patrol boat in Mobile, Alabama. She is commanding officer of US CGC Spar, a 225 foot sea going buoy tender in Kodiak, Alaska. And most recently, as executive officer of US CGC Healy, a 420 foot medium icebreaker in Seattle, Washington. Commander Shalup holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Central Michigan University, a master of public administration from Grand Valley State University, and a master of arts with distinction from National Security and Security Strategic Studies from the US Naval War College. She is an alumni. Please join me in welcoming Commander Shalup as she leads this third panel on IUU fishing. I have the honor today of moderating a panel with subject matter experts on illegal unreported and unregulated or IUU fishing and how these practices are affecting the global maritime strategic environment and what that means for our navies and coast guards. Before I introduce our speakers, I want to provide some administrative guidance that will sound familiar. All comments reflect the positions of the speakers and attendees and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the US Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, or the US government. Please keep your microphone and cameras off. Please post all questions and comments in the chat for question and answer period after the presentations. The biographies of all of our speakers are available in the conference program. This panel has three distinguished speakers. Our first presenter is Dr. Ife Sinachi Okafor Yarwood, lecturer in sustainable development at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Her work advances an interdisciplinary understanding of oceans sustainability and criminality as a question of resource management, environmental justice, and the disproportionate effects of depleting marine resources on equality, poverty, and insecurity. As a reminder, her full biography as well as that of our other two panelists can be found in detail in today's program. Welcome to the panel, Dr. Okafor Yarwood. Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to share my screen and then start the presentation. So today I'm going to be talking about the complexities of IUU fishing, the African experience, while the focus of today's presentation is seemingly an Africa and by the end of today's presentation you get to understand why, given that we're working with the theme of human security. I have also provided some global perspective to help us contextualize the extent of a problem from the global level. And in looking at this subject, given that we have human security to work with, I'm going to be starting today's presentation by paraphrasing this quote that is attributed to Admiral Don Fisher in 1904. He noted, if we lose command of the sea, it is not invasion we must fear, but starvation. Although he was speaking about this in the context of the tracks that the Navy faced at the time, this is actually the reality of millions of people across the globe, many of whom are on the African continent who depend on fisheries for livelihoods. And so today we're going to be talking about IUU fishing as a threat to human security. And actually by the end of today's presentation, you get to understand why it is also by extension a threat to national, regional and global security and not just a human security thing. So what is illegal fishing. It represents activities that are consistent with or in conservation of the management or conservation measures in falls to a particular fishery management or conservation measures, either put in place by a state or regional fisheries management organization. It is mostly conducted by vessels without nationality of vessels flying the flag of a nonpartisan state to regional organization. It is also managed by fishing without authorization fishing with a vessel without a flag fishing in an enclosed areas, including MPAs fishing and ensure waters, you know maybe fishing with authorization, but in areas that is restricted to the vessel, and also fishing for prohibited species. Why should we be talking or focusing on IUU fishing? Why not something else? Well, we're focusing on IUU fishing not just because of the significant contribution that fish make or fisheries product makes for livelihoods and provide an employment for millions of people globally. It's also because of the fact that it exacerbates the depletion of fish stock. So take for example, already globally, the marine environment is grappling with the impact of marine pollution, and I'm going to draw some example from the NIDA Delta area of Nigeria. The extent of all your pollution in the NIDA Delta area is such that 42% of the man group of the NIDA Delta is oiled, and of course this is very problematic because research have shown that about 60% of the species that breed in the Gulf of Guinea or the fisheries in the Gulf of Guinea breed in the man group of the NIDA Delta. So it automatically means that anything that undermines the sustainability of fish stock in the NIDA Delta is in itself a threat to the food security of countries in the Gulf of Guinea because of course we recognize that fisheries is migratory in nature. And there's also the threat of toxic waste dumping by multinational oil companies and and also foreign travelers from foreign countries and and also the intentional or illegal also unintentional sometimes dumping of toxic waste and some of you might recognize this in the image of this vessel on the screen of Probo Cola from 2007, which illegally dumped toxic waste in Côte d'Ovoire, although the impact of waste is not as extensive as it was in 2007, but the impact is still felt in some of the communities that were affected in the Abrié Canal region of the Abizhan in Côte d'Ovoire. And then when we look at illegal fishing and its extent in West Africa alone, some research have shown that it amounts or it represents up to 40 to 65% of the legally reported catch, making the region the IE fishing capital of the world. In comparison, if you look at it from the global perspective, there are also so many other regions that grapple with this threat, but not to the extent that West Africa does.  According to a 2017 report by the World Bank or blog by the World Bank. This something is done to manage fisheries species and of course if the sea level continue to rise by 2050, the fisheries resources in the waters of West Africa is going to be halved. In Nigeria I talked about up to by up to 53% in Nigeria up to 56% in Côte d'Ovoire and up to 60% in Ghana. And of course very problematic, given that research have shown that up to 50% of the fisheries in the waters between Nigeria and Senegal is currently already exploited. So that gives you the extent of the problem and the reason why we are right to be focusing on illegal fishing as a threat to not only human security but by extension national and regional security. It's a threat of legal fishing, because in a lot of the time we talk about illegal fishing and sometimes sort of excuses the fact that true legal agreement countries and distant water fleets are also targeting fisheries stock or fish stock that are already over exploited and therefore exacerbated the extent to which some of this talk is sort of going near to extinction and undermining livelihood for local communities and not allowing time for it to regenerate. There's also the threat of the blue economy or the development of the blue economy as so many countries not only on the African continent but also in Latin America and Asia and the Caribbean are becoming more aware of the potential of the resources within the ocean environment. They are becoming more interested in exploiting the ocean environment, developing the ocean environment in either through tourism, expansion of port infrastructure, all these things together exacerbates the threat to fishery sustainability and the people that suffer are the fisher folk who every day have to grapple with the fact that the fish stock that they're able to exploit is reducing due to all these activities are highlighted. And so now we're coming back to illegal fishing or the reason why illegal fishing is also very important for us to study from a global perspective. According to the FAO in 2020, in 1990, the fish stock in terms of the biological sustainability level of the global fish stock was 90%. By 2017, the biological sustainability level is 65.8%. That is of course worrying given that it's now four years since this data was produced. It is probable that given the fact that not much has been done at the global level to ensure sustainability that this level might have reduced or become worse from the level we're seeing presently. And then if we're looking at the cost or the global cost of illegal fishing, again FAO in 2015 noted that illegal fishing cost the global community between 10 to 23 billion dollars each year. On the African continent in 2013, the former president of the African Union noted Madame Zuma, she noted that in the last 50 years the continent had lost up to 200 billion to illegal fishing. This was in 2013. And then in 2017, a research noted that five West African countries lose an estimated 2.3 billion each year to illegal fishing. Those countries include Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone. At the global level, I've already talked about illegal fishing and mountain or representing 40 to 65% of legally reported catch in West Africa. So you can see how it compares to the global level where it accounts for an estimated 20% of the legally reported catch. So this is absolutely something that is very worrying and something that warrants looking at when we're looking at generally threats at sea and how it impacts not only the human people that rely on this fishery stock for subsistence, but also the states that might rely on the revenue for their development. And so why does this happen? Why does illegal fishing happen? So many people have already hinted the reason for this and the cost of their presentation. It happens due to lack or limited of enforcement capacity. It happens due to lack of state interest in the sector, due to a flag of convenience, foreign investors taking advantage of the minimal regulation or cheap registration in select countries. It happens due to corruption. It happens due to greed and it also happens due to politics. And in general, you know, the lack of authentic, you know, when we talk about this as a global problem, or when it comes to solving the problem or the threat to sustainability, the nations are actually very individualistic in the way that they solve this problem because they end up as fortunately unsustainable practices elsewhere in the cause of trying to ensure sustainability at home. So in