Research has shown that a well-structured group is smarter than any of its members. SpikeTrade brings together serious independent traders. It is a place where we learn from each other and support each other in our discipline. It also functions as a high-end educational resource. On this sample page you see a weekly feature in which the Spiker who won Gold for the week analyzes his or her trade. To get full access to weekly picks and real-time updates, as well as educational resources, please click here and consider becoming a Member.

June 8th 9:06am EDT - by SpikeTrade

Subject: Gold Report - Week Ending June 5, 2026 by Brian A.

The trade was based on 2 factors:

1. Technical: The declining NH-NL in all 3 timeframes over two weeks, as well as the declining Force Indicator over against the rising price in both the broad market represented by the $SPX, and my instrument, TNA, a leveraged version of the IWM, representing the small-cap Russell 2000 index.

2. Macro: The accumulating damage of the removal of ~20% of the world’s oil trade due to the continuing closure of the Straight of Hormuz due to the Iran war.

The major economies of Japan, South Korea, and all of Southeast Asia [Vietnam, Indonesia …] can last only so long on reserves and emergency imports. Then there are the other products, like fertilizer constituents, that will soon do major damage worldwide.

The second – ‘macro’- factor is impossible to time precisely. That’s where the Force Index comes in. Several key indices were showing signs of fatigue. So, with zero change in the positions of the opposing sides in the Iran conflict, and with various scary noises coming from the economies that depend on oil that was not being delivered, I concluded that things were going to crack. I was wrong the previous week and lost 2.4% on the same trade logic. This week, things turned around, and I gained 5.13%. However, I missed out on a ~12% gain when I stopped out too soon [See TNA 5-Minute Chart]. This is a repeating error of mine – stopping out too soon. I added the stop when I had to go to a meeting and wanted to lock in a certain level of profit, after seeing the market irrationally pop the day before for no good reason, and thinking it could do it again. But my stop point was much too tight, and normal short-term volatility kicked me out.

Why TNA? The reason I trade TNA and TZA is the leverage. In a longer timeframe, I would not use these instruments. I use TNA short instead of TZA long when I expect a decline in IWM because, as these tools are leveraged, they inherently decay in value on a day-to-day basis due to rebalancing. So, I short the one going in the opposite direction from my expectation.

On Trading Based on World Events

As we have all noticed, major indices are affected by world events, but not always in a predictable manner. I do not recommend such an approach unless you are already in the habit of tracking and deeply understanding what is going on in the world. What you see in the daily news is just noise – close to useless. You need to understand what's going on at least one level below that to have any chance of using the news as an advantage in your trading. I listen to several podcasts and read several columns to get a deeper understanding of what's going on.

I much prefer to trade on technicals first, and on a scan of names that fulfill certain criteria, but I often don't have time to do my homework in that domain. In such cases [as often in the past 8 weeks due to work deadlines], I trade based on my expectations of index movement driven by sentiment around war, debt, inflation, and other major influences.