As someone who loves trading technicals
I think learning about markets via technicals (like I did) is one of the worst ways to start
It’s a rigid framework where grown men argue with each other about the exact Japanese name for a specific candlestick or a box they’ve drawn on an arbitrary time frame
It doesn’t teach you the foundations - why markets move, different types of participants, microstructure, order types and their impact, perps vs spot, and all that stuff - market ‘plumbing’ as a category
One of the biggest issues with being hyperfocused on technicals is that they don’t teach you principles and market effects
Most technical setups can be decomposed into broad buckets which are well-established (trend, mean reversion, momentum, order flow / price impact, vol clustering etc.)
A lot of technical analysis is an often unknowing attempt to map those broad market effects into a recognisable pattern
But even a technical-first view is better served by understanding the underlying market effect first and then decomposing it, as opposed to focusing on the specific pattern without ever looking at what’s happening under the hood
“This type of triangle tends to go up” is a lot less useful than “this type of flow tends to resolve higher over N time frame”, even if you use the same triangle to identify it
Another example: if you’re drawing a support level and buying it, you’re assuming some version of buyers being more aggressive than sellers in that area over a given time frame and predicting a higher price as a result - but what does that mean?
Shorts closing / taking profit, allowing for mean reversion? Aggressive sellers being absorbed by passive buyers? Some price insensitive buyer predictably stepping in at a value area? Sellers getting margin called and forcibly trading at bad prices/causing a dislocation? Clustering of orders creating some sort of imbalance? And so on.
There’s definitely a risk of overthinking this stuff, and you can make money from charts alone
But if you haven’t thought about the underlying market effects and ‘plumbing’ for your setups you’ll likely be stuck in rigid pattern matching that doesn’t generalise and isn’t subject to deeper investigation and more nuanced application
Even if your main lens remains TA-focused, there is no harm in understanding the stuff you’re trading on a product level (eg perp contract specs, OI, funding, mark/last/index etc) and on a foundational level (why and how markets move)
Especially now that you can jam this stuff into an LLM and keep saying “dumb it down” until you get it, no excuse not to do your homework
This is something I really wish I did much earlier in my trading life, so hopefully it resonates with a fellow trader stuck in TA psychosis spending his mum’s credit card on a fourth Udemy candlestick course
Anyway GM
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Be honest, did this make you hungry? 🍲 Dropping the full AI video prompt below—what dish should I try next?
prompt:Create a 30-second fast-paced, photorealistic live-action Japanese cooking film that fully demonstrates the preparation of authentic Japanese sukiyaki. The entire video should have the visual quality and realism of a premium Japanese food commercial.
Overall Visual Style
Photorealistic live-action cinematic food cinematography. Absolutely no anime, illustration, cartoon, CGI-rendered, or video-game visual style.
Set inside a warm Japanese home kitchen during late afternoon. Amber sunlight passes through traditional wooden lattice windows and reflects naturally across a heavy black cast-iron sukiyaki pot.
Show extremely realistic food textures throughout: intricate fine marbling and fat structure in premium wagyu beef, visible vegetable fibers, porous tofu surfaces, realistic egg viscosity, and glossy sukiyaki sauce.
Follow physically believable cooking behavior at all times. Beef fat naturally melts when exposed to heat. Wagyu slices gradually change color as they cook and gently curl around the edges. The sauce produces fine simmering bubbles. Steam naturally rises and moves according to heat and airflow. Sauce slowly runs and drips along the surfaces of the ingredients.
Use shallow depth of field, macro close-ups, soft natural light, delicate highlights, and restrained cinematic color grading. Maintain premium food-commercial image quality with realistic textures and subtle photographic imperfections.
Camera movement should remain smooth, stable, and controlled. Editing should be fast-paced, energetic, and visually clear. Use natural match cuts based on chopstick movements, ingredient shapes, sauce flow, steam movement, and visual composition.
Maintain strict continuity throughout the entire video: the exact same pair of realistic human hands, the same utensils, the same chopsticks, the same cast-iron sukiyaki pot, the same ceramic bowl, the same kitchen environment, and the same lighting direction.
