Subscriber Q&A - principles of tactical swing trading

Geo Chen · Fidenza Macro · April 07, 2026 at 12:12 · ⏱ 5 min read  | Read on Substack ↗
Summary
Short-term tactical trading with a reactive approach — waiting for outcomes to be determined before entering — yields more consistent profits than anticipatory holding. The author demonstrates this with a profitable WTI oil long and a successful S&P futures trading record, advising traders to avoid FOMO and focus on volatile trending markets.
  • •Markets spend roughly two-thirds of the time in choppy, range-bound conditions and only one-third in trending phases.
  • •The author's current WTI oil long is up $12 in less than a week of holding.
  • •Since the war began, the author's journal shows 200 points taken from S&P futures through active trading, versus a perfect buy-and-hold short of 300 points.
  • •The author's S&P futures strategy risks less than 1% in price to make 2-5% per trade, with a holding period of 1-3 days.
  • •In gold, the author risks 100-150 points to make 300-500 points; in oil, risks $3-5 to make $10 or more.
  • •Principle #2: 'Another trade is always around the corner' — do not chase trades out of FOMO.
Read time 5 min
Length 5,289 chars
Category macro
Trade Ideas
Geo Chen Global macro trader; ex-head of FX trading, Credit Suisse
The author entered long WTI oil based on a reactive setup after some outcome was determined, and is using a trailing stop to protect profits.
WTI MED
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This newsletter, published April 07, 2026, features Geo Chen discussing WTI. 1 trade idea extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Geo Chen  · Tickers: WTI