And again, here's another example of buyers coming in all morning, guys, they were coming in for the 34 weeklies 3035 weeklies for the 36 next week for the 37s the week after. So there's a lot of institutional money flow. And again, like I said a couple of minutes ago, when you see a lot of flow coming into the stock, usually you're going to get welcome to access a trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success profitability and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process and own your future. Hey guys, good evening, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the access trader com nightly wrap up show up everybody is doing well. Something really funny. Usually are our little channel here. We know because of our special niche, like we have a very specific niche, we're intraday primarily intraday, because the last few weeks have been pretty good momentum overnight swings and stuff. But predominantly because of our niche, we usually get about, you know, 800 900 views views, an update, you know, again, we have a very core audience with a very specific niche. We trade channels, right? We trade channels both sides of the market, we have a game plan. And if that game plan confirms, then the trade is on. If the game plan obviously doesn't confirm, there's no trade. And last night, I was sitting there and I just kept on getting, you know, just, just, just beep after beep after beep. And I look and I'm like, this 5000 people watching tonight's update and it didn't, you know, it didn't register my mind.   The ironic part about Tesla is we were long Tesla for the last three weeks. The overnight update was literally the first update that I told, we weren't long Tesla. And I was just looking for some back test to eventually set up this week, right? It wasn't supposed to be today. It wasn't supposed to be a specific time. It was supposed to be sometime this week for potential exhaustion channel. Obviously that that didn't happen. And I got a lot of response all of a sudden, you know, from 5000 people, obviously I'm exaggerating here, but they're like, F you, you're wrong. I don't know what wrong about. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. But again, guys, if you are brand new to the channel, we're not a long term, you know, we're not a long term program. We're not a long term broadcast. We are day to day. We trade both sides of the channels. We have no, you know, we have no bias. Again, like I said, we were long, you know, I've been long pretty much Tesla for the last three weeks of this whole move. This has been literally the first day that I was looking for some sort of exhaustion channel to set up for a bottom channel potential back test. Like I said, that never came. But again, if you are going to participate in this channel, we welcome you, right? We absolutely welcome you. But just understand this is not, you know, nobody's talking about where stock is going to be three months from now for, you know, for years from now. This is strictly day to day. Our research is based on technical analysis and how the market is structured for the next day. We always ask you is to be cordial. That's it.  That's all fine and dandy. But again, this is a very specific niche type of environment. I try to give you my views for the up and coming days. You could take it. You could leave it. The only thing we ask is be a normal human being, right? If you don't like something they say, hey, listen, I think you're wrong. That's cool. But again, be a little bit cordial again. This is the you know, this is the internet and we get it. Everybody has the right to say anything. But again, this is our cool little platform for all you guys who've been following us for the last 13 years, you kind of know a little bit of a niche that we have and we welcome everybody. We hope everybody is doing well. And hopefully we can give you guys some alternative views of the market from our point of view. So let's talk about the tape, right? So the market continues to be really, really strong ahead of tomorrow's CPI. Then Wednesday we have the Fed minutes and you know, the possibility of a stall in a halt in interest rate hike is definitely on the table. The market today rallied after the last weeks of you know, another strong performance in the markets, you have all the indexes continues to push up here. You have the NASDAQ up 200 points of very, very strong. All the names kept on pushing will obviously go through the pivots in a second. But the key is going to see how is the market going to accept. Forget about the CPI reading tomorrow. Obviously, that's going to be a very important reading. But I want to see how the market is going to react to Wednesday's potential halting in interest rate hikes. Again, one area of the market, you can make a case while this whole rally was based on the potential of an interest rate kind of halt. Is the market going to sell off on that news or is this market just that strong? Again, we came into today, we talked about that over the weekend that the NASDAQ going into today's session was up, the NASDAQ 100 was up 33%, took out the whole loss of 2022 for 31%. Or is the market just continues to be that strong in technology, no matter, especially technology, no matter how weak or strong the market gets or the data continues to go, the market continues to engulf that data and keeps on going higher. And if you look at the indexes, again, this is the highest close in the whole formation on the cues, we've been covering the IWM for weeks. We had an unbelievable, just an absolutely beautiful breakout here three days ago off this 82 level. Again, the market continues to grind it higher if you look at the SPX. And this is something that we talked about over the weekend. This is a 20% plus rally now from the October lows. So you can see here, the market is just doing incredibly, incredibly well. Does the market go up every single day? Absolutely not.  It feels like it, but they don't. And this is a very specialized market. If you are joining us here for the very, very first time, we drive all our opinion, we drive all our research on either the daily confirmation, which is very much viewed as quote unquote normal. But we also watch the option phone. The options market is very, very important to us. Usually in my experience for the last 24 years, you're going to get a big amount of effort in that direction. If the buyers are coming in with short term expiration, deep out of the money calls, and they're coming in repeat. So for example, let me give you guys a couple of standouts today that had met that bill. Amazon, right? All morning, we saw a nonstop, you know, nonstop, they were coming in for the 129 130 weeklies nonstop. And this is when the stock was 123 124, they were just coming one after another after another and they finally confirmed this little baby channel. They got rejected the last couple of days. We talked about that on the weekend update. Again, we'll get to the dependence in a second. Even a name like plug power, right? This morning when the stock was trading in the nines, you know, they were coming for the 10 weeklies one after another after another, then after the 10 weeklies, they started coming for the 10 and a half weeklies. And you could see here broke above, broke above last week's high. This is the highest formation to close. It looks like in the next couple of weeks or so, you might get a push into the 11 area. We also saw September 1250 calls coming into the name. So very, very important there as well. One name that broke out really, really nicely today. And if you look at the weekly chart, it's usually not a name that's associated with the high fires. It used to be only back to the dot com era 2000, 2001, 2002. The leaders back then were Oracle, Cisco, which Oracle had a great day today as well, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel. And you can see the weekly chart, how close this thing is to really busting out of a weekly channel. But if you look at the daily chart today, it did break out. It broke out above this 3220s. It confirmed this 3257 level. And now this is a stone throws away. You guys see this high here on four, four, the higher here of 3385. If Intel could get above this 3385 level, start its next leg up. And again, here's another example of buyers coming in all morning, guys. They were coming in for the 34 weeks, 35 weeks for the 36 next weeks, for the 37s the week after. So there's a lot of institutional money flow. And again, like I said, a couple of minutes ago, when you see a lot of flow coming into the stock, usually you're going to get another area of interest and more volumes going to come into the upside. Does it always happen? Of course not. But this is the difference between institutional money flow versus retail money flow. And if you've been watching a name just, for example, like a Tesla, right? Again, that we were long for three weeks, guys, three weeks. Okay, nobody's bashing Tesla, relax, calm down. Everybody just charges up there. They heard the weekend update that I was looking for a downside pivot at some point this week, they lost their minds. Okay, that's cool. Even a name like Tesla when the stock finally reclaimed the 50 day moving average and started building above this 178 and closed above the 78. You know, they were coming for the 200s, the 205s, the 210s, the 215s, when they finally got above this 205 close, that's when they started getting really aggressive with the 220s, 225s, 230s and 240s. Again, we saw some pretty deep, you know, deep out of the money call buying continue today for the 270s we saw short term for the 280s we saw in July. So again, the market is very, very healthy. Again, I'm still watching for a potential back test, but like I said in the last night's video, you can't assume a back test is going to happen. You can't anticipate a back test is going to happen. What you need to do is wait for it to take out the previous chattels low and start building. As you can clearly see, Tesla did not take out the previous chattels low and never even came close. The closest it came was within $3, $4 a Friday's channel. So right now the market is very, very strong. Again, is this market going to go up every single day? Of course not, you're going to have to see you're going to have pretty aggressive down days as well, just because again, the market just doesn't go straight up. You're going to see a lot of institutional money flow hedge or buy or sell bias in both directions. And the most important part is now we have two data points ahead of us. We