The analyst's map
Lesson 1 of 12 in the course “Analytics”. Free, with animations and a quiz.
Context first, action second
In the Brainax simulators price just jumps around. In the real market a move almost always has a reason: interest rates, the dollar, news, a crowd trading with leverage, meaning borrowed money. Look at the picture: "BTC -4%" alone looks scary. With context it is clear: that is one day, while the last 30 days are +12%. Analytics does not guess the price. It answers: what is happening and why.
Track map: 4 layers
We go from big to small: first the weather, then the street. 1. Macro: interest rates (the price of borrowing money), inflation, the dollar. This is the weather for all markets at once. 2. Leverage: how much the crowd trades on borrowed money. 3. On-chain: data straight from the blockchain, what whales and exchanges do. 4. Tokens: unlocks and project news. We will cover each layer separately.
Map glossary
Words from the picture. A long is a bet on price going up, a short is a bet on it going down. Funding: a fee longs and shorts pay each other every few hours on perpetual futures. A big positive number means the crowd is overloaded with longs. OI, open interest: how many contracts are open right now. Whales: wallets holding very large amounts. Unlock: the day a project releases tokens that were frozen.
The market in 15 seconds
An analyst's morning starts with one table: crypto (BTC, ETH, SOL), stock indexes, gold, oil, currencies and the yield on US government bonds. Each row has 4 periods: day, 7 days, 30 days, year. The percent in a cell shows how much the price changed over that period. A good table also names the source of every row, so you can check the number. We check the course examples against the free Freekonomist dashboard: the link is under the slide if you want to see live numbers.
Who's who in the table
S&P 500: an index of 500 large US companies. Nasdaq 100: the 100 largest companies on the Nasdaq exchange, mostly tech. Brent: the benchmark type of oil used to judge the oil price. EUR/USD: how many dollars 1 euro costs. DXY: an index of the dollar against a basket of 6 major currencies. 10-year yield: the yearly percent paid by 10-year US government bonds. In short: a thermometer for all markets at once.
Example: reading one row
Example with made-up numbers, like in the picture: BTC is -3% for the day, +2% for 7 days, +10% for 30 days, +41% for the year. The daily number alone is scary. But the four periods together say: this is a pullback, meaning price gave back a bit inside an uptrend. Not a crash. Bottom line: the point is not the numbers, it is the habit of checking all periods at once.
Stories, mood, calendar
Numbers need a story, so keep three more things next to the table. The top stories of the day: what is moving the market today. The Fear and Greed Index (alternative.me): crypto market mood on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is extreme fear and 100 is greed. A calendar: key events in your time zone, especially decisions of the Fed, the US central bank. With all of this on one screen, a morning check takes a couple of minutes.
Mistake: reacting to one number
A common mistake: you see "-5%" or "fear 20" and hit the button right away. Without context a number means almost nothing. Ask yourself: over what period? What are the dollar and rates doing? Was there news? In the picture, -4% for the day looks like panic, but next to it is +12% for 30 days. The basics: one number is a question, not a trade signal.
Your move: a 2-minute morning
The times in the picture are minutes and seconds. 0:00 price table: what moved more than usual. 0:30 the three stories of the day. 1:00 fear and greed plus the calendar: is there a Fed decision or inflation data today? 1:30 your coins: keep them in a separate list so news about them does not get lost in the feed. 2:00 sum it up in one line: "today the market is about…". A week of this habit and you start noticing what used to fly past you.
Check yourself
- What is the most honest way to read this?
Correct answer: More likely a pullback in an uptrend than a crash. The four periods together give context: a minus for the day against a plus for the month and the year looks like a pullback, a small step back inside an uptrend. It does not promise the rise continues, but panicking over one number is premature. - What is the sensible move?
Correct answer: Take it as context and check prices, rates and news. The index shows the crowd's mood, not where price goes. Fear happens both right before a bottom and in the middle of a long drop. So it is read together with price, rates and news: one number is a question, not a signal. - You planned to open a trade this morning. What do you do first?
Correct answer: Check the decision time and choose: before, after or skip. A rate decision changes the price of money for every market at once, crypto included. So an analyst checks the calendar in advance: what time the event is in their time zone and what they will do for each outcome. - Why does the course start with macro, the big picture?
Correct answer: Rates, inflation and the dollar affect all markets at once. Macro is the weather: when money gets more expensive, almost every risky asset struggles at once. So you check the weather first, then the single street, meaning the coin.