My Trading Game Plan Revealed - 08/20/2026: Treasury Intervention, Dollar Breakdown, Bitcoin Rally and Top Trade Setups

Treasury buybacks pushed yields lower. The move did not last.

That reversal is one of the more important signals in Gareth Soloway's latest My Trading Game Plan Revealed because it connects several markets that might otherwise look unrelated. Long-term yields are pushing back against efforts to bring borrowing costs down. The US dollar has broken technical support. Gold is testing former support from below. Bitcoin has surged into a major resistance zone.

The individual charts matter. The bigger story is how they fit together.

Right now, the bond market remains one of the clearest inputs into equity pricing, while the weakening dollar is creating a separate set of implications for inflation, metals, and risk assets. That leaves traders with a market where the macro narrative can change quickly, but the technical levels remain identifiable.

The Treasury Buyback Worked Until Yields Turned Back Up

The Treasury recently increased purchases of longer-duration debt, with Gareth describing the increase from roughly $2 billion to $4 billion as a relatively modest intervention.

"The intervention was only doubling the buys from $2 billion to $4 billion, essentially what you would consider to be a BB gun versus a bazooka," he said during the show.

Initially, yields moved lower. They then began climbing again.

That reversal is more important than the announcement itself.

Gareth highlighted the inverse structure developing between yields and S&P 500 futures. Where yields moved higher, consolidated, and pushed higher again, equity futures produced almost the mirror image: a decline, consolidation, and another move lower.

It is a useful reminder that traders do not have to predict what policymakers will do next. They can watch how the bond market responds to what has already been done.

If yields continue moving higher despite Treasury purchases, equity valuations could remain sensitive to each rate spike. If yields roll over and begin establishing lower highs, the pressure could move in the opposite direction.

The chart gives traders something the headline cannot: a level at which the market itself begins confirming or rejecting the narrative.

The Dollar Breakdown Adds Another Variable

At the same time, the US Dollar Index has broken below an important technical structure.

DXY had been forming what Gareth identified as a bear flag, with an initial decline followed by an upward-sloping consolidation. Price has now broken beneath the lower boundary of that pattern, putting the area around 98 into focus as the next major support zone.

A weaker dollar can provide support for certain US companies and risk assets, but Gareth's concern is what it could mean for inflation.

"A weaker dollar is not necessarily good. It's good for equities. But for citizens, it means inflation is stickier for longer," he said.

That creates an important macro tension.

Lower yields would ease financial conditions. A weaker dollar, however, can increase the domestic cost of imported goods. If those inflation pressures persist, the bond market may be less willing to sustain lower long-term yields.

That is why the dollar chart matters beyond currencies. DXY moving toward 98 while yields remain elevated would create a very different environment from one in which both the dollar and yields decline together.

Gold Hits $4,500 and Finds an Old Level Waiting

Gold has already benefited from the recent move across currencies and rates, but the latest rally has now reached a technically important area.

After pushing sharply higher, gold tagged approximately $4,500 and pulled back.

Gareth's chart shows why that level matters. The area aligns with a former pivot and consolidation zone that previously acted as support. Once that support failed, the same area became a logical place to look for resistance on the way back up.

The question is therefore no longer whether gold can rally. It just did.

The question is how it behaves after reaching resistance.

A controlled pullback followed by another attempt at $4,500 would keep the breakout structure intact. Continued rejection would suggest gold needs more time before it can absorb the supply sitting around that former support zone.

Silver is working through a similar problem.

Price rallied back into a major trend line connecting prior pivots, rejected, and has begun consolidating underneath it. If the dollar continues weakening, that could provide a tailwind, but the chart still requires silver to prove it can reclaim resistance.

The macro backdrop can support the trade. Price still has to confirm it.

Bitcoin's Rally Is Running Into the Next Test

Bitcoin provides the clearest example of why entry location and exit location should be treated separately.

After breaking above the trend structure Gareth had been watching, Bitcoin surged from roughly $62,000 into the low $70,000s.

That move occurred after sentiment had become deeply negative near the lows. But the rally does not automatically tell Gareth that Bitcoin's broader cycle low is complete.

"I don't necessarily think the cycle low is in, but you can have bear market rallies. In fact, they're very common, and they are rip-your-face-off rallies," he said.

That makes the next resistance zone especially important.

Gareth is watching approximately $74,000 to $75,300, where several technical references begin to converge. The area contains previous pivots and the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the larger decline.

For traders who bought substantially lower, that changes the risk-reward equation.

The chart that provided an attractive setup around the lows can simultaneously tell traders to become more defensive after a $10,000 rally. Those are not contradictory views. They reflect two different locations on the same chart.

Walmart Shows Why Earnings Reactions Need Levels

The consumer side of the market is also producing sharp post-earnings moves.

Walmart fell roughly 6% to 7% following its report, while Advance Auto Parts suffered a much larger decline.

Rather than chasing either reaction, Gareth identified levels where price could begin offering a more attractive setup.

For Walmart, the first shorter-term pivot sits around $103.80. The more significant area is the gap fill near $100.

That $100 level matters because it combines a psychologically important round number with an unfilled area on the chart. A continued decline into that zone would allow traders to evaluate the reaction rather than buying simply because the stock has fallen.

Advance Auto Parts requires even more patience.

After price broke through support around $43, Gareth identified approximately $41.30 as the next gap-fill area, followed by a larger double-bottom reference near $38.65.

The lesson across both charts is the same: a stock being down sharply does not make it cheap enough to buy. Location determines whether the downside has created a setup.

Eli Lilly Has the Opposite Problem

Eli Lilly is stretched in the other direction.

The stock has continued pushing higher along an ascending resistance line, repeatedly rejecting when price reaches the upper boundary.

At the same time, Gareth is tracking a bearish RSI divergence. Price has continued making higher highs while momentum has failed to confirm those highs.

That divergence does not guarantee a reversal. It does tell traders that momentum is weakening as price becomes increasingly extended.

Gareth said he and members entered a short position around $1,292. His first major downside reference is approximately $1,150. If that area eventually fails, the psychological $1,000 level becomes another important zone to watch.

The trade is therefore less about predicting a collapse and more about identifying an unfavorable relationship between price extension and momentum.

One Market, Several Pressure Points

The most useful part of Gareth's current game plan is not any single target.

It is the number of markets reaching consequential levels at roughly the same time.

Long-term yields are attempting to move higher again after Treasury buying. The dollar has broken lower and is approaching another support zone. Gold has rallied into former support turned resistance. Bitcoin has moved rapidly from pessimism near $62,000 toward a major resistance cluster above $74,000. Several individual equities are also reaching levels where stretched price action could finally begin producing asymmetric setups.

That environment rewards patience more than prediction.

Policy headlines can change. Economic narratives can change with the next data release. Sentiment can reverse within days, as Bitcoin just demonstrated.

The levels change much more slowly.

For Gareth, that is the purpose of the game plan: know where the important areas are before price reaches them, then judge the reaction when it gets there.