I'd say good Tuesday to you but that probably wouldn't be appropriate today. If navigating the markets were easy, everyone would be doing it. Unfortunately, stocks and the major averages always usually go down way faster than they go up and today is no exception. Those of you SCN Members who are market professionals or rely on the markets to make a living know exactly what I'm referring to. You can go from hero to zero or from the penthouse to the outhouse in a New York minute so the most important point I want to get across today is making sure you understand the value of protective and trailing stops. More on that in a bit. Although we've had this market pegged for months now, we got caught yesterday with our pants down in more ways than one. First, we've been relying on the hourly bar chart of the NDX to suggest positioning for what has been consistent and easy short-term profits until today when the market gapped down below that 25x5 level on the hourly chart and appears to be setting up for a volatile next few days. I've included a daily and hourly chart to paint the picture. However, I suggest we stay out of the way and let this market figure out what it wants to do for now. I mentioned yesterday that if the trend was going to reverse, we're likely going to see some significant volatility and today proves my case. If I was going to pick up some short-term options on the NDX or S&P, I'd probably buy some calls around current levels because one or two bad days does not reverse the kind of bullish trend we've been seeing for months now. It's quite possible this market is pulling back and even with the most thrusting of stocks, a break of the 3x3 on the daily chart is bound to happen and can often provide an excellent longer term entry so let's not get overly emotional at this point. I have been accused on many occasions of being unemotional but you don't have time to hear that story. Let's see what the next few days bring before we run out and start calling for a major trend reversal in the markets. What are the news pundits blaming the selloff on now? Greece. Really? There's a darn good reason why my CNBC remains on mute for a good part of the trading day. It's plain and simple, speculation has reversed trend for the very short-term and it hardly has to do with Greece. Last week, the headlines were "Oil Goes Lower, Markets Go Higher". Well, oil is even lower today and what are the markets doing? Point is, don't let the news drive your thinking unless it's something specific to a particular stock. That's a good rule of thumb to be as efficient as possible when it comes to the indexes as a whole. The major indexes move solely on two underlying factors in my opinion, technical speculation and underlying economics and I don't think Greece is in a position to change the underlying economics around the world. Enough ranting. I mentioned above the most important point I want to get across today is making sure you understand the value of protective and trailing stops. Case in point... Understanding Stops. IRYS Implodes but Receives Vote of Confidence. We brought you a new idea last Wednesday, iTrackr Systems (IRYS), which got off to an incredible start. Shares of IRYS opened for trading at $.68 cents and went nuts on huge volume over the next few days trading all the way up to $.84 cents by Friday for a 23% gain. We were all very excited to see the stock trading so well... providing some very nice returns in such a short period of time. Well, yesterday the stock fell apart wiping out those gains and then some. What a difference a day makes. If yesterday wasn't a big enough surprise, IRYS continued its slide trading to a low of $.38 cents this morning before finding a base and working its way back up the chart. For the record, my ugliest girlfriend looked better than IRYS over the last two days. As I type, the stock is currently at $.48 cents on pretty decent volume. Short selling? Speculative traders selling? Who knows but what I do know is nothing fundamental has changed at the Company that we're aware of. Investing or trading small stocks is definitely not for the faint of heart. I've said that many times. The most important strategy is using protective and trailing stops which we encourage on a regular basis. This limits losses or protects gains in most cases. I know I'm probably not going to teach some of you anything new here but for those who do need an explanation, a protective stop is deciding in advance of opening a new position what you're willing to lose if things don't go your way. Example, if you're thinking about purchasing XYZ stock and it currently trades at $.50 cents, you may say to yourself... the most I'm willing to lose here is 20% so you set your protective stop at $.40 cents. If it goes to $.40 cents, you're out. You take your lumps and live to trade or invest another day. A trailing stop is let's say you buy XYZ at $.50 cents and over the next day or two, the stock runs in your favor and trades to $.70 cents. Maybe you don't want to sell it yet because you think it might go higher but you just don't know, so you want to at least ensure some form of profits by setting a trailing stop at $.60 cents. If the stock goes higher, you have peace of mind, if the stock goes lower and stops you out at $.60 cents, then you have at least made a little money and more importantly didn't let a win turn into a loss. That's the gist of it. If you don't know how to set a stop or trailing stop in your order interface, I suggest you learn before you ever decide to buy anything. I'm dead serious. Bottom line here is if you employed the strategy of protective and trailing stops like we always encourage, you should have made a little money on IRYS even with yesterday and today's implosion. There's absolutely no reason why you should have let last week's gain turn into a loss for you. As for where shares of IRYS are going from here, my best guess is the worst is over. The Company came out just a few short hours ago and announced that they received an executed term sheet from Cornucopia Fund, LP., by its General Partner, Omar Amanat. Mr. Amanat, a co-founding board member of Twilight Studio as well as Summit Entertainment's largest shareholder; Peak Group Holdings. He provided and raised 50% of the capital during Peak's $1 Billion financing of Summit Entertainment. Recently, Summit was sold to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (LGF) for $412 Million. John Rizzo, CEO of iTrackr Systems, Inc. commented, "We are very excited to have an astute investor like Omar on the iTrackr team, someone who sees the value proposition of the iTrackr Systems technologies and can be instrumental in helping us achieve our goals." The fund will finance up to $1,000,000 at a fixed price of $.40 cents per share. That's a big vote of confidence from a very savvy investment group. The good thing is if you didn't pick any up last week or you got stopped out for only a small profit, you have an opportunity to jump in here and provide yourself with a pretty low cost basis and roughly a similar cost basis to the financing the Company just announced only a few short hours ago. Again though... if you decide to jump in now, I strongly suggest you employ the all-important strategy of utilizing protective and trailing stops. I have to go now... having humble pie for breakfast.