There have been no main trades triggered in the last few weeks, only aggressive trades which have been +4000 to -4000.  Overall the market and the system have been stuck on dull, government sponsored malaise. 

The market had an absolutely miserable week with the government of the United States demonstrating how it actually operates--last minute compromise.  This is normal, but it should not have happened with our debt ceiling and as such the markets sold off nearly 5% and have retraced most of the year. 

The only saving grace has been the Options strategies.  During times of complete confusion, options offer a way to gain in flat markets.  If at the end of the year our entire profit came from options, we would not be surprised.

Look for a bounce to coincide with the Tuesday debt limit vote off the 200-day moving average and a subsequent fade of such numbers.

We also have non-farm payrolls this coming Friday.  Overall, this market looks weak.

The market has been completely focused on government.  The entire rally going back to March of 2009 has been engineered, manipulated, fretted, concerned, and otherwise completely focused on what our governments of the world are doing.

Corporatoins and securities analysis have taken back seats to economics and its dismal science.  This has been an extremely difficult year, there have been few trends, and mostly whipsaw countertrends which take us up 5%, down 5% up 5% and now currently 0%. 

Rallies and sell-offs have been explosive.  Its been extremely difficult to make modifications to strategies when markets move 7% in a direction and just when the signals require a shift in direction, markets move in the opposite direction.  Its been frustrating, but at the same time it has made our next release of the software that much better.

 Its been a good year, the hedging strategy was put into place and has helped to offset our negative numbers on the futures and maintain better performance than the market.  This last sentence seems strange since we are down 2 points compared to the markets, but remember if the market moves 5%, we move 10% or more. 

Version 4.0 will attempt to move away from daily analysis, sticking to a position regardless of intraday news, and cut that into 4 sections of analysis inside the daily analysis. 

We will get our last of the paperwork out this week, but in light of the issues in congress and the market, we needed to focus some attention in the evening hours on the market.