We’ve got a breakout on the NASDAQ. It remains to be seen if it will be sustained. It’s getting late in the daily cycle, but a case can be made that this cycle should run long based on the short cycle that came before. The breakout is being tested this morning. If it holds stocks will probably rally into the start of earnings season. If not then we have a dip down into a DCL coming over the next 5-10 days.

1st and 2nd place in the challenge are pretty much set as there is almost no chance anyone can over take either spot. Third, fourth, and fifth place however are still up for grabs. The SMT metal portfolio is currently in fifth place with +98% for the year. The other three challengers have the luxury of taking a big risky trade in the last two weeks to see if they can improve their standings. Unfortunately that’s not an option for me as the SMT metal portfolio is real money for many subscribers. I can’t take a big risky bet to try and move up in the standings. I’m going to have to wait and see if anyone else makes a mistake.

Either way though I don’t think anyone would be disappointed with a 98% gain in 12 months.

I started the challenge to level the playing field. I got tired of the trolls taking shots at every short term wiggle that went against us. Now everyone has to play by the same rules. Make your trades in real time, no more of this hindsight trading BS that the trolls are so fond of. That crap no longer flies. If you want to criticize someone else’s trades then you better be prepared to make your own real time trades. What I’ve found most amusing as the challenge has progressed is that the most vocal and antagonistic traders on the blog have for the most part turned out to be the worst traders when they actually had to compete by the same rules as the rest of us that live in the real world.  The best traders rarely ever posted on the blog. They just calmly went about the business of trying to make money.

The winning percentages for the top 5 traders were between about 65% and 70%, dispelling this myth of magical winning percentages in the 90% range. Seriously folks when someone tries to claim they win 80-90% of the time run as fast in the other direction as you can. They are trying to sucker you into buying a subscription to a bogus newsletter. Probably one with “multiple scenarios” like most of the Elliot wave letters, or the vague maybe this, maybe that type of analysis you get with just about all other services. As long as one covers all bases they can always claim they “called it” when in fact they called both sides and then chose the correct one after the result became known.

The next challenge will start on July 1. There will be one change in the rules. I’m not going to allow penny stocks this year. There’s too much risk of pump and dump scams in these kind of stocks. So no stocks under $5.

Other than that the same rules will apply.

You must email me ([email protected]) your trade entry or exit within one minute of taking it so I can verify.

I will respond back a confirmation by the end of the day. If I don’t you need to resend me the trade in case it got lost in cyberspace.

You must include the percentage of your portfolio for each trade. I will only accept percentage not # of shares. I will calculate the number of shares from the percentage. 

No day trading. You can stop out for a loss on the same day but you can’t exit for a gain on the same day. I simply don’t have time to try and keep up with frantic day traders and realistically no day trader has any real chance of winning the challenge anyway. 

The prize will be the same as this year. $500.00 to the winner, and a possible consolation price one year complimentary subscription to the SMT for the next 4 runners up (depending on whether I retire next year). 

It will be interesting to see if the winners this year can make it back to the winners circle next year. Consistent winning years are extremely hard to reproduce as what worked one year often doesn’t work the next. Strategies that performed well during one environment often fail miserably during a different environment. The traders that can adapt rapidly to changing markets are the ones most likely to continue making long term, sustainable gains. Those that fail to recognize when the market environment changes and can’t adapt are doomed to failure in the long run.

Since the bear market bottom in 2016 the SMT metal portfolio has adapted and stayed ahead of the market and in the process racked up consistent profits. Starting with $100,000 in January of 2016 the metal portfolio is now worth $562,000.

The SMT stock portfolio starting with $100,00 in 2016 is now worth $244,000.

We don’t win every month. Sometimes we even go multiple months without making a dime, but over time we are consistently growing both portfolio’s. And in the end that’s all that matter’s: Is the portfolio growing over time, stagnate over time, or losing over time.

For the vast majority of traders it’s the second or third. Most traders win big, then lose big, over and over and over. Ultimately they make no long term gains. Or they win big and then lose it all.

So let’s see if anyone can repeat next year.

6 or 7 months ago I was chastised by some of the usual trolls for missing the huge move in bitcoin. I warned these people over and over that bitcoin was not only a complete ponzi scheme but also the biggest bubble the world had ever seen. I had no problem missing that run because I can’t buy into a mature bubble. The risk is too great that one gets caught when the bubble pops, and then you lose everything. I couldn’t understand why these people couldn’t see the bubble. If ever there was a parabolic move that needed to be sold this was it. Bitcoin at it’s top was stretched 240% above its 200 day moving average.

