Cutting the Rest of the Miners Into a Gap Down; Chess Moves

After setting up in a promising technical manner, the precious metals miners have taken a turn for the worse this morning. Whichever reason the market had after the jobs report for dumping gold and the miners is irrelevant to me--Rather, quite simply, the technical bullish thesis was dealt a short-term blow this morning. As a result, after selling about half of my JNUG long in recent sessions at higher prices to scale gains from my $33.40 entry, I sold the rest this morning at $31.64 for a loss. In a similar vein, I had previously scaled gains in my NUGT long above $19.50, but am now selling the other piece of the position for a loss, just under $17, from my $18.46 entry. So, a volatile mixed bag on this foray into the miners, with winners on half of those positions, and gap-down losers into the other halves. As we have discussed before, the levered ETFs are monstrously volatile, prone to sizable gaps on a daily basis (look no further than this morning). The key is trimming gains when we have them, and quickly ejecting when wrong. I still think the precious metals miners could be putting in a major bottom here. But that does not mean throwing caution to the wind is advised--They need time to set back up again. Even if you are taking a pass on these trades, I hope you find educational value in the ongoing discussion of levered ETFs and how to play them.