The Dow gained over 120 points on good volume. Advance/declines were almost 2 to 1 positive. I don't know how much of this is end of the month related. The volume came in heavy at the close. Not sure it means anything one way or the other. Next week all eyes on the Fed. That will be the key followed by the employment report. We'll see. GE was up 50 cents but the options did not move. 3 weeks left which might let me cut the loss a bit. Or they will be total losers. Bad trade no matter what. Gold rose $4 today on some China yaun rumors. The XAU had a bounce of a point and a half. I think it's too early to go back into that market but I will keep an eye on it. I will need to check the longer term charts over the weekend. Oil closed below $50 for the first time in quite a while and that added fuel to the stock market. Don't know how long that will last though. I figure Monday and Tuesday will be a waiting game on the Fed. Would like to see sideways action into the announcement. But you really can never tell. It is an interesting game and always a difficult one. I'm trying to get my head right to make some money in May. Perhaps I can clear things up. But now it's time to take a break for a couple days and get back at it Sunday night.

Down around 130 points today. Almost to the lows for the year. We are in a malaise. There is no way out. Volume was good and the advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative. GE lost 70 cents and my calls are dead. I put in an order to see but it wasn't filled. I'm out tomorrow unless there's a turnaround. There won't be. This trade was a loser from the start. It never showed a profit. It is stupid to own calls in this atmosphere. I could have gotten out earlier in the week with a smaller loss but did not. My own fault. GE has been range bound for about 3 months and will break to the downside if anything. But what can you do? You take the loss and move on. It isn't easy. But it's gotta be done. The XAU keeps dropping and that market is finished. Oil is dropping. The dollar is going nowhere. In this environment how can you make any money? Should be short if anything but the technicals are already oversold. What can you do. Sometimes you just have to head for the sidelines. I suppose this is one of those times. I guess I should be thankful that I don't have a lot of open positions. But the trading has got to get better. It can't go on like this. I wish I had a clue as to what to do but I don't. I will need to get my head straight and go from there.

The market sold off early and then made a comeback. We ended up about 50 points on good volume. Advance/declines were positive. The action is confusing to say the least. There is no clear direction. GDP is announced tomorrow. I have no idea how the market will react. GE was up about 20 cents today. I need to see a breakout above $36.50 on good volume to stay positive on this trade. But I just don't know. The technicals are overbought on GE at this point. It will probably be a loser. Gold lost $5 today and the XAU got killed on heavy volume. NEM reported poor earnings and got slammed on extremely heavy volume. Gold is dead I think. The break of the longterm trendline in the XAU recently sealed its fate. I'll have to look elsewhere for trades. But ya never know. No action in the dollar of late. It is a very frustrating market to trade right now. Discipline and patience are required. Nobody likes times like these but they are inevitable in the game. You've got to adjust and look for opportunities. I can't seem to find any right now. My brain is also on the slow side here for some reason. So I'm not adding any positions at the moment and I'm keeping an eye on GE. That's really about all I can do. There will be better times ahead.

Had a lot of things to do yesterday and could not get here to post. The Market was up around 80 points. Today we were down over 90 points on average volume. Advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative. I think we are heading lower again. This market is going nowhere. It is very frustrating. GE was down today after being higher earlier. I could have closed out my position with a relatively small loss but I held on and will pay for it. My mind is in a funk. Has been for quite a while. I cannot explain it. But it is not good. I really should just get out of this trade and get on the sidelines. The XAU continues to fall although gold itself is holding up. Can't explain that either. I need to get back into the trading routine but it isn't happening. My brain is not focused. I'm just not up to the task at hand. It is a game that requires more than most will give. You gotta be honest with yourself. I think tomorrow will be a down day and we will see how far it goes. I'm not looking forward to it and I could be wrong but I think I'm not.

Volatility. That is the name of the game. The Dow lost 60 points today on good volume. Advance/declines were negative. We were down over 140 points in the last hour but made a comeback. Probably short-covering. It is a tough market to trade. Tougher than usual. Might be trying to form a bottom or this is a stop on the way down to who knows where. GE was flat and its relative strength here is encouraging. My thinking is that I would like to break-even if possible. Gold was up, the dollar was down and the XAU lost some ground. No clear idea of what to do there so I'm on the sidelines. This is not a time to be bold I believe. This is a time to reign it in and be careful. The volatility is more than it has been in quite a while. I need to let the market tell me what it wants to do. There are some indicators that say a bottom is being formed. But nothing in this game is for sure. I am going to be patient. It is a long year and it isn't even half over. I will take the weekend to unwind and then get back at it on Monday.