fact, the way sometimes the global community look at it on paper, they look at this threat as a global problem, but in practice the way that nations actually try to solve this problem, they're very individualistic and nationalist in the way they try to solve the problem. And I'm going to focus on the next slide, the politics of this thing that also makes it very complex when we're talking about illegal fishing, what exactly amounts to illegal fishing, and can state easily contest it. Or is this also about power. And I'm focusing on this example because it's very recent and a lot of the time this is something that is cited when you talk about Oh, illegal fishing has happened. And then the next question is, but what is the legal definition of it and what is the legal contest that this thing has happened. And I'm focusing on this because in 2019, an NGO CFA noted or made a complaint to the European Union that an Italian vessel has encroached the Sierra Leone and inshore waters up to six up to six Italian vessels. And so they wrote to DG Mario this is the European Union my time department to question it, but then by 2021, the DG Mario's legal action responded, noting that no legal activity of the operators can be proven in this instance, there isn't the lack of exact nautical maps for the limitation of Sierra Leone IZ creates difficulties in identifying the actually legal activity from those being carried out outside the IZ and this is very problematic because as we know, there is no wall that delineates, you know, the ocean and therefore making this kind of argument is something that vessels that already have legitimate right to operate in any nation can make and they are talking about well, especially when we're talking about illegal fishing that involves encroachment of internal exclusive economic zone which unfortunately is actually some of the types of illegal fishing that we're seeing in Western Central Africa and also increasingly constant conflict between the trawlers in question and the local communities who feel that their fish is being taken by those that sometimes have legal right. We're not talking about those that actually encroach the waters or the EEZ to fish without authorization. And then what is the human security implication of all these things that is happening. What are the impacts. So we look at this from this perspective. In the bank report, generally, and due to the general impact of depletion, the income of fisher folk or artisanal fishers on the African continent have reduced by up to 40%. And so as a result of this, a lot of fishes are either leaving the fish trade to migrate to the cities sometimes legally, sometimes illegally. I see some of these examples been manifest in the cases of Senegal, a lot of fish and folk are actually openly abandoning fish trade and living for Europe. And when you ask them they say that the vessels have come and taken our fish now we're flowing them back to Europe. This is a very common example that has been cited by some of the fisher folks that have migrated or try to migrate from Senegal to Europe. They can also engage in illegal fishing in turn by fishing with dynamite fishing in areas that is restricted or fishing close to oil pipelines, and sometimes the risk of accident is then accelerated. And then when there's actually an accident we see the cycle of this, you know, the pollution from the accident the cycle of depletion repeats itself. You can borrow money to diversify their income. Sometimes actually borrow money from the wrong people, which actually also exposes them to threat, and also exposes them to criminal actors, who might then use it or try to use as a leverage to say okay you can use your experience to do this at a very limited risk. The importance of fish stock or fisheries species for women, given that over 80% of fisheries species actually marketed by women in West Africa. Unfortunately, a lot of women in trying to ensure guarantee supply is changing or pressured into sexual favor, in addition for insurance state supply. We also see fisher folk using their boats to traffic drugs like manganese or cannabis, and sometimes even engage or collide with bigger criminal actors to traffic drug to transport, and that's the pickup drugs at sea. We also see them acting as umbrellas or look out for pirates indirectly, which also equates to engaging with engaging in piracy directly, especially if they are at the higher level of the criminal network. Another very common examples of some of the things criminals of fisher folk have been known to engage in is illegal oil bunkering or even pipeline vandalization. And for them is just a thing of well we have to make a living somehow and these are the realities of today. These are the things that they cite and these are the reasons that they cite as the motivation behind some of the act. Even beyond the illegal fishing, it was very common for me not to present this graph, but I thought it was necessary to present it because some of the speakers have already spoken, have highlighted piracy as a problem. And I'm sharing this graph just for us to know that, even though the lack of monitoring surveillance and control might have inhibited the ability of a lot of the regional navies or regional agencies to actually be able to cut some of these vessels. In fact, this is something that maritime enforcement agents have cited that there is a correlation between illicit activities at sea, including illegal oil bunkering for example, or illegal fishing and piracy and amrobracy. And I'm sharing this data, just for you to see on the chart here the first one is relates to panofi frontier, it was attacked on the 24th of June, and of the coast of Ghana in 2020. While it was attacked, you have to look at this map that looked that sort of highlights its activities or movement. It has an authorization to fishing Ghana, right. And whilst this particular incident might not be directly linked to illegal fishing because it cannot be proven, because if it is not what the Navy is looking at or if they're not working with the Fisheries Department they might not necessarily be able to point this out. And we can see the way that is operating out and about different areas might suggest or raises suspicion, but this is not proving in terms of whether it was attacked at the time, whether it was engaging in illegal activities or illegal fishing because it has not been investigated. And that highlights the reason why we should be looking very carefully about the potential link between illegal fishing and piracy, for example, is the attack on February 25th, sorry, February 7, 2001 of the coast of Gabon. Le Panjiu 809 was attacked in the border between Gabon and São Tomé. It doesn't have a license authorization to fishing in São Tomé. It has, it's flying the flag of Gabon, but interesting thing is that it was around an MPA, a marine protected area in Gabon, it shouldn't be fishing there, it shouldn't be there on a good day. But again, it is not proving that it's fishing illegally because I do not know whether the investigation is actually carried forward, because it might be that it's not within the remit of the Navy to do this. But the possibility that vessels that might be engaging in illegal fishing are actually captured and as in the case of this particular vessel used subsequently to attack other vessels is one of the reason why even looking at it for beyond the trend that it poses on the environment. I would actually also be looking at it from the perspective of, if we actually succeed in combating illegal fishing, could we also succeed in reducing the extent of piracy attack globally, not only in the Gulf of Guinea, and this is why I've highlighted this. And so Hialun Peng is also one that is what is noteworthy, because it was rescued by the Nigerian Navy through collaboration with the Ivorian and the Yaudi architecture. But something that is very interesting about this is that this actually happened through collaboration between the fisheries agency in Kodobua, supported by the fisheries tax force of the fisheries committee for West Central Gulf of Guinea. Another interesting thing is that in June, the Nigerian government, Trunimasa, would subsequently find Heifan Loong for being around Nigerian EEZ so many times with its AIS switched off, that is its vessel monitoring system switched off. It didn't have any business been in that area because it doesn't have fisheries arrangement to fish in Nigeria. I don't have time but I just want to talk quickly about what the government are doing to solve this problem or trying to address this problem. Unfortunately, still in the spirit of talking about human security, a lot of the effort to address this problem ends up targeting the already vulnerable. For example, we see the Ghanaian government suspending premise feel for four villages because they were supposedly engaging in light fishing when last year in 2020, the same government was given authorization to tuna vessels to actually break the law and maybe to allow the same tuna vessel to allow tuna fishing fleet to engage in light fishing, something that is illegal by law. The people protested and of course with the Navy intervening, the government had to cancel that decision. We also see this in Bangladesh, for example, whereby effort to ensure the regeneration of depleting fish stock is targeting on the local people, they're already vulnerable by instituting fishing ban, something that I've been trying in Ghana. But the fact that these people are the ones that are already vulnerable, they are targeted, they are not compensated and they are expected to stay at home for a month, two months without doing anything. This actually presents an opportunity for this vicious cycle of vulnerability, possibly resulting in criminality to actually try it because criminal actors are likely to take advantage of people that have the knowledge of the sea that are vulnerable and also looking for ways to make ends meet. And so what is the solution without taking photo of your time? Maritime enforcement is absolutely important. The use of armament is very important because there are a lot of criminal actors that are actually in this business just because of the shared greed and the fact that they can make money from it. At the same time, we cannot solve this problem, looking at it from a holistic perspective, without centering coastal well-being, without centering the need for environmental conservation. And this would only happen when we also recognize that the local communities have a role to play in solving this problem. Local CSOs have a very important role to play in solving these problems. Thank you so much for listening and I apologize for taking so much of