About this episode

JJ, a former pit trader, discusses market signals, geopolitical risks, and his unique perspective on trading and writing.

JJ, who writes under the Substack name Alyosha, spent decades as a pit trader on the Comex and Nymex, trading precious metals, energy, and commodities in an era before Bloomberg terminals and algorithmic flow. He has written over a million words on markets since 2024, publishing twice daily and building a body of work that blends hard won trading floor experience with sharp geopolitical analysis. What makes JJ rare is the lens. He is not an analyst who reads about markets, he is someone who felt them, physically, in real time, for decades. In this conversation, JJ covers: • Why the Strait of Hormuz situation is more dangerous than markets are pricing and what needs to happen next • What market prices are actually telling you right now and why the noise does not match the signal • His framework for understanding gold and why it does not go up, everything else goes down • The trading floor guild system and the two skills that separated survivors from everyone else • His philosophy on writing, documenting how markets felt, not just what the data said Follow JJ: Substack - https://substack.com/@alyosha745 X - https://x.com/Alyosha745 Episode recorded: 04/06/26 …………...… DIRECTOR'S…

People in this episode

Guest: JJ

Topics covered

• trading
• geopolitical analysis
• precious metals
• market signals
• writing philosophy

Keywords

• trading floor
• gold
• market prices
• geopolitics
• commodities

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Substack, Nymex, Comex

Places: Strait of Hormuz, Middle East

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