Frozen Again

After playing a few precious miners on the long side with Members in recent weeks, I went ahead and locked in the rest of a trade this morning to unwind exposure to the complex in the near-term.

Simply put, with the U.S. Dollar gapping higher, once again, as seen on the UUP ETF daily chart, below, I have little interest in pushing the envelope with miners headed into another uncertain weekend not just for the greenback, of course, but for markets in general. As we know, the Dollar and gold often inversely correlate, though not always. 

However, the burden certainly falls on gold bugs to prove their bull case even more when the Dollar rallies. And with UUP failing to dip for very long in recent quarters, that case is all the more pronounced. It seems as though, for example, that gold bugs become frozen whenever the Dollar shoots higher this way.

Hence, I am still in hit-and-run mode when it comes to the long miner trade.

As for equities, the green small caps in the IWM this morning are not much help yet for bulls in general. The Dow is sinking further as I write this, and I am still on watch for a spike in fear via the VIX.