your time. If you have questions for her, please enter them into the chat now and I'll be happy to ask them of her at the conclusion of our third panelist. Our next panelist is Rear Admiral Scott Clinton, United States Coast Guard Assistant Commodant for Response Policy. In this role, he is responsible for U.S. Coast Guard policy in seven operational mission areas, including law enforcement and maritime security. Immediately preceding this assignment, excuse me, Admiral Clinton served as the Coast Guard liaison officer to the newly established interagency transnational organized crime strategic division. Welcome Admiral Clinton. Well, good morning and thank you very much to the Naval War College for inviting me to speak about this very important mission set for the Coast Guard. And really, really appreciate the opportunity to network not just with U.S. colleagues who are interested in this field but international as well because this really is a team effort. The Coast Guard itself has been engaged in fisheries enforcement for 150 years and that's enforcing the laws of fisheries throughout our 3 million square mile exclusive economic zone and in areas key areas of the high seas. I think for purposes of my brief discussion, I would, I really appreciate the doctor's detail in summary of the concern and the security concern involved with IUU. We share her passionate concern about this issue and I think through all your speakers, it's been noted that this is not just confined to Africa, but this is a worldwide concern. And so what I would like to do is just spend a few minutes talking about what the U.S. Coast Guard and our interagency colleagues are doing to work together to address this across the road. So, the way this began actually was in Newport Rhode Island in many ways because Admiral Schultz, our current commandant when he was area commander, visited the International Sea Power Symposium as our Coast Guard representative. And as usually happened in that forum, the Navy's and Coast Guard's normally would approach us on the largest maritime concerns in our field of work and the Coast Guard and typically that was search and rescue, drug interdiction, counterterrorism, piracy. And that was kind of what we were prepared to be approached on. And in that case in that year, there was, it was noted that there was a large, large increase in interest in discussing IUU and how the nations and the Navy's and Coast Guard's could band together to counter what was a growing concern across the world. And so when he became commandant and he continued to receive that type of feedback from our international partners, he guided us to draft and build a strategic outlook for IUU fisheries. And then subsequently we also drafted an implementation plan on your screen. You'll see a reference at the bottom, these are actually available online. These are meant to be collaborative documents, not just for ourselves, but for our partners that paints our way ahead in the way in which we intend to address IUU. Within that strategic outlook, I'll just briefly outline three lines of effort. The first one is, and we always say we're focused on intelligence driven operations. The first line of effort is to promote targeted, effective and intelligence driven enforcement operations. This is a unique challenge. I would say that the US does not have all the information it needs for this. So, is this is not only coordinating information sharing across the interagency, and across our intelligence community, but in many ways, it's about building the collaborative systems for the private sector and NGOs to share information as well. In many ways, the most important information as we saw in the doctor's presentation will come from other sources of information that we can collaborate and share to build a common international picture of the prevalence of IUU fishing concerns. The second line of effort is to counter predatory and ill-responsible state behavior, and we believe any nation that has the flagged vessels that sail around the world are also responsible if those flagged states are operating outside the norms of expected behavior internationally. And so how can we, when we recognize irresponsible state behavior, first work with the flag nation that's responsible for those vessels and let them know what we are seeing and what other nations are reporting as far as ill-responsible behavior. But also, if in fact there is not a response, how do we collaborate internationally to bring pressure and to change the behavior of those vessels so that they enter into expected norms of behavior and comply with international agreements that pertain to fisheries and other activities at sea. And so our third line of effort is to expand the multilateral fisheries engagement cooperation. As we know we have regional fisheries management organizations, and they have long-standing agreements internationally that allow us to collaborate in fisheries enforcement and monitoring. We are working with all our international partners and have spoken with many of them that would like to see increased provisions for boardings on the high seas for us all to mutually ensure that we have fair grounds for fishing and that all fishermen at sea in the high seas and in other territorial seas are conforming to international standards for fishing. And I think, you know, we see that through boardings, through increased enforcement as the doctor talked to in the end of her presentation, through increased presence on these vessels, we will understand more about the patterns of illicit and poor behavior of the IUU actors at sea so that we can take additional steps to address it. And so I think the theme that you see here is there's no one nation, there's no one agency that can address this alone. It's going to have to be worked through collaboration of all nations and really take on this issue. I think throughout your talk you see the extent and the concern that's building and it's only getting worse as time goes on. One of the larger approaches we take is to build through international multilateral but also bilateral agreements to allow us to work with nations to help them as well for enforcement of concern of IUU concerns around their waters, but also sometimes with their agreement and their teams embarked in collaboration with us help them enforce the law within their own waters, which is helpful internationally since fish don't have passports and the impact of illicit fishing anywhere can impact the global stock everywhere. So we've internationally we've we've had a whole lot of international initiatives, really across the world to include Africa. Since 2011 and working with our African partners, we've we've cited more than 120 violations of domestic fisheries law inside their exclusive economic zones and partner with those nations. In the Atlantic we recently sailed one of our newest vessels down there and collaborated it with the region on on IUU fishing in that region and really generated a lot of interest and good diplomatic discussion from their their efforts down there. Noting my colleague on the panel from Ecuador, we have worked with Ecuador closely in the area of IUU in collaboration and the real gem that they have their national treasure of the Galapagos Islands and their easy that is so important to the region, and we hope to continue to collaborate with Ecuador on that in the coming coming years in the Pacific Island countries we had Operation Blue Pacific which worked with the Solomon Islands Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia. And then, of course, we always do the North Pacific Guard each year with Canada, Japan, South Korea, and our own agency of NOAA. The vehicles that we use to coordinate domestically within the United States is the SAFE Act. And so, I'm the Coast Guard chair on that with my colleagues and NOAA that lead that effort they're actually 21 federal agencies, we meet regularly to take action to curtail the global trade and food seafood products derived from IUU fishing. And the effort in that working group includes a whole of government effort for for data sharing as we discussed here, support of priority regions increased transparency and traceability across global seafood supplies, improved global operations, and to prevent the IUU fishing profits as a financial source for transnational criminals. And that's a very important organization very helpful organization and so, so that that's basically the framework and I look forward to the questions and again, really appreciate this very important discussion against a mission that our commandant has had us very focused on. And thank you again, I'll turn it back over to the moderator. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral Clinton. Our third panelist today is Commander Carlos Garzón of the Ecuadorian Navy. Commander Garzón has served as commanding officer of two Ecuadorian marine battalions located near Ecuadorian north and south borderlines. Thank you for joining our panel today, Commander Garzón. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me share my screen. Can you see it, please? Yes. Then it's an honor to be here. I will begin just located my country. We are in South America and the Pacific Ocean between Colombia and Peru and because of the Galapagos Islands and its unique economic exclusive sun plus the continental EEC, we are four times and more water than land and then that is so important for our resources. Today, I'll be address about the importance of the fisheries in my country, the problem, the solution and the experiences and you will see the solution not just as a cost score effort, not even as a navy but as countries of all sources of power, which is diplomatic, informational, military and also economic. The last one is not going to be presented by my country experience because we are still working to have this as a source of power. So why is important the fishery in Ecuador? The main income from exportation, the first place is oil and the second and third is always a fight against agriculture and fisheries. In agriculture, the premium products of Ecuador is the banana and coffee, but in fisheries the main products are tuna and shrimp. And speaking about tuna, we are the world's second fleet country and approximately around 1100 fisheries ships or more than 20 gross registered tonnage which allowed them to industrially fish in our economic exclusive zones, but also we have more like 2000 artisanal fishing boats that they creates the work for the people in the coastal region. We are the world's second tuna export country and last year we produced $1,500 million. Also 1.6% of our gross domestic product comes from the fisheries and it allows to enable more than 