Posts Tagged ‘rally’

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Freedom comes in many forms

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Today is Friday October 16th and the market pulled back at the close of the session, off yesterdays highs.

Well, we did pull back, but not before the future’s market pushed higher by 5 S&P points. That was just about the amount I saw, in higher prices. The thing is, the move was made in the future’s market not the cash market. We trade out of the future’s market, so the call was some what right. The point to that was the pull back off the last push higher. Smart money saw what I saw and said, I am not going to wait for tomorrows open to cover my position and take my profit, I am going to do it right now. They sure did and prices pulled back until the open and then just continued to fall. The cash market caught up to the futures and fell with it. As mentioned before, the cash market very often will follow the futures prices and move accordingly.

I think this move may be marking a little time, moving over in the chart to create more room, so that prices can go higher and not run into resistance. That process, may take a few days and slightly down is OK. If the index drops more than about 3 points on the S&P, it is going to bring in some additional selling and we may see a drop of 20 points or so. Currently we are sitting on some key support in the hourly cash chart. That is the next move. If this, then that. The break first, then the drop.

Just a reminder, It was two years and a week now that the all time high was reached in October 11th, 2007. Everyone is just remembering the big drop from last October, but we were in the process of dropping a whole year before that. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE. I remember a song titled like that, I think it was from the 80’s, O well. That is the question?

I recently spoke to a few people who thought the market was going to continue higher over the next couple of years and had to disagree with them. To many things to say exactly why, but is this time different? That is alway the age old question. Every time the market has dropped, we have always pulled back up. The answer to that is yes and no. Yes before and possibly no now?

It has been 11 years since the first time the markets saw this price. That is a long time. Eleven years ago, in 1998 October, we briefly brushed up against a recession and quickly bounced back to soon there after bolt to the all time high a couple of years later. The market has not made any progress for all that time. If someone was wanting to retire and needed the money, he may or may not have gotten out at a good time. We have gone up, down, all the way back up and all the way back down since that time. As of late, another attempt for higher prices, but will this attempt be met with stiff opposition or not.

The P/E ratio’s are priced as such looking forward to earings of the future and they are very optimistic in reflecting a robust outlook, because currently by all measure of historical standards, we are way overpriced.

If anything happens to disrupt this rosy earnings rebound we will be met with a violent, fast adjustment down. Only after the market starts to interpret the news and reallocate its opinion, will it be able to tell us its next move. A move back down to the middle of this rally range, will be the best case scenario if this break and adjustment happen. Lets hope for that. If the drop does not stop, it will be because of serious problems we can not control.

The dollar is on the edge of its seat right now. The pressure coming against it is very strong. I believe I have written about it before. If anyone is interested I can give you a few articles explaining in great detail what may be about to happen. vinnie@sniperdaytrading.com  This is not a theory, but it is fact and can not be hide forever. There are some serious problems in the country, don’t be surprised if things go sour once again. There is a giant band-aid on an open wound. Is it going to stop the bleeding? No one really knows but all we can do is look at the signs.

The time to make money is still at hand, so let us not roll up in a ball of fear, but face our fears. I have met a lot of people who can not handle the possibility that things may not always be as they were in this country. For them, not knowing is the best way they can coup. I guess if I had limited knowledge I may be inclined to think that way, but I am glad I see life clearly, the world clearly, the trading markets clearly and many other areas. I am not afraid of the future but look at it through the eyes of opportunity and not only for myself, but for others.

We have the ability to make choice everyday. Sometimes we make good ones and other times not so good. It is not where you were that counts, but it’s WHERE ARE YOU GOING, that matters. We only go around this globe once and I think we should make it count. It is time for all those who aspire to live and experience there dreams to do so now.

That is what I have decided and I am investing myself into the things that will take me there. Financial freedom is just one of those area’s. Not having to worry about money is a worthy goal, but how you get there does make a difference. Day Trading the S&P E-Mini Futures is just one of the ways I am able to live my dreams. It is a means to an end, not the end.

http://www.screencast.com/t/WyQNJoc8vmj             Turning points in “Scalp Mode” Fridays session

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Posted in Trader Coaching | No Comments »

DOW UP 500 POINTS, shows strength

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Today is Monday March 24th and the markets continue the rally early.