Timeline
0–3 seconds — Ingredient Preparation
Rapid macro shots of thinly sliced marbled wagyu beef, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, grilled tofu, shirataki noodles, napa cabbage, and shungiku arranged neatly.
Realistic human hands hold a chef's knife and cut the green onions into evenly sized diagonal segments.
The knife then creates a precise decorative flower-like pattern on the surface of the shiitake mushrooms.
All ingredients should look fresh and naturally moist. Clearly show their cut surfaces, natural fibers, pores, moisture, and fine texture.
Use rapid but controlled editorial cuts to establish the ingredients within the first three seconds.
3–6 seconds — Heating the Pot and Melting Beef Fat
The heavy black cast-iron sukiyaki pot sits on the stove and gradually heats.
Wooden chopsticks pick up a small piece of beef fat and place it directly into the hot pot.
The beef fat slowly melts from a solid piece into transparent rendered fat.
The chopsticks push the melting fat across the bottom of the pot, spreading it evenly across the cooking surface and creating a thin glossy layer of rendered fat.
Subtle heat vapor naturally rises from the hot surface.
Show realistic melting behavior, surface tension, heat distortion, and tiny sizzling sounds.
6–9 seconds — Searing Green Onion and Wagyu
Diagonal green onion segments fall into the hot cast-iron pot.
As they contact the hot surface, they produce a crisp, immediate sizzling reaction. The cut surfaces gradually develop a lightly browned, caramelized appearance.
Thinly sliced marbled wagyu is then placed directly into the pot.
The intricate fat marbling begins to melt under the heat.
The edges of the thin meat slices gently curl and contract naturally.
The beef gradually changes from fresh red to a tender light-brown cooked surface while retaining a moist, glossy texture.
Capture extreme macro details of melting fat, searing meat, tiny bubbles, and the interaction between the beef and the hot cast-iron surface.
9–12 seconds — Preparing the Sukiyaki Sauce
Fine crystalline sugar is evenly sprinkled over the partially cooked wagyu.
The sugar begins melting immediately when it contacts the hot cooking surface and rendered beef fat.
Soy sauce, mirin, and sake are poured sequentially around the edge of the pot.
The liquids combine into a deep amber-brown sukiyaki sauce.
The sauce rapidly bubbles as it contacts the hot pan and begins flowing around the wagyu and seared green onion.
The sauce gradually coats the surface of the beef and vegetables, creating a rich transparent gloss.
Show realistic liquid physics, bubbling, evaporation, surface tension, reflections, and sauce movement.
12–15 seconds — Adding the Ingredients
Wooden chopsticks sequentially place grilled tofu, decorative shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, shirataki noodles, and napa cabbage into the pot.
Arrange the ingredients naturally so their different shapes, textures, and colors create a visually balanced composition.
The sauce flows naturally between the ingredients.
The porous grilled tofu gradually absorbs the amber-brown sauce around its edges.
Show realistic moisture absorption and sauce penetration without making the tofu appear artificial or overly saturated.
15–18 seconds — Simmering and Infusing
Extreme close-up of the sukiyaki gently simmering.
Fine bubbles continuously form around the edges of the tofu, shiitake mushrooms, napa cabbage, and other ingredients.
The napa cabbage gradually softens and becomes partially translucent.
The enoki mushrooms become coated with glossy sukiyaki sauce.
Natural steam continuously rises from the pot.
The warm amber sunlight catches the steam, creating a subtle atmospheric haze.
The camera moves slowly sideways at extremely close range, following the surface of the simmering ingredients.
Maintain shallow depth of field, with individual bubbles and ingredient textures sharply resolved while the background remains softly blurred.
18–21 seconds — Adding Fresh Wagyu and Shungiku
A new layer of thinly sliced marbled wagyu is gently placed over the simmering vegetables.
The meat is slowly cooked by the surrounding heat and hot sauce.
The beef naturally changes color as it cooks, transitioning into a tender pinkish-brown cooked state while retaining visible marbling, moisture, and soft texture.
Fresh bright-green shungiku is placed along the edge of the pot.
The fresh green leaves create a strong but natural contrast against the darker ingredients and deep amber-brown sauce.
