The new decade started on a tear with U.S. equities (led by the NASDAQ 100) making all-time highs yet again, but backed off by Friday’s close.

The retracement was in response to news of President Trump ordering the killing of the Iranian military leader, Qassem Soleimani, who was in Baghdad planning new attacks on American interests. Mr. Soleimani is considered a national hero in Iran, and a terrorist by the U.S. and its allies.

As a result, the threat of a greater regional conflict looms greater than ever. So, as we sit virtually at new highs in U.S. equities, the threat of war looms. This has impacted both gold and oil.

Is this the new normal for the new decade?

One thing I learned from the trading pits of the NY commodity exchanges during one of the most volatile periods in recent history (the 1970’s that included the Hunts silver corner, inflation, oil shocks, and the U.S. Iranian Embassy hostage crises) is that you can tell the tone of a market by how it reacts to news, not the news itself.

At this point, it appears unclear as gold responded strongly, but equities closed down modestly. Hence, the jury is out to lunch and undecided.

Fortunately, it’s January which is one of the easiest times of the year to anticipate the beginning of significant move in the market if you use our January Trend Trade tactic.

We covered these tactics in last week’s January Trend Trade training. We’ve re-opened access to this training for the weekend (click here)

This week’s highlights are:

• Risk Gauges turned negative even as we hover at all-time highs in the Dow Industrials, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ 100

• U.S. equities made new all-time highs with the start of the new decade but closed virtually flat for the week (except for IWM which was down -.93%)

• Volatility (VXX) jumped on Friday but still sitting near recent lows

• Gold followed thru on its recent breakout and was a leading weekly performer

• Emerging markets broke out of a major base and then retraced to its breakout point

• Oil Jumped to multi-month highs

Click below to get this week’s video: