yes..... Time to kill it....

since it has been two years with no response I can safely say it is time to kill this Blog?  Be quick... be merciful!  Some one pull the plug on this or I will take it over and do with it as I chose!

Trader X

time to kill it?

Well.... looks like no one has posted since 09. Might be time to kill it?

Mkt Condition Change

On Friday, Apr 10, the SPX closed above its 120 day MA. Today appears to be holding above with the day's low still not going below.

The significance is that the NASD has been above its 120 day MA so that's two indexes above. Two indexes above triggers a long ADX system. I'm cautious, however, due to the volatility so I may give it a week or two before trading the system again. It's been Nov 07 since I've had the courage to jump in. Even with the proper signals before, the volatility has regularly wiped out my positions.

Geithner's Bailout Plan Made Simple

This short video does as good a job as any of describing how Treasury Secretary Turbo Timmy Geithner's Toxic Asset Bailout Plan will work. Plus, it will make you laugh. That's a winning recipe in my book.

The NYSE fails to deliver on it's 1kg gold contracts.

Nightly Review

ES Notes

Daily Chart

Fibs: Swing High 939.50, Swing Low 662.50 (extreme to extreme)
We retraced to 830.50, within 4 pts of the 61.8 at 833.69. If we mark the Fibs close-to-close, then the 61.8 is 830.03. I'm gonna call that a retrace to the 61.8. We have since bounced down off it back towards the 38.2, which is at 770. We got as low as 775, which is also close enough for government work, so it is possible we are going to bounce between these two for a while. We need a break below 770 or above 830 to get out of this range.

Volume today was about the same as Monday's, which was a down day. I think we can call Monday a distribution day and today an accumulation day, but the fact is they cancel each other out.

MA order from top to bottom is 200/10/50/20. We closed just below the 10 and range today was from the 50 at the bottom to the 10 at the top. We are still above the 20 at 785.

MACD is -4.63 and mostly flat, in keeping with the sideways action the last two days.
CCI is -13.95 and dropping.
RSI is 48.85 and falling barely.
STO is 28.85 and falling.
In summary, we are technically on the fence; we could go either way.

60m Charts (24 hour)
MACD is open down at -1.14.
CCI -90 and slightly down.
RSI 31 and falling slightly.
STO 20 and falling slightly.
RSI & STO right on the oversold line, so we could go a little lower, but not much, at least not unless we burn off some of this oversold volume.

VIX spiked up to 44 at the close in the last hour.

If we break 782.25 that's 78.6 on today's range, we'll probably retrace all of today's gain - back to 775.50. Extension levels are 767 (127%) & 754 (168%). We'll worry about the 268 extension if we hit the first two.

Volume the last 15m was pretty spectacular.

NQ Notes

Daily Chart

Complete retrace from the last swing high occured last week, so we are on a different leg. The 38.2 retrace should be 1190. (Today's close was 1237.50.)

Volume comparable to yesterday. Same situation as the ES.

MA order top to bottom is 200/10/20/50. Short term we are in bullish order, unlike the ES. We closed today aboce the 10, but are below it AH. The 10 is now resistance at 1232.25, the 20 is support at 1202.75, the 50 is support at 1182.75.

MACD is -5.90 and basically flat like the ES.
CCI is 13.79 and heading down. Look for a cross of the 0 line as a short signal.
RSI is heading down at 50.85 - also very near a short signal.
STO is heading down at 34.91.
Again, indicators are not strong in either direction, but are at key levels on the NQ. Violation of these can tell us more about the coming daily directional bias.

Conclusion
The daily action looks pretty mixed, but the last 15 minutes combined with the after hours dumpage portends a lower day tomorrow. I am encouraged, (since I am still short ES), about the levels of the 168 retrace.