A short-covering rally today. The Dow climbed over 205 points on good volume. Advance/declines were about 3 to 1 positive. I'm thinking this is a one day pop. In downtrends, rallies appear out of nowhere and are pretty sharp. Today defines that. I would not expect to see a sustained rally here. I could be wrong and I have been before. GE was up over 50 cents but it isn't helping the options that I own yet. Might not either. Gold was down a couple bucks and the dollar was slightly higher. XAU down about a point. The market was up over 200 points but it is hard to get excited in this type of environment. The trend is down. We do have a couple of positive divergences on the RSI and the McClellan Oscillator. That could help but it is really still up in the air. I'm not a believer here. That said, I am trying to get my head together but I'm kind of tired. Not the best of circumstances for trading. I'm not taking any new positions here. I'll wait to regroup over the weekend.

The market is going nowhere but down. Another 115 points today. I am an idiot for still holding calls. This market is done. It doesn't matter that there is an extra week on the options. Volume was heavy and the advance/declines were 3 to 1 negative. GE lost 50 cents and I'm lucky there is even still a bid on them. My mind is not in a good state. I should have just bailed out of everything earlier. It is stupid. The market is not coming back anytime soon. Gold was up a couple bucks but the XAU fell today on good volume. I'm not sure what is going on there but if we get a divergence in price, I might take a stab at it. The dollar was lower. More inflation reported today with the CPI and the Fed beige book. No good news now or on the horizon. When the trading is as bad as it is for me now, I really need to close out and take a break. There is too much going on in my mind to be able to trade right now. That is the truth. A good trader would recognize this and step back. I am trying. It is so hard to do. But it really needs to be done. There will be plenty of other trades. My mind can't function properly now for various reasons. I need to listen to what I'm saying right here. It's hard. The game is tough enough when my brain is working right. But now is not the time. I need to give it a rest.

No post yesterday as I was out to play golf. The markets stabilized yesterday with not much movement although the XAU rallied over a point. Dow was off 15 points. Today the Dow gained about 55 points on good volume. Advance/declines were almost 3 to 1 positive. GE hasn't moved and I did have a chance to get out on Monday but did not take it. The fact that the market hasn't completely collapsed here is a positive but there's always tomorrow. We'll see what happens. Gold was up over $5 today and the XAU gained over 2 points. Gold itself never broke its long term trendline. But the XAU certainly did. That is why I was so quick to dump those NEM calls and take a loss. Perhaps I was wrong. But at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Volume has come back into gold on the upside and I will reassess what I'm going to do there. It could just be a snapback. Not sure at this point. I'm cutting this short here now as I am pressed for time.

That's it. The party, if there ever was one, is over. It is freefall mode. The Dow never got it going even with good news from GE and CITI. Down big, 200 points on heavy, heavy volume. Advance/declines super negative. I fear Monday morning. There is always a hangover. Passing through the zero line on the summation index and I own calls? What a moron. GE had incredible volume and was actually up thirty cents on a down day. But that won't help in a market like this. I had a chance to just get out and lose only the commission but I didn't take it. I was also buying a car today so I wasn't in front of the screen all day. My fault. GE was up almost a buck at one point and that is when I should have bailed. On a positive note the April calls got sold somehow. I put in a market order first thing in the morning and low and behold when I returned from the buying the car they were gone. It was a loss but not a total one. They must have matched up traders covering their orders. That's the only way it could have happened. Lucky, but I have come to notice when you trade like a pro the market makers treat you like a pro. Remember that. Gold was up a tad today but the XAU was down and down is now the direction there. I am really looking forward to taking this weekend to regroup, rest and get a load off my mind. Trading can be intense and that happens during option expiration week especially. Everything has changed and my original trading and economic scenario for the year was wrong. It is back to the drawing board...