Maintain realistic ingredient scale, natural placement, and believable cooking behavior.
21–24 seconds — Preparing the Dipping Egg
A fresh chicken egg is gently cracked against the rim of a small white ceramic bowl.
The shell breaks naturally.
The yolk and egg white fall completely into the bowl.
Wooden chopsticks rapidly whisk the egg.
The yolk and white combine into a smooth golden mixture with realistic viscosity.
The chopsticks create a visible swirling vortex in the egg.
Steam from the sukiyaki naturally passes through the background.
Perform a smooth rack focus from the beaten egg in the foreground to the continuously bubbling sukiyaki behind it.
24–27 seconds — Picking Up and Dipping the Wagyu
Wooden chopsticks reach into the sukiyaki and pick up a tender slice of wagyu.
The meat hangs naturally from the chopsticks under its own weight.
A small amount of green onion and several thin strands of enoki mushrooms remain attached to the meat.
Glossy amber-brown sauce clings naturally to the surface of the beef.
Several realistic droplets slowly gather along the lower edge of the meat before falling back into the pot.
The wagyu is then gently lowered into the golden beaten egg.
The egg smoothly coats the surface of the beef with realistic viscosity and adhesion.
Capture the interaction between the glossy sauce, tender meat, and flowing egg mixture in an extreme macro close-up.
27–30 seconds — Final Hero Shot
The completed sukiyaki pot sits in the center of a warm solid-wood dining table.
The pot contains marbled wagyu, seared green onion, decorative shiitake mushrooms, grilled tofu, napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, shirataki noodles, and fresh green shungiku, all naturally distributed throughout the simmering pot.
The deep amber-brown sauce continues gently bubbling around the ingredients.
The sauce catches delicate realistic highlights across the surface.
Steam continuously rises from the finished dish and drifts naturally through the warm atmosphere.
The camera moves slowly around the edge of the cast-iron pot in a controlled cinematic arc.
The camera gradually settles on the chopsticks holding a tender slice of wagyu above the beaten egg in the foreground.
The wagyu remains soft and naturally folded, with visible marbling and glossy sauce coating.
The sauce and egg mixture form small natural droplets that slowly fall from the beef.
The background gradually becomes softer and more defocused.
End on a luxurious, warm, appetizing, premium Japanese food-commercial hero shot.
Cinematography
Premium Japanese food advertising photography.
Photorealistic live-action cinematography.
Natural macro food photography.
Shallow depth of field.
Selective focus.
Smooth controlled camera movement.
Macro close-ups mixed with medium food shots.
Natural rack focus.
Controlled lateral camera movement.
Slow cinematic orbit around the final dish.
Fast editorial pacing during ingredient preparation.
Rapid match cuts synchronized with hand movements, chopstick movements, ingredient placement, sauce movement, and steam.
Realistic lens characteristics.
Natural optical depth.
Subtle photographic imperfections.
High micro-detail.
Realistic surface reflections.
Natural motion blur.
No artificial camera shake.
No excessive slow motion.
No hyper-stylized VFX.
Lighting and Color
Warm Japanese domestic atmosphere.
Late-afternoon sunlight entering through traditional wooden lattice windows.
Soft directional sunlight.
Natural amber illumination.
Warm highlights across the cast-iron pot and ingredients.
Soft shadows with realistic falloff.
Subtle reflections on rendered beef fat and sukiyaki sauce.
Deep blacks on the cast-iron cookware.
Natural skin tones.
Rich food colors.
Deep amber-brown sukiyaki sauce.
Fresh green shungiku.
Natural red and pink tones in the wagyu before and during cooking.
Golden-yellow egg yolk.
Warm wooden tones from the dining table and kitchen.
Restrained cinematic color grading.
Premium Japanese food-commercial color palette.
Avoid excessive saturation, artificial neon colors, generic blue cinematic grading, or exaggerated HDR.
Audio
Bright, warm 1980s Japanese city-pop instrumental music.
Tempo approximately 110–120 BPM.
Delicate electric piano.
Soft bass.
Crisp drum-machine rhythm.
