Positioning trades was challenging on this particular morning, since the broad averages were only moderately lower on appalling economic news. Europe was sinking further into recession, U.S. factory orders had taken their steepest dive in three years, and the private economy had created only 119,000 new jobs in April. Our approach was cautiously bullish nonetheless, and we considered a strategy for bottom-fishing in the E-Mini S&Ps on the assumption they would recover later in the day. An actual trade was signaled in Silver Wheaton as we watched, although the signal turned out to have been based on inattentiveness to the ‘Rodney Dangerfield’ of our short list of rules.
