Transcription
So, it's now been 3 or 4 years that I've been transparently sharing my trading performance here on YouTube, whether it's positive or negative. And that, at the end of each month. We are in a new year, 2026, a new month, but we're keeping the good habits. So in this video, we're also going to look a little bit at the markets, what might have happened, and I will obviously share my performance with you and whether I was able to end the month in the positive or the negative. This month of January was a month with enormous volatility. We haven't seen that in a long time. And a lot of uncertainty. For me, the big themes at the start of this year were obviously Trump's takeover of Maduro in Venezuela. Okay? So we had this major geopolitical event that obviously affected oil prices. Then, we had a lot of uncertainty surrounding the situation in Greenland, which had notably caused large gaps. I will share with you the positions I was able to take, but one of these gaps was my biggest loss, uh, in January, even though it was controlled, but because of slippage on my broker, I lost a little more than I had risked. Now, my base risk was, if I'm not mistaken, 0.33, so roughly 33% of my maximum risk. So, I lost a little more, but let's say it wasn't a monumental loss, but still, it's something that happens to me very rarely, and it was due to a position I was holding over the weekend, and as I explained, uh, due to the uncertainty surrounding Greenland. So, in short, there was that. Then, we'll also talk about the huge drops, or rather the huge rise and then violent drops we saw in commodities, gold, silver, and also obviously the impressive drops we are seeing in the crypto market.
Personally, I'm quite proud of this month of January. I'm quite proud of it, and you won't necessarily see it in my performance, not because I made a maximum of cash this month, no, but because I was extremely selective with my positions, and ultimately, there was a lot of uncertainty, and many things I had on my watchlist, meaning I was watching, didn't play out, and these are positions I therefore didn't execute. But for me, that's the positive aspect of this month because I know from experience that this is the kind of month where many traders with less experience or more beginners would potentially get wiped out because they absolutely want to trade, whereas a trader with a little more experience will recognize that they don't necessarily have their edge, they don't necessarily have their advantage in this type of market. So again, if we take the example of this early January, uh, I was able to, I had several setups, let's say a bit more technical on the Canadian dollar, particularly for buying. However, with the geopolitical risk surrounding Venezuela, I held back from buying the Canadian dollar due to the correlation of the Canadian dollar to oil prices, and oil prices being extremely sensitive to the geopolitical situation in Venezuela. And so, I avoided a loss on CAD CHF, so the Canadian dollar against the Swiss franc, and on EUR/CAD. These are two positions that, at first glance, seemed interesting, but due to the geopolitical situation, I preferred to abstain because when you take a position, when you take a trade, you must always be in a situation where you would be genuinely surprised if the trade goes against you. If you get a stop loss, you must genuinely be surprised, you must say, "Damn, that's weird." Okay? You must be in that kind of situation. For me, with the positions, the potential setups and trades I had on the Canadian dollar, if I had been stopped out at that moment, I wouldn't have been so surprised due to the volatility and uncertainty surrounding the oil market, which would have affected the Canadian dollar. So, I didn't put my cash there. Okay? And again, I did very well. So, the advantage this month of January wasn't the trades I took, it was the trades I decided not to take. That was the strength.
