Dom Nguyen - Dom Trading

🚨 THE U.S. SHUTDOWN IS 6 DAYS AWAY — AND IT FEELS UNCOMFORTABLY FAMILIAR

Let me speak plainly for a moment.
This doesn’t feel like political theater anymore.
In six days, the U.S. government could shut down.
We’ve been here before.
And the last time it happened, gold and silver quietly ran to all-time highs

while most people were still arguing about headlines.
If you’re holding stocks, crypto, bonds even cash it’s worth understanding what a shutdown actually does to markets.
The biggest risk isn’t panic. It’s not knowing.
A shutdown doesn’t just pause services.
It turns off the data.

No CPI.
No jobs numbers.
No balance-sheet updates.
That creates a data blackout.
When the Fed loses visibility,
models stop working and decisions get delayed.
Markets can handle bad news.
They struggle with blindness.

Here’s what tends to build quietly during a shutdown:
1) Uncertainty snowballs
With no fresh data, risk gets repriced defensively.

2) Credit nerves creep in
A shutdown raises downgrade risk when the system is already stretched.
Big money doesn’t wait — it de-risks.

3) Liquidity gets tighter
The RRP buffer is thin.
If dealers start holding cash, funding markets can freeze quickly.

4) Growth takes a hit
Each week of shutdown costs roughly 0.2% of GDP.
In a slowing economy, that matters.

The important thing to remember:
Money doesn’t disappear in moments like this.
It moves.
First into cash.
Then into safety.
Only later back into risk.
That transition is rarely smooth.
I’m not trying to scare anyone.

I’m just sharing how this looks from experience.
I’ll keep watching and updating as this plays out.
And when I make adjustments, I’ll be transparent about them.
These moments don’t feel dramatic at first.
They only feel obvious once they’re already behind us.

🚨 SILVER IS TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING — AND PEOPLE ARE IGNORING IT

Let me put this in a very human way.
If you think silver is $100/oz, you’re not looking at the real market.
You’re looking at a screen price.

Out in the real world, it’s a different story:
🇺🇸 COMEX: ~$100 (paper)
🇯🇵 Japan: ~$145 (physical)
🇨🇳 China: ~$140 (physical)
🇦🇪 UAE: ~$165 (physical)

That gap isn’t small.
That’s a system screaming under pressure.

Here’s what bothers me:
In a normal market, this kind of spread wouldn’t last.
Arbitrage would crush it in days.
But it hasn’t.
And that tells me one thing:
the paper market can’t let go.

Why?
Because banks are sitting on huge short positions in silver.
If silver trades where physical actually clears — say $130–150 —
the losses aren’t theoretical anymore.

They’re real.
They hit balance sheets.
They hit capital ratios.
At that point, it’s not about trading.
It’s about staying alive.
So what’s happening now feels like this:
People quietly pull real silver out of vaults.
Banks quietly print more paper contracts.
Real value gets tucked away.
Promises multiply.

That works… until it doesn’t.
When inventories get thin enough,
delivery stress spikes.
And then the paper price stops mattering.
I’m not saying this explodes tomorrow.

I’m saying the tension is building.
Silver isn’t calm.
It’s restrained.
And when restraint breaks,
it doesn’t break gently.
Most people won’t see it coming — because they’re staring at the wrong price.

🚨 SILVER IS IN A BUBBLE AND THAT’S WHERE PEOPLE GET CONFUSED

Let me say this in a simple, honest way.
Silver could still run to $150 first.
Before we get a scary but likely short pullback that resets sentiment
and sets up the next leg higher.

But let’s be clear:
👉 This is a bubble.
Silver doesn’t trade 200%+ above its 200-week moving average
in a normal bull market.
That’s already extreme.
And in real bubbles, price usually stretches even further 400% or even 500% above the 200 WMA
right before the final top.
That’s where the biggest gains happen.
And that’s also where the biggest mistakes are made.

Here’s the opportunity and the danger:
Yes, there’s still a chance to make very big money
as this phase plays out.
But if you buy the story and forget risk,
the same bubble that makes people rich
will take everything back.
That’s how bubbles always end.
We’ve seen this many times in the last 20 years.
Most people don’t fail because they’re early.

