Larry Williams on Trader's Workshop - 4/6/23

Summary of “Larry Williams on Trader’s Workshop - 4/6/23”

Market outlook (2023): bullish baseline

• Larry Williams argues the stock market is in a bull market and expects prices to move higher throughout 2023, dismissing “Cassandras” (prominent pessimists) as likely to be proven wrong.
• He frames his approach as short-to-intermediate horizon trading (weeks to a few months), emphasizing what current market conditions imply rather than long-term doom narratives.

Why he focuses on futures and discretionary “art of trading”

• Williams says the largest real-time gains in trading contests historically come from futures traders, not options/Forex traders.
• He emphasizes that top performers are often discretionary traders who practice an “art of trading,” not purely mechanical/system traders.
• He also discusses how commodity trading access and platforms evolved, predicting that NinjaTrader may become the dominant “broker” interface for individual traders as the industry shifts toward modern software tools.

Gold thesis: not inflation-driven; instead supply/demand and positioning

• Williams challenges the common view that “gold is driven by inflation.”
• He claims gold behaves more like a supply/demand market, and that correlations with inflation often fail.
  • He references historical examples where inflation rose while gold fell—and vice versa.
• He suggests that a near-term backdrop of declining inflation (citing recently released New York Fed data) could reduce pressure from the Federal Reserve (potentially pausing or slowing rate hikes), which may be supportive for gold.

Gold myth-busting: gold doesn’t reliably rise during stock crashes

• He argues the belief—“when stocks crash, gold will bail you out”—is a misconception.
• In his view, gold has often moved in line with futures markets, including during major downturns (he cites comparisons to 2020 and 2022).

What he uses to “time” gold: COT positioning + valuation + cycles/seasonality

Williams’ gold framework combines several tools:

Commitment of Traders (COT) / “commercials”

• He portrays commercials (producers/users) as the “smart money.”
• He claims gold rallies when commercials increase buying and sells when they increase selling.
• Importantly, he treats this as a conditional setup, not an automatic trade signal.

Valuation Index (his proprietary indicator)

• He describes gold as sometimes overvalued/undervalued relative to his model.
• Extremes tend to precede declines or rallies.
• He also notes that when readings are in “no-man’s land,” the signal tends to be weaker.

Seasonality and cycles

• He states gold often tends to decline from late winter into spring, citing seasonality patterns.
• He forecasts in phases, suggesting a gold rally may continue until about May (mid-May), then shift toward conditions that could produce sell signals.

Crude oil → gold relationship (lead/lag)

• He highlights an intermarket relationship: crude oil appears to move ~18 weeks ahead of gold.
• He uses crude’s turning points to form a directional view of gold.
• He expects crude to be near a peak area, implying a potential later shift in gold.

Crude oil outlook: accumulation + cycles/seasonals

• Williams expects crude oil to rally in the near term, supported by:
  • commercials’ behavior,
  • undervaluation,
  • accumulation signals.
• He anticipates the rally could extend into mid-May, and then potentially turn lower depending on longer-cycle timing later in the year.

Stocks: leading indicators and rebutting recession fears

He discusses bearish commentary from well-known figures and firms, but repeatedly returns to his preferred evidence:

• Seasonality: stocks often rally around Easter / tax-time periods.
• COT positioning: he argues the public is often more bearish/positioned against a rally while commercials are in a buy area—creating a bullish setup.
• Tax receipts: he presents the claim that stock market moves lead tax receipts, implying improving business conditions.
• GDP / recession indicators: he argues recession is less likely because several Fed recession measures do not signal an imminent downturn, and that stocks leading GDP historically points to later economic improvement.

Short-term trading example: tax-time / April seasonal effects

• He emphasizes a recurring seasonal pattern: stocks tend to rally around the days leading into taxes.
• He specifically references buying around the 10th–11th trading day of April, citing historically strong win rates from his backtests.
• He also suggests bonds may show similar seasonal strength around tax time.

Educational offerings / call to action

• Williams promotes his futures/commodity training course (irelytrade.com / everytrade.com as referenced in the subtitles).
• Key notes:
  • Registration closes April 7th for an upcoming class.
  • A NinjaTrader user group will help users set up indicators and learn how to use them.
  • He clarifies the focus is on non-day-trading / swing trading, not intraday day trading.

Presenters / contributors

• Tom Schneider (CMT) – Host, NinjaTrader
• Larry Williams – Guest, trader and author
• Jim Cagnina – NinjaTrader contributor (appears in closing)
• Mike Burke – NinjaTrader contributor (appears in closing)
• Jim – brief mentions in the segment (e.g., “Tom’s had some great comments…” / “Jim are looking forward…”)

Other named commentary sources (referenced, not live presenters)

The segment references commentary from figures tied to discussion points, including:

• Rubenini (Rubini)
• Wells Fargo
• Morgan Stanley
• Lee Cooperman
• Tom DeMark
• Vern Myers
• Steve Cohen

Note: Paul Tudor Jones? and “George?” are mentioned only as unclear/non-present possibilities in the provided text. The subtitles specifically list the names above as sources of referenced commentary.