got the CPI coming in tomorrow, and we have the Fed, the Fed announcement on Wednesday, we'll see how the market reacts to that. So let me give you guys some ideas, right? Let me give you guys some ideas. If you look at the beta names for, you know, especially the names that I follow, and again, for all you guys who are brand new to the channel, I primarily trade the same 10 stocks. If there are some other names, for example, we would some option flow, I'll definitely look in that direction. But I trade pretty much the same names over and over again, Tesla, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia and all that, all that good stuff today. I took some Intel nice bounce closer than 15 cents of the highs. Amazon is looking super duper strong for tomorrow as well. So we'll see what happens there. So let's talk about some ideas for tomorrow and then we'll get to the pivots of today's session. Again, very, very strong session. A lot of, you know, a lot of market flow definitely came in. So let's talk about some names. Nvidia, take a look at the video, right? So Nvidia had this really, really big run up inverted hammer back tested. That was kind of the idea of the whole premise of the Tesla setup who didn't play out yet. You see this whole baby channel here, okay, that started from June the 5th, right? You see how it just stopped in this baby channel here twice. If Nvidia can reclaim this little channel here that started on June the 5th, it could start waking up. Another case of option flow today, they were coming for the following weeks, the 420 weekly. So basically means if this thing could start building above this channel here, the recent highs on May the 30th was 420. They started betting that this thing is going to get back into that 420 level. So, you know, a really, really good looking setup there. You got Shopify as well. Again, this is close to a very, very big breakout from the May 10 highs that you can see here. The May 10 highs and today's highs are exactly the same price. If Shopify can just get above this channel here, maybe this thing wakes up. Again, short term expiration of $70 calls that came into the name as well. Look at a name like Chewy, right? Chewy had a really, really big gap up here on earnings, consolidated for last week or so. Look at this channel here. This supply here is the 150 day moving average. If Chewy can get above this recent earnings highs, maybe this thing starts, it's next like high. So, you have a lot of value continuing in these names. Again, we talked about Intel. We talked about Nvidia. We talked about Apple. We talked about Amazon. These are really, really strong names. And let's see if the market continues to pay off all those deep out of the money. Repeat call buyers, especially into weekly expiration on Friday. So, let's talk about today's pivots, right? Today's pivots again for all you guys who are trading in the webinar. Great job. There's a lot of really good action. Unfortunately, we did not get that Tesla pivot. And again, you can see by the notes here. So, Meta 268 needs to build. Meta absolutely exploded here in the afternoon. We talked about Meta on the weekend update. Two days in a row, it got rejected off the 5 day moving average. They finally reclaimed the 268 level and traded all the way up to 272. Hey, this thing starts confirming today's highs tomorrow. Maybe get the next leg up. Amazon, here, here's a two-sided trade. Again, this is the whole point of pivots, right? We don't care which way the stock triggers as long as it confirms one way or another. So, Microsoft 330 to the upside, 322 to the downside, Microsoft finally got above the 330 area and in the process reclaimed the 10 day moving average closing above 332. Again, this thing continues to look very, very bullish. Amazon, again, here's another example, I got long on this thing as well. 2580 to the upside, 122 to the downside. Again, we are unbiased. It all depends which size confirmed. Amazon got above this 12580. Now, this is the highest close, reclaiming back the 5 day moving average. Again, nonstop 129, 130 weeklies coming into the name. Hopefully, this thing erupts tomorrow. And again, here is Google. I was waiting for the downside that obviously never confirmed. 121.20 if it builds below Conflush. Google got nowhere near that area in Tesla. This is, you know, we were prepared for, right? Obviously, it didn't get down there, but 242 in places of blow off top today, if it builds below Conflush. Again, a trade setup is a setup. Okay, it's not a trade. You're not in it. You're not assuming the stock is going to go higher or lower. In this case, again, this is exactly what we talked about in the weekend update. I'm not trying to anticipate a Tesla short. Hell, I don't even know if Tesla's going to break the previous shadow, how strong the rest of the market is. But the point is, a trade setup is what it is. It's a setup until it gets confirmed. Obviously, 242 never got close to today and the stock continues to push higher. Again, AMD broke out on Friday above 125.35. Here was the setup here pre market 129.20 needs to confirm pre market highs for more. And here was AMD, right? Here was AMD, you can see here on the 60 minute view, right? So it took out the 29.20 traded up to like 130 and a half and it came in a little bit.  Let's see here. MREO never got to 140. Boeing, what a move on Boeing guys. Congratulations. I missed Boeing. I was at lunch. 220 needs to confirm last week's breakout area. Boeing went nuts. It put up a $4 candle at lunch. This is at lunch, which is absolutely insane. It took out the 220 area, which was last week's highs and literally put up a $4 candle going into lunch. Congratulations for you guys who grabbed that. Boeing CVNA went pre market, nothing really there. Rivian never, it stopped literally at 1361. I was looking for a 1360 breakdown. Obviously never got there. And IONQ 1135 never got there. KC small little pop here. 596 needs to confirm. Not really, you know, not really don't know anything about this KC. But KC took out the 590 traded up to 616 before it reversed back down. And oh plug plug was huge. Congratulations for you guys who caught plug on 990 10 needs to build. They were coming right away for the 10 and a 10 and a half dollar calls very aggressively. And here is plug, right? It took out the it took out the 990 10 area and closed right at the highs of the day into the 1040s looks like it still has a shot there at 11 bucks. And Cargill Cargill continues goes for all you guys who are still swinging Cargill. 2080 broke out on Friday closed at 2160 still going higher. Let's see, you know, let's see this thing continues to go higher. And yeah, this is the this is the last trade of the day. I bought some Amazon here 125 80 meets to build right up about a dollar. I still like this thing going tomorrow with the 130 call buyers. So for all you guys who are brand new to the channel, especially from yesterday, again, we're not used to 5000 views for market update. The only thing we are we're a very close knit community. We have each other's backs. We are very committed to unbiased technical analysis. If you are going to participate in this challenges understand we're not a long term newsletter who's trying to, you know, predict prices from three three weeks or no, I have no idea. Right. We have no idea. We are literally trading day by day trade by trade on both sides of the market. So the only thing we ask if you are participating in this channel, welcome aboard, ask a lot of questions, but be cordial. That's all we asked for. We're human beings. I didn't anticipate 5000 people watching the video yesterday. And more important, I didn't anticipate 3000 comments. So guys, have a great night. God bless everybody. And with God's help, I'll see you all tomorrow. Take care.


The following is a presentation of TFNN. The Trader's Edge with Steve Rhodes. Free at 1-877-927-6648 or internationally at<PHONE_NUMBER>. The Trader's Edge. Now, Steve Rhodes. Good morning folks. Welcome to the February 17th. The fantastic Friday edition of today's Trader's Edge show. Actually, it's February 16th. I was just getting ahead of myself. But this is the Trader's Edge show and welcome to it. It's been a great week, I think. We've covered a lot of ground out there. We opened up the week talking about phase transition inside of the NASDAQ 100. We're going to explore natural gas. Everybody's searching for a bottom, so we'll figure that out. As well as trying to figure out what's going on with these markets. So we'd love to hear from you. You can give us a call at<PHONE_NUMBER>. If you've got a question but you can't call in, we've got you covered. You send me an email. Send that off to Steve at TFNN.com. And inside that subject, because you would be amazed at how many emails I get. So if you can put in their radio show question or something, just simply to differentiate that it's a regular email, that would be a wonderful thing. And of course, inside are our Tigers down. Well, then any and every ping will do. So let's go ahead and get this show started on fabulous Friday. Of course, this is Tiger Financial News Network. I'm Steve Rhodes. Welcome to the show. We've got a mixed bag out there. The mix goes like this. The Dow's off 81 points. S&P's down 8. NASDAQ 185. Russell's off 20. To the upside, you've got the Semi's are up 6 points. And the New York Stock Exchange up 15. Trendy's are down 127. So a mixed bag for sure. Gold's up 6 bucks. Silver being up 32 pennies. That's one in four tenths percent there. Light's recruit is flat. Natural gas is up two cents. The 30 year treasury printed out at 1,1805. Now our leaders in the clubhouse to the upside, you've got micro cloud hologram of 47 bucks, 152%. I think that is a hologram. We take a look at Eli Lilly. It's up 32 bucks or 4%. Shockwave Medical 31 bucks, 13%. BioRad Laboratories 25 bucks, 7%. Coinbase 15%, a $25 move there to the downside. Super micro computer. Of 111 bucks, that's 11% move. Adobe's off 23 bucks, 4%. Roku's down 21% or 21 bucks. Door dash is down 13 at 10%. And AMN Healthcare is off 15%. That's about a $12 move to the downside. So we got movers and we've got shakers. Let's do this here. Let's take a look at the... Well, first let's start here with the equity futures and how they're trading in all the currencies or the major currencies. Major currencies, I'm referring to the euro, the pound and the yen out there. They make up 83% of the US dollar index. We've got new all-time highs, by the way, today in the US, many in terms of euros, yen and pounds out there. So