They fail because they fall in love
and don’t know when to step away.
Silver can still go much higher.
Just don’t confuse that
with it being “safe.”
The move rewards calm thinking not belief.

🚨 THIS RATIO IS STARTING TO MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE AND THAT’S USUALLY A TELL

The Gold-to-Silver Ratio (GSR) is dropping quickly
and looks on track to test a horizontal support level that’s held for 43 years.

Most people aren’t watching it yet.
That’s usually when it matters most.
And honestly, I don’t think it stops there.

Just to ground this in simple math:
If gold moves toward $6,000 and the GSR compresses to around 32 which isn’t extreme by historical standards you’re looking at silver near $190-200. That’s not a wild call.

That’s just what the ratio implies.
Here’s why this feels important.
Gold usually moves first when fear shows up.
Silver moves when people stop hiding
and start positioning.

When the ratio compresses,
it’s a sign capital is shifting from safety
toward leverage.
That’s when silver stops behaving like a quiet metal
and starts behaving like something people wish
they’d paid attention to earlier.
Most of the crowd won’t notice the ratio.

They’ll notice the price later.
Ratios don’t make noise.
They just quietly point to what’s coming.
Have a good start to the week.
This is one of those things worth keeping an eye on
before it becomes obvious.

🚨 THIS FEELS UNCOMFORTABLY FAMILIAR AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM

Let me say this simply.
This doesn’t feel like politics anymore.
It feels like the moment right before something slips.
The U.S. government is days from a shutdown.
Leadership sounds reactive.
Confidence feels forced.
That’s usually when systems crack.

The signs aren’t loud they’re subtle:
Emergency repo usage is rising
Lenders are pulling back.
That’s exactly how 2008 started.
Stocks vs. gold just broke a key level
The last time this happened was right before things unraveled.
Unemployment momentum is creeping up
Not enough to panic just enough to matter.

Under the surface, pressure is building:
Commercial real estate debt is coming due
And a lot of it can’t be refinanced cleanly.
Consumers are falling behind
Credit card and auto loan stress is rising.
Mid-sized businesses are struggling
And they don’t get bailouts.

This isn’t collapse yet.
It’s the quiet part before.
I’m not here to scare you.
I’m here to be honest.
Moments like this don’t feel dramatic in real time.
They feel uneasy.
And unease is usually the first real signal
that something is changing.

🚨 THE FED IS HINTING AT SOMETHING BIG - AND IT’S MAKING PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE

Let me put this in a simple, human way.

Markets are starting to whisper a word they haven’t used in a long time:
Plaza. Back in 1985, the dollar had become too strong.
U.S. exports were suffering.
Factories were losing business.
Trade tensions were boiling over.
So the U.S. and its allies stepped in together and did the unthinkable.
They intentionally weakened the dollar.
That agreement the Plaza Accord changed everything.

Over the next few years:
the dollar fell nearly 50%
the yen doubled
asset prices reset globally
Markets didn’t resist.
They followed.
Now fast forward to today.
The U.S. still runs big trade deficits.
Currency imbalances are stretched.
Japan is under pressure again.
And the yen is extremely weak.
Last week, something quiet happened.
The New York Fed checked USD/JPY rates a routine move on the surface, but historically the step taken before intervention.
No announcement.
No press conference.
But markets noticed anyway.

Why this matters:
If the U.S. decides the dollar is too strong again,
the response won’t be loud.
It will be coordinated.
And if that starts, everything priced in dollars feels it.
Gold. Commodities. Global assets.
Not overnight chaos a steady shift that only makes sense in hindsight. History doesn’t repeat perfectly. But when it starts to rhyme like this, markets tend to move first…and explanations come later.

Wow!!! Thanks a ton @Binance Square Official & the Binance Square team for the shoutout and the 1BNB surprise! 🎉 🎉

Means a lot - keeps pushing me to post better content.
Appreciate the support, let's keep building! 💪

🚨 THIS DOESN’T FEEL LIKE A NORMAL CRISIS IT FEELS LIKE CONFIDENCE IS BREAKING

Let me slow this down, because this is important.
I’m not trying to scare you.
But I also can’t pretend this is “just another cycle.”
Gold just hit a new all-time high near $5,097.
Silver ran to $109.81, including a 7% move in a single day.
That kind of move doesn’t come from excitement.
It comes from unease.

