The Buzzer, UVB76
A weird Russian shortwave radio station
Ever heard of UVB-76?
It’s a strange Russian shortwave radio station that broadcasts a monotonous, rhythmic buzzing tone.
Hour after hour. Day after day…
Very occasionally, the buzzing stops, a voice cuts in and reads out a short coded message, then back to the buzz.
(I’ll throw in a link at the end for you to take a listen… It does sound quite sinister!)
Add to that a few facts:
- It comes from Russia
- It sometimes broadcasts military style codes
- And recently, even more weirdly, started playing Swan Lake (Fun fact: In the Soviet era, when something very bad or very secret was happening, state TV would suddenly switch to Swan Lake)
So of course, it’s ripe for wild internet theories…
Some say it’s a part of a nuclear “dead hand” system.
Others think that it’s a spy network signalling tool.
But the answer is probably none of those…
THE BUZZER
Most experts reckon the buzzer is just a channel marker…
A permanently occupied military frequency just left buzzing, so it’s always live.
Ready to receive orders instantly if other complex systems fail.
Not a nuclear trigger.
Not some secret doomsday switch.
And this is exactly how us traders get ourselves into trouble…
Humans want to see patterns in things; we want to feel like we’ve solved something with a bold answer.
This looks like it’s going to breakout hard…
Def ripe for a crash…
When, often, just like the Buzzer, the probable answer is quite benign…
In trading terms, that means no edge.
It’s not sexy to look at price action and say “No idea 
”, but often it’s correct.
Noise does not equal signal.
And the more time we spend allocating resources to noise, the less we spend on what really matters.
So, ladies and gents, next time you’re looking at a chart conjuring up all these weird and wonderful trade ideas, ask yourself this…
Is this real signal, or is this just The Buzzer?