Tony Battista is back home — and the two Tony’s were in full form for Part 2 of our free wealth-building series. Last week we laid the foundation (the millionaire mindset). This week we opened the hood and got into the mechanics — how money actually flows, what’s truly an asset, and the exact plan to turn trading profits into lasting wealth.

If you were there, this is your cheat sheet. If you missed it, here’s everything we covered — and the link to watch the whole thing.

👉 Watch the full replay

What we covered

It starts in your mind. Money is a mindset before it’s a number: your mind → thoughts → actions → habits, and your habits are what make you wealthy. Only about 1% of millionaires control half the world’s wealth — and they think differently. That’s the whole goal of this series: to change how you think.

The Wealth Wheel (not just the trading wheel). Every trader knows the wheel — sell a put, get assigned, sell a call. But the wealth wheel is bigger: earn income → save a slice → buy income-producing assets → use that income to buy more assets → repeat, forever. Do it long enough and you become financially free.

The three levers of wealth:

1. Your income — grow it through skills, education, and career (that’s what career-optimization is all about).

2. Your lifestyle — how much you spend. There’s a floor to how much you can cut (happy wife, happy life), but every dollar not spent can go to work.

3. Your rate of return — the Rule of 72 says 7.2% doubles your money every ~10 years. At Grow Your Pile we aim for ~15% — doubling every 5 years, God willing.

Pay yourself first — and the “speed of money.” Money in your checking account disappears (you spend it, or the kids do, or the dog does). So take savings off the top the moment income arrives — like the government does with your taxes. Then convert those savings into assets as fast as you can. The faster the conversion, the faster you’re free.

Income vs. Expenses — keep it brutally simple. Income is everything that comes into your pocket. Expenses are everything that leaves — no gray area, no kidding yourself. Most people have one income line (a salary) and twenty expense lines. Our whole job is to add more lines to the income side.

The three types of income: earned (you work for it), passive (you don’t), and portfolio (your investments). The rich quietly move money out of the first bucket and into the other two. Most people move it straight into the spending bucket instead.

Focus on the $30,000 decisions. You only make 3 to 10 truly big money decisions a year — where you live, what you drive, your investing rate, how much you put in your 401(k) / Roth / trading account. Nail those, and you can stop feeling guilty about the coffee. Take care of the big ones, and you can splurge on the little ones.

Assets vs. Liabilities — the definition that separates rich from poor. An asset puts money IN your pocket without you working; a liability takes money OUT, every month. Your house? A liability — the mortgage (and taxes, insurance, upkeep) takes money out. The rich buy assets. The poor buy liabilities. And the middle class buys liabilities — the second home, the luxury car, the Rolex — thinking they’re assets, because marketing is designed to fool them. Buy assets, kill liabilities, and think in numbers, not stories.

Every dollar is an employee. Put each one to work generating income — dividend stocks, rental real estate, bonds, or collateral in your trading account to sell more puts. As a trader, Tony R even places a trade to pay for a liability (like his upcoming 30th-anniversary trip to Europe) — always have something that kills another thing.

Return OF capital vs. return ON capital. Tony B’s dad said it best: “I don’t care about the return ON my money — I want the return OF my money.” We’ve all traded just to get our money back. The wealthy build positions where the money keeps coming back.

…and plenty more — the freedom number, cash flow vs. net worth, and how to put it all into a simple plan.

The lines worth remembering

• “Money is mind. Money are thoughts. Thoughts are habits. Habits make you wealthy.”

• “Wealth is a system.”

• “Take care of the big decisions, and you can splurge on the little ones.”

• And, of course — “You gotta risk it to get the biscuit.” 🍪

Next week: Part 3 (for our members) 🔒

Part 1 was the mindset. Part 2 was the mechanics. Part 3 is where it gets real for traders — how to apply your trading mechanics, your process, and your automation to actually build wealth. It’s our tightest, deepest session yet. If you want to be in the room for it, join Grow Your Pile.

Until then — re-watch Part 1 and 2, put it to work, and teach it to your family. Be the pillar of your home.

— Tony Battista & Tony Rihan Grow Your Pile · Real Money. Real System. Real Freedom.

The master driver: Calm plumbing, nervous surface. Today is a narrow, chip/AI-led risk-off day — the semiconductor index (SOX) fell into a bear market on TSMC’s capex hike and a Netflix guidance miss — but it’s happening inside a low-volatility, “higher-for-longer” regime. Underneath the headline fear, VIX is still cheap, credit spreads are near multi-year tights, and the dollar and yields are bid. In other words: the dominant force is a rates/USD repricing, not a credit or recession scare. Defensives, transports, healthcare, and small caps actually held up — value over growth within a down day, not broad capitulation. Live scanner (10:00am ET): SPY $744.70 · QQQ $694.90 · GLD $366.47 · /MES 7,518.62.

• Volatility: VIX ~16.7, popping toward ~18 intraday off a low base — but still below its ~17.6 median, with the futures curve in normal contango and bond vol (MOVE ~70) dead calm. Vol is cheap on both sides: thin premium to sell, but inexpensive protection to own.