it's not exactly like they are big into being the sellers out there. So if you're thinking that we're selling off here in the US, just remember what's your brother and sister overseas doing because they have just as much of an influence. Right now, they're at new all-time highs. If we take a look at the NQ, only new all-time highs today are in terms of British pounds and the yen out there. Again, it's an idea, it's an indication of a market that's likely just going to consolidate during an unfavorable seasonal time period, which basically begins just about now. We'll take a look at that. If we take a look at the Dow, the Dow makes a new all-time high Dow equity future contract that is new all-time high today in euros, yen and pounds out there. And the Dow in terms of US dollars is one that's trading to the downside out there. So that's an important perspective to understand. The next important perspective to understand, it really was a question that came up during the week by Zee, John inside the Tiger's Den. I realize that, Al, and we'll get to that after the break here. So if we take a look at, what was it going to do? So we're going to switch over to our white background charts just so we can take a look at the equity markets, what their message is to you and I at this point in time or what it likely is. So we're going to get over here to this set of charts, but this is the set of charts we're looking at. So there was a question about whether or not the markets or the NASDAQ specifically is in a phase transition. And one of the keys there is about if we are, you want to be able to buy dips, you want to be able to buy bottoming patterns and so forth. This set of charts up here, the top is the daily timeframe, the bottom is the weekly timeframe. Let's focus on the bottom as we speak right now. If you take a look at each of those bottom charts and you look at that oscillator and change line, you tell me where does price need to close below to suggest that maybe the phase transition is a little too early to call. Exactly, it's going to be that oscillator and change line. Each amount of weekly basis is green. We can see the NQ tested and rejected it this week. So it is an all out bullish mode out here. However, it could form a dark cloud cover candle this week. So we need to see it at the week's end. What would that do? That would generate a roadsman to mitigate our top, but price still has to close below that green oscillator and change line to lose this momentum and tell us that maybe there's something else that's going on. We take a look at the Dow equity future contract. That move lower on Monday did nothing more than just simply test and reject that green oscillator and change line. The same thing is true for the Russell 2000. The ESMini never got down to that level, but that's really the key area. So for those of you that are more of an intermediate term type trader out there, a swing type trader, watch those green, watch those oscillator and change lines for their weekly timeframe. The only one that could potentially form today would be the one inside the NQ, which could generate a roadsman to mitigate our top. So now back to the topping, not back to the topping. Now back to the daily timeframe charts out here. You've got to break below. You've got to bust out. So the other thing that we learned this week is just how key the bottom of those daily profiles was as a support area. In one single day, that was on Monday, we had the ESMini and the NQ get all the way down to test the bottom of those new profiles out there. So 49, 39, there's no question that is a key level of support. That must be broken in order to suggest any kind of potential change in trend. And for the NQ, that level is going to be 17, 531. The Dow never did complete its new profile out there, Dow Equity Future Contract, that is. And so we've got is the Dow that is actually trading above the top of its daily profile, 38.050. So that's in a bullish mode, even though it has a roadsman to mitigate our top. So really overall, it's neutral. So with regard to the markets out here, longer term, price is going to need to close below those green oscillator and change lines to tell you and I that there may be something wrong with the markets and they're getting ready to move lower. And why is that important? Hopefully the screen doesn't go black here, but if it does, we'll just move on to something else. What we'll put up here is let's put up the S&P 500. And see what pops up first. So this red vertical line is where we're at today. This is the last 33 years is what's popping up. I don't know why it's a 33 years. Let's just go to 96 years out there. So here's our 96 year seasonal cycle, not presidential, just straight out just all 96 years. What this shows is that typically the S&P 500 forms a top. Now the top doesn't really give us a nice bottom until about the May 24th timeframe out there. Now that's the S&P 500. And well, you know what? Let's do this. If somebody might say 96 years, that's too much Stevo. All right. Here's 25 years. Same kind of thing. Now in the last 25 years, what we see is typically just simply a about a two to three to four week move to the downside that would fit with regard to our dance steps of consecutive moves lower out there. So that's over the last 25 years. If we take a look at the last 10, last 10, you've got the same kind of a thing with the bottom forming here in March. Now this last 10 years is certainly going to be influenced by that 2020 year out there. So you can see that we're in that. You hear people in the news media talking about we're about to enter an unfavorable time period the end of February. Well, now you can see that with your own eyes out there. We get back to this break. We're going to go to Steve Woods, the creator of the float indicator out there. And we're going to take a look at SMCI with Stevo. If you're looking for potential trading setups in the stock market, then Rocket Equities & Options Report is a newsletter you should try. Tommy O'Brien delivers options and equity trades when the markets present them using a combination of fundamentals and technicals. Sign up for Rocket Equities & Options Report today with a 30 day money back guarantee so you have nothing to risk. For all the details and to start your subscription today, visit the front page of TFNN.com. TFNN Educating Investors. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at TFNN.com. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices.  First time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. TFNN.com Educating Investors Steve Rhodes started his trading career as a student almost 20 years ago and the student has now become the master. Steve won the prestigious Timer of the Year Award in 2018 and barely missed that mark again in 2019, finishing at number two for the year. An amazing accomplishment. Steve Rhodes is committed to sharing his techniques and knowledge with anyone who wants to learn and he shares his vast amount of trading knowledge every day in his Mastering Probability Newsletter. Steve's award-winning newsletter, Mastering Probability, is delivered every trading day with updates throughout the afternoon. Sign up for Steve's market newsletter, Mastering Probability and you'll receive access to seven of Steve's educational webinars absolutely free. At TFNN, all our newsletters come with a 30 day money back guarantee, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Visit TFNN.com and try Mastering Probability 30 days risk-free today. TFNN Educating Investors TFNN has launched the Tiger's Den. Hosted at Discord, TFNN has been educating traders for more than 20 years with live programming hosted by a variety of professional traders during market hours, the Tiger's Den. Available to all tigers and tigers for just $1 for the year. There's no catch or added costs when you join our community of traders. Sign up today and become a part of this educational community of traders, just visit the front page of TFNN.com. Toll free at 1-877-927-6648 internationally at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Folks, we're going to settle in for just a little bit. We're going to take a look at Super Micro Computer Inc. SMCI is the ticker symbol. The thing has been on just a gigantic roll in really a short period of time, going from $37 to over $1,000. Having a tough day today, and we're going to talk about this with the inventor of the float analysis. In fact, I happen to have that tool on eSignal out there. That's how much they appreciate. So welcome, Steve Woods from Maryland. Steve, thanks for calling in. Thanks for holding. How are you today? Steve, I'm very good actually. Are you there? I am. I hear you now. Give me just a second here. What I want to do, because I'm going to change over to your float analysis chart in a moment. We had some other requests inside the Tigers then as well to take a look at this. So I'm going to just review that portion of it first. Just to give you my take on what this is communicating to us off of my white background charts, which are up on the screen. Now let's switch over to my eSignal charts, which has your indicator on there. So you can describe to people what it is that your float analysis tool is showing us and what that could mean from here. So when I take a look at these daily time frame charts out here, we don't have any. Well, so there's certainly there's an A to B equal CD pattern to the upside that we can draw in. And you can more clearly see that when we look at the weekly time frame charts. So today, it looks like we're going to have both the key reversal bar and perhaps a bearish engulfing candle or some type of bearish reversal candle. So that would generate a sell the D point pattern. At the top that says that price should move back to support folks. The first level of support that I have right now for SMCI would be that green oscillator and change line. And that's an 818 and change out there. So it's just called 818. What you should also notice is that there's a new profile that is attempting to form today. Now, I won't have a confirmation on this profile until Tuesday, quite frankly, because of the holiday on Monday. But this profile is forming below price Steve and when a profile forms below price, that's actually a bullish message out here. So what this is telling me is we're going to, we're likely going to get a topping pattern today. It should take price back to support. The 818 area will be one level. I'm not saying price can't get back to those profileries. I'm saying when a profile forms below price that is a bearish signal. So it gives you and I a little bit of a competitive advantage. And when we look at the weekly and the monthly time frame charts, there's no topping pattern that I have here. So that's what I see when I take a look at the daily, the weekly or the monthly charts out there.  We're going to take a look at our black background charts. This is going to be the daily time frame that we're taking a look at. This is SMC chart and the tool that I have on here folks, this is Steve Woods float indicator. And Steve, if you can just describe to them what's going on with regard to the upper and lower and center band that you have here. And then obviously what it is that we see today, which is a unique signal out here with regard to float analysis. So Steve, oh, take it from here. Okay, well, let me first start by saying Steve, you're one of the best technical analysts out there. I just want to praise you and say, you know, I took your newsletter, I got so much from you that I use and so I just want to say anybody who's listening and hasn't bought Steve's newsletter, you need to get it. I listen to you every day, Steve, and you're really good. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. In order to understand float analysis, you got to understand the idea of adding volume up in a backwards direction. So you take the volume of today and you add it to the volume of yesterday and the day before that and you keep adding a volume until it equals the float. So what is the float? The float is the number of shares that are actually available for trading. And the idea is that when a stock is going down at some point at the bottom, it's going to have a float turnover which is where the smart money is buying and at the top when your stock makes a run to a new high and turns over and rolls lower, it's going to have a turnover at the top where you can see that the price breaks below the float turnover and I'm creating a rectangular box just adding volume going backwards and when the price breaks below that box it should be initially you want to think of it as a sell signal. In this case this is just an incredible thing because this has now got a two day turnover so that means if I had today's volume to yesterday's volume I'm going to get to 47 million shares. Well 47 million shares is the entire float in this company. So that means that this is turning over and right now it's having a two day float turnover and you can see that because on Steve's chart here you've got a two day box and the box goes back to the low of today and the high of today and you've got a huge bearish engulfment in there. Now this particular, how do we have the question is how do we read this? Now I'm thinking just yesterday Bank of America let's give a little background to this company. This company makes the servers that have a cooling system that allows it's the best servers for using NVIDIA's chips. When NVIDIA took off last May or whenever it was when it blasted higher, well this thing blasted higher too and it had a big run and then when NVIDIA went sideways this went sideways and I was tracking that and I saw that in the sideways move it was going through a multiple float turnover pattern which means in the sideways move it's turning over the float turnover over and over and over so what do you get from that? Well it means that traders are just blind in that trading range from the low to the high and it's just going back and forth back and forth. Well then I was just you know at the bottom when it broke out above that they made a pre-announcement and I saw that pre-announcement because it gapped like it was a huge gap from the day before and then it just blasted through that trading range and I got in at $320 and I've been riding this baby higher. So this is the way that I've been looking for to see what's going to happen but just yesterday Bank of America initiated with a buy for a long term hold so the question is is this distribution happening up here or is this accumulation and you're not going to know until you see the price action after this because people that are buying today could be buying to hold for a long term anyway you can't really tell whether this is accumulation or distribution if the price breaks below and starts moving lower in a big way I'm thinking buyers are just going to come in anyway what this is saying is we're headed for a sideways move I don't think it's just going to head right back up to the high but it's basically you can either interpret it as it's distribution total distribution at the top or you can say oh there's smart money is coming in up here and if they hold those shares it's going to go higher but in any event the turnover is giving you a signal that this is a really important point wouldn't you think though if it's distribution we'd be on lighter volume not on big volume like this which is kind of sideways move well yeah and especially since it's had this huge move to the upside because as Tom you know Tom I you know I used to have the 9 o'clock show for a while and I gave you know I went on tour with Tom and we gave workshops and as Tom points out you can have a normal correction and this is going to come down to 700 you know it's going to have a if it has a normal correction but that's if you have a normal stock I don't think this is a normal stock because this is an NVIDIA or the 2 big leaders in AI and they're going to hard break here we're going to hard break here you're welcome to stay on and we can finish up when we come back but we're going to be on the road and Steve Wood's the gold report as a precious metal gold is still king it continues to hold the most effective safe haven and hedging properties across the global major trading hubs of the London OTC market the US futures market and the Shanghai gold exchange the gold report Tom O'Brien publishes his weekly gold report every Monday morning for subscribers consisting of coverage of the stocks, the dollar, bonds the South African Rand as well as 25 different mining equities with specific buy sell recommendations the gold report new subscribers get a 30 day money back guarantee so you have nothing to risk subscribe to Tom O'Brien's gold report newsletter now at TFNN.com sharpening your skills as an investor is like getting better at playing a musical instrument you have to practice sure but you also need excellent instruction from experts at TFNN you'll get advice and guidance from the authority and technical market analysis and it's not just dry tedious text either TFNN airs live financial content streamed live on TFNN.com and TFNN's youtube channel with Tiger TV live every market day from 8 30 a.m. to 4 p.m. eastern for free each host is an experienced trader and gives their take on the market while taking calls and questions live from around the world from the moment the market opens until the closing bell sounds Tiger TV has 8 different shows with expert hosts to help you make the right moves with your money watch online at TFNN.com or on TFNN's youtube channel and become the investor you were born to be TFNN educating investors are you ready to take charge of your financial future TFNN is your gateway to the world of trading and investing whether you're starting out or scaling up TFNN empowers traders and investors of all skill levels with top-notch investing systems strategies and techniques it's time to protect and grow your money with insight you can trust join us live Monday through Friday during market hours for exclusive content that moves with the markets at TFNN we bring the trading floor to you our seasoned hosts are here to answer your questions live on the air check out the Tiger's Den for just $1 and follow us on YouTube and become part of our vibrant community and remember at TFNN we're so confident in the value we provide that we are for a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new premium newsletter subscriptions and services you have absolutely nothing to risk so why wait tune in live to Tiger TV and transform your trading journey because when you know better you invest better join us and experience the difference today thanks for listening investors don't forget you can listen to TFNN live on your mobile device 24 hours per day go to TFNN.com then hit watch Tiger TV that's TFNN.com then hit watch Tiger TV so we're on the line with Steve Woods we're taking his float indicator that's what you see up on my chart we're taking SMCI out there he just went through a nice explanation of what his take is at least at this stage and by the way there's a bunch of sound distortion on your cell phone so we'll just kind of wrap this up now just to so it doesn't bother all the listeners and so forth but it sounds to me like your take is that this is just more of a sideways-ish type consolidation maybe it's going to set up a retracement my tools are saying it should set up a retracement with price pulling back into the 701 to 818-ish type area out there so it seems like we're in sync at this stage here but let's continue to follow it any any other piece of information that you'd like to share with the listeners maybe just a quick what you know I'm showing your chart out here so the blue lines are those the float channels that we see out there the upper and the lower levels of this tool yeah let me let me say this I hope my phone is now working better I pulled out them Mike but anyway okay you can thank you up with a new way a new way to create a float chart and to think of it and you can use channel lines and what you do is you find the float number which you can find over yahoo or sure number of places that have it and then you divide the average volume in the past few days of the past month and you'll get and you applied those to a channel indicator so you get channel lines and the channel lines then give you you don't get to see the box because the problem was a whole lot of platforms couldn't create the indicator it's not an easy indicator to create because you have to count volume up backwards and then a lot of people didn't make the indicator correctly so the one you're looking at doesn't really show it correctly because it won't show breakouts it will just take the high and low lines and maintain those so when it goes above the channel line or below the channel line you don't really see that so and then the final thing that I'll say can you do me a favor can you call those guys at e-signal tell them to correct the formula for you as long as he's out there let's get it let's get it going yeah well I yeah well that's something that's probably