What this price action actually feels like:
When gold and silver move this hard,
people aren’t buying because they want upside.
They’re buying because they don’t feel safe holding other things.
That’s what de-risking looks like in real time.
Silver especially tells the story it doesn’t usually move first unless stress is real and spreading.

The physical market is where the fear shows up:
In China, one ounce of physical silver costs over $134.
In Japan, it’s closer to $139.
That gap between paper and physical
isn’t about premiums or logistics anymore.
It’s about trust.
People want something they can hold,
not something that depends on a promise.
Why this gets messy before it gets clearer:
When markets start to wobble,
big players don’t rotate neatly.
They’re forced to sell what they can
to cover losses where they must.

That creates:
sudden drops forced liquidations sharp, confusing moves It often looks like chaos right before the next leg higher.
And here’s the part that feels like a trap:
The Fed doesn’t have an easy choice.

If rates get cut to support stocks,
the dollar weakens and gold moves even higher.
If rates stay high to defend the dollar,
equities and real estate take the hit.
Either way, something breaks.
There isn’t a comfortable path out of this.
This doesn’t feel like “just a recession” anymore.
It feels like a moment where confidence in the system is being tested.

Weeks like this don’t feel dramatic at first.
They feel confusing, tense, and uncomfortable.
They only get labeled after the fact.
I’ll keep sharing what I see as this unfolds not to create fear, but to stay honest about the environment we’re in.

🚨The U.S. Government Shutdown Is Becoming the Base Case

This is bigger than it looks.
The risk of a U.S. government shutdown is rising fast,
and almost no one is paying attention.
Prediction markets now treat a shutdown by January 31
as the base case, not a tail risk.
Budget negotiations are stalled.

DHS funding is stuck.
Deadlines don’t negotiate.
Here’s why this matters:
This is economic risk the market has not priced yet.

Right now:
Prediction markets are flashing red
Traditional markets remain calm
That gap doesn’t persist.
It never does.
Either expectations come down…
or prices adjust.
What’s important is the timing.
When political risk moves from “headline noise” to hard deadlines, markets don’t ease into it.

They reprice suddenly.
The warning signs are already visible.
They’re just not loud yet.
And in markets, the quiet warnings are usually the ones that matter most.

🚨 BITCOIN ISN’T BROKEN - IT’S JUST BEING HELD STILL

If you’ve been staring at the chart wondering why Bitcoin feels stuck between $85k and $95k,
while everything else seems to be moving…
You’re not imagining it.
And it’s not because buyers disappeared.
It’s because Bitcoin is being held in place.
And that hold has an expiration date — 4 days.

What’s really going on (no jargon first):
Bitcoin is caught in a huge options setup.
There’s a massive concentration of options expiring on January 30 far bigger than any other date.
Because of that, market makers are forced into a very specific behavior.

When price starts to rise, they sell.
When price starts to fall, they buy.
Not out of opinion.
Out of obligation.
That’s why:
rallies feel like they hit a wall
dips get bought instantly
It’s not weak demand.
It’s mechanical pressure.

Why this matters so much:
As we get closer to January 30, that pressure slowly fades.
When those options finally expire,
the hedges disappear.
And suddenly, there’s nothing holding price in that tight range.
We go from a market that’s pinned
to one that’s free to move.
And when that kind of restraint is removed,
price usually doesn’t drift.

It moves fast.
I’m not telling you which direction yet.
I’m telling you when the rules change.
I’ve seen this pattern many times over the years.
Markets can feel boring…right up until the moment they aren’t.
I’ll share an update once the expiration passes.
Just don’t confuse stillness with weakness.

