For now, gold is once again something to avoid. It seems like all the precious metals charts are now in limbo as we wait for a buy or sell signal.

The game is rigged, there is no doubt.

It’s certainly a challenging time still for gold and silver but the long-term reasons for holding physical gold remain in place.

Still hold a hefty portion of your wealth in physical gold and silver

What a whippy week it was. Volatility spiked and then subsided into the end of the week which meant it was a great day-trading environment but then that petered off as ranges tightened for markets and stocks into the end of the week.

The week was a wild one with lots of choppy action in the indices as was to be expected as bases build here nicely.

It was another week of watching and sitting for the swing trading portfolio. We still haven’t put on a swing trade lately but we’ve been watching our dividend stocks and mining portfolio and I’m thinking about adding a few new miners to our stable in the next few weeks.

It’s the thick of summer now and I’m trying to take it pretty easy this weekend and perhaps another weekend or two while the warm weather is here. The good news about that is that there is so much focus on the debt ceiling debates that you’d hardly know anything else is going on anyhow.

The big talk these days is of the debt ceiling in the US having to be raised. The US is lucky they can do this unlike other countries such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and others who need to be bailed out or pass huge austerity measures.

It was another wild week with no real direction in markets and precious metals are breaking down.

The sweet Clash song “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” seems to be the song most suited for the Greek situation right now. France and Germany are bailing them out and Greece is trying to pass large budget cuts to the disdain of their citizens.

It was another week of mixed markets where we did see some bottoms in stocks and US markets seem to have turned up thus far. Their not yet trending higher, but they look about to. The uncertainty of the end of QE2 coming in a little over a month is still weighing heavy as well as more issues over in Europe. It’s all par for the course though as the charts tell all, and usually in advance.