Failed breakouts early in the month.
Heavy tape.
Endless headlines about Fed uncertainty, AI fatigue, geopolitics, and “late-cycle risk.”

And yet — none of this was a surprise.

If you’ve been reading the market updates inside Alpha Before It Prints, you already know that.

Because before the volatility showed up, we laid out the playbook.

At the beginning of the month, I was explicit:
this was not the environment for chasing breakouts.

Momentum was stalling.
Leadership was pausing.
Price was digesting a strong late-November move.

That’s why we talked about failed breakouts and chop, not tops.

Not distribution.
Not collapse.
Digestion.

Most people interpret chop as danger.
In reality, it’s usually preparation.

This is where most market commentary falls apart.

Instead of reacting to red days, we pre-defined where risk/reward would flip.

In multiple posts — including Saturday Alpha Notes and the Mid-Week Market Update — I mapped out the exact zones where pullbacks would become opportunity:

Those levels weren’t emotional.
They weren’t reactive.
They were defined before price got there.

And then price did exactly what healthy markets tend to do.

It came in.
It scared people.
And it stopped where it was supposed to. The key was simple: we deployed into predefined dip-buy zones while most people were calling for an extended correction.

When price hit those zones, the tone everywhere else got louder.

“Something feels off.”
“This rally is hated.”
“What if this is the top?”

Meanwhile, the things that actually matter never confirmed that fear:

That’s not how real breakdowns start.

That’s how shakeouts happen.

So instead of panicking, we did the hardest thing in markets:

Nothing reckless.
Nothing emotional.
Just disciplined deployment where the math finally made sense again.

Price stabilized.
Then it bounced.
Exactly from the areas we outlined.

No victory laps needed.
The charts are the receipts.

This isn’t about being bullish all the time.
It’s about being prepared before volatility shows up.

That’s the entire edge.

Anyone can sound smart after a move.

What actually helps investors is:

That’s what Alpha Before It Prints is built around.

Not alerts.
Not hot takes.
Not dopamine.

A framework that keeps you level-headed when markets are trying to do the opposite.

If this pullback shook you — but you stayed calm anyway — good.
You’re building the right muscle.

If you didn’t have that framework yet, that’s what this is here for.

Merry Christmas from my Family to yours!

Markets will always be here.
Charts will still be there next week.
Another opportunity will always come.

Time, presence, and perspective matter more than any single trade.

Thank you for reading, for staying disciplined, and for trusting this process — especially when it feels hardest to do so.

Enjoy the holiday.
Rest up.
We’ll get back to work soon.

— Connor
Alpha Before It Prints

For anyone wondering how this framework translates into actual positioning:

I run two live portfolios that reflect two very different parts of my thinking.

The Black Sheep Base Case Portfolio is exactly what it sounds like — core positioning for how I expect the broader market to resolve when structure matters more than headlines.

The Alpha Framework Portfolio is different.

That’s where I take long-term swings on smaller companies I believe can materially outperform over full cycles — names that usually look wrong before they look obvious.

A few past examples from that framework:

No alerts.
No perfection.
A lot of patience.

That’s not a promise — it’s just context for how I think and how I size risk.

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