❗️ Whales Are Loading ETH — Are You Watching? 🐳

🔴 $ETH Another 20,000 ETH ($56.13M) just moved into whale wallets via OTC

🔴 That’s 70,013 ETH ($203.6M) accumulated in only 5 days

🚨 THE CROWD ABANDONED BITCOIN — AND THAT’S THE SIGNAL

Nobody is searching for Bitcoin.
Nobody is asking about crypto.
No hype.
No excitement.
No fear of missing out.

Instead, everyone is suddenly an expert on Gold and Silver.
That tells me everything.
The capital didn’t disappear.
It rotated.
Out of risk.
Into safety.

And here’s the uncomfortable part most people don’t want to admit:
That’s not how bull markets end.
That’s how late fear phases end.
When everyone agrees on the “safe trade,”
and the old trade gets written off…
That’s usually where reversals are born.
Quietly.

Against consensus.
And only obvious after price moves.
Markets don’t reward attention.
They reward neglect.

🚨 THE U.S. MAY “SAVE” JAPAN BY WEAKENING THE DOLLAR

Let me put this simply.
Ignore the tariff noise.
Ignore gold headlines.
For the first time in years, the NY Fed is hinting at intervention —
and it’s about the Japanese Yen.

That alone should get your attention.

Why this feels off:
Japan’s bond yields are rising.
Normally, the Yen should rise too.
Instead, it’s falling.

That’s not a normal market.
That’s a sign something’s out of balance.
When signals break like this, central banks step in.

What intervention likely looks like:
The U.S. sells dollars.
The U.S. buys yen.
No drama.
Just action.
The result?

A weaker dollar — by design.

Who benefits:
The U.S. government (debt gets easier to manage)
U.S. exporters (more competitive globally)
Asset holders (stocks and metals usually rise when USD falls)
Sounds bullish.

The catch:
Stocks are already at all-time highs.
Gold is already at all-time highs.
Everyone’s already leaning the same way.
That makes this fragile.

This doesn’t feel like a clean risk-on move.
It feels like policy holding the market together.
I’ll keep watching and sharing what I see.
When things turn,
they usually do so quietly first.

🚨 THE MARKET IS LOSING ITS SAFETY NET — AND YOU CAN FEEL IT

Let me say this in a more grounded way.
Next week doesn’t feel like “just another volatile week.”
It feels like one of those moments where the mood quietly shifts —
and only makes sense after the fact.
From here, there isn’t a clean bullish story.
There are only different ways risk can be repriced.
If you’re holding stocks, crypto, or anything high-beta,
it’s worth asking what kind of market we’re actually in.

Start with where we already are:
The Buffett Indicator is around 224%, the highest ever.
Higher than the Dot-Com bubble. Higher than 2021.
History says this usually ends with mean reversion, not new highs.
The Shiller CAPE is near 40.
We’ve only seen that once in 150 years — right before 2000.
This doesn’t mean a crash tomorrow.
It means the margin for error is thin.

Now add what’s coming:
About 26% of US federal debt rolls over in the next year.
Refinancing at much higher rates quietly tightens liquidity.
Trade tensions are back on the table, with tariff risks aimed at major European economies.
That’s not noise — it adds friction where the system is already stressed.
On top of that, there’s policy uncertainty around whether those tariffs even hold up legally.
Markets don’t like not knowing the rules.

This is why behavior has changed:
Big money isn’t chasing upside.
It’s reducing exposure.
Liquidity is being kept close.
Metals are being accumulated.
Risk assets feel heavy even on green days.
That’s not fear.
That’s caution earned from experience.

I know this is uncomfortable, especially if you’re newer.
But markets don’t usually break when everyone is scared.
They break when people feel safe because nothing bad has happened yet.

Wealth isn’t built at extremes.
It’s built by staying solvent, patient, and clear-headed
when the environment quietly shifts.
This week isn’t about panic.
It’s about paying attention to the tone of the market before the volume gets louder.

🚨 85% SHUTDOWN RISK - THE MARKET IS STILL PRETENDING NOTHING IS WRONG

Prediction markets are pricing ~85% probability of a U.S. government shutdown by January 31.

That’s not political drama.
That’s forward-looking risk pricing — and markets are ignoring it.

If you think a shutdown is “just noise”, here’s the last one:
43 days offline
–2.8% GDP drag
$34B fiscal bleed
670K federal workers furloughed

That’s a macro shock, not a headline.

