Were You Prepared for the Recent Market Sell-Off?
by Mike Paulenoff
October 16, 2018 • 12:00 AM EDT
If your answer was no, you were not alone.
But members of MPTrader were prepared!
Mike Paulenoff, host of MPTrader.com's live Trading Room, had model portfolio positions in the Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bear 3X ETF (SPXS), the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) and the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X ETF (NUGT) ahead of last week's seismic market moves!
The SPXS gained 17% at its high last week over the previous week's close, and +15% from where Mike added it in early September. The TBT gained 8% from when Mike added it September, and NUGT rose 22% in the week since Mike added to the position on October 10.
MPTrader features Mike Paulenoff's macro and chart analysis of key indices and sectors, along with trade set-ups.
He'll play both leveraged ETFs and key bellwether stocks to capitalize on an anticipated sector move.
Last week he added FireEye, Inc. (FEYE) at 15.80, bullish on cyber security, which is already up 10%.
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More Top Calls From Mike
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On July 31, 2025, with SLV (Silver ETF) trading at 33.27, this is what we discussed about my technical setup:SLV-- On the subject of tariffs, copper, and silver, Trump extended the tariff deal with Mexico for 90 days, which included steel and copper, but NO MENTION of Silver (so far). Let's notice on my attached 4-Hour chart of SLV that the week-long nosedive from 35.91 to this AM's low at 33.
On February 18, 2025, this is what I posted on MPTrader about KWEB (Chinese Internet ETF) that alerted traders to a potentially explosive setup that should keep KWEB on our radar screens going forward :My attached Daily Chart shows that KWEB is attempting to emerge from a huge, three-year rounded base-accumulation setup that projects much higher prices as the price structure climbs the "recovery wall of worry" in the aftermath of the relentless bear phase from the February 2021 ATH at 104.
On July 29, 2025, this is what we discussed about TEVA (Teva Pharma), accompanied by my then-current 4-Hour Chart, just ahead of Earnings:My attached 4-Hour Chart setup argues that TEVA is poised for upside continuation of its April-May advance (12.47 to 18.67) EITHER right from current levels in reaction to a positive Earnings Report tomorrow morning, OR into a BTD bout of weakness into the 14.85-15.55 target support window.
On the morning of August 6th, I posted the chart below after seeing Fundstrat's Tom Lee discuss his CEO position in BMNR (BitMine Immersion Technologies), and the fact that BMNR was accumulating a large cache of Ethereum (ETH) that will serve as an ETH Treasury holding similar to the Bitcoin model used by Microstrategy's Michael Saylor. At the time, BNMR had climbed from 31.85 to 33.70, which piqued my attention technically:"BNMR ... once again is putting upward pressure on the 34.