On Friday I stated that I was looking for the market to pullback, get to a somewhat oversold condition, and set up on the daily charts. Today the DOW closed down 158 points and I am looking for this pullback to complete on Thursday or early morning Friday. Once this pattern completes I am looking for the market to push up. I then expect 2 more similar patterns as the market makes a series of higher lows into the end of the year. If I was a long term investor I would be looking to sell in the 17800-18400 range and be 100% in cash going into the New Year. I would be looking to scale out at 3-4 different price points within that range. The Beige book was released today at 2:00. The Federal Reserve is still talking about raising interest rates. I do not understand how they think it is a time to raise interest rates with the weakness in the US economy and economies across the globe. The talk of raising interest rates sent the market spiraling down. The Federal Reserve is saying that they do not want to cause volatility in the market based on their actions, however the talk of raising interest rates caused the S&Ps to drop sharply towards the end of the day. The economy is not robust, after spending 4.5 trillion dollars on quantitative easing the US GDP is only 2.1%. After 9 years with zero interest rates the economy has not picked up any steam, what is the difference with going 10 or 11 years with zero interest rates? The pending home sales, retail sales, new home sales, PPI, CPI, and GDP are all weak. The Federal Reserve stated that by their measurement there are no signs of inflation and that they are looking for inflation to get to 2%. The data is not strong enough to justify a rate increase. I stated that I have a sell signal on the daily and weekly charts for oil. I stated that I had a buy signal for oil on the eight hour chart and that I would be looking to buy oil in the 40.40-41.40 range. Oil pushed down to 41.16 and when oil shot up above the 41.80 level I stated that I would look to take profits and be flat going into the inventory number today. The inventory number today wasn’t great and oil traded below 40 today. I am bearish oil and I am waiting for better patterns to set up. Yesterday I stated that I was looking for gold to pull into the 1045-1055 range where I would look to buy with a 1038 stop. Today gold traded down to 1049.40. Once gold got above the 1053-1055 level I tweeted that I would look to exit all gold positions and be flat gold. You can follow me on twitter at “@stevekalayjian”. Gold was down over 8 dollars today. 1040 is a very big number for gold, going back 7-8 years ago. It is such a huge number that I don’t see gold hitting that level and breaking through it the first time. This trade was based on the strength of that number along with the oversold condition on the daily charts. I am now flat gold, on the sidelines , waiting to see if gold gets a push up.