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...apologize that I don't quite get your comments. I feel certain they are not as insecure as they sound...

lol-- how about not as 'confident' as they sound!

Seriously, I had much better returns a decade ago when indicators seemed to correlate so much better with results. These days my experiences with all the slow advances & sudden drops are telling me that until trends change I want to buy less aggressively and sell earlier. A buddy of mine calls it "an unstable market" and IBD called it "choppy market". Please keep letting me know if what I say doesn't make sense --the better I can clarify my thoughts to others the better my tactics, and too often when something isn't explained well it's because it's wrong.

Something else is being a morning guy I fade out in the evenings and do better over morning coffee. I haven't retired yet, I'm just old. OK, so I moved from decades of civil engineering to finance so maybe I'm like you as being active/busy retired.

I completely agree. This is a very choppy and unpredictable market in general. And I am very cautious in my investing.

That said, I believe the fundamentals are good long-term (Obama will be hitting the road and will no longer able to flood the airways with propaganda to hide the effects of his horrendous policies). Underneath this very weak recovery is a great deal of strength that will wait for a change in political outlook before becoming manifest.

As to biotech, I believe the fundamentals are still very good but the choppiness of the market will cause even more irrational oversell and then overbuy, still leaving opportunity for making money on the swings. I read the tea leaves that we all read and then listen to my gut. I often sit out a swing because I can't read it and sometimes I even call it wrong. And this 2014 choppiness has definitely changed things.

But the volatility is still there and I still see the potential in biotech as massive (over time). With China and India coming online, the potential market for biotech solution is hard for me to get my mind around.

For example, take Sovaldi. There are 6+ million hep C sufferers in Egypt (due to Egypt's sloppy campaign to stamp out schistosomiasis), 3+ million in the U.S. and 150+- million in the world. Even if other drugs are released that are more effective and cheaper that Sovaldi, the potential for Sovaldi is still mind boggling.

Anyway, still working on my first cup of coffee, so my thinking might be a bit wacky.;-)