• Rates & Fed: 10Y ~4.53%, 2Y ~4.14%, curve +38bp. The Fed is on a hawkish hold at 3.50–3.75% and the June dots flipped toward a possible hike (median 3.8%, half the committee sees one); Chair Warsh declined to signal, and a Fed official just urged “modestly” higher rates. FedWatch is ~90% hold for Jul 29. The Fed is in blackout Jul 18–30 — no speakers to move the tape.

• Equities & Breadth: A narrow, tech-only decline. S&P ~7,450 intraday (−0.6%; Jul 16 close 7,492), Nasdaq −1.2%, but the Dow green and Russell 2000 barely budged — with defensives leading (Transports +2.2%, Healthcare +1.7%). Zoom out and the story is broadening, not breaking: YTD, small caps are ~+20% (best since 2003) vs the S&P ~+11% and the Mag-7 just ~+4%. The pain is concentrated in AI/semis, not the whole market.

• Cross-Asset: The dollar is bid (DXY ~100.7, near yearly highs) — the higher-for-longer tell. TLT soft (~$83.9) as long yields hold up; gold −2% (GLD $366.47) and silver hit hard on the strong dollar. Crucially, credit is unbothered — HY spreads (~270–285bp) sit near post-2009 tights, which is the market’s way of saying this is a rates wobble, not a growth accident. WTI ~$79.7, firm on the Hormuz bid.

• Catalysts: A quiet macro week — Fed blackout, no top-tier data until Friday’s Flash PMIs — so earnings are the driver. The big ones: Alphabet + Tesla after the close Wednesday (7/22), then INTC/HON/TMUS and the rest. The real gauntlet is just beyond: FOMC Jul 29, then Q2 GDP + June PCE both Jul 30, with Microsoft/Meta and Apple/Amazon that same week.

• Sentiment: Here’s the tell. The CNN Fear & Greed gauge is in “Fear” and deteriorating — yet the CBOE equity put/call is a low 0.67, meaning people are nervous in the headlines but barely hedged in their positions. That split — fearful mood, light protection — means downside hedges are relatively cheap to own into the earnings and Fed cluster ahead.

• Trusted Voices:

  • Charlie Bilello (Creative Planning) — fresh (Jul 14): flags late-cycle froth — the Buffett Indicator just hit a record 234% (three standard deviations above average, with Berkshire sitting on record cash); S&P earnings look strong (+24%) but ~10% of last quarter’s profits were one-time gains at a handful of AI names, so organic growth is closer to ~15%.

  • Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab) — mid-July: the constructive counter — market breadth is quietly improving even as the Nasdaq wobbles (the broadening we noted above); she stays positive on earnings for the second half but flags concentration risk and AI as both the top driver and the top dependency.

  • Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research) — no fresh post this week: her recent-but-dated (May–June) case remains the bear anchor — she argues the US may already be in recession, with private-credit and commercial-real-estate cracks and a Fed policy-error risk. (Flagged as her prior view, not a new call.)

Bottom line: cheap vol + tight credit + a lightly-hedged “Fear” tape is a benign-but-two-sided backdrop — favorable to stay mechanically short premium, sized conservatively, while keeping cheap defined-risk protection on into the Alphabet/Tesla prints and the Jul 29 FOMC / Jul 30 GDP-PCE double-header. There’s little edge in over-reaching for thin premium, and the risk skew is a rates/dollar shock, not a credit unwind — exactly the lens behind today’s P1 moves below. Not a recommendation.

The Trades

🔒 The specific positions, strikes, Greeks, and decision framework below are for Grow Your Pile members.

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We just closed the book on one of our best teaching campaigns of the summer — the QQQ covered-call program. For seven weeks we ran two premium-selling structures side by side, rolled them relentlessly, and today we wrapped them up. Here’s the whole thing, start to finish, and the result.

First, the plain-English version of what these are. A traditional covered call means owning 100 shares and selling a call against them for income — like renting out a stock you own. The catch is that 100 shares of QQQ ties up a lot of cash. So instead of buying the shares outright, we used two cheaper “stock replacements”: the PMCC (a poor-man’s covered call — a deep long-dated call, or LEAP, that behaves like the stock at a fraction of the cost) and the synthetic covered call (a long call + short put that together mimic owning the stock). Against each of those cores, we sold a weekly call and rolled it every few days — collecting rent, over and over. Same idea as a covered call, far less capital, and a lot more teachable.

What we ran (the very short version)

• May 29 — Opened the PMCC. Bought a long-dated Dec-18 610 LEAP as a stock-replacement core, and started selling weekly calls against it.

• June 5 — Opened the Synthetic Covered Call. Built a synthetic long (long Jul-17 717 call + short 717 put) and sold weekly calls against that one too.

• May 29 → July 16 — Rolled, and rolled, and rolled. As QQQ ran to record highs and then chopped back, we rolled the short weekly calls 21 times — collecting fresh premium every few days, up and down, week after week.

• July 15–16 — Closed both. We took the PMCC off, then closed the synthetic and replaced it with a single, cleaner naked put (same thesis, easier to follow).

Three lessons worth keeping

1. The premium engine — not the direction — did the work. Here’s the part that surprises everyone: both of our long-delta cores actually LOST money (about −$3,700 combined) as QQQ ran up and then chopped back. It didn’t matter. The weekly premium harvested +$6,405 — more than enough to cover the cores’ decay and leave a clean ~$2,700 profit. We were never trying to nail the direction. We were collecting rent, week after week, and letting the math work.

