Can't seem to hold a position, make a decent return, keep from getting whipsawed, find a trend?
No wonder, because this is one of the most volatile markets in the past century.
Our opinion, for what it is worth, is that the volatility is being turbocharged by the injections of Fed liquidity into the Wall Street banks, who have few options for higher returns than Treasuries. So their trading desks are churning the markets to hammer the hedge funds and skin the small specs who are loss sensitive and unsophisticated in their use of leverage and hedging.
The financial sector needs to be reformed badly. The economy will not recover until real wages start advancing again so consumption and savings can resume. Look for the well-heeled elites to fight that every step of the way, and appeal to the worst in our character as part of a campaign to do it.
If you are not an experienced trader now is a good time to sit in cash and add some precious metals on weakness, and above all, learn to live within your means.
"Some people see God as they see a cow, and love Him as they love a cow — for the milk and cheese, and the profit it brings. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of worldly possessions or inward comfort. They do not truly love God when they love Him for their own advantage. The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye — one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
Meister Eckhart, Predigten und Traktate