Here’s a chart of QID in the 60-minute time frame. Looks bullish to me. I escaped from QLD and UWM holds overnight, and bought QID near the close. Higher lows and higher highs with a crossover of the 20ma. Maybe the market’s going to flush one more time before heading higher. 54 is possible. Stop out below the trendline.

I received an email from a reader. Amit asked, “I notice you are not trading as tight and technical as you were in the summer. Why the change? I thought technical trading was supposed to be consistent.”

Thanks for asking… and you’re right! Last summer’s market had a much better trend. Trading patterns worked better. They had a bigger trend behind them. The current market is full of way more chop and slop. You can’t trade with trending patterns in a market that is trendless.

Don’t get me wrong, those trading patterns still work, especially on smaller time frames. I’ve been posting a majority of daily charts where you have to use them much more conservatively. By conservative, I mean wider stops. Take the above chart. It’s the 60-minute chart of QID. The formations are much tighter than that of the daily below. You’ve got to widen stops on that daily. Today’s red candlestick really didn’t hurt the chart. Yesterday’s dip didn’t either. The last pivot Low should probably be used.

You’ll notice, I am trading using the 60-minute this time. Why? Because it’s giving me the best picture. That’s important. Here’s more input on trading in multiple time frames.

I always enjoy a three day weekend. I held QLD over from Friday, and sold it into the morning gap. The Nasdaq began the morning with a gap up to trendline resistance on the daily chart. The higher low is still intact. The market still has a bias to the long side. This backing and filling is positive for the market.

This market is full of shakeouts. It won’t surprise me to see another gap higher in the morning, even after closing near the low of the day in the major indexes. I remounted QLD at 70, and also bought some UWM near the close. Futures were up after hours, but anything can happen. I’ll sell into a gap again if I feel resistance.

In this market especially… I’m not going for any home runs. When I’m feeling good about a trade, and counting the profits, it’s best to book them. There’s plenty of dips to get back in. If not today.. then tomorrow. One of my bad habits has been letting profitable trades lose half, or all their value. Selling into strength at pivot points adds up in the long run. A partial sell can always be remounted.

XAU made the big break today. Trade in gold stocks headed higher, as that daily trendline was taken out. PAAS is a silver stock showing nice relative strength.

AEM needs to followthrough here at another new high.