500 industries around fisheries. So why is it important the fisheries because it's a source of food, a source of work, ship your development and exportation incomes also, so it's important for us. The problem as an operational factors will address the space and then we have the coastal of Ecuador, the Galapagos Island, you can see the red dots around the economic exclusive zone. These are other countries fisheries fleet. The problem is when they go inside of our economic exclusive zone. So we have to monitor in them. And also sometimes the turn off their identification devices and becomes like dark vessels. Another point in space is the distance, the distance between the western side of continental Ecuador to the western side of Galapagos Islands is 640 nautical miles. Plus the 200 nautical miles, it's around 840 nautical miles and on that over resources Navy and Coast Guard should be monitoring this problem. In the time factor with the historical data the fishes moves following the roads of their sources of food so we can see for example in January the concentration of the fishers are in south continental Ecuador near to Peru in May is the opposite north of my country and near to Colombia and next month, for example, they are the most concentrated fisheries are in the farthest point of my economic exclusive son. So the force, what is our main threat, the, the fleets that are doing illegal fishing and one of the most important thread is the Chinese fishing fleet, because it's big and because we have a history of having them around our, our economic exclusive sons. So we address the critical vulnerabilities, they have a long sea lines of communications, they need fuel and they need refrigerators to carry their products to their mainland. Thinking about the tankers and their reefers we monitor them and we know that they normally goes in and out the mainland China but often, as you will see in the right picture, they go also with South America countries also and not only in the Pacific but also in the Atlantic. So what's the solution. Once again, it's, it will be a dime solution in the diplomatic sector. We are having coordination between our ministry of production external commerce inversions and fisheries with organizations such as food and agriculture organization, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the permanent commission for the South Pacific, the South Pacific regional fisheries management organization, and we are part of the international plan of action to prevent deter and eliminate illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. Also, with our ministry of external affairs we are having a diplomacy conversations with the government of China. The solution is sharing information also we share information internal for our own fishery fleets, the Ecuadorian Navy share the vessel monitoring and the statutory documents. The Undersecretary of the Fishery Resources also share the fishing permits and the fishing trustability over oil companies, public share the gas stations for boats, the amount of fuel that provides to the boats, and the internal rent services share the building for the fuel. With this information we can monitor if something is wrong with this kind of information we could track and follow not just illegal fishing but the other illegal activities. What happened with the international fleets? We have projects in the informational source of power against that IEU fishing. For example, with World Wildlife Foundation and Global Fishing Watch as an NGO, but also with partner nations. In this example, with Canada and United States, for example, with Canada, we have a cooperative situational and informational integration system. And with the United States, we allow to use over Galapagos as a place for the operation of the P3 Orion for maritime patrol and reconnaissance and to have the information that they provide for us. In the military factor or source of power, the surveillance and control capacity is not just monitoring but also to go out with our resources. And we are helped with the ISS systems and for our international fleet, we use the ISS with satellite capacity to monitor the international fleet. Once again, it's not just monitoring from a desk, we have to be there. So for that, we have operational response centers which use Coast Guard, Navy ships, naval aviation, even Marines if we have to do a non-cooperative abordance of the ship. And we also track the critical capabilities which are the tankers and the reefers, as I told you, and since 2019, we develop a virtual exercise multinational, which is called Galapax with our allies and partner nations to begin thinking about what to do in the case of this illegal unreported and declared fishing will become a regional and world threat. So that's why we do it. And last thing I will address is experiences or last experience with that with one ship from China, it was a realer, it was captured in 2017. It was 13 nautical miles of one of Galapagos Islands, so Navy sent a Coast Guard and a helicopter. And as soon as they aboard the ship, they found sharks and fins of the sharks. So they processes the ship, right now the ship is donated for the Ecuadorian Navy and the crew is in jail because of the environmental crime. This is an example of how can we address just with our nation effort. But once again, if we have to deal with it, we have to do all sources of power, not just an effort of one country. And thank you for your time and waiting for the questions. Thank you very much commander goes on. And thank you to all our panelists for your time and insight today. I invite all of our speakers to go on camera for our question and answer session for the next few minutes. And the tenants have not already done so I invite you to start posting your questions or continue to post your questions within the chat. We do have one question to start off with and this will be for you Admiral Clinton ties a little bit into the diplomatic solution that commander Garzan spoke to just recently with the first line of effort in the strategic outlook. What role does information sharing play in IUU fishing and how does the Coast Guard envision that information will be shared, and how will it have an impact. Sir. Well, thank, thank you for the question. And that's, again, probably the most important line of effort is to get the Intel and info sharing. Right. And, and it's so part of that is within the interagency the US interagency whenever we have a new mission set. Consider how are we going to share our information between our own agencies, but in the IUU framework as we heard the commander talk about there are many other sources of information that frankly in some ways are better informed as to the illegal activity in the immigration space. Those include NGOs he mentioned global fishing watch and the world, World Wildlife Federation. Also other nations Ecuador obviously is very informed as to what's happening in the region, as far as fishing, fishing. And so, how do we combine that information in a collaborative platform where everyone can enrich the understanding of the problem set and share that information and provide transparency for where the fishing fleet is where irregular activities such as when ship turns off. It's a is just outside of the easy of Ecuador or some other nation, so that we can understand where the illicit fishing is happening. And together, use our resources to to go ahead and board and document that activity. In the case Ecuador showed some real success stories with with their ability to board within their own seas they have their obviously have their authorities over their easy and and and that's a successful outcome, or maybe that we approach the vessel. And then we share it with the flag state through diplomatic channels. The one one thing of note I just offered everyone is that we are working with both the private sector NGOs, but also with our own agencies in fact the Defense Innovation Unit right now, as a contest for building a collaborative platform on how all these entities could share information and look for anomalous behavior that may be indicative of IUU out there so so I thank you for the question very important one and I think that's how we would get after that. Thank you, Admiral. Our next question is for Commander Garzon and it's very much in the Naval War College joint military operations. According to your operational approach to IUU fishing. What do you see as Ecuador Center of Gravity, and what do you see as the Chinese fleets Center of Gravity. Thank you for the question. And the Center of Gravity to address the illegal fishing will be the Korean Ecuadorian Navy itself because it has the capabilities of patrolling in our own economic exclusives on and our threat Center of Gravity where will be the fishery fleets that are doing illegal EU fishing to and to address that threat, we can do it by our own sources of power just to as I address in the example with the Chinese ship to through the critical capabilities, but if we have or we want to defeat it, it will be a regional approach where participation the cooperation of the other nations and it's the same information and resources and we began doing the Gallup exercise in 2019 I hope you will continue and go to prepare for the for this threat. