With the extreme financial conditions world wide, markets have not been trading 'normally' for some time now. These major financial announcements can create a gap up rally or a gap down plunge on a bullish or bearish report on most markets due to these extreme conditions. So in the end it's much like going to a Casino and betting on Red or Black if bearish or bullish. Or hedge if you think the ball will land on black and put two bets on black and hedge with one bet on red. Not exactly a great trading plan. In relatively normal times financial announcements will move the needle up or down slightly and still allow you to keep your strategy whatever it is. So all you have now is a Casino market waiting for the next major earth shattering financial news event. And these major financial news events do trump the charts or most any other trading plan you have. Thursday before last saw Silver fall 73 cents in night trading and into Friday morning. Most traders with a reasonable stop loss would have been stopped out. The fear was the employment report Friday would be strong and with the stock market at new highs and a pick up in some economic activity there would be no QE from Bernanke. So just that fear alone saw Silver sell off hard and when the employment report was bearish once again QE looked like a certainty so the markets soared. Then QE was confirmed yesterday and the markets soared again. You might as well flip a coin on these announcements or suffer the consequences of major price moves both up and down. As I said, might as well go to the Casino and bet on black or red on the roulette wheel. I don't trade for the rush so don't mind missing these coin flip moves up and down.