Otherwise, I'd like us to revisit the commodities market, particularly the gold and silver market. Okay? We can see this start of 2026, so right here, with gold which started the year more or less at $4300 and we went up to more or less $5600. Okay? So a total rise of 28% in less than a month on gold, and it's not even a question of experience, in fact, it's a question of perspective. By taking a step back, we know that this kind of return is not sustainable, okay? Not sustainable. And I had actually shared an analysis video in the Data Analysis Pro Service and in the Macro Trader Accelerator, I'll put the links below where I explained precisely on gold and silver at these all-time highs not to invest in these metals. Again, if it's for a reason of trading, short-term momentum, etc., why not, that's something else. But what I saw during these periods of euphoria, and it's normal, we always see this, is hundreds of messages, particularly on Instagram, from people asking me if it's a good time to invest in gold and silver. And in fact, the trap I see is that there's always a narrative. So, the question, let's say if I tell you like this, people tell me at all-time highs, at current prices with silver above $100, asking me if it's a good time to invest in silver, maybe you're thinking, "Are they crazy? Obviously, it's not a good time to invest in silver." If we look historically, we can see it's not now that one should invest. I agree with you. The problem is that there's always a narrative. So their thinking isn't as stupid, let's say, as "Is it a good time to invest in silver? I see it's an all-time high, it's extremely expensive, so I think it's a good idea." They've read lots of articles, news, even bank articles explaining why the price of silver is soaring and that demand is much stronger than current supply, and that China is accumulating a lot of gold and silver, and that we're entering a world where there will be a shortage of this commodity, and that's why silver is exploding and could continue to explode. But so, what I mean by that is that behind every market movement, whether positive or negative, there's always a narrative. So people who buy at all-time highs before a crash, intellectually speaking, are not stupid, okay? They are following a narrative. And it's exactly the same when we have a bearish market, when we have a commodity, a crypto, or a stock market that crashes. Again, there's always a narrative to explain this drop. And if you follow and study this narrative, this narrative will tell you not to buy at all because this narrative will obviously be negative, otherwise the price wouldn't be in freefall. So be very careful about that. But anyway, to get back to gold and silver, so as you can see, we saw a monumental drop in gold. If I'm not mistaken, it's one of the fastest and most volatile drops we've seen since 1929. And that reminds us of one thing: to always take a step back, okay? Uh, if we go right here, I want to show you silver. When I say take a step back, this is it, silver, this is what I was looking at. It's not insignificant; we've seen it before. And again, history doesn't always repeat itself exactly, but history rhymes. Okay? And in the early 80s, we saw a surge in the price of silver, okay, with euphoria. And again, here, there was a narrative, there were reasons why silver was exploding. But guess what? Afterwards, we returned to normal, and we had years of stagnation where absolutely nothing happened. For those who are in my Smart Finance Pro program, on personal finance management and long-term investment, I'll put the link in the description for that too, you know what I think of precious metals, of commodities. It's a potential hedge, it's good for preserving value over time. But it's not an asset for value creation unless you can really trade it on cycles. Uh, then, at the end of the 2000s to 2010 decade, we saw the same thing. We saw silver explode upwards. And guess what? Afterwards, we had a long negative period, and now we're seeing the same thing. So silver is exploding upwards. The probabilities are quite high that we'll return to a bearish and stagnant cycle for many years, where other assets will outperform.
And another thing I'd like to share with you is a more personal anecdote, but it's to show you again this psychological point of view. But my family, no one is in finance or anything, but obviously everyone knows what I do. And I had my father come to Panama during the Christmas period. And if you follow me on Instagram, etc., you should know that I had long positions on silver since $27. Okay. So very good execution, $27, we are right here. So you can see that these were positions dating back to 2024, so I'd had them for quite a while. Position executed at $27. Obviously, we're seeing a meteoric rise. So great, I'm in significant profit. However, what I did was sell, I started selling my positions, so taking profits at $70, then at $80, then at $90, and honestly, I had sold a large majority at those prices. So I still had small positions on silver, but the majority of my profits had been cashed out, and I had taken them. Okay? Since we're talking about silver and gold, these are commodities that are quite mainstream, that people know, including my father, and my father was talking to me about it, and I told him that I had a big trade on silver since $27 and that I had largely liquidated it to take profits. Afterwards, a few weeks later or whatever, I was on the phone with my father, and he tells me, no, he leaves me a voice message and says, "Yeah, well, I hope you're not too affected, that you're not too disgusted." I don't even understand what he's talking about. We're on the phone, and I say, "What are you talking about, by the way? Affected by what?" He says, "Ah, well, on the silver prices." He says, "Obviously the silver prices, you told me, I mean, since you sold, basically on the news, I've only seen it keep rising and everything. You must be disgusted." That already makes me, you know, twist the knife in the wound. But anyway. And honestly, I say honestly, no, I'm not sad at all because firstly, I took my positions at $27, I rode them up to $70, up to $80. Honestly, my profit is there, I'm happy. And above all, it's impossible to perfectly time a top. Okay? To sell my positions here at $121 on silver is impossible. And this is where all retail traders make a mistake because they see it as you sold at $90. So, it's not good. The objective isn't to be right. The objective is to make money. And so, let's say on my sales, I wasn't right. Okay, that wasn't the exact top, but I don't care, and that leads me to my other point, which is Bitcoin. Okay? Bitcoin, we're seeing absolutely monumental drops. At the moment I'm making this video, we're seeing -8.5% on Bitcoin in a single day. When I think that some people have 90% of their fortune in this asset, you have to look solid, huh. You have to look solid. And again, I'm not saying that long-term, it's not necessarily a good strategy, etc., but honestly, to live well, let's say, personally, I don't want to have my fortune, or at least a significant fortune, in an asset that is so volatile.
