Posts Tagged ‘Day Trading Indicators’

Day Trading Indicators, only part of the story

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Today Thursday September 8th, the market saw a little resistance coming in at that number I mentioned yesterday, 1200/1202.  It would be normal for us to see an inside day from Wednesdays large run up and that would built pressure for a move of some size on Monday. There is a downside bias for the time being with solid resistance at the numbers mentioned. If we are able to break that level with some conviction, we may be seeing the second senario I laid out from Tuesdays post.

Currently, we are on track for the first senario where I said we would rally first, pause, then start the decent to retest the early August lows. So far, that is what is happening. The thing that would change it, is if we break the 1202 level with power, then we should see the 1240/1245 area where we will see the new resistance overhead.

In today’s trading, I took only one trade well after the open for a two point gain. I was in the trade for seven minutes and follow the markets for about 20 minutes. There was more in the move, but just took the easy points. Still a bit of that Summer vacation in my bones.  A chart of the early mornings signals and my trade taken above.

As a reminder, I am back showing the smaller time frame chart that I usually do, but wanted to point out that the day trading indicators that generate the trading signals are not the method. They are consistent with the trading method, but they are marking the long and shorts all for completely different reasons than just the trade signals themselves. That is very important, because a trader needs to know “Why” and “What” is happening to the price as he allows the trades to come together. Knowing that information, makes the trading indicators and trade signals that you do see, all that much more powerful.

Knowledge is power, and those who know how to use it become empowered.

Good Trading to all !

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Day Trading Indicators

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

Today, June 16, 2011 marks 6 straight weeks of selling in the index’s. The Dow did manage to move up 66 points with the S&P flat. Over the weekend I will report if we have had any shifts in sentiment as that has been leaning towards a very bearish bias, which could be good if we have reached extremes.

Last week we were close and with this weeks selling, could have swayed those on the fence to jump to the bearish side and thus actually be a bullish signal. It is funny how that works, but it does. I could go either way and have heard arguments on both sides. All I can say is currently the market is showing negative momentum on the daily charts. A shift can come at any time so be on your toes.

In tomorrows trading, I do see the possibility of us filling the gap from a few days ago up around 1282, the next potential target would then be around the 1300 area. If the market has legs to the upside, we could hit those levels in one and then two days. Currently we are at 1262 on the S&P and hit another new low around 1252 late in today’s session. For us to hit 1282 and then 1300 is a tall order, roughly 400 Dow Points, but I will leave the possibility open if the strength shows up.

As traders, we need to look both ways. If you only look one way, you will miss what the market is saying. I did not trade in the afternoon, but the market showed short all over it and guess what happened, it went down. If you only were looking for the up move, you not only would have lost money on your long trade, you would have missed the opportunity to profit on the drop. So, the moral of the story, read the market and let it decide. If you don’t know how, that too is yet another story, for maybe another day.

I traded about one hour and picked up about 5 points with a little scalp trade later on. I have my trades below and mark up the screen below and above to show the signals. The day trading indicators are not the trading method, but they are consistent with it. The price always comes first and is the primary indicator for our trading decisions. It is all about being able to read the price just like you would be able to read Italian or French. It speaks a language unto itself and has many accents, so it pays to learn it if you are going to trade. Having the day trading indicators there to confirm that you are reading it right, can help, but it is not the basis for the actions taken. I hope that makes sense.

Trading from this standpoint, is very empowering. You don’t have to get every trade, and some of them you will get wrong, that is apart of trading, but taking what is the easy and obvious is what its all about. Keep the struggle to a minimum and walk away to fight another day. Good Trading to All.

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Day Trading Indicators Reflect Price

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

3-25-11       This post is for Friday Sessions, but will have to keep things short. I did not trade on Friday which is the first regular session that I missed in about 6 weeks. I did trade on Thursday and my results are posted below. Thursday marked the fist loosing session in over 5 weeks. It was not really to bad, which is fine and I think I could have pulled it out if I stayed the rest of the day.

I started out on the wrong foot Thursday. I did not take my time to get up to speed with what the market was doing and jumped the gun on a few short attempts. I really need to get started on the open and go from there. I have never really had a hard time picking it up from where ever the market is, but I do know I have made things a lot harder on myself by doing so.

The volume and big market moves come in the morning and later afternoon. The middle of the day can be very slow and directionless. It is very possible for traders to get chopped up during that time, expecting a move and it just doesn’t happen. I do know better and it only takes a loosing day here or there to get my attention to make a change. So we will have to see how early I can get going here on the West Coast.

My screen shot below shows the area’s of interest as identified by the corresponding indicators. I know I have said this before many times, but indicators are a reflection of the price. The price on the screen is always first. The indicators reflect what the price is doing, so if traders can learn to read the price better, they would get insight into where and when the next move is coming.

I know its a lot easier to see trade signals than to interpret what the price is saying, but that is where your confidence is going to come from. The indicators are like “Cliff Notes” when reading a book. It tells you a lot about what is going on, but you don’t have all the information. In a discussion or debate, you would be at a disadvantage.

It is a lot of work to be able to dedicate yourself to be a student of the markets but more importantly, a student of price. The buck stops with that and it also begins with that if you are trying to find your share.

Lots more could be said, but all for another day. Good Trading to all.

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Day Trading Indicators

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Today is Wednesday and the third day of trading on Wall Street for the year, as the Dow was up 31 and the S&P +6.

This market does not want to go down as it popped up after gaping lower on the open. A welcomed sign to all

Tomorrow is the fourth day in a 5 day window as it relates to the January Effect. If the first 5 days are up strongly, it usually spills into a strong year for stocks. Better yet, if the whole month of January is strong, that spills over into a positive year for stocks to the tune of 78% of the time, or something close to that if my memory serves me. Lets watch Thursday and Friday to see how we close out the week. I will also report on the sentiment changes if any tomorrow or in Fridays post. They have been strong as small investors are heavily invested in this market with the public coming in with  Bullish readings of 57-58 %, typically a very high reading.

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Tuesday and Wednesdays S&P emini futures market, with Wednesday being on top.

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Let me shift gears here for a moment. I will start my trading likely this coming Monday, but have done some recent U-Tube Video’s of this weeks price movements as it relates to in part to my trading method. Just a note on that as I will post here the last two I did from yesterday and today. It points out, “Turning Points” as I call them and continuation spots along the way as it relates. These are identified by some custom modified indicators I use to help determine these spots. This is done in an attempt to show those that look on, that there is something to this that can be useful to there trading in some fashion. I do need to say though, the trade indicators are not the trading method and is only a reflection of what is happening to the price.

I teach how to read the price and trade it first. I know I have written about this before, but it bears repeating when I post video’s as such. Their is a solid reason to enter all of these trade area’s as I have them marked as per the trade method, NOT THE INDICATORS.  The thing about it is, that they are in the same spot. Which came first, you know the saying, but this time it is talking about the stock market. Is the indicator before the price or is the price before the indicators?  I think you know the answer to that, and you are right. Price is always first and those who know how to trade the price apart from indicators will likely do better. If you have both and you can trust them to give you insight into the next move of the market, that is all you need.

Traders are usually very visual, but their is a lot more to the trading screen than meets the eye. Their are other ways to look at things, and they are very different than reading candle stick charts and such. Many traders like this form of analysis and I won’t attempt to shoot that down, but that is not what I do as I read the charts apart from indicators.

I mainly trade off of tick charts, attempting to scalp trade 2-4 points a day on the S&P 500 emini futures market. Each point represents $50 dollars per contract traded x the number of contracts can equal a nice sum for a session. Trading three contracts, and landing 3 points, is $450 for the session, with each point being $150 dollars. The minimum margin to day trade the S&P is roughly 1200 per contract assuming you open and close all contracts within the same session.

Trading boils down to good timing. With it, you get in with little draw down as the trade moves in your favor. Knowing when to do that is key and is what traders across the globe struggle with. I can say, their is a way to do that and do it with some degree of consistency. Support and Resistance combined with momentum can lead you to hitting these Sniper Spot area’s. Small windows of opportunity, come and then go. If you are able to hit the hole so to speak, picking up a few points is not that hard to do. Its all about knowing. If you know, you can do it. Does it take work to learn, yes. But what comes to us, that is so rewarding, without work and sacrifice. With it, is the opportunity to expand your empire if you so choose.

I believe, we do have the power to overcome any barrier if we think we can, but you need to know and have a way to get that done. Just thinking it so will not complete the job.

I know their may be those searching for answers to their trading problems and it could be you need a solid trade method, based on trading the price and what it represents first, then any trading indicators to help confirm your findings. This gives you the best of both worlds and is what I do when trading the Sniper Day Trading Method. I don’t want to sound like a commercial, but that is how it is and don’t know of how else to put it. I have helped many traders get over the hump and turn the corner to profitability. If you have questions please feel free to ask. I don’t mind to share some additional info.

Always wishing my readers the very best;

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Day Trading Indicators – See the Difference

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Today is Wednesday May 26th and the market had follow through from yesterdays close only to give it up into the close.

We saw a good follow through move from yesterdays strong close, but as things started to settle down later in the session, the market sold off. I did hear of some good news on the economic front, housing starts, PPI Index and a couple other good bits of glitter, but it was not enough for the general market to hold on to there gains.

Currently the after market is pushing up nicely as the S&P is up 15 points as I write this late Wednesday evening. Looking at the daily charts, we just stayed above key support I pointed out last week on a closing basis and that was good to see. I do also see a continuation of this night trading move into tomorrows early session and expect the market to hold on to those gains and even add to them over the next few days. That is what it looks like to me. This is that bounce that I figured would come as I see the S&P futures moving up to 1110 area or so before it takes a break for the next move. That could take a few days, but we are just taking back some of what was lost over the last week.

Tomorrow, the sentiment numbers come out and it would be interesting to see how the public now see’s the current environment in the face of this sell off. We did come off a lot in the past two weeks and it is possible the trading public got very bearish this last week, which could have pushed us into the opposite scenario very quickly. We were at 43   %bullish and 35 is a bullish trigger point for the market to rally. The numbers were out this morning and most have seen and reacted off that reading already, but I will not be able to see them until tomorrow evening. You can get the link in the resources section of my website if you want to keep up to date with it yourself in the future.

In my last post, I put up a video of the S&P turning points for Mondays session. For those who trade the S&P emini market you are familiar with how it is works. We trade futures contracts to buy or sell, which gives us the right to buy in the future the basket of stocks at a specific price. Most people who trade the the S&P never really hold until the end of the contract and take delivery as you could do with a commodity, but it is traded more like a hedge against a portfolio or as a speculation instrument. That is what we do, as we trade contracts at specific prices. The smallest measure of movement is $12.50 and that is considered a tick and 4 ticks make a 1 point which then is $50 dollars. If you day trade 3 contracts, which you could do with a margin or deposit of roughly $3,000, each 1 point is worth $150 dollars. Having a daily goal of 2-4 points per day is the minimum daily goal I like to set and there are days it is 8-10 points or more.

Picking up this daily goal is not really that hard if you know when to buy and when to sell, to start. Then it is learning how to manage the trade and lock in profit and book your gains for the day and do it again tomorrow. The first key is knowing when to buy and when to sell. If you can not get that part down, you will never make it. If you don’t have a game plan on when to buy and when also not to buy, which is just as important, you will struggle.

I teach traders at Sniper Day Trading to read the price action and trade off of that. I have a few simple ways to make it easy to learn, but it does take time to build a data base of various market reads that can and will be shown to you. That part takes time to build, but in the mean time, while you build this knowledge of learning price action trading, I have a set of indicators of which I have one of them shown in today’s video to help you with timing of when to go long and when to go short. My trading method is based off of something different then what is in the video, but it compliments what we do very nicely.

To many traders are trying to learn how to trade just by following the indicators and not by learning what drives the indicators and that is, “the price”. In addition the indicators that they follow, usually are lagging and not that efficient. That is not the case with what we offer. You will never have to look for another trading program or method again as long as you live on this earth and trade the stock market.  That is how I truly feel. This can be set up in any time frame to give you the trading edge you need to beat Wall Street. The Stock market is fractal in nature and any good trading method will and can be applied to all time frames and styles of charts.

When you combine this method with at least two time frame charts, the smaller chart is shown in the video you will get a crystal clear picture of what you need to do and when. The video shows clear entry area’s both long and short, exactly what you need to profit. When you consider, this trading method can be run with only a tiny 4 tick stop, (5 is OK) that is hard to believe, but the proof is in the video. The turning points happen like this every day the market is moving.  When it is a choppy session, I have another screen set up just for that, with the results no different.

Traders need precision timing  to be successful, bottom line. If you don’t have it, do what it takes to find it, email me for more details. This works on individual stocks just the same. Turn your trading around, protect your trading capital and live the dream.

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Trading Indicators – Part one

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Today is Monday March 15th and the market pulled up in the last hour for a nice come back.

The S&P 500 futures rallied 10 points off the low of the day and closed basically flat on the session. That was a nice move and I am sure took the bears by surprise. It was a steady climb, which was backed up by a lot of short covering.

Tomorrow is the F.O.M.C meeting, which stands for federal open market committee, “the Fed”. They are going to make an announcement on interest rates tomorrow and that may be what the market is waiting for. The Index’s did not want to give up any ground until they know the outcome of tomorrows meeting. New positions will be placed and we should see a significant amount of volume just before 11:15 and certainly at and after 11:15 tomorrow.

I word of caution, be careful around these announcements, the price swings can get pretty wild. I would not take any trades 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after these announcements for sure. The volume will be OK in the very early morning, for say the first 60 to 90 minutes, but after that, it is going to grind to a snails pace, it always does, until after the fed announcement.

Today I took a few more trades than I usually do, but it all turned out pretty good. Only a few ticks of loss and plenty of gains to more than reach my daily goal. A chart below to show you the trades.

I have one trading indicator above the screen and one below the screen. I don’t explain what they are or much about them, other than that it helps to identify the momentum swings through out the day. This is in my “Scalp Trading Screen” T-1, which is different than my second trading screen. The first one, T-1 is set up to scalp 2,3,4 ticks at a minimum and often times 2 or 3 points from the trade and is what is shown below, although I have pulled other things out of the chart, you are seeing a striped down version, but one that can make sense.   Today’s trades are not earth shattering, they are just small scalp trades except one trade for 3 points. I did see the potential for a runner late in the day and could have easily sold most of my position at a point or so as I did, but elect to hold one contract back to let run. I decided not to and just closed it up. Tomorrow will present itself with new setups and opportunities.

I will show a screen shot of my T-2 screen with something similar for tomorrows session. The settings are different for this trade screen.  It is used for when we I see a trending market or the possibilities. It does not have to be trending all day, but an early morning move or any things in-between that has legs to it, (more than one move back to back) will work just fine. These move are generally for several points and usually start out at what I call my “Turning Points”.

Many traders follow indicators and for good reason. But trading indicators are a reflection of the price. Don’t lose sight of that. Traders need to be able to see and read good bull setups and good bearish setups. Many have a problem seeing the bearish setups. It just does not seem natural to sell something that you don’t have. In addition, it is more difficult to just see the patterns. Our brains do not make it easy to spot these setups at times, but the trading patterns are there and you can usually make more $ when prices go down. Sell-offs tend to move bigger and faster than a rising market, its just that way. So, if you have a constant bullish bent, try little by little to look at things in reverse as you interpret the price action.

There are two sides to every market and the traders we are trading against constantly work there influence to blind as many as they can to this fact, giving themselves the advantage.  This is one area where trading indicators can help. They can help you see what is already on the trading screen, but your eyes are not yet trained well enough to see it with confidence. You first need to know what you are looking for, the trading indicators will basically highlight those area’s of interest. Your job at that point is to see if that area it is highlighting constitutes as a method setup. If it does not, just let it go. Resist the temptation to take the trade anyway for fear of loss, as in opportunity. This happens every day and is a big problem for many traders. I have to remind myself of this fact as well. If you miss the bus, another one is coming in just a few minutes. The problem is, we don’t want to wait.

Do you remember back in the day, when you had to take the bus, well, for many it could be a long time ago, but the point is, we don’t like to wait. It is what our culture has grown accustom to and often stands as one of the reasons that many traders do not make it.

This is one reason why I have tailored my trading program “Sniper Day Trading” in such a way as I have. It is designed to provide enough trades in a fairly short amount of time to reach a preset daily goal 2 to 4 S&P points. That is $100 to $200 per contract traded. Trading a modest 3 contracts is $300 to $600 per day, while trading 5 contracts is $500 to $1,000 per day.

Day trading has its rewards, it may seem simple, but it is rarely easy. Having the right day trading indicators can help, but every trader should  ask the question, “why is the indicator giving a buy or sell, then and only then will we know,   what to do & when.

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