Revenge trading by Trader X

I just cut and pasted this so the format isn't the greatest but I hope it is helpful for some. If not then you can delete..... Trader X


Once upon a time way back when... like maybe 2-3 years ago I wrote a piece here about my issues with revenge trading. As you may or may not recall I would get really pissed off after a losing trade or two and then let Stupid take over my trading. Stupid would do things like double or triple the amount of contracts and would take trades that were no were near being a setup all in the attempt to make back the small losses. Well, lets say that 9 times out of 10 this would result in a much larger loss and of course the 1 out of 10 times it would actually work would just reinforce how great a trader Stupid actually wasn't. Although this problem has been there from day 1 I have made progress over the years. I finally stopped doing this to the extent that it would blow up my account on a regular basis. My accounts would only blow up on a semi regular basis. Real progress.I have been working on the premise for the last 6 months that it was fear that was causing such behavior... fear of failure. For 6 months I have been doing psych work and exercises to solve this problem but to no avail. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I decided that I have been insane for 6 months. Then I had a revelation... I was wrong once again........ So I decided to do something different.I figured that if FEAR wasn't feeding STUPID that it had to be something else. My other choice was GREED and EGO. These two were working together with STUPID! The dynamic evil trio was at large. Ego was the main culprit. Now I had a problem to solve. At least I had some ammo to shoot at it this time.I have learned several different methods of dealing with psych issues in the last few months at a few different seminars and I started with parts negotiations as my first line of attack followed up by more Centerpointe Holosync. Let me back track first.Holosync is the reason I believe that I was finally able to figure out that ego was the issue. It is a great program that uses low frequency sounds wave via music to stimulate cross brain communications. It helps your subconscious communicate with your self. It was during one of these sessions of listening while thinking about this problem that ego came up. I try to do this daily for continued improvement.Parts negotiation is basically splitting parts of your personality into parts, then identifying the one (ones) that are causing problems and then negotiation with those parts to stop the behavior for a reward. I told ego that I understood he didn't like being wrong but by getting angry like a child was not way to help me. It was causing me to lose money. So what ego and I came to an agreement to do was that he would not interfere with my trading, and let me make money so that I could buy something that he thinks is really cool. Something that would feed him like an L-29 Cord. It's a really cool old car for those of you that have no idea. Ego really likes cool cars cause then ego thinks he is cool you see. You can't buy cool cars without cold hard cash! So he said he would stay out of trading for that reward. Simple.Since I have done this and reinforced it, ego hasn't cause one problem and I have had 2 weeks of money making days every day. I just need to stay focused to make sure ego doesn't creep up again while watching all the other parts of my ego. Works so far......Trader X

I'm starting to get it.

I've been trading the ES since the first full week of the year. Haven't really made any money, but I've managed to limit my losses to nothing painful. I keep learning - with every trade I learn a little more.

Friday I think I may have started to pull it all together. The catalyst was a Point & Figure chart. Thursday evening, I was reading about P&F charts in the latest edition of Technical Analysis and I thought, "Hmmm, that sounds cool, I think I'll check it out." So I fired up TradeStation and looked at my past few trades with a P&F chart. It made almost perfect sense to me, with the exception that I couldn't tell how TS charted reversals. I had to wait till the colume picked up Friday morning to figure it out. Of course, that happened around 7:30 my time Friday morning and at 8:00 I got a signal that made a lot of sense to me. BUT, since this was the first time I had attempted to even understand this signal, I decided to paper trade it instead. Long story short, I nailed it - but with no money on the line, I made nothing.

In spite of not getting on that winning horse, I was encouraged because I have been trying to figure out not only entry signals but also Stop Loss sizes as well. I'm sick of being right with my entry but wrong with my stop-loss. I got it right on Friday.

Today, (Sunday), I was eager for the market to open to test my newfound knowledge. I got a signal at 5:21 my time and opened a Long position. I set a tight stop because if I was wrong I would know it immediately. I set my Stop to close the Long position below the support level I identified and open a Short position immediately. This is what happened right off, so I had an open Short about a point below my previous Support level. I've been watching this intra-day movement and it looked to me like the best stop for me was about 5 points, (I dunno, maybe you guys have figured out how to set a tighter stop and not get whipsawed - I haven't.)

It went a little against me, but no indication that I was wrong about the fundamental direction. The bad news is that I had promised my wife we would attend our church business meeting tonight, so instead of being able to manage the position as I normally would during the day, I set a trailing stop. Naturally I got stopped out for a small loss, but as I sit here at 9:39, I can see that the original stop I set was right, and that I was right about the position. Once again, I didn't make money but I am starting to see the right signals and set the right stops.

Perhaps the tide of the battle is turning for me.