probably in my future if you're asking me to do that I will do that the thing is that anybody on most any charting package has channel lines and you can create the channel lines yourself you don't even have to buy each you know you don't have to buy any of these fancy stuff and if they want to get in touch with me I don't have a service I'm not you know all I do is I trade myself here in my own home office people can get in touch with me at float analysis Steve all one word at Gmail float analysis Steve I love to talk about it and I'm going to call Tom this afternoon because today is a beautiful day on this chart for a pullback. But I mean it's such a good price that you know I'm just I think it's going to go a whole lot higher in the long term so. Well perfect well good to hear from you others in the den are glad to hear your voice as well and please call back in again soon okay. Okay you'd be well Steven thanks again for everything. You bet you too that was Steve Woods from Maryland. We did have the S&P just turned slightly green there for a second we're basically flat at 50-29 so let's get to a couple of other requests that came in. Brent wrote in earlier this morning Brent and Martinez California want to take a look at natural gas who doesn't you know we're all looking for a searching for a bottom here so we take a look at the natural gas charts we're going to switch over to a couple different charts out here it's a monthly chart basically as ugly as you can get there's no bottoming pattern or anything along those lines here we're just in bar number six we're wave number five out here letter E no bottoming signal the natural gas weekly chart has moved lower it's lost that road's been to indicator signal so there's no bottom pattern here looks like this thing just wants to continue to move lower well the only possible saving grace out here could be coming from the daily time frame chart Brent and that is that this will form a TD9 count we're not seeing the chart thank you thank you thank you got through all that and thank you Al for saving me so here are those white background charts out there so again a monthly lower left bar number six bar number five on the weekly no roads meant to indicator signal basically looks ugly as ugly as you can get but the daily time frame this is something to be paying attention to we do have bar number nine of a TD9 count that will confirm today as long as price closes below dollar 76 that's a likely outcome so we're going to get a well in that pattern now we'll complete on I don't know if natural gas futures are trading on Monday on the holiday or not but they'll certainly be completed by Tuesday out there now there's a new profile that's attempting to form for March March contracts rolling over to April I think it rolls over next week but not mistaken so we're going to switch over and take a look at the April contract as well but I just want to give you a feel for what's going on here because those people want to trade the UNG March is still in the UNG it's about a third of the holdings upside inside UNG the April contract is the other 75 percent or thereabouts don't quote me on the actual percentages out here so we do have a potential bottoming pattern for natural gas that's if we especially if we get a you know there's an a to b equal cd to the downside so if we got a bullish reversal candle today that would generate both a TD9 count and a buy the d-point pattern and the reason why Brent and myself and everybody is looking at natural gas is really because of this not this chart here this is the s and p but we'll switch over and take a look at natural gas and if we take a look at natural gas we put this on the maximum data that I have which is 33 years and what we can see is that natural gas is we're in the time period where natural gas should be forming a bottom so on average over a 33 year period that bottom typically comes in right around February 20th what's today the 16th so it says we should be forming a bottom today Monday Tuesday Wednesday something along those lines if it's going to follow along the seasonal pattern natural gas has basically two months that are favorable for it two months and you can see this at least on average over the last 33 years it's been March and April has that changed along the way well I'm not going to go from 33 to 25 that's not going to do much but let's take a look at 15 years out here 15 years shows that April is a month that moves higher in July it's not a lot of favorable seasonal time periods here for natural gas but we're basically or we should be in one of them what's natural gas do in a 33 year period I don't know the answer to this we're going to find out during the presidential election cycle out there what happens well in this case here Brent if you're going to ask that question natural gas doesn't really bottom until March or so so let's go with what we have right now what we have right now is that over that average 33 year period that we use out here we're expecting to anticipate natural gas should bottom or we're getting that signal today now let's switch from these charts to go over and take a look at the actual UNG boil the two contracts that make up the UNG right now well turns out that natural gas for its April con what the heck happened there shoot this was supposed to be daily sorry folks me in second here about weekly daily let me just so you can see the TD nine count bottom but I need to just make sure I've got the proper template here loaded that way we're all looking at the right data there we go so you can see that a TD nine count bottom is going to complete today for natural gas for the April contract that makes up about 75% of UNG out there there's an A to B equal CD pattern here too we got a bullish engulfing candle we don't have any profile issues to deal with that could be good or bad out there you'd love to have profile support out there but we don't have that in the April contract this suggested a minimum we should see a rally up to that red oscillator and change on about a buck 76 inside of natural gas and if price can get above that we could be looking to move up to the 213 level you can see on boil and in UNG they both have they will both complete TD nine count bottom patterns today so for those of you looking to get long natural gas you've got a pretty good signal as we speak right now and even on the 30 minute time frame this is a beautiful thing you have a negated TD nine count top the things are looking up but only time will tell Steve Rhodes with TFN currencies commodities and bond markets are as important as ever right now with how they're driving the volatility in equity markets across the globe which is why it's a great time to try out teddy keg stats tiger forex report teddy keg stat breaks down the forex markets every monday using his 30 plus years of experience as a trading veteran of futures forex stocks and options teddy releases his weekly tiger forex report every monday morning with coverage of all the major currency pairs including the dollar index the euro dollar pound dollar dollar swiss dollar yen as well as many more and he also has weekly coverage of the crude oil market and the 30 year t-bonds as they both influence forex markets tremendously when you sign up for the tiger forex report you also gain instant access to teddy 60 minute webinar archive he just hosted forex strategies and fundamentals what is behind the tiger forex report for all the details and to start your 30 day tiger forex report subscription today visit the front page of tfnn.com tfnn educating investors everything in the universe is governed by the fibonacci sequence this mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market to stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of sign up for the fibonacci 24 7 newsletter at tfnn.com when you subscribe you'll get a weekly report from veteran day trader larry pesavento on stocks you need to pay attention to and you can trust larry's analysis after all he's got 45 years experience as a day trader larry will also provide daily charts videos and data on the key markets that he's tracking expect notifications from larry on market movement you need to act on at any time first time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up subscribe to the fibonacci 24 7 newsletter today tfnn.com educating investors will the s and p 500 continue to climb for bold trades on us large cap stocks in either direction trade spxl spu u or spxs directions daily s and p 500 bull and bear leveraged etfs direction leveraged etfs an investor should carefully consider a fund's investment objective risks charges and expenses before investing a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus contain this and other information about direction shares to obtain a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus call<PHONE_NUMBER> or visit direction investments.com a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing an investment in the funds is subject to risk including the possible loss of principal the funds are designed to be utilized only by sophisticated investors such as traders and active investors distributor foresight fund services LLC this program is brought to you by vista gold traded on the nyse american ntsx under the symbol vgz say we had a question that came in from joe that was uh while we were taking a look at natural gas joe's specific question is do you see a bottom of natural gas for a short-term trade if i wasn't clear i think i was the answer is yes i was watching that 30-minute time frame chart when i get done with this uh break here i'm going to issue a trade alert for newsletter subscribers from answering probabilities making them aware of what has transpired so far so if you're looking for a bottom signal bottom pattern it's right here right now well you got to use stop so you got to use a stop doesn't mean that it's going to turn into a trade we look at those weekly and monthly charts their reasons to be cautious at a minimum all right so let's get back to uh these uh requested have come in 777 he's going to play a little black no not black his name is jack blackjack but 777 i'm thinking that's more of a one well it could be it's more of a one-armed bandit don't you think in any event zto is really just get to it out here zto is what uh jack would like to take a look at so let's get the up on our screen we've got up on our screen don't we uh yeah we're in the right spot okay so this is zto express came in ink i'm not sure what that means it's mean they're in the camons is that the