2. Discipline beats prediction. Twenty-one rolls in seven weeks isn’t exciting — it’s mechanical. Up days, down days, records, pullbacks; we just kept rolling the short call and taking in premium. That’s the whole edge: small, repeatable, unglamorous, done relentlessly. Duration over direction.

3. Simpler is often better. We finished by replacing the multi-leg synthetic with a single, cleaner naked put — same bullish thesis, far easier for you to follow and learn from in real time. A big lesson in options is that many strategies are synthetically equivalent; once you see that, you stop memorizing recipes and start thinking in risk, Greeks, and probabilities.

The best part? We’re not done — we’re already rebuilding the QQQ premium engine with those laddered naked puts. Onto the next one.

Not investment advice. This is a recap of trades in our own model Portfolio 2, shared for education — not a recommendation. Options involve substantial risk and are not suitable for every investor. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Want to follow every trade live? Subscribe at growyourpile.com.

— Tony Battista & Tony Rihan

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The master driver: A benign, low-volatility, risk-on tape — with a hawkish twist. Cooler June CPI and PPI took the near-term Fed off any hike path, VIX sits sub-16 and bond vol is calm — but a chip/AI-capex rotation is splitting the market (Nasdaq down a 2nd day, Dow and small-caps green) and positioning is complacent, so there’s thin cushion if a shock hits. TSMC posted a record quarter but raised capex, reviving AI-overspend fears; the dollar is falling; and an Iran oil bid keeps a live inflation crosscurrent. Live scanner (1:00pm ET): SPY $752.85 · QQQ $708.06 · GLD $366.04 · /MES 7,595.12.

• Volatility: VIX 15.67 (−5% on the day), below its ~19–20 long-run mean and near the ~17.6 median — cheap-to-fair, not rich. MOVE (bond vol) 68.5 (sub-80 = calm). VIX futures in normal contango but compressed (VX6/VX1 ~1.06). Both equity and rate vol are low and falling — thin premium to sell, cheap protection to own.

• Rates & Fed: Fed on hold at 3.50–3.75% (4th straight). 10Y ~4.55% (pulled back on the soft PPI), 2Y ~4.18%, curve +37bp. CME FedWatch ~83% hold for the Jul 28–29 meeting; Chair Warsh stayed hawkish (”no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation”) but declined to threaten a hike post-CPI. September odds are genuinely two-sided (~44–63% across sources).

• Equities & Breadth: A split, narrow tape — S&P 500 −0.37%, Nasdaq −0.76% (chips down a 2nd day), Dow +0.14%, Russell 2000 +0.38%. Rotation out of semis, into value, small-caps, and megacaps. The trigger: TSMC’s record Q2 (rev +33.7% to $40.2B) came with a raised FY capex plan ($60–64B) → renewed AI-overspend worry. Strength was elsewhere — UnitedHealth +5.6%, Abbott +12%.

• Cross-Asset: Dollar down is the dominant driver — DXY ~100.40 (−0.5%). TLT ~$84.27 (firmer, still near a 52-wk low). GLD $366.04 (scanner) — gold is unwinding Tuesday’s Hormuz spike ($4,082 → ~$3,950 spot), not pressing highs. SLV ~$53 (+1.8%). Crude has an Iran bid (levels disputed, ~WTI $72–80). HYG ~$79.71 — no credit stress.

• Catalysts: June CPI −0.4% m/m / 3.5% y/y (vs 3.8% est) and PPI −0.3% m/m — two cool prints that pushed back the hawkish repricing. Retail sales +0.2% (light), claims 208K. Netflix reports after today’s close (the live wire); big banks + UNH already landed strong. Next FOMC Jul 28–29.

• Sentiment: CNN Fear & Greed 46 (Neutral) — up from 39 a month ago. CBOE equity put/call ~0.62 (below the 0.70 line = low hedging / complacent), VIX sub-16 at a 2-week low. Structural bid underneath: YTD buybacks >$925B + record retail cash. Net: not fearful, not euphoric — but complacent-bullish positioning means a thin cushion if something breaks.

• Trusted Voices:

  • Charlie Bilello (Creative Planning) — ✅ fresh (Jul 14, “Week in Charts”): S&P 2026 EPS growth ~+24%, hyperscaler capex near peak, the Buffett Indicator at a record 234% (~3 SD above average), real GDP slowing to ~1.3%; small caps +>22% in H1 (best since 1991).

  • Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research) — ✅ fresh (~Jul 13–14): the bear case — argues the US is already in recession (teen hiring lowest since 1948, 14 straight months of negative payroll revisions, WARN filings highest since 2009); non-mortgage debt service now exceeds mortgage for the first time.

  • Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab) — ⚠️ no fresh post this week: latest is a within-month Market Snapshot (not the last 72h) — improving price-breadth but a more volatile regime, deteriorating LEI breadth and a negative earnings-revision trend. (Flagged as slightly dated rather than presented as today’s take.)

