Bill-
You mentioned gold holding around $440, but based on its sinusoidal pattern:
http://stockcharts.com/gallery/?$GOLD
it seems more likely to wind its way to the low $420's, before popping back up... based on history. What am I missing here?

Thanks-
MJW

I agree I should have waited a bit (patience is a lesson the market is teaching me at a co$t), I guess I am stumped on why you picked 440 when just by eyeballing the cyclical nature of gold, it looks like it could go back down into the 20's before it goes back up.

I did notice yesterday that though Gold was down .5% that the goldminers were generally up. I own some RGLD and it was up 6% on strong earnings.

Bill, I respect your opinion but lets face some reality proprietary trading desks don't make their money off mom and pop. Plain and simple mom and pop don't control ( by them selves ) enough capital to keep all the desks in business.

Two other quick notes. 1) The courts don't care what day in the options cycle it is. 2) In regards to one of the other posts from a reader. Individuals and even most prop desks don't have the ability to distinguish an order which is part of a basket trade from any other order. Also basket trades are part of either program trading or sophisticated hedges to other derivative products, or lastly for arbitrage.

Bill,
You would be amazed at the number of jury verdicts that come out on friday afternoon or evening. Jurors simply want to get on with their lives. They are paid roughly $40/day depending on the jurisdiction, and are asked to do very important work under what is often difficult circumstances. When faced with the prospect of another week or more of deliberations, or possibly even a weekend session, it is simply human nature to find a common ground. I am almost certain that is what happened here. In fact, I would wager 2:1 that not a single juror knew that friday was options expiration.