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would continuing on the discussion regarding regional architectures and regional maritime organizations. You mentioned in your comments that there were six Western African countries suffering high rates of monetary loss. Do you see continued opportunities, particularly for that region with partnerships for regional architectures and regional maritime organizations and how those can be employed. Yes, absolutely. And, and this is actually my way of trying to emphasize the need for a more comprehensive response to security threats at sea, rather than the continuous centering on piracy. So, for example, the case of the heirloom thing that with the help of the Nigerian Navy and the Iranian Navy, with the connection or communication between the architecture that actually resulted in the rescuing and capturing of pirates and the first ever successful legal persecution of pirates, with the support of UNODC, you know with the legal support that they provided is testament of how the holistic approach can work, how the region can take advantage of the architecture that is already existing and then working with fisheries organization and collectively working holistically and not focusing only on piracy, but focusing holistically on threats at sea, whereby the Navy can be ready to work to capture pirates, but at the same time actively engaging with fishing agencies to communicate and take advantage of the vessels or the assets they have to capture vessels that might have been engaging in these activities at sea outside piracy. So I think there's definitely an opportunity to take advantage of the collaboration within the architecture. Thank you. Thank you very much. And the last question I'll open either to Admiral Clendenin or Commander Garzon is what role does Interpol play in sharing information and prosecuting IUU fishing in the international arena. Yes, I had my mute on. So, so I think Interpol is going to be a very important organization as we go ahead in this mission space they have already formed several, several work groups on IUU and sharing information as well as practices and investigations that they have already made against IUU companies and fishing interests, but I can tell you that we in the Coast Guard have invested in that that we're going to send a full time Coast Guard service agent to be a part of Interpol specifically for the purpose to participate in those work groups. I think that'll be a very important collaborative tool. And I didn't mean to step in front of my Ecuadorian colleague if he has a response on that. Thank you Admiral, I just add as your response that the key is to have a trust between our nations, our governments and then to share in information, wherever the source it is, and also to address the common threat so IUU fishing is a common threat that it will affect us all, not just Africa countries, not just South American countries, when we don't have what to eat, it will concern the whole world. Thank you. Thank you. Our time today has come to an end, and we appreciate the time. Each of our distinguished panelists have taken to share their perspectives on IUU fishing opportunities for regional collaboration and global collaboration, and the challenges facing human issues. This concludes the panel, and we return to our conference organizer, Commander Cameron for comments before the break. Thank you so much to Michelle Shalip, Rear Admiral, Clinton, and Ife Okoku for Yarwood and Carlos Garzón for talking to us in depth about IUU fishing. Overall, I'd like to thank all the speakers and moderators for our morning it's been a truly rich learning environment for our global audience today. I'd like to welcome everyone back tomorrow at 0830 for a talk with Miss Michelle Struck, Principal Director of Stability and Humanitarian Affairs at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. After her keynote will have two important panels, one on unsafe mixed migration and modern slavery, and the second one on cultural heritage protection in the maritime environment. I'd like to welcome my conference co organizer and the Captain Jerome Elivi Chair of Economic Geography, Professor Christia Sparrow, as well as the Naval War College Foundation because they both sponsored this event today. That concludes the event for today. Thank you so much for joining us.


All right. What's up guys? This is Alex from Xtrades back to you with another weekly trade ideas list. Hope everybody had a wonderful trading week. It was quite an interesting one. We have been totally doing the opposite of sell in May and go away, which I thought was interesting because usually May is a very bearish month. At least it's slow volume slows down. It can get a little choppy. But usually we like to see some downside during May and especially June as well. Summer trading does get a little bit risk off usually, but this time we were seeing the total opposite of that. If you took it last week, we were looking for a majority to the short side. We're going to have a lot of put trades. And Monday they did work out. So they did do pretty good if you were scalping. Tesla dumped and Amazon dumped and a couple others did okay. But then after Monday, Tuesday to Friday markets totally picked up and it was full risk on mode. So a lot of those stocks did break out. So it didn't work out the way I wanted it to unless you were really just day trading. For swing traders though, you know, we do have to wait for that signal on the indexes maybe before taking put setups for swing trades. That's kind of gonna kind of be the mindset again this week. Just kind of wait for the indexes to pull back. Hopefully get validation on the individual tickers. And then we can start looking at put setups. Anyway, so we'll go into the economic calendar here. We're looking at Monday, May 22nd. We do have a couple Fed speakers. We got Fed Bullard speaking, Fed Barkin and Fed Ballstick. So we got three Fed speakers. So that could create some volatility in the markets. I feel like Fed speakers last week were pretty much a nothing burger. A lot of them spoke and it really didn't do anything. Jerome Powell did speak on Friday with Ben Bernanke and I brought a little bit of volatility to the market. But otherwise, it was relatively slow. And lately they've kind of just been reiterating the same thing over and over. And the markets already priced that in. So if we don't have the surprise factor, Fed speakers are not really going to do much. And then Tuesday, May 23rd here, we do have another Fed Logan speech. And then most importantly, we have the S&P Global Composite PMI flash. We got PMIs. That's a good little economic indicator and it can definitely move the market. So we'll keep an eye on that. And we also have the real estate market data. We got new home sales month over month and new home sales as well. Wednesday, arguably the most important aside from Friday, we do have the FOMC minutes. So this will be pretty much the FOMC meeting last time, but in black and white. So it'll essentially have some of the things that they told us in the press conference in the last FOMC meeting. This time is just going to be pretty much written down. And a lot of times algorithms will start to kind of comb through it and find something that's a little bit different than maybe we heard at the press conference or at the meeting the last time. So this can definitely be a market mover, but it really just depends. It could also be a nothing burger too, though, if it's just reiterating the same thing we already know. So there's no surprise factor in the FOMC minutes. It may, you know, may not move the market that much. And also at the same time, if there's not too much change, that could also be a little bit bullish for the markets because they're not expecting, you know, hawkish tone inside the FOMC minutes. That'll be an interesting one. I feel like I just did a video on the FOMC minutes not too long ago, or at least in the economic calendar FOMC minutes were coming up. So it just shows you how fast time it's flying by. And Thursday, May 25th, we do have the regular initial jobless claims. We got Chicago Fed National Activity Index. And then we also have the GDP data. So this will probably be a pretty important. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on that. That could definitely move the market. And then also we do a pending home sales year for year and pending home sales month over month and affect column speech. So more real estate data. Arguably, people are starting to kind of look for a top out in the real estate market. And that can definitely kind of hit different one to a recession or not. And the real estate markets pretty important to keep eye on and it can play a role in how stocks move. And Friday, probably the most second important aside from FOMC minutes is probably going to be the most important. We get the PCE price index. This is actually the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. They prefer this over the CPI. It just has better data for them to reflect whether inflation is coming down or not. And also there's personal spending and then personal income both month over month. This will definitely move the market somewhat. It really just depends if they like I said, if there's a surprise factor or not. And you know, if there's really inside signs of inflation sticking or coming down, we're definitely looking for that. Oh, and then I missed this. We got durable goods orders as well. So this is a nice little data dump here on Friday. So definitely be careful with that. Realize that this could be a little bit of event risk. So I mean, swing stuff overnight into stuff like this. I mean, it's pretty much a coin toss. You might want to have like time on contracts swinging into anything like this. And then as well, we do have the Michigan consumer sentiment, which comes after the bell rings for the open. So that'll be interesting. So we got a lot of data coming up and Friday can definitely be a market mover. So I'll probably be the most excited for Friday in terms of catching market volatility. And next, we're going into the setups here. So I do have five this week, I was struggling to find some and then I actually combed back through my list. And I found a couple interesting ones that I feel like they're looking a little bit overextended. And at the same time, I didn't want to have maybe a potential long setup. And I found a decent one on XLE for energy. So we'll go into that later. But for now, let's go ahead and get into PLTR here. So this is pretty much been AI height play. You can see it's starting to get a little bit overextended. Starting to pull into this major supply zone from 2022 is actually all the way from back in April of 2022. As well as we do have a major resistance here. So it did break out of that and that did bring some volume. We needed to get under 1162 for more downside. And that's coming from this point right here. So we need to get under that 1162. This is a great buy in balance candle that could eventually fill back up, maybe at least like 50% of it. I'm not saying that the whole buy in balance candle is just gonna fill down directly. It could take a couple days, it could take a week. And also, I mean, it could bounce halfway.  So that's just kind of how it is. Can't really expect, you know, just to plow through this candle in one day. So that's all I meant by that. But anyways, we'll go ahead and set an alert. We're gonna look forward to get under 1162. If it gets under 1162, that means it's getting back under major resistance that could invite sellers, algorithms and show that price is trying to reverse back to the downside. So like most AI stocks, obviously, Palantir is a pretty volatile stock. The implied volatility might be a little bit high.  But either way, I really like this. If you get under 1162, you know, that's a pretty good short reversal signal. And it could fill up this buy and balance candle. And then really, there's only support at this 1031, it just previous resistance to topped out here, also topped out here hasn't even back tested that level yet. So I would imagine that it might come back down eventually and try to back test this level and hold up there. But we'll have to see this is a pretty big breakout.  