Bottom line: cheap-to-fair vol + a complacent, narrow, record-valuation tape (put/call ~0.62, VIX <16, Buffett Indicator 234%) means premium sellers are paid thin and hedges are cheap to own — a backdrop that rewards defined-risk structures and keeping tail protection on over reaching for yield. That’s exactly the lens behind today’s P1 and P2 moves below. Not a recommendation.

The Trades

🔒 Paid subscribers — the trades below.

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The master driver: A disinflation surprise reset the week. Back-to-back cool June CPI (Tue, +3.5% y/y) and soft June PPI (Wed, +5.5% y/y) took the market-implied July Fed-hike odds from ~42% Monday down to ~17% — pulling yields lower and lifting all four major indexes green, with Nasdaq/tech leading on ASML’s bullish AI guidance and record big-bank earnings. It’s a low-volatility, risk-on regime: VIX in the mid-16s, bond vol calm, credit stable, the dollar softening. The offsets that keep us disciplined: an Iran/Strait-of-Hormuz oil bid keeps the inflation tail alive, market leadership is narrow (AI/mega-cap), valuations are stretched, and headline sentiment is still stuck in Fear even as options positioning turns complacent. Live scanner (9:30am ET): SPY $754.59 · QQQ $723.38 · GLD $372.51 · /MES 7,615.38.

The Seven Dimensions

1. Volatility — cheap and falling. VIX ~16.17, near the low end of its range (Jul 14 closed 16.50, −3.85% on the day), well under its ~19–20 long-run mean. VIX futures are in normal contango (Aug future ~18.30 > spot), and the MOVE bond-vol index is ~75 (below the 80 “calm” line). Equity and rate vol are subdued at the same time — protection is inexpensive, but premium collected for selling it is thin. Read: you’re paid less to sell vol here; patience and wider strikes beat forcing income.

2. Rates & Fed — the hike scare just deflated. Fed on hold at 3.50–3.75% (Chair Warsh’s first meeting). The 10-year sits ~4.57–4.62%, the 2-year ~4.14–4.21%, the curve positively sloped (+0.36–0.46%). The big move: pre-CPI, a July hike had spiked to ~46% odds — post-CPI/PPI those collapsed to ~17%, with >85% now pricing no move at the Jul 28–29 FOMC. No cut is priced either. Read: the immediate tightening fear is off the table, a tailwind for risk — but “no hike” is not “cuts coming.”

3. Equities & Breadth — green, but narrow. All four majors closed higher: S&P 500 ~7,572 (+0.39%), Nasdaq +0.67% (~26,251, ASML/chip strength), Dow +0.17% (~52,710), Russell 2000 +0.39% (~2,965). Tech/growth outpaced value; energy was choppy on the oil bid. Breadth is constructive but concentrated in tech/AI — the index looks strong while participation stays thin. Read: a narrow melt-up is more fragile than it looks; respect the trend, but don’t confuse it with broad health.

4. Cross-Asset — the disinflation tell. The dollar is falling (DXY ~100.79, below 101 a second session) on the cooler prints. TLT ~$84.18 (−0.59%) — long bonds slipped even as short-rate fear eased, because the oil-driven inflation tail firms the long end. GLD $372.51 (spot gold ~$4,050, easing from Tuesday’s $4,082 pop). SLV ~$61.58 (silver firm). WTI ~$80 after Tuesday’s +2.9% on the Hormuz bid. HYG ~$79.71, flat — no credit stress. Read: a softer dollar helps commodities and international; the oil bid is the one live inflation risk to watch.

5. Catalysts — the data did the work; earnings are humming. June CPI +3.5% y/y (vs 3.8% est, down from 4.2%), −0.4% m/m — the biggest monthly drop in 6+ years. June PPI +5.5% y/y (vs 6.2% est), −0.3% m/m. Bank earnings blew out: JPMorgan EPS $6.14 on $58.0B revenue; Goldman posted its best quarter ever (EPS $20.98). Still ahead this week: Retail Sales + TSMC + Netflix (Thu), UMich sentiment (Fri). Read: the macro calendar de-risked; now it’s earnings and the oil headline that move the tape.

6. Sentiment — fear on the surface, complacency underneath. CNN Fear & Greed 44 (”Fear”) — stuck in the 42–44 zone for a month. Yet the CBOE equity put/call is 0.62 (complacent, call-heavy), even as the index put/call ~1.01 shows elevated hedging at the index level. Read: this divergence — fearful headline meter over complacent single-name positioning — is not capitulation. It’s a market that’s comfortable in individual names but nervous about the whole; room to run if the fear unwinds, but a poor spot to reach for gamma.

7. Trusted Voices.

• Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab): the bull market is intact with S&P earnings the key support, but she flags “vulnerabilities beneath the surface” — a “very narrow” AI-led market and a CPI divergence (headline falling while core accelerates). Calls Warsh’s testimony a “wildcard.”

• Charlie Bilello (Creative Planning): H1 leadership flipped — EM/International, Small/Mid caps, and Value all beat while the Mag-7 fell; Russell 2000 +22%, its best first half since 1991. Core PCE 3.4% (63rd straight month above 2%); the Buffett Indicator hit a record 234%.

• Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research): the dissent — argues the US is already in recession (negative payroll revisions, CRE distress at 10-year highs, record-low teen hiring), and warns of a “quiet but ever-brewing private-credit“ risk masked by ~$2T of passive fixed-income flows.