Subtle bell percussion.
The music should remain energetic enough to support the fast editing while never overpowering the cooking sounds.
Synchronize detailed, close-recorded ASMR cooking sounds with the visuals:
Chef's knife cutting vegetables
Knife contacting the cutting board
Beef fat touching the hot cast-iron pot
Beef fat sizzling and melting
Green onion sizzling
Wagyu fat rendering
Meat gently searing
Sugar falling onto the beef
Sugar melting
Soy sauce being poured
Mirin being poured
Sake being poured
Sukiyaki sauce rapidly bubbling
Wooden chopsticks touching the cast-iron pot
Chopsticks touching the ceramic bowl
Egg cracking
Egg falling into the bowl
Egg being whisked
Natural simmering sounds
Steam and subtle cooking sounds
During the final hero shot, the music naturally becomes quieter and resolves with a single delicate Japanese wind-chime sound.
Negative Requirements
Absolutely no Japanese anime, 2D animation, cartoon, illustration, manga, clay animation, 3D animation, or obvious CGI-rendered appearance.
No plastic-looking food.
No artificial food textures.
No excessive skin smoothing.
No fake glossy food surfaces.
No excessive or physically impossible highlights.
No physically impossible liquid behavior.
No unnatural steam.
No reverse-flowing liquids.
No floating ingredients.
No food clipping or intersections.
No unnatural deformation.
No storyboard panels.
No reference images visible in the final video.
No sketches.
No borders.
No numbers.
No arrows.
No annotations.
No subtitles.
No captions.
No interface elements.
No logos.
No watermarks.
No text overlays of any kind.
Do not show tonkatsu.
Do not show rice bowls or donburi.
Do not show seafood.
Do not show Western ingredients.
Do not show unrelated Japanese dishes.
Only show authentic Japanese sukiyaki and its traditional accompanying ingredients.
The final wagyu must not appear completely raw.
The final wagyu must not be excessively cooked, dry, tough, burnt, or charred.
Avoid completely raw-looking beef in the final presentation.
Avoid overcooked gray meat.
Avoid malformed hands.
Avoid extra fingers.
Avoid missing fingers.
Avoid distorted wrists.
Avoid unnatural hand anatomy.
Avoid twisted or deformed chopsticks.
Avoid duplicated utensils.
Avoid duplicated ingredients.
Avoid food clipping.
Avoid inconsistent ingredient shapes.
Avoid inconsistent pot geometry.
Avoid liquid flowing backward.
Avoid physically impossible steam movement.
Maintain exact continuity of the same human hands, same utensils, same wooden chopsticks, same cast-iron sukiyaki pot, same ceramic bowl, same kitchen, same dining table, same ingredient set, same lighting direction, and same spatial environment throughout the entire video.
The entire 30-second sequence must feel like one continuous premium Japanese food commercial filmed in a real kitchen, with physically accurate cooking, realistic human interaction, consistent food appearance, natural camera movement, and authentic live-action photography.
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Most people think Harry Potter is the best selling book series in history at ~615M books.
That will likely change this year.
It will be overtaken by One Piece, by Eiichiro Oda, regarded as the greatest Japanese manga / graphic novel of all time, which just crossed 600M in March and is projected to surpass HP this year and hit 725M+ when it ends in ~2030-32 (there’s 10-15% left).
The story follows Monkey D Luffy, a young boy who has rubber man powers, who assembles a pirate crew and goes on an epic journey to find the legendary “One Piece” treasure.
As a voracious reader, I struggled to take manga seriously for most of my life. I’m a hardcore Harry Potter fan, and even thinking of manga in the same breath once disgusted me. I relegated manga to a “niche comic book for nerds” and anime to a “kids cartoon”. “These aren’t real books, it’s just for people who can’t read longform”, I thought. But the past few years have completely changed my mind. I’ve been personally reading and watching (YouTube/Crunchyroll) many manga / anime including One Piece. Aside from the appreciation for the artistry of the characters, the stories strike me as immensely powerful with deep lessons about loyalty, sacrifice, friendship, ambition, justice, power, grief and kindness. Once you get in the flow, it’s far more enjoyable than most non-fiction and rivals anything on my shelf. The storytelling is beautiful. It awakens the child inside you without being juvenile. I highly recommend it to anyone who has previously had reservations like I once did, and doubly so if you want to enjoy something with your kids.