Well, sometimes you're just flat out wrong. Such is the case with the gold trade. More on that in a bit. The Dow lost another 125 points today on heavy volume. Advance/declines were over 3 to 1 negative. The summation index has turned back down and we are going to go through the zero line. Watch out! Trouble is on the way. GE lost ground and I don't think the earnings even matter at this point. It's heading down. I probably should have dumped the May calls today but I'll be out tomorrow I think, no matter what. If I can even sell them. Crazy game and after this week I will have to reassess exactly what the hell I am doing. The year ending in 5 theory doesn't look like it will work. Gold lost $5 today, the dollar was up and the XAU got clobbered over 3 points. I dumped the NEM June calls for around a 30% loss. Just had to get out, the weekly trendline has been solidly broken and I should have listened to my gut. But that's the price you pay to play the game. You're not always going to be right. Losses are part of the game and you've got to move on. However I don't have any good ideas at this time. Everything that I assumed was correct is wrong. I've got to regroup and come back better than the last couple of trades. We'll see about GE here in a few hours. I can't think of anything good that is going to come of this in the environment we are in at this time. Must bail out.

Never got it going for the Dow today and it just kept going down. Not a good sign, off 105 points. Volume was heavy and the advance/declines were almost 3 to 1 negative. It could be option related or we could be in trouble. Either way it is not a good sign. GE was down about half a point also and all eyes will be on Friday morning. I think I'm getting out of the May calls no matter what happens. The market just can't get going. Gold was little changed but the XAU lost almost 2 points and closed beneath the weekly trendline. We need a Friday close at 91 or above or that will be it for the gold shares. I added another 15 contracts to my NEM June calls at the same price as yesterday. NEM was down around 40 cents. I canceled the open ABX order for July and now will wait for Friday. The dollar was little changed also. It doesn't look like the weekly trendlines will hold for the XAU, gold or the dollar at this point. But nobody ever wants to step up when they have to. If these lines hold this is the time to take positions. That said, the overall market conditions are bearish and that doesn't bode well for the future. The year ending in 5 theory could go out the window. We'll see what happens tomorrow...

Turnaround Tuesday. We were down over 80 points in the morning. But then the Fed minutes came out and a rally ensued. Ended the day up 60 points on good volume. Advance/declines were positive after being 3 to 1 negative. That folks, is a one day reversal to the upside. We'll have to see where we go from here but I still say the downtrend is over. Probably will run this thing up into the expiration but there are no guarantees. Even GE was up a bit but not enough for those April calls. Earnings on Friday. Gold didn't do much and the XAU came down to support on a weekly basis. I placed an order for some June NEM calls. When the market started to rally, so did the gold shares. I modified my order to increase the buy price and somehow got a partial fill. Now I hate getting a partial fill but if this is the right time, I was lucky to get what I did. Of course nobody knows if this is the right time. I also later placed a GTC order for some ABX calls, going out to July. Don't know if I will keep that trade on. The dollar was higher today but sold off a little after the Fed minutes. I don't know if this gold trade is going to work but now is as good a time as any. Stop-loss orders will be in place tomorrow when I get the fills and I'll go from there. There is a RSI divergence in NEM that I am counting on working. None right now for ABX but there is also a divergence in the XAU. I'm not overly confident that this will work but there is a lot of time and things could go my way. I guess we'll see what happens the rest of this week, especially with GE. If the earnings cause a pop, I might just pop out.

This terrible site was down at the end of last week so the news of the 7th and the 8th was not published. I'm sorry but this blog site is a piece of shit. We were up on Thursday and down on Friday. We'll go from here. Today we lost 12 points on the Dow in a light volume affair. Advance/declines were negative. I am looking for more upside into the expiration here. I'm sticking with my idea that the recent lows will hold any downside for now. The market has retreated on light volume. That's a plus. GE is just hanging around. Still no bid on the April calls, so that will be a total loss. Unless there's a miracle when the earnings hit on Friday. But you can't count on that. Gold was up a couple bucks today but the XAU was off half a point. The weekly uptrend line on gold itself is still holding and the same goes for the XAU. I am looking to buy some gold calls tomorrow on any weakness. Looks like this time it will be NEM for various reasons. Perhaps will go out to June. Or purchase both May and June. We will see how it shakes out tomorrow. The dollar was weaker again today and the weekly downtrend line has held the advance once again. I'm looking for the dollar to be higher tomorrow as a best case scenario to purchase the gold calls. I'm not sure of this trade so the stop-loss will be tight. But then again, I'm not sure of any trade really. However downside tomorrow will set up an RSI divergence and the other technicals are oversold so this is as good a place as any. Looks like I'll have to be up early. I am in the process of buying a car so my mind is cluttered with bullshit when it needs to be focused on the trading at hand. I'll try my best. The market always comes first. It has to be that way to be successful. I'm trying my best but it isn't easy. However things will be easier, tradingwise, once the outside influences are taken care of.