Anyway, to get back to Bitcoin, again, the objective isn't to be right, the objective is to make cash. For my part, I was able to share my Bitcoin sales in October, late October, here at $116,000. Okay? at $116,000, I was able to reduce risk. Again, is it because for me it was the top and I knew that not necessarily, but for me, we were at the end of a cycle. There was still very little to gain, if there were still things to gain, and a lot to lose. And what are we seeing? Exactly that. Afterwards, I also made a short reel where I explained when we were at these levels that a return to $104,000, $105,000 could allow those who are too exposed to Bitcoin to take profits and thus be less exposed. In the end, we didn't see that movement. I'm saying this because I see some people telling me, "Ah, you see, you were wrong about Bitcoin." But it's not a question of being right or wrong. My cash, I took it out at $116,000. Here, that was just for people who were already too exposed and who hadn't listened before when I said, on a correction, take out cash, don't be too exposed. Okay? What we saw was a break of this small flag and a complete crash downwards. So for the moment, we are seeing precisely this 4-year cycle play out perfectly here on Bitcoin. So, in short, I'm staying patient for now to re-inject volume, volume that I previously removed. And remember, the best times to buy, you won't want to buy. You won't want to buy because there will always be a narrative. Maybe because Epstein is behind Bitcoin, I don't know. There will always be a narrative that makes you not want to buy at the bottoms, and there will always be a narrative that makes you not want to sell at the tops. I was talking to a friend when we were at the tops here on Bitcoin, and I told him that personally, I was starting to sell because for me, there was too much risk compared to what there was still potentially to gain. And he told me, "Wait, what? Sell Bitcoin with Trump as president and with everything that's going to happen. They said they were going to do this, they said they were going to do that." I completely agree. But that's precisely what's priced in. That's the reason why we are at these current prices.
Now, let's look at my trading performance for January 2026. First of all, good news, January 2026 is a profitable month. I had a total of four positions, two losing trades and two winning trades. My average loss is -0.28R. I remind you that R is my risk factor. I always talk to you in terms of risk factor so that it resonates with you. Let's say, if I spoke in dollars, maybe it would sound better. But it's not, let's say, it's not because I made $20,000 that you're going to make $20,000. You see what I mean? That's why I always talk to you in R. So R is the risk factor. So if my risk is €1000 per trade, here my average loss was €280. So that means I took very little risk this month, and that shows in my performance. And again, I explained it to you, it's due to the volatility, the uncertainties we've seen in the markets, and also at the end of January. Well, as you can see currently, I'm currently in a hotel in the Alps, I'm skiing. So I'm also a little less present, so I'll simply send less volume. Uh, so, anyway, my average gain is 0.66. So again, with a risk of $1000, I'm at $660 average gain. My max drawdown is -0.56R, and I'm ending the month with a total profit of 0.77R. So again, it's not a month I'm proud of in terms of performance because I made a lot of money this month. No, again, the goal is above all not to lose. The big months will come, but above all, it's a month I'm proud of because I avoided a lot of losses where many traders could have ended the month with -50% in their face because they went to trade many assets that were extremely risky. They didn't have the maturity, so to speak, the wisdom to take a step back and know that they don't have an edge in this market. Okay. Currently, in January, I had very little edge. There were very few potential trade setups where I knew for sure that I had an advantage and could make cash. And so if I'm not sure of making cash, well, honestly, I don't go for it.
So now, on this, as at the end of each month, we're going to study the best trade I took, which was a position on Kiwi/Swiss, which I had actually shared in a reel completely for free on my Instagram. My Instagram is displayed right here. But so on Kiwi/Swiss. Then an interesting trade which was a management, and then my worst trade, which was a trade on Euro/Swiss, the one I was talking about at the beginning of the video where I had slippage, where there was a gap over the weekend, and I lost -0.49R instead of -0.33R. I'll explain that to you.