This year has started out with a bang with the Dow going up over 100 points on the first trading day for 2018, but there are sectors that went up more than the Dow did Tuesday and are likely to continue to outperform the Dow for the rest of the year.

But in the end, making the big money in the markets means getting into what will become the play of the year before everyone knows about it.

Imagine if you could take a time machine back to January the first of last year and buy Bitcoin at 1,000 or even go back to October and have someone tell you about RIOT stock and buy it before it surged.

Well, you can't use a time machine, but you can do the next best thing which is do the work no one else will do now and that is to think about what is going to be new and big this year and start to act.

So today let me tell you what I believe is going to be the top performing sector for 2018.

It's mining stocks - I'm talking about gold and silver mining stocks here.
And let me tell you why.

The GDX gold stock ETF (which I do own) is only starting year three of a new cyclical bull market that began for it in the first quarter of 2016.

Typically in the first year of a bull market, you get huge gains off of the bottom in a short amount of time that are followed by a six to twelve month or even longer of a long drawn out sideways technical analysis consolidation pattern.

Once that consolidation period ends a new bigger and even longer rally tends to happen that lasts for years.

For example, this happened with the US stock market.

In 2009 it went up huge in the spring after putting in a bear market bottom and then went sideways for almost six months in consolidation to breakout again and go up from there.

And Bitcoin actually consolidated for over a year before it broke out early last year!
So what about gold now?

Well after that first big rally in 2016 gold and the GDX ETF both began a sideways move that has been going on for a year.

As we start this New Year the mining stocks are in a similar position as the DOW was in 2010 and once they break their consolidation phase I expect them to go up like crazy to become the top performing sector of the year.

Take a look at the GDX chart.

The key resistance area on the GDX is in the 24-25 range.

GDX is now rallying up to it and no one is paying attention to it at all.

I turned on CNBC last night and did not hear a word about it.

And if you are like me then at parties this Christmas all you heard about was Bitcoin with no one interested in gold.

It's like the Dow in 2009 or 2010 no one wanted to buy it then either.

And no one was talking Bitcoin in 2016.

But now is a chance to get in early on something.

Watch this GDX 24/25 level this year, because if the GDX goes through it then you will know what will become the top performing sector for the rest of the year.

I think it will do so well, because of the position such a breakout would be in.

You are talking about a sector that would be ending it's first long consolidation period early in a bull market.

And that is huge to know and even better to act on.

Of course, the best mining stocks will go up much more than the GDX will and I use my Two Fold Formula for stock trading.