👀 Topstep data breach, Oil Market, January Seasonality

Hi guys, it’s Kieran. Happy New Year! The markets are finally back open and the prop firms are sending out their new year promos, so it’s time to get back in saddle, fire up the monitors, and get back to business.

NEW PROJECT: Later this week, I’ll be letting you know about a new project that I have been working on. It’s been 6 months in the making, and we’re running a private beta exclusively for readers of this newsletter, so keep an eye out for that!

📢 Prop Firm Industry News

It’s been a quiet holiday period for most of the major prop firms. Notable was Topstep making a public statement related to a data breach which occurred between September 8th and October 16th were personal data may have been accessed. If you are a Topstep customer click through the post below to read the communication in full.

Topstep later downplayed the severity of the breach, however it is of course wise to ensure that you are using a different password for each firm as we have seen this happen a few times already. Pro Tip - use a password manager!

From Payout Junction, here are the firms who paid out the most over the last 7 days 🏆️.

🔥 Monitor prop firm payouts LIVE on Payout Junction - https://payoutjunction.com.

🕜 Red Folder News

Here are this week’s red folder news events. Some big hitters across the calendar this week. Friday being the biggest day of the week with Non-Farm payrolls.

Major headline risk this week as well with Trumps move to capture Maduro and threaten Columbia’s president which hasn’t gone down well with China, so this is a very fluid situation which could escalate rapidly.

📈 The Macro View

Neutral Sentiment

Market Sentiment has stayed broadly the same over the holiday period. Even with events in Venezuela, equity futures are green this morning (as well as metals & crypto). Events can change quickly but for now it seems we are starting the year very much Risk-On.

January Seasonality flat

On a 20 year lookback January tends to be relatively flat for the equity markets, as traders slowly return to their desks and place their bets for the year ahead. Q1 as a whole is a very volatile period however, so don’t be surprised to see the markets jumping all over the place over the next few months.

Why does the US want to control Venezuela?

Last one to keep an eye on this week is of course the oil market. Trump has said that the US will take over the Venezuelan Oil market. He has been quite explicit that this is the reason he wants Venezuela. Why? because look at the size of their oil reserves. Bigger than Saudi, and 4 times the size of Russia! Capturing these oil reserves would significantly shift the global geopolitical balance of power, so this situation needs to be watched very closely.

OK guys that’s it from me. Like I said, I’ll be sending another mail during the week with all the details of my new project so until then, I hope you get off a to good start to the trading week!

Kieran

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