And I'm not a fan of FOMO. And I usually look for the contrarian side of that kind of stuff.  And you do have to be careful not to get caught in it as well. And you just have to make sure you're getting at the right spot. Definitely don't want to be, you know, shorting. The first day it breaks out usually want to wait for like a reversal candle, nice like red candle showing that it's reacting to resistance, reacting to supply, etc. And that gives you good confirmation of maybe seeing some downside. The Palantiria looking at puts wait for it to get under 1162 that might be a good reversal signal. And I could also fill this big buy in balance to the downside. So next, we're going to SOXL. This is actually a semiconductor play. It's a pretty much a leveraged ETF. So it's a little bit more volatile and it's going to move more than your standard, you know, SMH. SMH is another semiconductor ETF. It has a relatively low volatility. It's definitely not moving the same as SOXL here, but it's going to move similar to SMH as well and just the overall chip sector. But for SOXL here, you can see there's a major supply here. This is all the way from August 2022. This is a really big supply zone that led to a huge sale imbalance to the downside. You can see it's had trouble here a couple times.  It's obviously not the greatest rejection candle. So I would say if you wanted to wait for it to get up to 1840, you can do that. I think it's around that area a little bit closer. You start looking for rejection to the downside. We'll set an alert, put resistance, because that could be a better point to wait as well. But if Monday, it does start kind of getting under Fridays low and flushing, that could be a good reversal signal as well. And maybe you wouldn't have to wait for that 1840. But like I said, for any shorts that are kind of like, you know, moving similar to NASDAQ and SPY, you might want to wait for that reversal signal on the QQQ and the SPY before taking those. It's been like Pelletier as a high beta name. It's not going to move with the SPY really as much as it kind of has a mind of its own. So you really don't have to like look for pullbacks and the indexes for these kind of names. But for SOXL and stuff that's like following the chip sector, chips make up a big section of the NASDAQ. So you do want to see that pullback in the NASDAQ to get that pullback in the SOXL. But either way, here for SOXL pulling into this major supply, so we're actually already inside the supply. But then there's also just that major resistance at 1840. If you want to wait for it to get a little bit closer, that might be a better spot. But either way, this is tapping supply. So this could start rejecting pretty soon and trying to make a triple top. And then obviously your risk off is just going to be above 1840 in the short term. And then like a major risk off for swing trades if you're in puts is going to be over 1940 or so. And that's that supply zone high. Forget over that supply zone high. Obviously it could go higher. So you do want to make sure you're looking at those risk off levels. Make sure you're not just back holding puts. So looking pretty good here. Like I said, if you want to just mark that 1840 level, set an order to 1840, wait for it to get up there. Look for put scalps. That's probably all I'm going to be doing. All we're just looking at put scalps. And then for swing trades and puts, you're probably going to want to wait for those signals on the indexes. So S.O.X. out here looking at puts. And next we're going to Apple. So this is actually hitting a major resistance. This is a resistance all the way from August of 2022 where it topped out at 176.15. You can see it's still holding this up trend very cleanly though. So it is important if you're trying to get like a swing trade for puts on this, it might be wise to wait for the trend line to break. But if you're looking at scalps and you're looking for rejections off resistance, this is a pretty good spot to start looking at day trades on puts. Obviously you might want to see that spike in volatility and see a little bit more from the market. And it might be wise to wait for the indexes also to pull back as well. But this resistance is just so major and it looks so good here. I feel like this could start pulling back into the downtrend line. It might take the data sets to do that. It might take the FOMC minutes or the PCE to start doing that. But I feel like it might try to come back down and at least test the up trend line. Now for another trade, we can go ahead and set an alert on this and we'll just name it breakdown. So this up trend goes from this point up to this little point right here. If it gets under that, that's a major trend change and it could flush, you know, further to the downside. Right now, the focus is that 176.15 and it's rejecting pretty hard. I mean, it rejected pretty nicely on Friday if we go down to the 15 minute. Friday was very choppy as a OPEX day. So really didn't do much. But you can see really struggled at 176.15 naturally. So if you can see some follow through on that looks pretty great. Risk to reward looks great. Obviously, I mean, I'm not buying calls up here.   But I mean, risk to reward wise, this is starting to look like an area that you know, at least for institutions in Wall Street to start taking profits and unloading supply at this major resistance. Because why not? But in terms of the up trend line, like I said, still holding structure. So you would definitely need to be out before, you know, it got down to this trend line. If you wanted to reenter, you'd need to wait for it to get under the trend line. Simple as that. But this major resistance looking really good here. So Apple go ahead and look at puts on this this week. All right. And for the last short setup here, looking at puts on this as well as Google. But this one's going to need a little bit of confirmation. So you see we do have this 122.41. You got a rejection here. You got a major rejection here. So you can see it did break over it very briefly, but it also closed over it slightly. So what I wanted to do, we're going to right click at alert and we'll just put resistance. So if it gets back under 122.41, that's back under resistance to the big buy in balance here. You could probably start trying to start filling back up to the downside, but you will need that break under 122.41. It's really important to make sure you set that alert and wait for that. Otherwise, Google here is looking ridiculous.  NASDAQ hit all my targets to the upside that I was looking for. So I'm really not sure what I'm looking for at this point. We'll have to go into the QQQ here in a little bit and maybe I'll see something. But right now for Google, just wait for that 122.41, wait for it to get back under. It'd be a good signal. You want to see it, you know, breaking under that on a shorter term time frames, maybe like a 15 to 30 to one hour candle. And that's a good signal. And it could start filling back up to the downside. Right now, as long as it's holding over 122.41, this previous resistance can act as support. So it could try to make, you know, a little base right here of 122.41 and kind of just chop around there. Pretty much like a classic break retest go higher. This candle is pretty ugly. So I mean, it's got a very heavy top weight, pretty much a relatively flat close. But at the same time, it's still holding the 122.41. So you do want to see it get under that, maybe get under Friday's low as well. Under Friday's low is probably going to be like, you know, 122.20 or so. So if you really wanted to, if you really want to wait for it to get under 122.41, that's a pretty good psychological level. If it gets under that probably starts seeing some flushing to the downside. But either way, I hope you guys can see it. I mean, even on Apple, you saw that major resistance. It's very, very, very major. I mean, it was a huge resistance area. This one's pretty huge as well. So I hope you guys can see the idea of why this would be a good short. Because last week kind of got me looking a little crazy, because I was looking at shorts last week and a lot of stocks blasted off to the upside. So there's only like a day or two of pull back. And then we just went completely risk on. But I still feeling a little bit like the markets a little frothy up here with Google here looking at puts. Just wait for it to get under 122 40. And that's your confirmation. And next, we're going into XLE. So this is actually the only long setup that I really liked out of my list of 225 tickers that I go through every Sunday. This is the only long that I found that I actually kind of liked. And that's because they bullish wedge breakout. You can see it might be just a tad bit late, but either way, still kind of early of the breakout. Usually I'm looking to enter after a candle like this. And it kind of did gap up a little bit after that, but only closed up point 77%. So it's not like super overextended or anything. Your major resistance point is going to be at 81 75. So that general 81 area might be a good area for it to head up to. But this wedge is pretty nice. A little bit short term. I want to see a little bit more volume pick up and a little bit more rotation into energy. This has just been all about tech lately. But either way, spy QQQ both closed like relatively red, not huge. And XLE closing up point 77 to the upside. That's showing relative strength. Maybe showing a little early rotation into energy. Obviously just one day of relative strength is not that much when you just see a little bit more follow through. This looks pretty good. This might make like more of like a better swing trade by time on it. Let it work out because this kind of has been a little bit of a choppy area. Either way, if this gets over 80, I feel like this could shoot up pretty nicely. So actually here, I'm looking at calls, maybe not so much for day trading. For day trading, obviously, I'm looking to enter a little bit earlier on these kind of breakouts. So just because it's already popped out pretty decently, probably like go with a swing trade just because after a break out like this, I can pull back before heading up. So I'm not sure this is the best spot for a day trade, but either way, looking pretty good. It looks better than other longs to the upside in terms of risk to reward and also in terms of their patterns as well. I mean, I just couldn't find another pattern like this or anything that didn't just look overblown to the upside. And you know, and this kind of market, you want to add on dips. Breakouts are so short lived. It's really hard to buy a breakout on the higher time frames in this kind of market. I showed you a chart of spy on the one day chart. Every breakout, you know, that pretty much went up for maybe one or two days and then it just pulled right back ever since 2022 and they started raising rates. So it makes it a little bit risky and that can make these little bottom picks look a little bit more attractive because you're getting at a discount and you know, you can just sell it once it gets to a resistance. We don't have to be in them for long and they do get bid up pretty fast because they're cheap and they have a decent pattern like this, which is a falling wedge. So this is a bullish pattern. So exit here, looking at calls might look better for a swing trick. It could need a few days.  