No one wanted to wait for a bigger pullback than we got from last Thursday and Friday.  The Dow was up almost 500 points and the S&P up 54 boasting a 7% gain for the Index. The daily trend has clearly been up and may have more to go. Let’s hope so. I would like to see big buying come in to lift this market past some very clear overhead resistance. It’s up there, at higher levels. I see resistance at around 870, now that we cleared the last small pivot with very little pull back. This should slow the bears down a little bit and keep them honest.

I did not have time to trade today and may not have time tomorrow. I am at a conference and it does not finish until Tuesday at 4 pm. So my next trades may not happen until then.  If I get a chance to put on a couple of trades in the pre-market or at the open, I will. But I may have to wait until Wednesday.

Below are a couple of charts that I threw up to show a few small  potential trades early on and one nice big move in the afternoon, on the 400 tick, that could have produced some nice gains.

I have to go for now, I will try and post something tomorrow, even if I do not trade.

http://www.screencast.com/t/Vj1FnIkniJ       100 Tick Chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/wS9rF3u1s6     400 Tick Chart

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Posted in Bull Market | No Comments »

Bear Market rally continues

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Today is Tuesday March 16th and the last hour shows strength

The market had some good moves today in both directions. I saw a couple of 5 point sell off’s and a couple of 3 point sell off’s that were very clear. The moves on the upside had more room in them, especially in the late afternoon. I saw a couple of 5 point moves to the upside and a couple of 10 point moves as well. I had some of both to pick up my daily goal plus. Todays total was over $ 2,000, but I traded a little higher contract size of 5 to 8 to get it.

I had a little misstep in the early going but was able to recover. It was a mis-trade that cost me, but I was able to make up for it in the late afternoon in one of the nice rallies upwards that we had. I had manually put my stop in, but placed the order in the wrong direction adding to a loss, I traded my way through it and had some nice returns at the end of the day.

I have posted a chart of the hourly S&P and daily Dow. Yesterday I called the initial resistance top of the S&P and it was good for a very large move to the downside. Today’s open took the market up, back to the middle of yesterday’s range, selling off a couple of times on the way up. It wasn’t until the last hour that the market decided to advance up through the overhead resistance and push its way higher, it did not take me long to figure out that the market was strong and decided to go with it for some nice gains.

It is only in reading the charts that we can make a true determination on the current market direction. That is day trading “one O one”. It’s nice to call big directional changes and a lot of times they work out, but to place all of your market calls on what has not happened in the future is not wise, while day-trading. We are only trying to capture a few points in either direction with the prevailing direction being of no consequence. Trading up is just as good as trading down.

I will point out that the sentiment numbers did come out last week and they were only 26% bullish at -3% and 47 bearish at +3%.  So last week people became less bullish and more bearish. I think that is adding to the rally we are having. These readings are currently very bullish for the market and we are seeing some of that played out. A reading of 35% or lower is typically good for a move up on the markets and the last reading is 9% below that. So over all, don’t be surprised with the current move up. If the market does come back in the middle of the last rally and then overcomes the last pivot point high, it will have a lot more power behind it. On the other hand, if it can push through the current outside resistance and move up, it will have a higher failure rate, when it starts to drop. So I am all for a pull back, but when it comes to trading the markets, I don’t really care. I know we will find moves in both directions.

Let’s take a look at tomorrow, and see if the Dow can break through the outside resistance, it is coming up on it now. The Dow closed the day matching yesterdays high, while the S&P closed slightly higher than that. I have seen many times the indexes go slightly past their previous highs, only to fall back and fail, thus taking the late comers down.

http://www.screencast.com/t/AUgxJSONYx      Some of today’s trades “Live”

http://www.screencast.com/t/LRwBANuN          Still shot of hourly S&P and daily Dow

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Posted in Bear Market | No Comments »

Called Live, Short Term Top In Today’s market.

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Today is Monday March 16th and I posted another good day on the e-minis.

While Trading the S&P e-minis today, I called out the short term top in the market before it happened. You can hear me make the call before it happens exactly at the the high of the day. Then you can hear me make the call, on how we will be pulling back from that high point down to lower levels. At the close of the day, the S&P pulled back off of my short term target, by 20 points. That is a lot in two hours, with the Dow off 190 points.

