Whether you are a beginning trader just starting to get the feel for the business and making your first trade, or an experienced pro unfazed by anything the market throws at you, chances are that you are still susceptible to the emotional highs and lows of your day to day or month to month trading matters.

It is probably ok to have those emotional high’s and lows hit your brain when you have positions in the markets. But just be sure that your experience and overall knowledge and discipline is strong enough to override any possible emotional or euphoric effects of a great trade (or a bad losing trade).

You know, I can tell you one thing that happened to me already several times many years ago ( I believe it was 1998). I was fortunate enough to have predicted that sharp decline with a decent amount of precision. Don’t ask me why but I chose to pick on Cisco Systems (CSCO) with a put option. Cisco was one of the strongest stocks at the tim

I am still open to the possibility of a reverse head and shoulders pattern being created on the S & P 500 index.

Today we declined on big volume from the highs and makes me think my previous article of ’summer doldrums’ could be kicking into effect thereby delaying the big upwards breakout in the S & P 500.

The fact is that July and August can be horrible months to trade and a horrible time to get real momentum and adequate volume upwards in the market. Let’s face it, a lot of the big money is at the beach and body surfing on cape cod!

So here in this chart I just drew a brief sketch of a different possibility, a reverse head and shoulders pattern that could be in process right now. Further confirmation is needed however and the first sign will be a return to 1170 on the S & P to complete the creation of the right shoulder of this reve

We are about to see some fireworks in the Gold market in July August and September and likely October, November and December as well. Gold during the last 6 to 9 months has been an absolute SLEEPER in terms of price action. Small price ranges, slow price movement and BORING price action.

But behind the scenes what this means is that the gold market is getting ready to lead us into super high volatility, or fireworks if you will. The lackluster action is explained by the fact that we have had during the last 2 price quarters a double inside quarter. This is huge news because it is a big clue for future volatility.

The gold market has been deceptively quiet so as not to warn anyone about what it wants to do next. This quiet, slow and boring price action was precisely the creation of a double inside quarter shown in the link in the previo

The S & P 500 powered down with volume today.. Quite heavy volume too. A test of 1163 is starting to look like a very good possibility now and would at least open up the possiblity of that reverse head and shoulders pattern setup I mentioned in an earlier posting.

After looking more carefully at this index it appears that a sell signal was triggered on June 22nd 2005. The high for that day was 1219.59 which tested the high for the 17th of June which was 1219.55. Not only did the 22nd price bar test the June 17th price bar, it also finished with a close below the 17th price bar and on dramatically lighter volume.

The volume for the 22nd of June 2005 was 1.38 billion and the volume for the 17th of June was somewhere near 2.5 billion. The June 17th volume was skewed by quadruple witching.. so I am a bit perplexed as how to make a judgement on whether I can make a valid volume comparison given the quadruple witching skew. Either way it looks like a comfortable se