He starts seeing crude oil, you know, ripped to the upside. So I need to see a little bit more from crude oil as well. And this could rip up to 81 75. And next, we're going to spy and I kind of just want to touch on what I was talking about in the last clip here about breakouts since 2022 being relatively short term because you see a spy broke out right here. Only lasted three days before selling off. You got a small breakout right here at 410 once I got over 410 shot back down. And you can see it's trying to get over that for 1831, which is this resistance here. But either way, I mean, it's still kind of struggling to break out. It's not like a we don't have like that clear bullish momentum really yet, suggesting high volume to the upside and FOMO starting to kick in. It's still kind of within resistance here. So there's a resistance point here all the way from August. And there's one right here. And that's that for 1831 and then for 1996, we could just round that up to 420. So spy this week, it will have to get over 420. I would like to see it get over 420 and close. And that could take a higher. Otherwise, as long as the staying under 420 and you know, around this for 1831, I feel like this can act as resistance. You guys know me, I'm either looking for it to make support, make a base, then go higher. And you know, you buy on the previous resistance, acting as support, or you wait for it to get down to demand and you buy down there. But buying at resistance just not for me. And you know, that might make me miss moves sometimes, but I'm not chasing up here. I just refuse to do it. That might kind of leave me left out a little bit, but I'm willing to do that just because it's not the best risk to reward. You do want that confirmation, your confirmation is going to be over 420, a base off 420, then you can march higher or you wait for it to get down to demand like I just showed you and buy around 412, 411. It's a pretty good demand zone. When we broke out this week and a touch on the breakout from the week, you had to go down to the smaller time frames. So this breakout was essentially kind of like a little like wedge formation. And you can see on the hourly once it got out, I mean, it's a pretty good setup. And you pretty much just had to take profit once it got up to 418 31. It did break over that briefly, but it was smart to just go ahead and take profit once it got there, just because you got a major resistance here. And then you got a major resistance over here. So it was just smart to take profit at that area. And you know, it could go higher. I mean, it's it's looking pretty decent here. We're trading over all the moving averages, especially the one hour 200 SMA. So it was a pretty good setup. It was holding a base and it also broke out. So you didn't have to zoom out a little bit, but the setup was pretty nice. So now you see that little wedge, you can see sometimes you do have to go to different time frames. Obviously in my videos, I'm only looking at the one day mostly because it doesn't have the most major levels. And it pretty much just scales my chart to find these levels from the past. But I think it's important to use the one week in the one day, but you can't go down to the hourlies to find setups like that, like that little wedge and consolidation areas. Great setup. Once it broke out, and you'll find those all the time. Once it finally gets out of the chop, I mean, that does pay. So like I said, for spy here, do need to get over 420. You want to see making a base off, you know, 419s to 420 make a base as new support, then it can march higher. Otherwise, wait for it to pull back, wait for it to get into man, then you can look at the longs down there. In terms of shorts, we really don't have a confirmation of a nice rejection yet.  So you do need to see a little bit more. And maybe that signal would be under this peak right here at 1762. So if we got under 1762, we got a big buy in balance here from when it broke out. And that could take you back down to demand. So if it gets under 1762, that's a pretty good level. We could even mark that. We'll add an alert and we'll just put that is breaking back down. But we got that alert set. Otherwise, I mean, this could just make a base and try to go higher. But we do need to see evidence of that. And you know, that would be like a one day candle closing over 420 and or even multiple candles just holding that area. Otherwise, it's kind of like an inflection point, either going to be waiting for it to get under 144762 are going to be waiting for it to get over 420 and making a base. Or if you're patient, like I said, wait for it to get down to demand. So that's for the spy probably going to be waiting again and just be patient. And next, we're going into QQQ. So over 321 fifties, I had us going up to the three thirties. And we see we exceeded that. We didn't even reject supply at all. So we didn't reject this supply and we didn't reject this supply either, which is totally against what I thought. I thought we would see some resistance here. So I was wrong on that end and we did close over 334 42. Another thing I was looking for was for it to kind of slowly get up here and eventually, you know, be able to hit the targets. I didn't want us to get up too high too fast because that's when you can start seeing a reversal. But even though we went up a little bit too high too fast here, we are over the 334 42. So as long as that's holding, we're going to get rid of the supply zone since they're void. So as long as this 334 42 is holding, I feel like it could make a base. So it's making, you know, support off previous resistance, just a classic break and retest. So it absolutely has to hold that. So tech absolutely has to hold this level. If it reclaims back under, that's a clear sign that can invite sellers back down, you're going to fill the sale or the buy imbalance right back up. And it probably had down to this little demand zone right here. That's going to be at 326 74. It's a little rally based rally zone, the most recent one. So if it goes back under 334 42, it's important you either look for a close under that and that was signal or reversal more than likely. If we're still holding 334 42, and it's holding multiple days and it's consolidating above this level or at this level, it's likely going to make a base and try to go higher. It's important that this level either holds a support or if you're bearish, it's important that it goes under this. So that 334 42 is your level of focus this week. I don't have any other level to be honest, nothing here. So we already exceeded my, you know, 321 50 breakout targets, which is the 330s, it went way higher than I thought to be honest, and it didn't see any resistance. Snires are going to be focusing on that 334 42. And that's really the only level of focus I got. All right. And if we go down to the one week chart, this is a longer term chart, and we had some Fibonacci retracements from this high down to this low. So this is all time highs down to most recent lows. We really have no resistance until we get to the 61.8 level. And that's going to be a 349 71. So this 61 nine point or the 61.8 level is usually the most major resistance when it comes to Fibonacci retracements. It always has the hardest rejection or the hardest balance, depending if you're doing a down measure, if you're doing an up measure in an up measure, you're obviously looking for bounces off the 61.8 in a down measure like this when the markets have been trending down, usually looking for rejection off that level. So maximum I can put us for QQQ over time. So it might take a couple weeks or maybe even a month or so. But eventually, I feel like the 61.8 will hit. And that's because I mean, it just usually does. And then it'll have that major rejection off the 61.8 AKA it's called the golden zone. So that's another name for the 61.8 is the golden zone. And you can see, I mean, it did clear over the 50 percent retracement that it rejected off prior. So cleared over that and also closed over 334.42 on the one week. And that's this that's the peak of that same candle. So it's important that, you know, if you're bearish, you want to see it get back under 330s for sure, maybe even get under that 334.42 precisely, if you can get under that close, that could take you down. Also, if you can get under 50 percent retracement that we're just looking at 331.50, that's also a good zone for potential reversal as well. Otherwise, really nothing in the way that could just make a base here. So make sure you keep that 334.42 level of focus in, wait for it to go under if you're going to go short. Also, wait for more evidence of a base being made if you want to go long. I just these breakouts just don't last long lately. And you kind of saw that in the example of showing you on spy. There's a couple over there that just lasted, you know, two or three days and, you know, they sell right back off. Don't need to see a little bit more evidence of this being a clean breakout and you could maybe look to the long side. I personally would wait for that 334.42 to get made. And then maybe more tire. That's for the QQQ. Just keep that level of focus and make sure it's holding or if you want to go short, wait for it to get under. And next, we're going into IWM. So finally this thing broke out. So we've been focused on this trend line for weeks. And it just kept rejecting. It wasn't going anywhere. It kept going back down to 170s, you know, 168s and bouncing from there. I've pretty much mentioned if you want to take this long, you want to wait for this to break out. So we did get a little two day breakout and then look where we ran into the 179.26 level that we've been covering for weeks. And pretty much rejected off that general area. So I said if this broke out, this would most likely be your price target. And that's exactly what happened. So it's nice to see that technical analysis is still somewhat working, even though stocks are defying logic a little bit. To the upside, we broke out really nice run up, hard rejection of 179.26 area. So now that it's broken out, I really feel like you can't be too bearish here yet. But in order to be bullish, I do need to see getting over that 179.26. So that's the next signal I'll be looking for now that it's broken out of this line. And honestly, I wouldn't want to take puts at 179.26 or this area because it's broken out. You got the KDJ going up. The only thing that's kind of going against this is that it's still trending under the 200 SMA. So the 200 SMA is kind of your longer term moving average. And it's still trending under that. So that could be a reason why the shorts keep getting re-invited to the party. So we probably need to clear over that. And also that 179.26 and that could take it higher. And also you need to see a more of a bid in the banks and the financial sector that could bring it up as well.  