My daughter can't put down Roblox.
Eight hours a day if I let her. I had to take her phone away last week. She's 12. The dopamine hit is real. The addiction is real.
And watching this market the past six months? I get it now.
Every single weekday morning, I wake up knowing exactly what I'll see. Tech up and financials up. Or financials up enough to prop everything else. Or commodities and crypto doing their thing.
One of those three. Like clockwork.
It feels like a video game. It looks like a video game. It smells like a video game.
The algos rush in. Zero DTE calls make everything cheap and affordable. People think they're playing Grand Theft Auto with real money. Buy the same stocks. Don't care what they're worth. The narrative says they go up.
Try to find a down week on the S&P. You'll find one. Maybe. And it had zero impact.
I teach at Loyola between broadcasts. Smart kids. They ask good questions. But this week I kept thinking about what I tell them versus what I'm seeing every day.
The fundamentals don't work. The charts barely matter. They're timing mechanisms for an algo-driven game.
My wife has a great job here in Chicago. My daughter's in school. But when she turns 18? The next day I'm packing my car like the Beverly Hillbillies. Heading to my brother's 10-acre estate somewhere in the southeast. Getting out of this mess.
Because I'm tired.
Not from trading. I know how to navigate this. The Genesis Cog stays disciplined. We're killing it on the short side. We follow the system.
But I'm tired from watching the same show every morning. From explaining to people why buying Home Depot at 400 just because it was 410 yesterday is fighting an algorithm they can't beat. From seeing retail traders condition themselves to rush in like Pavlov's dogs.
This weekend, take a breath.
Turn off the screens. Put down the phone. Stop checking your positions.
Because Monday? It starts again. Tech or financials or commodities. The video game boots back up. The algos do their thing.
And you need to be sharp. Not exhausted. Not emotional. Not conditioned.
The market doesn't care if you're tired. The algorithms certainly don't. They never sleep. They never get exhausted. They don't have daughters addicted to Roblox or jobs teaching finance students or wives who root for the Lions instead of the Bears.
That's their edge.
Your edge? Stepping back when you need to. Seeing the patterns without getting sucked into the game. Having a system that works whether you're fresh or fried.
I appreciate every one of you who shows up to learn. You could be anywhere. Getting a massage. At the gym. Lawn bowling if you're in Florida. But you're here.
That means something.
Just remember—there's more to life than watching the same three scenarios play out in different combinations every morning.
Even if the market forgot that.
Have a good weekend. We'll pick this back up Monday.
Professor Jeffrey Bierman
Creator of the Genesis COG System