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AI CONFERENCES AND INVESTOR DAYS, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2026
YESTERDAY: INVESTOR DAY TAKEAWAYS
SEMTECH CORP INVESTOR DAY
Thu Oct 15, San Jose
Replay:
• Q3 FY27 outlook raised at the day: net sales to $417.5M plus or minus $2.5M, from $410.0M plus or minus $5.0M, up 56% year over year at the midpoint, with adjusted EPS raised to $1.14 plus or minus $0.02, adjusted gross margin guided to 59.0% (64% excluding the cellular modules business being divested) and adjusted operating margin to 33.0%
• New FY30 framework: $3.2B of net sales, including $2.1B from data center, with 70% adjusted gross margin, 48% to 50% adjusted operating margin, free cash flow at 35% of sales, and adjusted diluted EPS of $12.40 to $13.00; CEO Hong Hou said the FY30 growth is mostly driven by data center and LoRa
• Balance sheet: net debt down to $299M at the end of Q2 FY27 from $1.3B at the end of FY24, with net leverage down to 1.1x from 10.5x and a target of below 1x, then below zero net leverage longer term; the cellular modules divestiture is expected to close in fiscal Q4, pending regulatory clearances
• Stock reaction: shares fell 10.0% to close at $144.21 on Oct 15, after trading down nearly 17% intraday, as the FY30 framework landed below elevated market hopes despite the raised near term guide; chip stocks were also weak on the day, and MACOM fell more than 10% midday following the Semtech comments
• Analyst backdrop: BMO Capital had raised its target to $230 from $155 with an Outperform rating on Oct 13 ahead of the day; consensus stands at Strong Buy with an average target near $219, and no post event target changes were confirmed by the morning after
TODAY
No tracked events today.
TOMORROW
No tracked events tomorrow.
REMAINING THIS WEEK
Nothing remaining this week.
LATER
• Mon Oct 19: Five9 at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2026
• Mon Oct 19: Qnity Electronics at ICPT, Gangseo, Korea
• Tue Oct 20: Five9 at ServiceNow World Forum London
• Tue Oct 20: Zoom Communications Investor Day, 4:00 PM, webcast on Zoom IR
• Fri Oct 23: Tempus AI at ESMO 2026
• Mon Oct 26: DCD Connect MENA, Dubai, Oct 26 to 27
• Tue Oct 27: Celestica Investor Day, virtual, tied to Q3
• Tue Oct 27: DCD Investment Forum MENA, Dubai
• Tue Oct 27: Macronix International Investor Day, 4:00 AM
• Tue Oct 27: Guidewire Software Investor Day, 7:30 PM
• Wed Oct 28: Five9 at ServiceNow World Forum Amsterdam
• Wed Oct 28: Oracle Investor Day
• Wed Oct 28: Investor Day, Elevate 26, 2:00 PM
• Fri Oct 30: Hon Hai Precision Hon Hai Technology Day
• Tue Nov 3: DCD Connect Virginia, Leesburg, VA, Nov 3 to 4
• Wed Nov 4: DCD Connect Brasil, Sao Paulo, Nov 4 to 5
• Wed Nov 4: DCD Investment Forum Brasil, Sao Paulo
• Wed Nov 4: Xcelerated Compute Show Brasil, Sao Paulo, Nov 4 to 5
• Thu Nov 5: Box Investor Day, San Francisco
• Fri Nov 6: Global Unichip at TSMC 2026 Japan OIP Ecosystem Forum, Tokyo
• Mon Nov 9: Entegris Investor Day, 1:00 PM
• Tue Nov 10: Cohu Investor Day, New York
• Tue Nov 10: Flex Investor Day, Austin
• Tue Nov 10: WESCO International Investor Day, Data Center Deep Dive Day, 10:00 AM
• Wed Nov 11: Munters Group Capital Markets Day, Stockholm, 8:00 AM
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