So we'll need to see more upside from the regional banks, the regular, you know, huge banks, you know, commercial banks, Wells Fargo, JPM, etc. But once they come up, you know, they can bring up the regionals a little bit. But IWM is pretty much it kind of moves like directly with the banks and like XLF and other bank names. So you need to see a little bit more from that. Otherwise just wait for it to get over that 179.26. We'd even add an alert and we'll name a breakout. That'd be a short term breakout. And then also you need to wait for it to get over to 200 SMA as well. And that would be your next signal since, you know, this breakout already happened. I really don't like a trade here at all because you got 179.26 is resistance. So you don't want to buy calls directly at that. And at the same time it already broke out. Yeah, we will need to wait for that 179.26. And that would be your long set up. And like I said, I don't like puts here because it already broke out. So even though you do have their strong resistance, I'd rather just wait for it to get over the resistance. And that would be a great set up to the upside. That's for IWM just waiting for that 179.26 breakout looking for upside over that. All right, next we're going to the DXY. So the US dollar here, we've been focused on this level of support. And I've pretty much been calling for a DXY bounce eventually, as long as the support is holding. We finally got that. But we got minimum pullback in the equity market. So I really thought that this DXY signal would start kind of bringing the markets back down a little bit. And I didn't do that at all. So that's interesting. Markets have been going up despite dollar going up. And that's kind of threw me off a little bit to be honest. So you may need to see a little bit more from the dollar before we start seeing downside, because the market's just not reacting to it. And it's kind of just been inversing the bond. So the bonds have been selling off the TLT has been selling off and stocks have actually been going up. So that could be a good sign that, you know, bonds are back to their inverse correlation with equities. But either way, I still don't like buying calls or like going long when the dollar is moving up like this just doesn't make sense to me. And it's not something I've been doing at all lately, especially if you're trading that in 2022, if you're going long, when the dollar was trending up like this, you would get screwed. So it's important that, you know, you do pay attention to these deals, because eventually they do matter and they will come back into play. And likewise, if the dollars are selling off heavy, you know, that might be a good area to start looking at, you know, longs again. But I really do like this. I like to see the dollar and equities have that inverse correlation as another piece of a signal, especially when I'm day trading, you know, I'm not going to take calls when the dollars closing up 0.64%. It just doesn't make sense to me. And I'm probably looking to short the rips and looking for a reversal at that point, just because I mean, the rising US dollars is not good for equities. And it's always been like that. So for the dollar this week, it pretty much hit my target. So I was looking for 103 to hit. It did exceed that and got over that a little bit now back testing that probably shared this a million times. But the 103 price target just came from this covid peak here from 2020. So now I will need to see it making a base off 103 and also maybe another one week candle close over 103. And that could take you up to 105.63 next, that's going to come from this little top out area right here. And that could bring the market lower. So but if it falls back under 103 for a couple days and has multiple clothes under 103, probably for the dollar to fall back down. And you can see if we drew a trend line from this peak to this peak right here, it even broke out right there. So this is kind of like, was that from 2022 to current. So this is a decent downtrend line that finally got broke out of. And that was a great signal for the dollar to go up. It just didn't bring down the markets. As long as it's holding over 103 here, if like there's still a chance that elevated dollar could start spooking people. I feel like it's really going to depend on the FOMC minutes. As long as the FOMC minutes come in line, I really wouldn't expect much from them. But if there's something new written in, you know, written in black and white that we had no idea about from the last meeting, then that could definitely move the market. So we're just going to be keeping an eye on that. And also the PCE data is definitely going to move currencies. So just keep that 103 level in focus. If it's holding over, they could take the dollar a little bit higher. If it starts falling back under, you see one or two closes under 103 that obviously probably bring it back down to support down, you know, the early 100s. So that's for the DXY. I might just need a little bit more data. And next, we're going into the VIX. So VIX has just been a nothing burger the past couple of weeks. It really hasn't done anything. Voltoities. I mean, this is like historic lows. I mean, it's what it feels like, at least it's just it's the lowest point Voltoities been in a couple of years. So it's been really tough to use this as a signal unless you're using it kind of intraday and you're looking for those quick spikes to go short or if you're looking for those fast drops and heavy, you know, sell-offs in the VIX to go long. In terms of the higher time frames that we look at, you really haven't had anything. So the only thing that we've seen is that the 1553 to 16 areas holding. So this area has been pretty resilient. And as long as it's holding over that, I feel like the VIX can definitely pop back up. And another level of focus we had was the 1811. And I was looking for a close over that to take it over to 20s. You can see it refused to do that. So last week, that was our pretty much our short term signal. We're looking for a close over 1811 to take you up to 20. And it just was not able to do that. So I hope you can see why the 1811 level is the area of focus. It's going to be the same thing this week. You want to see that close over 1811. If it gets the close over, then I can, you know, march up to 20. And for the bulls, you really do want to see getting under 15-53. But as long as this area is still kind of holding that support, I feel like that could result in a pullback soon just because it's not going any lower. Once the VIX gets into a consolidation area like this and it's not going any lower, sometimes it can result in a pretty huge pop back to the median or the average. And that's going to be your, you know, 2022 to 2023 average close, which is currently at 24-01. You probably just rounded down to 24 even. So eventually it's going to come back up for mean progression. You might just need a little bit more of a surprise factor in terms of economic data and in terms of just the market in general. We have no surprise factor. Everything's already been kind of felt priced in and markets been a little bit slow. The only thing we've kind of been running off is like AI hype also really from debt ceiling talks. So that will be another factor also. So we're never going to be looking for the debt ceiling. Looking for more negotiations. If it seems like there's not any negotiations, you might still see a little bit of, you know, resistance in the market and chop. But you can see once they sounded confident in their negotiations, debt ceiling talks, market was able to rally a little bit and rally for a couple of days on that spy breakout that I showed you. So this little breakout here that I showed you earlier, this was purely after the debt ceiling negotiations were sounding a little bit more positive and a rally for two days straight. And we really didn't see any resistance until Friday when Jerome Powell and Ben Bernanke were speaking. And really, we didn't even get that much from Jerome Powell and Ben Bernanke on Friday. I feel like this is a majority just from, you know, options, expiration. It gets super choppy. There's a lot of money expiring. And I truly feel like algorithms are programmed to pin price so they don't have to pay out as much as people would like. That's unfortunate, but it's probably true because there's so much money expiring.  But that's the video guys hope you guys enjoyed. Like I said, you need that signal from the VIX. You need to see it getting over 1811 with the close. It'll take it to 20. Otherwise, you're looking for a close over 20 on the higher time frames. That's going to be a good, you know, bear signal to start looking at shorts again. 20 has always been a psychological level. Otherwise, you're going to see it get under 1553. If it gets under 1553, they could take the market a little higher. But you can see it's kind of just in a cuck zone. So that's pretty much all I got for you guys. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Make sure you like, comment, subscribe. Hopefully we have a good trading week this week. And some of these shorts will pay this week, hopefully for longer than a day because last week, only Monday and Tuesday are short setups actually kind of worked. So hopefully we can get a pullback in the market. I'd like to see one because we're looking a little frothy like you saw the QQQ edit close over resistance. So looking a little bit bullish, but it will need to get back under 334 and then spy, you know, kind of just at an inflection point, kind of at a resistance and we'll need to get over 420. So make sure you guys like, comment, subscribe. I love you guys. I'm going to get this chopped up, edit it and sent out and I'm out.