This is going to lay the ground work for a continued pull back. I suspect that, at the open, we will get a small reactionary rally, but I would definitely be watching for short trades. We have had some technical damage and the path of least resistance should be to the downside.

With this being said, the market can do anything it wants at any time, there is no guarantees. All I can tell you is that when I see a pattern like the one I am looking at right now, a pull back is what usually follows. I will be watching for short trade setups and will stagger some of my exits. That does not mean all of them. I always watch price action to tell me what to do and that is what I will be doing.

I try to not have a strong bias for direction too far in advance, but it is something I will be looking at. It may be that the big sell off does not come until the afternoon session, or it could come early on. Price action is what will influence my decisions at that time. I only lay this out for you because I am looking at the daily chart, just like I am looking at a 5 minute chart or tick chart for that matter. The price action is the same and currently looks bearish.

The day was really pretty smooth. I had the time to trade, so I just kept at it. I started out with some nice gains and within a few minutes I had my daily goal. I cut my size back but kept on trading and added to earlier gains. I mostly traded small all day, 2’s and 3’s were the most common contract size. If I had some draw downs it was not going to eat into earlier gains with the small size. I did have some good runners today and captured some of them on video below, so be sure to take a look.

There are different ways to approach the trading market based on price action. If we are in a choppy market and you are trying to go for bigger moves, you are going to struggle. One way that I overcome some of that is to first identify what kind of market we are in. If its choppy, don’t even think about going for more than 4-6 ticks. You will have another trade in just a couple of minutes to capture additional profit. If in a trending market, you can set yourself up for a few more ticks, but you have to know how to play it and not get greedy.

Again, in today’s market, I had quit a few of these. If you have the time, take a look. If short on time, you can always come back later. The bottom line is that I try to get myself in a break even situation first, then a small gain, locked in. After that, if the market runs, it’s all gravy.  By only trading small, I was still able to post some nice gains because of the runners.

I closed out a long position that I got stuck with over the week end for a profit of several points. That gain did not count towards today’s numbers below. Today, I took 32 trades, 25 gainers and 7 losers and my total scaled out percentage was 77%. The total equity gain for the day was just a little under $2,500 dollars on mostly small size.

During a couple of the videos I am calling the intermediate term direction and as the next video progresses you can see it come to pass. We hit the short term top in the market today and pulled back 20 points, take a look.

http://www.screencast.com/t/oPiqTiFG6              Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/P9iiuTUPd              Some of  Today’s Live Trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/Bna8H6Oe              Some of  Today’s Live Trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/NAik15UUR           Some of  Today’s Live Trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/y7YeoTIZC            Some of  Today’s Live Trades

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Posted in Market Call | No Comments »

Called the Stock Market Bottom!

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Today is Friday, March 13th and the major indexes are closing at their highs again.

On Monday of this week, I posted a bold prediction that the market was going to rally big the next day and that we were going to close at the high of the day as opposed to what we have been doing, selling off at the end of the day. In fact my head line post was, “That’s it, tomorrow we Rally”. Yesterday I made a short 5 minute video showing exactly how I came up with that market call and what it was that I was looking at – days before that market bottom. If you go to yesterday’s post and look at the bottom, you will see the link. It may be helpful for some to see how the market seems to have a predictable pattern, in the midst of all the ups and downs.

Technical Analysis is the study of price movements and their patterns. You can take data from the past and come up with probabilities for the future. By studying these moves of the past, you can take a reasonable amount of risk, for an acceptable reward. That is what I try to do when I trade. You cannot expect to get them all right – losses are a part of it, but you will expect to get your fair share which should put you into the green.

This week, the futures contract month of June for symbolESM09 has started trading. I switched over to it today. The volume has been split in the old contract and the new contract and by next week it should all be rolled over to the new month. These contracts are set for 3 months and then a new contract will come out called the “FRONT MONTH”.

I had a little trouble with the low volume today, because I started trading during the slowest time of the day, in addition to split contract volume. It did throw me off a little, since I trade on tick charts, which are all tied to volume. As the time started to get closer to 11:00 am, though, I got my footing. That is when traders come back from their long lunches on the east coast and get back to business. It is hard to trade on light volume, but if that is all I had, I feel I could easily adjust my style, which really would not be much of an adjustment, to capture my few points per day. Short targets with short stops, would do the trick nicely.