Cheap, falling volatility plus a deflated hike scare is a genuine risk-on tailwind — but with narrow breadth, rich valuations (Buffett Indicator 234%), a Fear-vs-complacency positioning split, and a live Hormuz oil tail, this is a tape to participate in with discipline: keep index-level hedges on, size modestly, favor patience and wider strikes over forcing thin premium, and let the setups come to you.

Now The Trades:

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The free live masterclass continues — this is where we open the hood 🗓️ Tomorrow — Thursday, July 16 · 3:00 PM Pacific / 6:00 PM Eastern · Live & free · Open to everyone

Last time, in Part 1, we changed your mind — the millionaire mindset, the secret formula, and why the real game is ownership, not your paycheck. Today we open the hood and show you the machinery: how money actually flows, what’s truly an asset, and the exact plan to walk out with and start using this week.

Here is the Link to Part 1:
(Last weeks Video) must watch before this one:

Making money trading is step one. Keeping it, compounding it, and turning it into income that pays you forever — that’s the part almost nobody teaches. This class is that part.

What you’ll walk away with:

• The one definition that separates rich from poor: an asset puts money IN your pocket — a liability takes it OUT. (Most people own liabilities and think they’re assets.)

• The controversial reveal: why your house is a LIABILITY, not the asset you were told it was — proven with simple math.

• The three kinds of income — earned, passive, portfolio — and how the wealthy quietly get their money “on the payroll.”

• Good debt vs. bad debt — how the rich make the same bank the poor fear actually work for them (with a trader’s honest caveat on leverage).

• How to measure wealth the way the wealthy do — not in dollars, but in DAYS of freedom — and how to calculate your own Freedom Number (the 25× Rule).

• The wealthy allocation — a simple, durable way to split your assets — plus exactly where to put your money (the tax-smart accounts and the boring, winning way to invest the rest).

• Your homework: the short, concrete checklist to start converting trading profits into passive income this week.

It doesn’t matter what you earn or what you do for a living. If you can save a little and stay consistent, you can build this.

👉 Join us live — it’s free

Click here to watch → streamyard.com/watch/XY3ZSsSM39Md

🗓️ Thursday, July 16 · 3:00 PM Pacific · 4:00 PM Mountain · 5:00 PM Central · 6:00 PM Eastern

Missed Part 1? Catch the replay first so this all clicks: watch Part 1 → streamyard.com/watch/iUA2SKANhGhk

Open to everyone — so bring someone. Forward this to a friend, your kids, anyone who’s ever made money and watched it slip away. This is the class they wish they’d taught us in school.

See you there.

— Tony Rihan Grow Your Pile · Real Money. Real System. Real Freedom.

A live, sourced read of the market backdrop behind this trade (levels from our own market dashboards, midday Jul 14).

The master driver: A cooler-than-feared June CPI (+3.5% y/y, down from 4.2%) sparked a broad relief/reflation bounce layered on top of this week’s US–Iran Hormuz oil shock — so almost everything is bid today: stocks green, gold +2%, Bitcoin +2.7%, crude still firm, EM up, even bonds bouncing, with VIX falling. Financials lead on strong bank earnings; only defensives and a few mega-cap tech names are soft. The oil pop that finally lifted our XOP laggard is moderating — exactly the “sell strength, don’t chase” moment we used to exit.

• Volatility: VIX 16.78 (−2.2% today) — ticking down as the cooler CPI eased the near-term hike scare; still mid-teens and below its ~19–20 long-run mean. Cheap protection, thin premium — a calm surface over a busy macro week.

• Rates & Fed: The cooler print cut September hike odds to ~63% (from >75%) and let Treasuries bounce today — GOVT +0.3%, TIP +0.1%, and even HYG +0.1% (HY calm, no credit stress). Fed still on hold at 3.50–3.75% with a hawkish dot plot; Warsh testifies today & tomorrow. Net: a small reprieve for our rate-sensitive Defender (TLT), though the trend headwind remains.

• Equities & Breadth: Broad but shallow green — S&P 500 7,518.77 (+0.0%), Dow 52,583.59 (+0.2%), Nasdaq-100 29,288.02 (+0.1%), Russell 2000 2,959.11 (+0.2%). Leadership: Financials +1.2% (JPM crushed Q2 — EPS $6.14), Utilities +0.9%, Materials +0.8%, Energy +0.5%; laggards Health Care −1.8%, Real Estate −0.6%, Staples −0.5%. Under the hood, semis/memory rebounded hard after yesterday’s SK Hynix crash — MU +1.7%, AMD +2.9%, AVGO +1.5%, SNDK +2.8%, and Korea (EWY) +2.2%.

• Cross-Asset (the reflation tell): Gold +2.0% → $4,082 (our GLD Attacker firming), Bitcoin +2.7% → $63,844, Brent +2.7% ($85.52) / WTI +2.3% ($79.93) — the oil pop we sold XOP into, now decelerating; Nat Gas −0.9%. Dollar soft (EUR +0.6%, GBP +0.5%). Global broadly up: EM +1.0% (EEM $65.13, our holding), Japan +1.7%, Brazil & Mexico +1.9%. A classic “everything rallies on cheaper inflation” session.