I tried and tried to get people to control greed and sell on the way up. As far as I know only one person listened to me. That person walked away with some decent profits. All the rest are now stuck on the back side of a bursting bubble. And considering this was the largest bubble the world has ever seen this should be the largest bust the world will ever see by the time it’s done. Bitcoin is on it’s way to losing at least 95% or more of its value. Its already down almost 70%.

The trolls that criticized me for not buying should have listened to me. They could have gotten out with some profits. But logic never comes into play during a bubble…only greed.

I warned that there could be another takedown after the FOMC meeting before a final bottom. We recognized the premarket attack this morning and exited with a modest profit. The SMT metal portfolio is within a couple percentage points of it’s all-time high, +375% over the last 2 1/2 years.

Now we’ll wait for the next setup to try again. Nothing has changed. Intermediate cycle lows are the best buying opportunities of the year. If you can catch one just right you can make a ton of money in a short period of time.

Folks there are times to make money in the market and there are times when nothing happens. Sometimes one has to wait months for a proper setup. That’s what we’ve been doing in the metals. I’ve tried everything I can think of to impress this on people, but unfortunately many will just never learn this lesson. They have an emotional need to do something every day. This has nothing to do with investing. It’s purely a gambling addiction. These kind of traders make a little money then lose a little money over and over throughout their entire career. So in the long run they never make any sustainable gains. It’s not my goal to satisfy your gambling addiction. My goal is to teach you how to make long term gains. Sustainable gains that gradually increase over the years. You are never going to do that by constantly worrying over missed opportunities, or by frantic short term trading. One has to focus their efforts on waiting for potential low risk high reward setups. That means waiting for daily, and even better, intermediate cycle lows before you pull the trigger.

That’s not going to always be easy though as we’ve seen. ICL’s can take time to develop and during the period another sector may still be rising (as we’ve seen with the stock market). The temptation is to assume that the ICL will never form and the rising sector will never come down. So many traders get suckered into buying at the top because they didn’t have the patience to wait for the ICL in the proper sector. But this isn’t how you make long term gains. Stop thinking emotionally, logically we all know that rallies eventually end. And by now I would think that most of you understand that ICL’s always eventually form and that the best rallies occur coming out of ICL’s. So if one can turn off their emotions it makes sense that it’s worth waiting for the ICL even if it takes longer than you would like, rather than following the herd and chasing a sector that has been rising for 18 weeks. 18 weeks is too late to go chasing any sector. We want to be looking for something that is potentially on week 1 or 2 of an intermediate rally.

At every ICL we lose people to this emotional need to stick with the herd and keep pressing the rising sector. They end up getting caught at the top and missing the rally in the sector that’s ready to take off. No matter how many times we go through this it’s always the same story. Maybe there are some magic words to break people out of this behavior but I’ve not been able to find them and at every ICL there are a few people more worried about trying to catch the last few points of the current momentum trade than trying to get in at the start of the next big move.

In this business there is always another opportunity just around the corner. It just doesn’t make sense to worry about missing one. I guarantee you are going to miss lots of them during your life. When you do, forget about it, and start looking for the next opportunity so you don’t miss another one.

Just like clockwork the group of perpetual losers sold or cancelled their subscription right at the bottom of golds correction. We will continue to grow the metal portfolio as the years go on. But these people never seem to learn no matter how many times we go through this. They will always miss these bottoms because they don’t form instantly like they want so they get seduced to where the momentum is instead of focusing on where the potential is.

For all of you that bought into the bear market nonsense and got kicked in the teeth again trying to short the bull, if you are ready to see the light you should get another buying opportunity in the next week or two, and an even better buying opportunity sometime in July or early August.

For heavens sake listen to me this time and ignore the perma bear idiots that keep preventing you from making money during this bull market.

These corrections are profit taking events, not the start of a bear market.

Our Quest position is up over 1300% over the last year. We will be entering the next Quest trade soon. Are you going to miss it again because you still can’t recognize a bull market even after 9 years?

I’m expecting gold will suffer an attack immediately following the rate hike on Wednesday. More importantly will be how it closes. If gold can reverse from the attack and close in the green then we should have confirmation the ICL bottomed in May.

If not, or if gold drops below the May low then the metals have a little more work to do before the rally begins.

Either way, I still expect this next intermediate cycle will be the one where the metals finally break out of the basing pattern they’ve been in for the last year and a half.

They may create the panic in mining shares even if gold doesn’t make a lower low. This is how they entered positions in January of 2016. A false breakdown to trigger a selling panic allowing the banks to scoop up all those shares cheaply without moving price against them. Traders need to understand the games that are played in this sector if they are going to control emotions and make money here.

For all of you that bailed right at the bottom (gold & stocks) 🙂

You should get another chance in the stock market in July. Don’t miss it again.