Bill:

Along with some others here, we've been participating in the great bargain basement sale going on this week @ USGL, do you know if your ole buddy Rob McEwen is holding back something? I know he has no qualms about bad mouthing GG.

Bill, does the SEC have any interest to investigate the following? On sept. 12 this week a stock took off with buying power that required massive inflows of cash. The next day it continued its rally and the morning of the third day the stock is recommended by GS as a "conviction" buy. Am I paranoid or is this a typical fix? Many thanks.

RE: UBS, the Swiss bank in Cara 100

UBS is a bank in absolute topform IMO and now also gets access to the Dubai financial center and to Islamic Wealth Management.

ZURICH (AFX) - UBS said it has been granted a license by the Dubai Financial Services Authority to set up a branch in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), and plans to open a branch office there by the end of the year.

Companies that gain these licenses are also offered various incentives, such as 100 per cent foreign ownership, zero tax on income and profits, and no restrictions on foreign exchange.

UBS said this furthers its commitment to grow its presence within the Gulf region, and that the new branch will focus on the group's core businesses of global wealth management, investment banking and global asset management.

It also plans to use the DIFC branch to grow its Islamic Finance capability, UBS said.

UBS currently has one other office in Dubai.

C-Note -- I thought $5.35, then $4.87 were the bargain basement numbers on USGL. In the red, at least for the short term. The 7-Day RSI can't get much lower than 6.6... but I am concerned that, given the "open letter to sharholders" and the "possibility of acquiring 4 companies" the price may go lower. Time to hold on and hope the spot price gets back over 600, which will help stabiliize USGL. any thoughts?
EJ

Seems to me we were both told not to try to catch falling knives ...

EJS:
Re: USGL

Then came $4.63 which has given me time to stitch up the slashes from the earlier attempted sword catches ;)

(SLV) setting up for me on the Short side. Looking for the momentum of the previous channel break to carry it down further. I'm only entering the trade if price breaks 109.90.

First profit target will be one ATR from my entry point. Stop Loss will be measured on a 60 minute chart using the days swing high as a Stop level.

Closed out my Short on (GLD) yesterday. Will look to Short that again after it re-tests that gap. I'd like to trade it down to $56/$55-ish level if possible. One year downward target on (GLD) is $45.00 (ish).

/purely technical. not factoring any fundamentals into this.

For those who have actively traded during triple witching days before, would you like to comment about what typically happens throughout the day? Thx.

Import prices higher than expected. Can't be good for those busy crunching the numbers for tomorrow's CPI.

Retail sales were a mixed bag.

"U.S. retail sales inched ahead by 0.2% in August, boosted by a surprising gain in auto sales that offset the drag from lower gasoline prices, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected retail sales to fall 0.2% after rising 1.4% in July. But sales excluding autos rose 0.2% in August, a bit less than the 0.3% expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See full story."

And jobless claims tepid:

"The number of new applicants for unemployment insurance fell during the latest week to a seven-week low, suggesting that while labor markets have moderated compared to earlier this year, they retain some resilience."

Ursus, my observation is that the actual day of op-ex has become more recently a fairly boring day. This didn't used to be the case, but I've observed that the op-ex business seems to be getting take care of earlier in op-ex week; for instance, I'd think that the big run-ups Tue & Wed were due to op-ex activity, as well as some taking taking place today (on the opposite side).

Dave

Thanks Dave. Absolutely agree with you on this week's Monday to Wed. activity. Monday/Tuesday next week should be fun for the shorts.

Thanks,Mousefinger, for the SLV and GLD strategies. Very helpful for those of us trying to learn this trading business.

Mouse-

I am expecting hot CPI tomorrow. No inside info. Just gut feel on PPI and the headlines trend here.

GFMS ruining my gold call despite $USD plunge. :)

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?siteid=mktw&dist=moreover&guid={1A624DEB-DD6B-4D5E-8A50-318BD4711528}

Dixi,

SEC has nothing to investigate. Only trading on insider news is a crime. Brokerage (GS) recomendations are not insider news. Brokerages regularly make recomendations and share them first with its clients and week later with public. This is a normal way that bussiness is done. Traders need to be aware of it.