WHY THE ODDS ARE EXPLODING
The Minneapolis Border Patrol shooting has become a catalyst for DHS funding obstruction in the Senate.
DHS is the choke point.
No DHS funding → partial shutdown → deadline compression → liquidity uncertainty.

This isn’t brinkmanship.
It’s a funding mechanism failure unfolding in real time.

HOW THIS HITS MARKETS (EVERY TIME)
Rates & bonds reprice first (risk premium expansion).
Equities lag (volatility repricing).
Crypto dislocates hardest (leverage + liquidity stress).
Right now, this risk is not priced in.

THE PART PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO HEAR
By the time you get:
headline confirmation clean technical breaks or a “risk-off” consensus the repricing is already done.

Macro shocks don’t reward confirmation.
They punish it.
You can call this politics.
Markets will call it a volatility catalyst.

I’ll post the warning before it hits the tape — not after it’s obvious.

Bitcoin Isn’t Volatile. You’re Measuring It Wrong.

The moment you price Bitcoin in fiat, you’re already inside a system built to bend reality.

An inflationary unit, managed by central banks, designed not to measure value — but to hide debasement.

That’s not a flaw.
That’s the point.

Change the frame for a second.
Price Bitcoin against Gold — the asset central banks still quietly stockpile — and the picture gets uncomfortable fast.

Roughly every four years, BTC drifts back toward its 200-week moving average versus Gold.

Not by chance.
Not because retail panics or fomoes.

But in sync with liquidity cycles, balance-sheet expansion, and long-term capital rotation.

While most people wait for “confirmation” — clean RSI, broken trendlines, influencer approval —

smart money is already accumulating where value gets compressed.

This isn’t volatility.
It’s narrative-driven price suppression.

Bitcoin looks “weak” in fiat terms at the exact moments it’s being absorbed by players who never announce entries.

ETFs, custodians, sovereign-adjacent capital — they don’t chase breakouts.

They buy when price is boring, hated, and ignored.

Can it go lower? Of course.

Markets are allowed to overshoot — that’s how maximum psychological damage is done.

Can it stay undervalued longer? Absolutely.
That’s how redistribution happens.

But history leaves fingerprints.
Whenever Bitcoin trades near its long-term mean versus Gold, it marks quiet accumulation phases — before violent repricing.

This isn’t for short-term alpha hunters.
It’s for those who understand one uncomfortable truth:

By the time “confirmation” arrives,
Bitcoin has already repriced and ownership has already changed hands.

🚨The World’s #1 Copper Supplier Is Quietly Breaking

This isn’t something most people are talking about yet.
But once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.

Chile produces about 24% of the world’s copper.
And its production is no longer growing.
In fact, most estimates show Chile peaking around 2027 just as global demand for copper is starting to accelerate.
That timing matters more than it sounds.

Because this means the biggest source of supply in the world
is hitting its limits before the next wave of demand really shows up.
That’s why copper shortages are starting to feel unavoidable.
What’s happening in Chile isn’t dramatic or sudden.

It’s slow, structural, and hard to fix.
Mines are getting older.
Ore grades are falling.
It takes more energy, more water, more money
just to produce the same amount of copper.
New projects take years to approve, years to build,
and they’re getting harder to push through.
This isn’t about bad management or politics.
It’s just geology catching up.

Now look at what’s happening on the demand side.
AI data centers are spreading everywhere,
and they’re incredibly copper-intensive power lines, cooling systems, grid upgrades.

At the same time, the US wants to bring manufacturing back home,
which means rebuilding factories, grids, and infrastructure.
Add in electrification and the energy transition,
and copper demand doesn’t just grow it becomes non-negotiable.
So here’s the uncomfortable part.
The world’s largest copper producer is topping out
right when the world needs more copper than ever.
That’s not a normal commodity cycle.

That’s a pressure point.
And when pressure builds in a market like this,
prices don’t adjust gently.
They move suddenly — and usually before most people realize why.
Chile rolling over doesn’t feel dramatic today.
But it’s quietly setting the stage for the copper story everyone will be talking about later.