• Catalysts: June CPI today (the cooler catalyst), PPI Wed, Retail Sales + TSMC + Netflix Thu (TSMC priced ~6.65%), UMich Fri; Warsh testimony + a Fed-speaker cluster; bank earnings underway (JPM beat). A loaded, gap-prone week — a good reason to bank the oil pop and hold cash.

• Sentiment: CNN Fear & Greed 44 (”Fear”) even as the tape rallies — a contrarian positive (fear + a bounce = room to run if it unwinds), but total put/call is elevated at 1.33 (heavy index hedging) against complacent single-stock call flow. Mixed enough that raising cash into strength is the prudent read.

• Trusted Voices:

  • Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab): bull intact but “very narrow” — Alphabet/Amazon/Meta explain ~70% of the raised 2026 EPS bar; the hawkish Fed still raises hike odds; Q2 GDP ~3% but “fragile.”

  • Charlie Bilello (Creative Planning): the rotation is real — Russell 2000 +22% in H1 (best since 1991), small-over-large the widest since 2001, Mag-7 down YTD; the bond market has swung toward pricing 1–2 hikes, real wages negative.

  • Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research): the bear case — argues the US is already in recession, flags a brewing private-credit break and CRE distress at 10-yr highs; Fed hikes can’t fix a supply-driven (oil) inflation.

Bottom line: a cooler-CPI relief bounce that lifts oil, gold, and crypto together — into a still-hawkish, gap-prone week — is a spot to sell energy strength and raise cash, not chase it. That’s exactly what we did with XOP: took the pop, banked the exit, built dry powder. Not a recommendation.

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Big picture: An oil-shock, stagflation-tinted risk-off day — Hormuz strikes spiked crude ~+7%, a record ~15% SK Hynix crash dragged AI/memory chips down, and gold sold off ~3% — into a huge event cluster, all while VIX stays cheap and the market is lightly hedged. Live scanner: SPY $749.87 · QQQ $713.23 · /MES 7,570 · GLD $366.94 · WTI ~$76.5.

• Volatility (why we exited the VIX hedge today): VIX popped to ~15–16 off a low base — enough of a bounce to exit the long-VIX teaching trade, but still historically cheap with the futures curve in contango. Cheap vol = thin premium but inexpensive protection.

• The event cluster is tomorrow: June CPI (Tue 8:30am) + Warsh’s first Congressional testimony + big-bank Q2 earnings (JPM/GS/C/WFC/BAC) — then TSMC/Netflix Thursday. A lot of gap risk in a lightly-hedged tape.

• Rates hawkish & two-sided: 10Y 4.57%, 30Y >5%; June dots lean toward a hike, and FedWatch is even pricing a possible September hike. Relevant to the TLT idea on our radar.

• Cross-asset split: crude up ~7%, gold down ~3% (GLD ~$367), TLT soft — a stagflation tilt, not a clean flight to safety. Directly on our watchlist (Gold, TLT).

• Trusted Voices:

  • Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab): bull intact on earnings but a regime shift into a more “temperamental,” higher-inflation era; breadth is actually improving (~63% of the S&P above its 50-day).

  • Charlie Bilello (Creative Planning): the contrarian read — AI is near-term inflationary (memory/hardware prices rising) amid record froth (~60% of the S&P Buy-rated).

  • Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research): the bear case — argues the US is already in recession, flags private-credit and commercial-real-estate stress, and sees a binary rate path (>6% or <2%).

Bottom line: thin vol + a lightly-hedged, two-sided tape into CPI and bank earnings is a poor spot to reach for risk — so we cut a losing teaching trade, sold a little premium well below the market, and kept ~88% of our powder dry. Not a recommendation.

The Trades:

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Rich is a moment. Wealthy is a system.

Hi everyone,

This week’s session was a little different — but in many ways, it may have been one of the most important we’ve ever done. And this one is free for everyone, so please watch it, share it, and pass it along to anyone who’s ever wanted to stop worrying about money.

▶ Watch the full session

Click here to watch → The Missing Link Between Successful Trading and Real Wealth, Part 1 (Grab a notebook — this one is meant to be studied, not just watched.)

At Grow Your Pile, our mission has always been to help you become a better trader. But here’s the truth I opened with:

“More money will not make you rich. You know what makes you rich? Your brain — your thoughts. The way you think controls your actions, your actions control your habits, and your habits, if they’re correct, will make you wealthy.”

Great trading alone won’t make you permanently wealthy. The goal isn’t simply to make more money — it’s to build a financial system that turns you into a Permanent Millionaire.

The one idea that changes everything: income vs. ownership

Most people spend their lives optimizing for income. The truly wealthy optimize for ownership.

“The wealthy play the game of ownership. The rich, the middle class, and the poor play the game of income.”

From a young age we’re taught to get good grades, find a high-paying career, earn more, and work harder. Those are all good things — but they’re only accelerators. The wealthy play a different game: instead of chasing income, they focus on owning assets that grow and compound over decades, and they look for asymmetric upside.

