Summer has started. The 10 point range and meager volume today suggested that the jr staffers were instructed to maintain the monthly mark up bias.
Staus quo.
The best thing to do for the next month or two may be to sharpen up our trading range skills; sell high, buy low.
Erratic, listless markets are not easy to [...]
Archive for May, 2008
Stop stretching
Posted in The System, tagged pivots, profit targets, risk reward, stop losses on May 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Limbering up with some exercise is wonderful for traders, especially if you sit in a chair all day.
Getting up, stretching, getting some fresh air into our lungs, and mentally recharging ourselves is healthy for us.
Having our stops in the market stretched, however, is annoying at a mimimum, and downright frustrating no matter how many times we rationalize the [...]
Clear vision
Posted in The System, tagged reversals, stop losses, technical analysis on May 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Hindsight is a wonderful tool to help explain technical analysis.
With it, we all can predict within a minute and a tic the exact times of turning points.
The moving averages can be explained, the pivots are all logical, and we can clearly see why something did what it did.
Making the call for directional trading is sexy [...]
Dig dig digging
Posted in Psychology on May 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
After digging itself into a hole last week, the market is trying to put the brakes on and reverse the slide.
The secret code of course helped us understand that we are at a significant area and likely the bulls will not give up without a fight.
Marginal lows like the overnight 70.5 are meant to misdirect [...]
Spiral of Despair
Posted in The System, tagged profit taking, sell in may and go away, wall st adage on May 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Friday’s action put an exclamation point to the daily chart.
The market has bounced significantly off it’s winter lows, but the sell in May and go away traders took their profits as the market entered into the expected fib zone at the beginning of the week.
Day traders just need to get the intraday direction right, and [...]
The paws that refreshes
Posted in The System, tagged chop, consolidation, low volume, range day on May 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It has been said that Bulls lift the market up with their horns, and Bear markets slap you down with their paws.
Who knows whether we are in a Bull or a Bear market, I am certainly not bright enough to know. Let the analysts continue guessing; I am happy to take my slice out of [...]
Continuation
Posted in The System, tagged FOMC, market plunge, range trading, smart money, trading plan ryan jones on May 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Position trades that were initiated on Monday found their way home today after the FOMC excuse for the selloff.
There were many gyrations and range trades available until the market broke right before the announcement.
It looked like the insiders were already jumping in, as if the smart money knew something.
There is ony one way to play [...]
Is it time for some R and R?
Posted in Psychology, tagged exits and entries, risk and reward, support and resistance, taking profits on May 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Zones of support occur at many different levels, depending on the time frame that you are trading.
One of the best trading analogies I ever read about was in Trading for a Living. Dr Elder likened these areas to “snowfences”. For those of you who live in a warm climate, devoid of snow, a snowfence has [...]
The Banana peel trade
Posted in The System, tagged high odds, multiple time frames, reversals, risk and reward on May 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The banana peel trade occurs more often in schizophrenic markets.
I guess we could say that means all the time.
There is a definite timing pattern I have noticed lately.
The technique currently being used is the alternating squeeze on both sides.
At least the market is fair; it messes with everyone as it regresses to the mean.
The early shorts were squeezed [...]
Unpredictable is predictable
Posted in Psychology, tagged consolidations, market timing, reversals on May 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The premarket ramp in low volume was predictable. Being a technical trader, I never try to intrepret the results of the reports in the news; only the market reaction to it.
The unpredictable (to mom and pop) was the deeper pullback. They were looking to jump in early on the pullback, because they were convinced they [...]