The Dow was up another 25 points or so on light volume. Advance/declines were almost 2 to 1 positive, which should change the direction of the summation index to upwards. This is a weak rally though. There is no enthusiasm. It is not robust. We are in a meandering atmosphere. I can't get excited here. GE didn't do anything. The April calls still have no bid and will be total losers. The May calls have been cut in half and I should probably just get out and move on. I would like to wait for the earnings though and there is a lot of time left. But these combined trades were no good. I was wrong and should have left them earlier. I was most likely feeling invincible after the good gold trade. Gold was up a bit today as were NEM and ABX but the volume just wasn't there and I am trying to wait a week to do something there. Hard to say with the dollar in a holding pattern as well. 85 is the resistance and it is still valid for now. $425 is the support for gold and it is hanging in there as well. There is nothing else on my radar except for oil which was down a bit today. A drop in oil will rev up the market but that is yet to be seen.

The Dow gained around 35 points today on lighter than lately volume. Advance/declines were slightly positive again. It was another day of no news or catalyst to get this thing going one way or another. GE gained back what it lost yesterday but there is still no bid on the April options. It looks like that's the way it will be until expiration. Gold was up a touch and the dollar was a bit weaker. The gold shares were up slightly but there was no volume. We got a little pop at the end but it was a nothing day there as well. It looks like it is a year of sideways action into the tax deadline, which I have seen before but did not expect it this year. That is to my detriment as I will lose money because of this. There isn't much to write about in times like these. It's almost summer doldrums like. Oil was down today and that helped but it is a directionless affair. The best position here would actually be cash. Sometimes the sidelines are the place to be and this looks like one of those times. Writing options would also work in this sideways environment. Patience is something that is needed in the game at this time.

Kind of just a hang around day in the market today. The Dow was up around 15 points on heavy volume. Advance/declines were slightly positive. We are at a spot where the market needs to hold or else. Summation index is still pointing down and needs to turn around to give the market a chance. GE lost about a quarter and now the May options I hold are under water too. It doesn't look like the April ones will get a bid again. Earnings out on the last day of the option cycle. There's always hope but hope is over-rated and won't work in trading. I'm looking at the gold shares again as we are at a major point there. The dollar index is at overhead resistance and the gold contract is at longterm support. Something has to give but I am a believer that gold will hold here and the dollar will fall. I am looking at a way to trade this but my mind is somewhat preoccupied with the GE trade. I'm looking at May and longer calls on ABX and NEM. But I am trying to be patient in case these levels don't hold. It's a tough call in a tough game. I'll be the first to admit that my mind has not been as sharp as it needs to be lately to play this game. I'm not sure why. But there can't be any excuses. You've got to do the best you can. Not a lot on the economic calendar this week. I suppose the market will key off of oil as it has lately. Nobody said it would be easy...

The Dow lost another 100 points on heavy volume. Advance/declines were about even though. Interesting. Oil was the cause as it hit a new high. The employment report was weaker than expected and we rose early. But the gains would not hold. GE was down 50 cents and there is still no bid on the April calls I own. I have a GTC order to dump them if a bid surfaces. Doubtful. It looks like the year ending in 5 theory isn't going to be valid. Gold was off a couple bucks as the dollar showed strength. However the XAU rose a bit but was mixed with ABX down and NEM up. Mixed picture and confusing there. I was thinking we would have an up day today and turn this thing around in the overall market. But it was not to be. Next week should be interesting. I hope we don't collapse. My thoughts are not clear at this point and I should probably just be out of the market at this time. The GE May calls have lost a little of their value but they have 7 weeks left and I am thinking we will get going to the upside within that timeframe. Plus the earnings will be out in that period so all is not lost yet. But it could be and therein lies the problem. I will try and relax for this weekend but it won't be easy at this rate.