deal we take a look at zto it looks bullish to me on the daily time frame wise look bullish formed a beautiful roads meant to mitigate her bottom price and gaps up above profile resistance the next target for uh this let's pull this back just a tad on the daily time frame next price target is its td9 count breakdown level and that's up at the 21 22 level if we look at a weekly time frame you love zto why td9 count bottom is going to complete this week and it looks like price will close above that red oscillator and change line that is a signal that we should see more of a rally that more of a rally should take us up to 2022 or 21 33 so our price targets right now are 2022 21 31 and 21 22 on a monthly time frame it's a possibility that this will go ahead and generate a td9 count bottom this month is going to be bar number eight we really don't know on this day cheer but what we do know is that a prior swing point a prior swing point from october 2022 volume there was 77 million last week i was tested last month with 77 million this month so far we're about halfway through the month 34 million so still got kind of a volume but nonetheless zto this is a technical call out here it's going to rally and that rally should take us up into that 2022 level out there so i hope that helps you out jack and thanks so much for the request and your patience we're going to go take like a tick symbol w i m i out here this is for uh uh dan inside the tiger's den this is wimmy hologram cloud out there this is only trading at about a buck dan thinks this might be a lottery ticket out here so what do the patterns tell us about the patterns tell us on the daily time frame the only thing i can come up with as we speak right now is this thing is trading in a gigantic did i say ginormous or i said gigantic profile it's a bullish structured profile and today's close above 92 cents and in uh tuesday's close above 92 cents would go a long way to suggest that price wants to make its way back to that buck 39 level that happens to be the high the most recent high out here and it is the top of that daily profile if i look at the weekly time frame chart price is trading by the top of its profile the top of its profile is 91 cents a close above that this week is going to suggest to run back up to 117 we're going up to 117 that gets us up towards that buck 39 level i don't see anything negative on the wimmy in the monthly time frame in fact the monthly time frame looks like right now it's trading above profile the top of that profile so you'd love to see this dan is on february 29th i don't know if that's a trading day do we have 29 days this uh february 28th or 29th whatever the last day of february is when the month actually closes if you can get a close above 97 cents that would add to the bullishness that you have with regard to the monthly time frame again the uh day weekly time frame is certainly bullish as is the uh daily right now so um i hope that helped you out with regard to the profile information out there and best of luck to you we've got a request from vick who wants to take a good coin base out here i believe coin base was out with earnings before the bell after the bell they're back up at their most recent highs a close above the level of 187 39 a close above 187 39 is going to negate a weekly td9 count top you know what that says that says price wants to get up to 323 dollars eventually eventually because that's a monthly time frame price target we're trading above profile levels it looks like this is going it could so it could how are we gonna get how are we gonna know if we're gonna get to 323 the answer my friend comes from a monthly close what stan says is the 29th uh that's perfect is so that's a net we're gonna celebrate david white's birthday like we've never celebrated before as that is his birthday right he's he's a youngster right he left us way too early out there because he only got so many birthdays to celebrate um how many did he get uh 10 12 13 14 something along those lines so we're going to celebrate that on the 29th in honor of him but if this can close at the 29th if he can close above the price of 187 39 that will be its signal to you that price wants to move to that 323 level so you've got today's price to watch you want to see that close above the weekly td9 count again that number out there is 187 39 if you get that that's a beautiful thing price is taking out or trying to take out a roadsman to minicator top the swing point out there it did volume of 17.6 million so far today you've done 21 million shares so price is taking that out that could set up a pretty large a to b equal cd we don't need to set up the a to b equal cd patterns here do we know we don't because we got 323 as a price target out there so vika hope that helped you out uh me me wanted to take a look at the profile levels on ticker symbol erf so let's get that up on stevie's screen out here and erf is what i don't know but we do know that today is going to become bar number eight now that was not me me's question me me's question was this for enter plus corporation is where are the profile levels so on a daily timeframe me me the profile level was at 1605 i say was because we're trading at 1639 so a blue pass that yesterday we're trading above it today we're trading above a green oscillator and changeline but you do have bar number eight that is forming here this suggests that enter plus even as bullish as it does look right now it still should form a short term top between today and wednesday of next week that short term top should take us back to support the support level or the first support level would be at 1605 the top of the daily profile this would be the second day above that level so it is a real change in trend breakout a signal here but nonetheless you're likely going to get a topping patent forms by a wednesday of next week the weekly chart says yes so what so you're just going to get a little topping pattern pull back and test support that's fine because i'm in a breakout mode myself there was a new profile that formed last week the top of that profile is 1596 again where it's 1640 so 1596 old resistance would really become your new support level we don't need to know where the bottom of the center of the weekly is with regard to the monthly timeframe the monthly timeframe shows that price is consolidated with inside his profile out there and this would suggest that price might target 1714 so we got 1714 on the monthly we have 1759 as a price target on the weekly and just be paying attention to that daily timeframe out there i'm not suggesting that you sell i don't know if you've got a position or you don't have a position if you do have a position and you've been holding on well you make the decision that's right for you i'm sharing with you that the chart patterns weekly and monthly are saying this thing wants to continue to move higher eventually and i think that's after a short pullback so me me i hope that helps you out with regard to that question i see we're going to be going to a break here in about 10 or 15 seconds there are two requests that i have that are outstanding although i need to check the tiger's den see if there was anything in there that i miss i don't think so so we're going to take a look at occidental petroleum and devin energy for alton we get back from the spring steve rogel tf you might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market you're going to need a crystal ball after all it's impossible to predict the future right like any endeavor in life before you decide it's impossible get some advice from the experts you might find that it's not so impossible after all for daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices selective stocks and commodities subscribe to the opening call newsletter at tfnn.com the opening call newsletter is written by basil chapman creator of the trading methodology known as the chapman wave the chapman wave up down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns finding the peaks and valleys and stock prices get the opening call newsletter by basil chapman and your inbox every day first time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up tfnn.com educating investors everything in the universe is governed by the fibonacci sequence this mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market to stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of sign up for the fibonacci 24 seven newsletter at tfnn.com when you subscribe you'll get a weekly report from veteran day trader larry pesavento on stocks you need to pay attention to and you can trust larry's analysis after all he's got 45 years experience as a day trader larry will also provide daily charts videos and data on the key markets that he's tracking expect notifications from larry on market movement you need to act on at any time first time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up subscribe to the fibonacci 24 seven newsletter today tfnn.com educating investors you ready to take charge of your financial future tfnn is your gateway to the world of trading and investing whether you're starting out or scaling up tfnn empowers traders and investors of all skill levels with top-notch investing systems strategies and techniques it's time to protect and grow your money with insight you can trust join us live Monday through Friday during market hours for exclusive content that moves with the markets at tfnn we bring the trading floor to you our seasoned hosts are here to answer your calls and questions live on the air check out the tiger's den for just one dollar and follow us on youtube and become part of our vibrant community and remember at tfnn we're so confident in the value we provide that we are for a 30-day money back guarantee on all new premium newsletter subscriptions and services you have absolutely nothing to risk so why wait tune in live to tiger tv and transform your trading journey because when you know better you invest better join us and experience the difference today tfnn educating investors folks we're taking your charts here for Occidental Petroleum and this is for Alton and Alton what I would say is in 47 cents the the fastened seat belt sign is going to be coming on and you want to be paying attention because those air masks could fall down because you're going to run into some turbulence so you've got sellers or resistance at the 6105 level that's on the daily time frame that's his td9 count breakdown resistance level by the way this formed a td9 count top it did that on the trading day of