Clueless,

Mousefinger has put himself out there with his trades, and proven that he knows of what he speaks.

But, in almost 20 years of trading, it has been my observation that selling commodities into weakness (SLV and GLD both have a RSI 7 of 20) has generally been a losing proposition and only for pro's like Mouse. So if you are new to trading, watch your shorts here like a hawk. Personally, I am watching for the downward momentum to subside for a long trade.

good luck.

MarkM - Are those Londoners over at GFMS daft? Don't they realize that "a severe downturn" in the US economy would drive gold much HIGHER than their $700 prediction? The US governments tax income would drop, leading to a larger Current Account Deficit, leading to a LOWER $USD, leading to a HIGHER gold price. If they can't figure this out, maybe they need to look at a chart of gold in the 1970's and decide how the economy moved the price of gold then.

Anyone taking a stab at golds here?

No, looks like everyone is waiting for 555-565

Mouse we might hit your 555-565 target before that gap gets filled.

Well I guess the G7 (and their CB's) will be happy at their meeting this weekend anyways.

tradesman

g034-

I think EVERYONE has gone a little batty. I see more crap today said and written than I ever have. From all sides and all sources. I don't trust anyone anymore. That is why I sleep with my charts. They don't lie to me. (Okay, except for saying oil would turn yesterday.)

Waiting for downtrend line to be broken. We had a nice attempt at a base here then it got OBLITERATED. I have never seen action in oils like this, not even in the post-Katrina dump.

For those asking me about some of the individual names, my personal style has me sit on my hands until Gold turns.

Selling pressure in gold stocks is indeed extreme and the action in the oils is truly unlike any action seen for quite a while - it seems like an all out assault on this pair of commodities.

Yesterdays short covering rally in the TSX was almost entirely wiped out today. Many of us ultra short term traders were barely able to get out of long positions alive. Short positions have been working best.

This action is truly only suited for the very nimble - and even then the risk/reward isn't the greatest.

So I hope the 'knife catchers' and newly initiated take Bill and MarkM's advice to stand aside until the assault is complete.

tradesman

It seems to me that the the traders that take the other side of a trade usually wins. I saw this oil situation two months ago. The chance that hurricanes would come again this year did not make any sense. Tragedies do not usually happen in back to back years. The higher gas prices to the American Sunday drive away from them. The slowing economy. The saber rattlers in the Mideast striking deals in the end. All of the "gas" is out of oil and the put buyers are going to be the big winners on the way down. This is just history repeating itself as usual. Only the bulls with blinders can't see it, yet. Greg

"Gold Prices Fall in New York on Speculation Demand Will Slump"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602013&sid=a.sRVmypxMdw&refer=commodity_futures

This is the part that I found interesting and typical:
"``People are selling rallies now,'' said Frank Lesh, a trader at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago. ``There are still some longs that have been trapped. The trade now is to sell gold and get short of this stuff.''

``You have a flip in the market from net long to net short,'' said Michael Guido, director of hedge fund marketing at Societe Generale in New York. ``Speculators are starting to short the market.'' "

In other words, this has played out time and time again in gold. Momentum traders (many black boxers) will buy gold on strength because their computers tell them that the trend is in place. These purchases are in what Bill calls his "distribution zone". Then the traders get caught long as the cycle reverses and have to sell out at a loss, then they get short in the "accumulation zone" where they lose money when it rallies. In this article, they are talking about "pros" that should know better.

IMO, gold is in a long term bull market. In a bull market, you buy weakness and sell strength. We'll have to see where we are down the road.

Doing some chart hopping tonight...

I see that GG has trendline support AND channel support AND Fib support in the 20.5-21 area - so maybe this is the worst case scenario - if the current area does not hold.

And

What is going up in this market? It is not real tech, semiconductors. It is discretionary and financials. Maybe a little bit of healthcare and telecom. It looks to me that traders now believe that lower gas prices will lead to increase in consumer spending on discretionary items. Will financials make money in reverse yield curve? Why are they being bought? It seems that recent earning reports of financials created a hype