Benton D Struckcheon

Started small long ago, slowly built up my account, and got out in mid 1999 to throw my spec profits at buying a house. At the time, I thought it was all one big bubble and the only thing I could find that wasn't was gold, but I figured that wouldn't go anywhere until tech stocks finally went south.
Kept that in mind, and in mid 2000 began getting slowly back in, buying only a gold mutual fund. At that time, everyone was talking about tech being only in a "correction". Oh well...
Diversified out of gold into other things, and did well until the big financial blowout, which of course proves that pride goeth before a fall in all things, including this.
Have rebounded by trading only GDX (etf for gold stocks) for the past year and a half. I'm now testing trading with IWM, etf for the Russell 2k, because I think gold is going to be done with its bull run soon, if it isn't already.
I've converted to trading options exclusively, because of the extremely precise risk management you can do with these. I accidentally made a killing using options in the weekend Bear Stearns failed, the only good thing that happened to me during the crisis, and that concentrated my attention on these instruments.
I use ETFs like GDX and IWM because the options in these are liquid - small bid/ask spreads - and come in dollar increments, allowing you to very precisely decide what level to have on the greeks.
I look only at sentiment via the volatility indices - of which there are now lots available - and options action, both the put/call ratio and actual volume. Timeframe is swing: signals average once every 10 trading days, but that span varies with the volatility in the market.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

...reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages.
- Saki