What we covered

• Why your thoughts shape your habits, and your habits ultimately determine your financial future

• The difference between earning a high income and building real wealth

• Why ownership — not salary — is the engine of long-term financial success

• Understanding true net worth: assets minus liabilities, not income or lifestyle

• Why central-bank money creation keeps inflating financial assets — and why owning productive assets matters more than ever

• The power of compounding — and why the hardest part is staying committed through the first 10–15 years, when progress feels painfully slow

• Why time in great assets almost always beats trying to perfectly time the market

• The importance of building systems that generate wealth instead of trading your time for money

• Why the right network can accelerate your journey as much as the right portfolio

• Why continually investing in your financial education is one of the greatest edges you can build

We also looked at some fascinating global wealth statistics — how relatively few people accumulate extraordinary wealth, and more importantly, how those people think differently about money, ownership, and investing.

Our options strategies, premium selling, portfolio management, and risk management are all designed to generate capital. But that capital has to be converted into productive assets that compound if your goal is true financial independence.

In other words:

Trade to create capital. Invest to create wealth. Own assets to stay wealthy.

This is Part 1 of the Permanent Millionaire series — it lays the foundation for the principles we’ll build on in Part 2.

Watch the replay with a notebook in hand. This isn’t a session to simply listen to — it’s one to study, reflect on, and put into action.

Because becoming wealthy isn’t the result of one great trade.

It’s the result of thousands of good decisions, repeated consistently over many years.

I hope you enjoy it — and if it helps you, send it to a friend.

Tony Rihan Grow Your Pile · growyourpile.com

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Big picture: A low-vol, AI-led melt-up into an inflation + tariff gauntlet — the S&P and Nasdaq at record highs (Nvidia first past $4 trillion) on thin breadth, a hawkish Fed on ho…

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A free live masterclass — how to build wealth that lasts:
🗓️ Tomorrow, Friday · 4:00 PM Pacific / 7:00 PM Eastern

· Live & free · Open to everyone

Anyone can get rich once. Almost nobody stays rich. The difference isn’t luck, a hot stock, or how much you earn — it’s a system. Tomorrow, I’m going to teach you the exact one.

In this free, no-pitch masterclass, I’ll walk you through the mindset and the mechanics that separate the people who build wealth from the people who just chase income — the same principles the wealthy use, simplified so anyone can run them.

What you’ll walk away with:

• Why the real game isn’t your paycheck — it’s ownership (and how to start owning, even small)

• The secret formula we teach — a simple, repeatable system for building wealth on autopilot

• “Pay yourself first” — how to save and invest without budgets or willpower

• The 8th wonder of the world (compounding) and why time beats talent every single time

• How to turn what you earn today into income that pays you while you sleep

👉 Join us live — it’s free

Click here to watch tomorrow → streamyard.com/watch/iUA2SKANhGhk

🗓️ Friday · 4:00 PM Pacific · 7:00 PM Eastern · 6:00 PM Central · 5:00 PM Mountain

Open to everyone — so bring someone. Forward this to a friend, your kids, anyone who’s ever said “I’ll never be able to retire.” This is the class they wish they’d taught us in school.

See you there.

— Tony Rihan Grow Your Pile · Real Money. Real System. Real Freedom.

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Back on June 26, in a live Office Hours session, we put on a small, defined-risk bullish bet on crude oil — one contract, about $1,120 of defined risk (~0.1% of the $1.09M book), a teaching-sized position. It was a short put vertical betting oil would hold up.

This morning we closed it for a +$600 winner. The catalyst that got us paid is the same one now flashing on every screen: Middle East tensions have flared back up — the Iran ceasefire collapsed and there were tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz — and oil spiked (WTI ~$70.45 and rising sharply). Our thesis played out. But a war-premium oil move is a two-way, headline-driven binary, so the disciplined play is to bank the win and step aside, not press it.

Market Intelligence

Big picture: A geopolitical risk-off session — the Iran ceasefire collapse and Strait of Hormuz tanker attacks spiked oil and pressured equities (Dow −1%), while hawkish June FOMC minutes pushed the 10Y to ~4.50%. Live scanner: SPY $743.97 · QQQ $707.94 · /MES 7,516 · GLD $373.30 · WTI ~$70.45.

• Oil / the catalyst: WTI ~$70.45 and rising, Brent ~$74–78 — driven by Hormuz supply fears. Trump declared the US–Iran MOU “over”; Iran struck 3 vessels near the Strait, the US retaliated on 80+ targets and revoked Iran’s oil-export authorization. Energy led the market (XOM +3.9%, CVX +3.5%, COP +2.2%). This is precisely the supply shock that paid off our bullish spread.

• Why we’re not pressing it: a war premium is the definition of a two-way binary — the same headline flow that spiked crude can unwind it in an afternoon on a de-escalation. Taking a defined-risk winner off the table beats holding a directional oil bet hostage to the news cycle.

• Rates & Fed: hawkish minutes — year-end PCE raised to 3.6%, nine officials see ≥1 hike, only ~20% odds of any 2026 cut. 10Y ~4.50%. Risk-off but not a growth scare (credit calm, bond vol falling).

• Volatility: VIX popped (~16–19, sources disagree) off a complacent base, futures still in contango — a mean-reversion-prone spike, not a regime change.

A Note From Tony — Putting Capital to Work Today

Here’s how I’m personally reading today’s tape. The market is down — but considering the circumstances (a Middle East flare-up, hawkish Fed minutes, oil spiking), it’s really not down much. It’s holding up well. So a couple of thoughts on deploying capital, depending on where you sit:

• If you’ve got tons of free capital / dry powder: you could think about adding a little short-put exposure here — a bit of SPY or QQQ — but keep it small. Very small. Nibble, don’t gorge.

• If you’re already ~25–30%+ of your capital allocated: it may be wiser to sit tight and see how the day develops. If this drifts lower, there could be a bigger, better opportunity coming soon — and you’ll want the dry powder to take it.

Patience and dry powder are positions too. This is just how I’m weighing it for our own book — not a recommendation. Size everything to your own account and risk tolerance.

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Big picture: A low-volatility tape (VIX ~15.88) that rotated out of AI-semiconductors today — Nasdaq −1.4% on Samsung’s revenue miss and DeepSeek headlines, a pullback from yesterd…

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Big picture: A low-volatility, mildly risk-on tape (VIX ~15.9) with money rotating out of AI-semiconductors into value — but the macro backdrop is exactly what’s been holding our two conviction laggards (TLT and commodities) down. Live scanner: SPY $748.88 · QQQ $710.75 · GLD $381.87 · TLT ~$84.91.

• Rates & Fed (the TLT headwind): Fed on hold at 3.50–3.75%, but June’s dot plot turned hawkish — it removed 2026 rate cuts, and markets now price ~two-thirds odds of a hike by December. The 10-year is back up near 4.50% (a two-week high), which is precisely why TLT sits at a 52-week low. The catalyst for our thesis — rate relief — hasn’t arrived. Wednesday’s FOMC minutes (Jul 8, 2pm ET) are the next read on how serious the hike camp really is.

• The dollar (the commodity headwind): DXY ~100.9 — off a 3-week high but still historically firm, and a strong dollar is a direct drag on COM (−1.7%) and XOP (−10.9%). The dollar just had its largest weekly drop since April, though — if that softening continues, it’s a tailwind for both our commodity sleeve and gold.

• Oil: WTI ~$69, firming on a Strait of Hormuz tanker strike supply premium — consistent with our “may have bottomed” read, but unproven.

• The counter-view (worth respecting): Schwab’s Liz Ann Sonders says outright that “now is not the time to favor long-duration investments” given the hawkish tilt. That’s the explicit bear case against our TLT add — we’re taking the contrarian side, sized small and patient.

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Big picture: A dovish repricing after a soft June jobs print (+57K) has the tape rotating hard — the Dow printed a record while crowded AI-semis got sold, with metals surging and the dollar off 14-month highs. It’s a headline-driven, low-liquidity, post-holiday week with a Fed on hold and a tariff-letter clock ticking to Aug 1. Live scanner check (9:30 ET): SPY $748.32 · QQQ $721.66 · /MES 7,565 · GLD $380.63.

• Volatility: Elevated-risk more than realized-high — a data-light, low-liquidity week that can amplify any surprise. The FOMC minutes (Wed Jul 8, 2pm ET) are the biggest scheduled vol event; the tariff-letter rollout is the key headline risk.

• Rates & Fed: 10Y ~4.49%, 2s10s ~+35bp (no longer inverted). Fed on hold at 3.50–3.75% under Chair Warsh; CME FedWatch ~76% hold at Jul 28–29. Soft jobs quieted hike talk — the debate is hold-vs-hike, not hold-vs-cut. Fading hike odds are stabilizing the long bond — a tailwind for our bullish TLT stance.

• Equities & Breadth: Dow +1.1% to a record 52,900; S&P 500 essentially flat; Nasdaq −0.8%. Leaders: Comm Services +2.4% (our Comcast aisle), Financials +2.2%. AI-semi selloff: Micron −5.5%, Intel −5.3%, AMD −4.3%. Clear rotation OUT of crowded AI-growth INTO value/financials/large-cap.

• Cross-Asset: DXY ~101 (off 14-month highs after its worst week since April). GLD ~$380 rising, gold bid. TLT ~$85.5 stabilizing. HYG mid-range — no credit stress. WTI ~$68 soft. Classic dovish/soft-landing repricing: USD down, real-asset hedges up, credit calm.

• Catalysts: FOMC minutes Wed Jul 8 (the week’s main event); no major CPI/PCE this week (June CPI next week, Jul 14). Q2 earnings kick off late week (DAL Fri Jul 10). SpaceX (SPCX) joins the Nasdaq-100 — index buying triggers after today’s close (~$4.3B from QQQ alone); we hold SPCX short puts in P1 & P2, so a supply-squeeze pop is possible.

• Sentiment: Stretched — a record ~60% of S&P 500 names carry Buy ratings (Bilello), P/E ~26x, semis +237% over 14 months (past the dot-com-peak surge). Narrow, concentrated leadership leaves little room for positive surprises into earnings.

• Trusted Voices: Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab) — bull market alive on earnings, but a “very narrow market”; core services inflation stuck above 3%, Fed “patient,” expects “more frequent bouts of volatility.” Charlie Bilello — record Buy-rating optimism, valuations rich. Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research) — warns the hold may be a policy error, flags negative payroll revisions and private-credit stress.

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