The DUST (3x short miners)/GDX pullback trade gapped above the 13.75 resistance/preferred target level today and is will now be moved to the Completed Trades category. With DUST falling shy of my profit target on Friday, the gap today allowed for a more favorable exit price on the trade and a quick 20.6% gain in less than four full trading sessions, that’s in addition to any would-be losses or profit give-back on the long mining positions that I was able to book profit on when the charts indicated a pullback was likely.

Although my plan from last week was to add back the long exposure to the mining sector once my pullback target was hit, other than a few core positions in my longer-term accounts (IRA’s, etc…), I might hold off on adding back exposure to the sector for now. I’ll continue to monitor the metals & miners and will communicate my thoughts as I go but as of right now, my gut tells me to just sit back & watch how the metals & miners trade for a while until adding back exposure to the sector.

 

The charts above are the original 15 minute chart of DUST from last week followed by today’s updated 15 minute chart along with the Friday’s 60 minute chart of GDX highlighting the most likely scenarios followed by today’s updated 60 minute chart.

As today’s first few 60 minute candlesticks show, GDX hammered off the first horizontal support line/bounce target shortly after the open today, managing to close right back above the bottom of the ascending price channel (white uptrend line) and moving higher within the channel since. Overall, today’s price action has all the signs of a potential reversal in the miners so a GDX long here with a stop below today’s lows is certainly objective although again, my personal preference is to sit tight & let the dust settle (no pun intended) before re-engaging the mining sector.

note: For categorical purposes, inverse (short) ETFs are always added to Short Trades Categories (e.g.- Short Setup, Active Short Trade, etc..), even though you will actually go “long” the position in order to short the index or sector of the trade idea. For example, DUST has now been moved to the Completed Short Trade Category along with GDX (as the posts related to any inverse or related leveraged ETFs are also tagged with the more popular 1x long ETF (e.g.- QQQ/QID/QLD/TQQQ/SQQQ or SPY/SSO/SDS/SH, etc…)