The market gods were smiling with forgiveness yesterday. When I confessed my sins on these pages, providence lifted my burdens. So even though I missed the initial moves off the 21-day lines in the indexes last week, the powers above brought the market halfway down Friday’s bar to give me another chance. It was as if a kind hand dropped from the clouds, opening up with the next opportunity.

For the Founder’s Group and the Navigator Swing Strategy, I put us into the NASDAQ 100 at 13,733. I saw a bit more conviction and relative strength there than the S&P 500. The index followed through with a double bottom and positive momentum divergence on the intraday chart. The NASDAQ 100 is moving higher in Globex at this writing. In fact, we are more than 100 points or about $2,000 per contract ahead of our entry, and breaking the neckline of a bottoming head and shoulders pattern that is now reversing higher and should take us up to test the all-time highs, if not higher. We will now use the 5-day stop line as we recently did on our S&P 500 position.

Yet, there is another lesson in these past few sessions that I would like to share. It happens often enough that you might want to place this one in your notebook. It can happen in any time frame. And while I mentioned I am not a pattern trader, I still don’t ignore them. Patterns can help us see the markets in different ways, and even set price projections when the patterns take. A great website for learning patterns and their possibilities is Bulkowski’s PatternTrader.com.

The lesson starts with last Thursday’s labeling of the NASDAQ 100. I had identified a potential head and shoulders topping pattern and labeled it as you will see in the first chart below. Of course, it was a qualified opinion. I often opine in such a way. But let’s face it, I am of no use if I am constantly saying “it might be this” or “it might be that.” And in further confession to the heavenly powers that govern these markets, the pattern did have a negative influence on my decisions last week no matter what I said or how much I was fooling myself.

When we are stopped out on the 5-day line, an Algo sell signal is painting, Tesla and Apple are breaking down, and we are in a large down bar, a topping pattern would merely seem like icing on the cake. I take my stop, head to the beach, and take Friday off, booking the profits and ever confident in my forecast. Thank heavens I didn’t stick around and short the market!