december 22nd what did that do that took price all the way back to its breakout level of support and that was on january 18 so maybe it's going to do a full trip back up and 6105 would be that area not only on the daily time frame is 6105 resistance the weekly time frame says between 6094 and 6261 it's going to get bumpy why because that's its bearish structured profile area out there monthly chart uh not really providing us with a ton of information just shows that long uh sideways consolidation that's been in place quite frankly since may of 2022 out there and that is for Occidental Petroleum let's go take a look at Devin energy dvn is a ticker symbol out here we take a look at dvn you got a profile change in trend signal yesterday you're getting confirmation of that today this suggests a run for its breakdown level at 4565 the weekly chart says well before I get the 4565 I've got to get back inside my profile that formed above price which is a bearish message doesn't mean price can't get back in there but that first level resistance to the upside is not that many cents away we're at 4354 and 4393 is going to be that first resistance level that you're going to face inside of Devin energy I'll tell you on a 65 minute time frame Devin energy right now it was forming bar number nine of a td9 count so this suggests that we should see some kind of pullback or retracement it may just be brief but that's what's going on on the intraday basis to finish things off let's go take a look at draft kings out here this is for dan from new york draft kings looks very bullish why because yesterday it negated his td9 count top and today it's getting confirmation of that we're trading above yesterday's high looks to me like draft kings wants to continue to run higher run higher to where well it's negating its monthly td9 count top that says over time draft kings wants to get up to the 64 58 area dan from new york so i hope that that helped out folks have a fabulous weekend out there monday is a holiday it's president's day well i'm not a president but i get the day off anyways i hope that you get the day off as well we'll look forward to seeing you on tuesday take care be safe out there folks


Welcome to my talk about open source project governance, leadership, and company affiliation. Today, I'm going to talk about a few topics related to governance. Starting with a look at the differences between projects that are under foundations compared to projects that run out of individual companies. After that, I will talk about how governance is mostly about the roles and processes that guide how people collaborate and make decisions, including some thoughts on how to document all of this in ways that help set your project up for success. I will wrap it up with a few final thoughts and links to some useful resources. But first, I'll tell you a bit about me. I've been in the technology industry for over 20 years, working mostly on open source projects from within companies like puppet and Intel. At Pivotal, I was responsible for driving Pivotal's Kubernetes contribution strategy, and I was actively contributing to the Kubernetes contributor experience. Now I'm working in BMWare's open source program office, and I'm responsible for our open source community strategy. So lately, I've been active in the CNC app, contributor strategy SIG, in particular the governance working group, which I'll talk more about later. I'm also a board member of Open UK, which is focused on developing and sustaining leadership in open technology within the UK. I'm a governing board member and maintainer for the Linux foundations chaos project, which is focused on using metrics to evaluate the health of open source projects. And I'm on the advisory board for Patergia. I also have a PhD from the University of Greenwich here in London, where I was researching how people working at a bunch of different companies collaborate within the Linux kernel. I wanted to start by talking about why it's important to think about who owns or controls an open source project, because it's something that many of us maybe don't spend as much time thinking about as we should. Projects that are controlled by foundations and ones that are owned by individual companies can have very different dynamics and different risks associated with participating in those projects. With the recent announcement of the Open usage Commons Foundation, I've been thinking a lot about what it means for a foundation to be neutral, and why foundations can be important for collaborative leadership within open source projects. The success of Kubernetes can be attributed in part to being contributed to the cloud native computing foundation. Putting Kubernetes into a neutral foundation with representation from a bunch of different companies provided a level playing field where each of us could collaborate and innovate as equals to create something that benefits the entire ecosystem. The trick isn't figuring out whether a foundation is neutral or not. The way to tell is by looking at the trademarks for the foundation. In a neutral foundation foundation should own the trademarks associated with the name of the foundation and at least have some control over the trademarks or the projects as well. If the trademarks are owned by a company, especially a single company, that's a red flag that it's not really a neutral foundation. Let's also look at the leadership for the foundation. If the board of directors or other leadership bodies are made up of people who work at a wide range of different companies, especially competing companies, that's a good indication that it's a neutral foundation with a good balance of people who represent various aspects of the industry. If the board members are made up primarily of people either from a single company or maybe a couple of companies with very close ties, it's not likely to be a neutral foundation. And these are just a couple of the many things that you should look at when deciding if a foundation is neutral or not. In neutral foundations, our end users get access to more innovation from a diverse group of contributors while also reducing vendor lock in. For example, users of Kubernetes can consume enterprise versions from a wide variety of vendors that can run on any of the leading cloud providers. For example, with open source funders, we can contribute to foundation during projects with the confidence that no one company is in control of the project and that we can contribute as equals within the community. Open source projects that are controlled by a single company are a higher risk because they operate at the wins of that company. Under neutral foundations have a lower risk both for end users and for software vendors. When a project is done by a company, there's little recourse for outside contributors when a company decides to go in a direction that doesn't maybe align the needs or the expectations of the other participants in that community. When a project is owned or controlled by a company, consider the reputation of that company as a steward of open source projects. But always keep in mind that they can change the strategy at some later date. We've seen this with Google around the Istio and Knative projects. I'm not saying that we shouldn't participate in open source projects owned by other companies, but we should think about the risks that we're taking. In some cases, it makes a lot of sense to accept this higher risk. But we should always try to make sure that as a company, we understand the risks that we're taking. At VMware, we believe that contributing open source projects to neutral foundations is important. And it's something that we do regularly for projects that we've started once they gain a bit of traction with people outside of the company. For example, we've contributed Harbor and Contour to the CNCF, and we contributed Turn to the Linux Foundation's Automated Compliance Tooling Project. We've also contributed projects to the Apache Software Foundation and other foundations. While this does mean giving up some control over the project, there are a lot of benefits with advantages around community building, innovation and wider adoption. It's something that we should always consider for our open source projects. It's also important to think about when your project might be ready to contribute to a neutral foundation. If your project is very immature, foundations are unlikely to be interested in your project. Whereas a project with many users and really good traction that just maybe needs some help moving up to the next level would be much more likely to be accepted. However, companies should understand that contributing a project to a foundation is an ongoing commitment. It's not an exit strategy, and you need to be prepared to provide staff and other support over the long term, just like you would if you weren't contributing it to a foundation and we're continuing to maintain it internally. We've been doing quite a bit of work within the CNC Africa Contributor Strategy SIG and the governance working group to help document governance best practices. And this section contains some ideas, inspiration and materials that I've been working on along with people like like Josh Bergus, for example, within the working group. A lot of people like to hate on governance. It's just extra paperwork, busy work, it's politicking that gets in the way of doing the real work on the project. The reality is that governance can be found at all open source projects in one form or another to specify the processes for how people work together within that project. Ideally, it'll be clearly documented, but for some projects, especially the smaller ones, it might be a bit more ad hoc and a bit more informal. Governance helps outline expectations around roles and responsibilities along with the decision making process. So it's important to have at least the basics in place early. Since it's one of those things that you may think you don't need until you realize that you actually do. It's usually easier to set clear expectations up front rather than realizing later that various people have very different expectations, which can take a lot more time to sort out. This doesn't mean that you need to specify everything up front, and I would discourage you from over engineering your governance processes before you need them. A project with only a few people will not need elaborate elections to select leaders. But you probably should define a few basic roles like maintainer, for example, to find the process for contributing to your