CPI data is coming out tonight, and it’s a CPI report missing the year-over-year figure.
The world is just one big amateur operation, with a different story every day. Data or news, in the end, markets are driven by money; the news is just a catalyst.
In the afternoon, I sat in the hotel lobby chatting with my junior colleague’s assistant.
The lobby was crowded. There’s an industry forum tomorrow, and people have been arriving one after another to check in. First they sign in, then go to the front desk to check into the hotel.
We chatted while watching the people and the scenery.
A Black guy brought a girl over to get a room.
It looked like the guy hadn’t brought his passport, or there was some other reason, so he asked the girl to register at the front desk.
This Black guy doesn’t look like an international student or an office worker. He seems more like he’s from Guangdong, with a real loser vibe.
What about the girl? She’s chubby, with a huge butt—like a weight.
My assistant asked me, “Uncle Short, how do you think those two met? Online?”
I said, “The odds they met online are extremely low.”
Black guys are often illiterate, but they’re natural mathematicians.
What do I mean? They’ve got probability theory in their blood.
Their approach is simple and direct: “I really like you. Can we get together?”
No matter what woman they meet or what her status is, they just go up and confess their feelings.
Maybe 99 out of 100 women will turn them down, but eventually one will take the bait.
Whenever they meet a woman, whatever her status, they’ll make the same confession.
They’ll say it to the hotel receptionist, or to passengers and train attendants on the high-speed rail.
It’s that crude and straightforward. Someone’s bound to have a screw loose, or just be curious.
She asked, “Isn’t this the foundation of a lot of pickup-artist theory?”
I said, “You could call it a branch of the theory. The core is creating an illusion.”
Have money, dress well, be knowledgeable, work out, and package yourself as an attractive person. Then, on that basis, go looking for a needle in a haystack.
For example, if you’re going to Xi’an on a business trip, set your location to Xi’an ahead of time, keep adding local people, and chat with them to warm things up. By the time you actually arrive, all that groundwork can pay off.
They even calculate the costs precisely.
Buy some popcorn, watch a movie, then get a cup of milk tea—the cost of picking up one person can’t exceed 200 yuan.
They’re from the loser class to begin with and don’t have much money, so they rely on low costs and a large sample size.
I used to know someone who studied this stuff. People who are into it are never idle, day in and day out.
She asked, “Uncle Short, aren’t you interested in this stuff?”
I said, “Lowbrow entertainment.”
There was a big discussion about this on Tianya years ago: how wild were the emperors’ sex lives, with their three palaces, six courtyards, and seventy-two concubines?
Actually, I think ordinary people have all sorts of fantasies about an emperor’s life.
Because the ultimate luxuries ordinary people can imagine are basically beautiful women, money, and material possessions.
But for someone who truly holds power, those might be nothing more than the most ordinary things.
Think about it: the entire machinery of the state is working for you. You say who gets killed, and they get killed. The resources you can mobilize and the things you can control are already way beyond what ordinary people can imagine.
People always use their own understanding to imagine what someone one level above them is like.
A lot of it is just ordinary people fantasizing, because these are the most extravagant luxuries they can think of.
Back to ETH.
It’s been falling all the way down, and each rebound has peaked lower than the last. The overall trend is obviously still downward.
On November 5, it rallied to 2,449, then the next day it plunged on massive volume, leaving everyone who chased the rally stranded at the top.
Then it went sideways between 2,225 and 2,245 for three days. The day before yesterday, it plunged again, crashing straight through to 2,050.
It later rebounded to 2,168, and even held around 2,085 on the pullback. But from the morning session until now, it’s been grinding around 2,121 for seven or eight hours.
The price has just been drifting back and forth in this roughly $20 range between 2,108 and 2,135, without even a decent move.
More importantly, trading volume has clearly dried up, and there’s not enough buying pressure.
For it to suddenly turn into dead calm after a crash like that—that’s definitely not something retail traders can orchestrate.
But one thing is clear: taking a position here at 2,120 is pure guesswork.
Looking up, 2,150 to 2,168 is where the first rebound after the sell-off the day before yesterday ran into resistance. There are plenty of short-term bagholders above that level.
Since no big money has really come in to buy the dip below, the whales could easily use tonight’s CPI data to stage a fake breakout, push it up to 2,165 to lure people into going long, and then resume the move down.
I’ll wait patiently for it to rally. If it gets into the 2,160–2,170 area, runs out of steam, and shows signs of resistance, I’ll consider building a short position in batches.
If it hits 2,105, I’ll take some profit off the table and keep holding the rest, targeting 2,055.
If the market really shows strength and blasts through 2,205, then my read was wrong. I’ll take the loss, stop out, and get out immediately.
That’s trading: the market comes up with a new story every day, but we can’t believe every one of them.
It’s easier to believe something than to doubt it, because doubt takes more processing power.