Tsunami Aftermath (click the link) . Wow! After watching these pictures, I can only bow my head and reflect on the losses the Japanese people are enduring right now. My heart also goes out to the people of Hawaii who are also suffering the effect of the tsunami.

TideTraders teaches money management and setting stop losses, I do not think there are many stop losses possible for these situations. Whether the market went in my favor or against me this past week, I am only left feeling the pain and distraught of the people so unfortunate as to have been in the center of the events.

I will be making a donation to the Red Cross in relief of the Victims. If you are interested in joining me please click on this link: RED CROSS DONATIONS

While the market continues to oscillate and refuses to provide more clues for direction, I continue to read about the dooms day predicament and more and more calls for a dreadful future. You may have even been reading about how we will be going from the great recession to the depression.

So from one trader to another, I thought I would offer my 2 cents on the matter. I have been looking for a new intermediary high on the S&P and this sounds contrarian to many opinions. While it looks like a bleaker possibility right now it should not be ruled out just yet., however I have also been talking about a healthy retracement coming on the index since my first commentary of the year. So is this contradictory? No ! I just think it is too early to look at the retracement and we have a few weeks of tinkering in the current economic and geopolitical climate before we begin to pull back significantly. Now beware of the old adage about selling in May and going away. I think that this may turn to be true again this year. I do not expect first quarter earnings to be near the estimates and this will create some bear excitement. However I do not believe we will reach the predicament of a lower low than March 2009. my outlook is more along the lines of a 38 to 50% retracement of the rally ( 250 to 350 points on the S&P).

In the next few weeks, as traders, trading what we see is going to be key. Waiting for direction and confirmation is highly recommended before entering any trade of significant monetary impact. If you are new to trading, and reading this commentary, these are times where the best trades are going to be smaller and well managed from a money management standpoint.

Dim lights

Here are the static charts: