At 3:48 PM EST on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was peaking at its high for the day, up 3.2%. By 4:00 PM EST, it was down 0.8%. I don't know what's worse....the fact that we saw a 4.0% swing in 12 minutes, or the fact that nobody seemed surprised or bothered by it. It was just another day at the office, and another routine upheaval.  But wait - it gets better.  Since the end of September, the market's average daily move - bullish or bearish - is slightly higher than 2.6%. However, since October 16th (the last ten trading days), the very same market is basically flat. These are indeed volatile and unpredictable times, but I think I have some bigger-picture perspective that'll help you navigate the minefield.  We'll look at that information below, but first a little trading business to take care of...    Trades-n-Such I mentioned this stock was regrouping on October 2nd when it was at 46 cents. I mentioned it again on October 10th, when it was at 55 cents. I have to mention it again today though, since it's at 67 cents - up more than 100% in the last month. Our small cap pick Bio-Matrix Scientific Group (OTCBB: BMSN) has been on a roll this month despite the rest of the market being troubled. Why the strength? Great question. We asked the company the same thing, and didn't get a specific answer or anything new. However, between the volume and renewed strength, the stock is behaving as if somebody knows sumthin'. It's still a speculative idea, but I like the turn. I think there's a good shot at getting back above $1.20 again. If you were in our most recent trading idea - Clean Energy Fuels (NASDAQ: CLNE) - then you may also know the stock fell under our stop level on Wednesday. Apparently the market didn't like the announcement of a $35 million fund-raising effort.  It's actually not that much money/dilution - the market cap is about $300 million, and they've got more than $20 million in cash, per the last 10Q. But, investors bailed anyway (without really thinking about the bigger picture, in my opinion). We still like the pick, so don't be surprised if we reprise it at a later date. Oil prices were on the rise again Wednesday as well, which helps companies like Clean Energy come back into focus.  We've got several other trading ideas lined up though - a lot of them large caps. We're just waiting for the ideal time to strike. Speaking of...   Burning the Candle at Both Ends I've said it before, but I'm saying it a little louder now ...I really think you should be checking out the blog on a regular basis, especially during this trying time. If you had, you would have heard my recent warning/lamentation that the one thing the bulls can't afford to do is overdo it on the buying side all in one day....like they did on Tuesday. The 'biggest gain ever for the market' is a tough act to follow. Well, actually it's been impossible to follow, so far.  On October 13th we saw what was - at the time - the market's biggest gain ever. On October 14th though, we saw pretty much the same thing we saw yesterday...more gains early in the day, but by the time the closing bell rang the market was well into the red. If you give trader's no realistic choice but to take profits, they're going to (and they did). The key to winning a marathon is pacing yourself. If a marathon runner sprints right off the starting line, he'll last less than a mile before passing out. The well-paced runner will finish the race long before the sprinter does. The market is the same way, which is why it can't string together two winning days in a row. It just can't sprint - or make daily double digit gains - for very long. On a mostly-related note, this is why I've recently been applying candlestick analysis much more intensely than I usually do. It's really helping me get a bead on any breakout effort's sustainability. With that, I'd like to point out strong tendency I've observed over the last month or so.  Ever heard of a Marubozu? Don't worry - most people haven't. It's a rarely-discussed kind of bar that opens at one end of the day's range, closes at the other end of the range, with a lot of distance between the two extreme ends. In other words, there are no 'wicks' to the candles. See the nearby example. In and of themselves, the direction the Marubozu is pointing (bullish or bearish) is generally taken at face value. However, there's a less conventional interpretation that says Marubozus - in certain conditions - can actually indicate strain or exhaustion of that trend. In those cases, the direction of the candle should not be expected to be sustained.  Rarely does the market give you a true Marubozu; we usually just get tall candles with short wicks, or we only see a true Marubozu on one end of the candle. The premise is basically the same though.... too much of anything just can't be sustained for very long. The reason I bring it up now? Four of the last six bullish days since late September were Marubozus or Marubozu-like. In all four cases, the market closed in the red the next day...even after having traded a little higher for a while that next day. Point being, we could have made fairly educated guesses that we'd see no bullish follow-through after any of those wild rallies. On the flipside, we've also seen eight bearish Marubozus (or close cousins) since late September. Six of them didn't give us any immediate bearish follow-through either, and the other two were only bearish for a short while afterwards. As I said in the blog a few days ago, if any rally or breakdown is to have any longevity, we need to start with modest opens and end with modest closes that aren't pushing the limits of the day's range. These opens or closes at the extreme ends of any wide-range day are indicating a strained, unsustainable effort right now - not momentum. That's why we're not getting much (ok, any) follow-through. Just one more thing we can all collectively look for as we continue our search for the elusive bottom.