IWM 120 min Oct 20th

IWM 120 min Oct 20th

I left town for the weekend on Friday & just returned last night and plan to post some updated market commentary as soon as I review the charts. I received several email questions & comments since Friday, along with a couple of donations as well a testimonial (thank you), all of which I plan to reply to as soon as I get my bearings. In looking at the 120-minute chart of the IWM that was posted before I left town, I noticed that the first suggested stop for the IWM short trade was incorrectly listed as 11.10 instead of 111.10 and that typos has been corrected on this updated 120 minute chart. The $RUT continues to struggle around that 1080-1082ish resistance level so far and remains solidly entrenched in an intermediate-term downtrend along with just about all major US & international equity indices.

The triple-bottom in gold (mid & late 2012 lows along with the recent Oct 3rd low) certainly has the potential to be the final low in a 15-month bottoming process but until we take out the July 10th reaction high & especially the March 14th high, it is just too early to say with a high degree of confidence that a new bull market is likely underway in gold although that continues to be my read on the charts. I remain longer-term bullish on silver as well and believe that move over the 18.00 level in SLV (silver etf), which was the former key support, now resistance level, is likely to viewed as a bear-trap with the potential to trigger a short-covering rally & new wave of buyers on both the metal & the related mining stocks.

US coal stocks continue to exhibit was could prove to be the early stages of a lasting reversal or at the very least, a tradeable bounce. However, the coal stocks have been under intense selling pressure & remain very aggressive, counter-trend trades at this time. With that being said, some of the more promising candidates are WLT, BTU, OXF, ANR, CLD, NRP, & ACI.  KOL (Market Vectors Coal ETF) provides another, more diversified option to gaining exposure to the coal industry with both domestic & foreign companies.

Select agricultural commodity ETFs such as WEAT, CORN & SOYB continue to look promising as longer-term trade ideas although the success of those trades will likely to be determined in large part by the next major direction in the $USD, which so far has peaked earlier this month.