Today is Tuesday April 16th, 2012 and another day in the trading world. The market movement has gotten a little better in the last few weeks and hope we see more of it.

The activity level goes in cycles with strong and weak movement, but as day traders, we have to take the good with the bad. Movement means opportunity and the lack of it could mean that traders struggle.

Taking what is available based on the current read of the market is a skill that can be learned. It is not easy, that is for sure, but it can be looked upon like you would read a research paper. It may not make sense at first, but as you absorb the content, it starts to speak to you.

That can only come about when you know the language and that is again something that can be learned. Every day the market exhibits a structured approach to what it does. Many who look on just see the moves up and down and it may look like it is random. I would say that it only looks random and there is much more structure than your natural eye see’s.

Separating the market noise from the key area’s of interest, is where is starts. As traders we don’t have to track and be ahead of every move, but just those moves that show a high probability of success in our favor. That means the majority on the other end are getting it wrong. What will make us confident enough to put up a margin with a controlling interest of many times that investment in the anticipation that it will roll in our favor?  The answer to that is knowing the market language and what to expect when the structure presents itself as such.

In today’s market, we saw just that language played out many times. Again, you don’t have to have every tick tracked and traced, but only those that present opportunity with a greater degree of success. You need a trading method that you can count on and one that is proven to perform and you yourself need to be reliable enough to execute it and not get taken captive by your wants and desires. Its not about you, but it all depends on you.

In today’s trading I did well, hitting double daily trading goal but it could have been a lot better had I woken on time. I won’t bore you with the details, but you can look onto the days chart and see what I mean. I had about a 12 point run just up to the opening bell and let it all slip away for a 3 tick loss. I did catch a early couple of trades and small loss in the night session, but it all turned out just slightly ahead.

Later in the session I took on a couple of small losses but saw what I was looking for with some nice extended gains scaling out towards my target area at the top for a nice day.

I did not post for Friday, so I will include Friday’s session here today as well. I remember that session had a large sell off early on then needed time to absorb that drop. That meant slower action and smaller moves. This is something of what I was talking about in being able to read the market. It said, it was not going to move big, but small moves yes. That is when I need to taylor at least in part some of my exits for smaller gains because that is all there is if I am trading during that time. My only choice is to wait for things to come together and that did happen in the last 30 minutes of Friday’s session. I called out the possible drop right at the breaking point but I was done for the session with daily goal in hand.

Tomorrow is a new day and new beginnings and so until then, good trading to all. Vince

Friday’s trading day below by itself;