project, and put together some documentation on how decisions around those contributions are made. If the processes for collaboration and decision making are not clearly documented as part of the project governance, this can increase the risk of participating in or using the project by other companies because it just reduces a lot of uncertainty into the mix when people don't know what to expect. Knowing how collaboration occurs and how decisions are made is vital to being able to make contributions that are more likely to be accepted. There are a few documents that every project, even the small ones should have. It should go without saying that open source projects need the appropriate licensing documentation. I occasionally find repos with missing license files, and that's a bit more rare, but more often I see licenses not applied correctly within projects. In addition to putting on license file in your repository, some licenses require things like a notices file or license headers within each source file. You should also have a code of conduct that people can easily find with details about how to report incidents along with the consequences of violating the code of conduct. Sometimes people who are new to implementing codes of conduct can find it intimidating because they think it's something that they need to write from scratch. But don't do that. I would encourage you to use something like the contributor covenant, which is pretty much the gold standard for codes of conduct right now. And it can be simply copied and applied to the repository. However, the bit that you do need to spend some time on is making sure that you have a plan for enforcing it. You'll need to nominate a couple of people who will be responsible for taking reports of violations and then handling them responsibly. The contributor covenant page has loads of details and links to resources for learning about implementing and enforcing a code of conduct. So it's a great resource. Your contribution docs should provide enough details about the contribution process so that someone new to the project can make their very first contribution. This includes details about how to sign your contributor license agreement or CLA if you have one, or how to use the developer certificate of origin or DCO or signed off by process if you have that instead. And if you have strong preferences about coding style, testing documentation or other requirements. This is a good opportunity to make sure that new contributors know these upfront, which helps reduce the burden of trying to educate each individual contributor about your requirements while you're also trying to review and provide feedback on their contributions. You'll want to make sure that your contributors know what to expect and how to navigate the project while making contributions. The communication process should be clearly defined so that people know where and how to communicate in the project. Maybe you prefer mailing list discussions or Slack messages or issues for feature requests. Maybe you have separate communication channels for users and for developers. Make sure that everyone understands how people within the project communicate with each other to avoid frustrating experience for both your new contributors and your existing ones. Projects should also document the processes for reporting and then responding to security issues. Projects that take a proactive approach to addressing security issues and releasing fixes are much more likely to be secure. You should also be using some automated tools like dependabot, for example, to help identify when new versions of dependencies are available, which also helps keep on top of potential security issues. While there are no guarantees, critical security issues can sort of pop up at any time, taking a proactive approach to security reduces the likelihood of having serious security issues that will be exploited later. The project should have a security.md file or another document with details about the process, both for reporting and then responding to security concerns. At a minimum, you'll want to have a way for people to privately report security issues and have a few people who are designated to handle those issues. And you need these even for small projects. Large projects that are used by vendors within their commercial products should also have things like embargo lists where you can provide information to vendors and give them time to prepare their security fixes for their products in advance of the security issue becoming public to help them avoid being exploited as soon as the issue becomes public. So you should have some kind of documentation about your leadership. For small projects, you might just need those of maintainers in your readme file, or maybe owners or maintainers files that indicate which people are responsible for various areas within the project. So combining the roles and responsibilities for contributors, reviewers and maintainers might be enough as a first step, which can help with them with recruiting people into those roles. For bigger projects, you'll want to have more details about the specific roles and responsibilities for all of the different leadership roles, along with how others can move into leadership positions. You might have committees, working groups, special interest groups or other groups that will need leaders. And again, having this documented can really help you recruit new leaders as you grow the project and need more people to share the workload. There are quite a few different options for selecting leaders as a part of your of defining your governance. And the ideal is to have a process that provides a fair and level playing field that defines how contributors can become leaders. This should be documented so that all participants can clearly understand the criteria and the process for moving both into and then out of leadership positions. Most of the bigger projects like Kubernetes, for example, have an election process, at least for the very top levels of leadership, like a steering committee. At lower levels of leadership, many projects have a process where existing leaders select new ones. For example, new maintainers are often nominated by existing maintainers and then approved after either a certain number of maintainers agree or sometimes it requires a vote by other members or some members of some committee. And there are a bunch of different options for selecting leaders, and I won't try to cover them all here, but there is an entire document, which is linked to on the slide for more details and you can find that again in the CNCF contributor strategies in your governance working group documents. Your project governance should be designed to keep diversity and inclusion top of mind. Building a diverse community where all people feel welcomed and included does not just happen. It requires putting work and thought into it. And when you're starting a project and thinking about governance. This is a good time to do this. I talked about codes of conduct earlier, and having a code of conduct that you actively enforce helps make sure that everyone feels safe and welcome within your community. Providing an environment where everyone, including people from marginalized populations feel safe is the first step toward building a diverse community around your project. You should also look at whether you have a diverse set of people at every level in the project, but especially in the leadership positions. And if not, come up with some programs that help underrepresented folks get involved and then move up within your project. And finally having programs that give people opportunities for shadowing mentoring and sponsoring new potential leaders can help you grow a diverse set of people into new leaders within the project. The Kubernetes contributor experience SIG is a great place to see an example of how to implement programs for things like shadowing and mentoring. You want to make a concerted effort to bring in new people from a variety of backgrounds and have programs in place then to help them grow into leadership positions are more likely to benefit from increased innovation and more likely to have a healthy community. Diversity and inclusion can be difficult to measure, and it usually involves mostly a manual assessment. There are some metrics within the chaos projects diversity and inclusion working group that you should have a look at for ideas for measuring various aspects so that you can improve your projects diversity and inclusion. Governance is one of those things that is just never really finished. We work in a space with constant change technologies change strategies change the way we work changes everything changes. Your governance needs to evolve right along with these changes. In particular, as open source projects become more mature and grow what they need from governance will change dramatically. The governance processes that you need when you have only a couple of maintainers is likely to be insufficient if the project grows dramatically. As your projects evolve your governance should evolve right along with them. There are so many aspects of good governance for open source projects. And I only had time to talk in detail about a few of the ones that I think are the most important, but taking a step back and looking at the big picture. What I have here on the slide is the common theme that drives why I think governance as a whole is so important for open source projects. Governance provides a framework for setting expectations for roles, responsibilities and how people within your project should behave. But clearly documenting these expectations you can reduce uncertainty and make it easier for people to know how to participate in your project. The more you can do to help everyone participate in meaningful ways, the more welcome they're going to feel within your open source community. I will wrap up this talk with a few resources that people might find useful. The to-do group has a bunch of guides that have great info about creating and managing healthy projects. And many of them talk about various aspects of governance. The CNCF contributor strategy, SEIC, which I've talked about before, has a governance working group with more details about what you need for governance and some options for leadership selection. The open source guidebook has an entire chapter on governance with loads of details and these are all great starting places for understanding how to govern your open source project. With that, thank you so much for coming to my talk.