Howdy folks, and welcome to the weekend. You probably don't need me to tell you it wasn't a particularly ruckus week. As has been the case for most of the year (with the one exception being the latter half of August), last week was another ho-hum week for traders, with stocks not really making any major, trade-worthy moves for anybody except the true intraday traders, and even then opportunities were limited... or were they? The fact is, there have been some rather fantastic swing-trading opportunities over the last few weeks. You just had to know (1) where to find them, and (2) how to play them. As it turns out, someone did. I honestly didn't recognize it until I went back and specifically looked at them, but John Monroe over at the Elite Opportunity has found several great short-term trade setups - mostly bearish ones - since August, and passed them along to let EO members capitalize on them. In retrospect, these are trading ideas that even the long-term buy-and-hold crowd should have been utilizing, since when strung together, they would have offset the last month's falling tide that pulled all stocks lower with it. I don't want to spend a ton of time looking at the past, but I do want to show you the explicit directions and context he had for Elite Opportunity members when he made these suggestions. On September 18th, John wrote: "If you're in these markets to buy great companies at fair prices and pretty much hold them forever, we're still suggesting a nibbling approach until we're absolutely convinced these markets have hit rock bottom again. If you're strategy is much more short-term in nature, you may have already entered into some bearish leveraged ETF's on the heels of yesterday's announcement. If you did, stick with them for the time being. If you haven't yet, the context is definitely there to enter into a short trade on any market strength today or Monday via SPXU, SQQQ or TZA....Assuming the downside move picks up steam, we're likely looking at a test of the August lows on the S&P 500, and a test of roughly 4,546 on the NASDAQ Composite..." In case you don't know, SPXU, SQQQ and TZA are triple-leveraged ETFs that rise when the market falls. The only thing is, they rise three times as fast as the market falls. They're not trades for the faint of heart; you generally have to be right when playing them. But, John usually is right, and used them to initiate a trade last Friday that would now be up on the order of 8%. That's not bad for one week's work, especially in this lethargic trading environment. Perhaps more important, John found a way to make money when stocks were falling. It wasn't a one-time thing, either. Here's something John said about gold back on August 7th: "If you're willing to take the risk and use a break below the recent $103 and change low on GLD as your SSL, there's good enough context to enter into UGLD right now, the primary bullish leveraged ETF tracking gold on a 3 for 1 basis. The leveraged ETF currently is trading around $8 and change, so assuming the ETF moves higher from current levels, it could be looking to move to as high as about $9.25 before it too runs into resistance. Should the ETF end up tracking gold lower, I'd set my SSL just behind UGLD's recent low of roughly $8 per share." As you can see from the chart, John absolutely hit it out of the park. UGLD gained as much as 22% before running out of gas (though the ETF reached John's target just a little bit before that). And just for the record, John also suggested UGLD again on Tuesday of this week to reap a piece of the current rally. My point is, there ARE opportunities for everyone out there. You just have to know when and how to take a swing. If that's just not in your proverbial wheelhouse, all I can say is, it's clearly in John Monroe's wheelhouse. He's continued to find winning trades for Elite Opportunity members in a tepid-to-bearish environment that "isn't supposed to be" a good one for much of anything, trading-wise. Do you and your portfolio a favor - stop missing money-making opportunities. Become an Elite Opportunity member today. Here's how, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEO/v1/ Use the EO to finish a lethargic year for the market on a high note. Now, about this market.... The Bulls Are Still On the Defensive Actually, before I forget, you may want to take a look at something James Brumley wrote about PharmaCyte Biotech (PMCB) today. The company posted news, but as James said, the news wasn't necessarily game-changing. What James thought was so noteworthy - and what you'll probably think is so interesting - is the shape of the chart. Whether it was related to the news or now remains to be seen (probably wasn't), but it looks like PMCB just logged a big reversal bar. Could be worth a closer look. Anyway, despite the market's strong start on the heels of Friday morning's encouraging GDP news (it was up 3.9% in Q2), stocks just couldn't hang on, closing at a small loss for the day and a decent-sized loss for the week. I don't think it would be out of line to blame the index's 20-day moving average lines for the pullback, since today's highs were right at them. You can see it on the S&P 500's chart here.... ... and the NASDAQ Composite's daily chart here. On both charts you can also see the index didn't attempt to break under the same lower Bollinger bands that acted as a springboard on Thursday. The VIX and VXN also are getting comfortable between support and resistance. And just for the record, yep, the weekly chart of the NASDAQ Composite did end up closing under a long-term support line. In my judgment, the trend is still bearish, and I'm inclined to think it's only a matter of time before the market index's lower band lines fail to hold up as support. When they break, look out below. Funny thing is, both daily charts' lower Bollinger bands are starting to slope lower again. That's bearish, and not just because it means the indices have to fall farther before finding any support. On that note, watch for the S&P 500's lower Bollinger band to move back under last month's low of 1867. If we see that happen the index almost assuredly be making new multi-month lows in the near future, which as I've said of late wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. We still need a good capitulation. That's it for today. Everyone go have a good weekend. We'll pick up where we left off beginning on Monday.