On Wednesday morning, we closed out our two open positions, the VanEcks Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: GDX) December 15, 2017 $23 put and the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSE: UUP). Our gold stock indicator improved to a “-1” reading and our dollar indicator dropped to “+1.”  

The dollar indicator, however, has quickly edged back into “+2” territory. If the dollar ETF pulls back and the indicator is still flashing a bullish signal, we would likely go long again via another call option.

The untimely technological glitch on May 17 in our email provider’s system that prevented us from sending out the GDX trade alert email that afternoon really hurt us. GDX fell sharply at the market open the very next morning, resulting in a significantly higher entry price for us and our readers. The trade still turned out to be modestly profitable, but it would have been a much nicer return for us and our readers had we been able to email the alert out when we originally intended to.

The UUP call was also a nice trade as the dollar ETF moved up as predicted by our dollar indicator.

Our indicator-based ETF option trades continue to do well and we will continue to lean heavily on them to guide us in finding trading opportunities.

Looking at our current indicator signals, the two that look most interesting now are the oil stocks indicator and the stocks indicator. Both have been worsening in recent days, and we are considering initiating a put on one or both, depending on how the signals move.

The bond indicator is still bullish. With bonds having already gained ground over the past month, however, we are hesitant to initiate a position now. As noted above, the dollar indicator has quickly bounced back into “+2” territory and we are also watching for a new trade opportunity here.