I know a lot of traders always look for the home run. It’s nice when you get one, but during their quest for it, they strike out repeatedly, hurting their batting average.  They only have one game, “Home Run”. I feel you have to be diversified in your approach, but if I had to pick only one, I would choose the very short stuff, singles and an occasional double. Your batting average would increase, but you may not get the notoriety of a Barry Bonds. Ask yourself what it is that you want – to be famous, or consistently hit singles and doubles? 

The comparison is related to pulling out a few points per day and depending on how many contracts you trade, that can easily mean $500 to $1,000 dollars per day. Most people could comfortably live on that, but the key is “per day”.   With the occasional daily loss as an aberration, daily profits are the norm. That is what I strive for each day. I expect to come out posting solid gains each day and have been doing it now for going on 7 weeks straight without a losing day.

If my daily goal is $1,000, then my daily loss limit is $2,000.  It all depends on how many contracts you’re trading. When I am trading up to 5 contracts, my daily loss limit should not go over $1,000 dollars because my minimum daily goal is $ 500 dollars. Two points per day x $250 dollars per point when trading 5 contracts, (each point for a single contract is $50 dollars, so 5 contracts is $250 per point) which is $500. That is before commission so I always have in my mind to hit a little over the two point mark. During the past 7 weeks, I have averaged about 3 times daily goal (that is a rough estimate), so $1,500 per day. I may go back and add them up and divide by the number of trading days to see the actual numbers, but I think it’s close. 

In today’s trading, I hit 75% profitable trades for about $ 1,500 dollars profit and in fact have 3 contracts still working with 4 1/2 points of unrealized gains in that trade. I rarely hold a position over night, much less over the weekend, but I had a small glitch in my Internet connection. I had planned to get out just before the close, but now have to wait until Sunday afternoon to place my stop.

Since I am in it, I will place a stop and give it a little room to see if we get follow through on Monday. Since we closed near the high again today, there is a real good chance the market is going to run come the start of the week. I did say in yesterday’s video recap of the Dow and S&P that we were going to get to the outside trend line that I drew on the chart video, which is about another 20 points on the S&P.  That still holds and now it is more likely we will pull up to it, with today’s market action leaning bullish for Monday’s open, we shall see.

That all for today, I hope everyone has a great week end.  If anyone has questions, please feel free to email me at vinnie@sniperdaytrading.com

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/P3kAllia             Some of today’s trades 5 minute video

http://www.screencast.com/t/tTFIJnlTsGc     Today’s Equity Chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/j9ftesjC               Screen Shot of last trade

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Wall Street Rally – Mission accomplished

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

It is Tuesday March 10th and boy did we get a rally.

It was nice to see the market rally today, because yesterday I stuck my neck out with a bold market call. I stated that the market should move up nicely off the low end support and rally up at least +185 points plus. When you see patterns and formations thousands of times, you can come to expect repeatable patterns when the conditions are right. That is what I saw in yesterday’ s close, a market that was ripe for a move up.

Technical Analysis is the study of price action patterns combined with support and resistance. It takes a lot of screen time to be able to spot those patterns so that they are second nature to your eyes. Meaning it does not take long to be able to identify whether a pattern is bullish or bearish and have the confidence to be able to place a trade in that direction.

I feel blessed to have the amount of screen time that I do, because it has made me a better trader overall. There are so few people who can process the amount of information you need quick enough to trade the short term swings and, as I said, I feel fortunate to be able to do so. As time goes on, I would expect that anyone who comes into my trading group would have the benefit of years of market knowledge available to them. It is not easy to be consistent, it takes work, and I feel, if you are going to cut down the time it takes to learn how to trade, you will definitely need a mentor. It does not have to be me, but it can be if you choose.

I did not have a mentor and learned how to trade by myself over many years. If I had the benefit of a mentor years ago, I could have learned a lot faster. One of the reasons I didn’t was I could not find anyone I could trust and who I thought really understood how the market flows. So, I worked through it all by myself.

You can see through my videos and postings and consistent trading that I do know how the market works and how to capture daily profit from it. I will soon be gathering up a group of traders who want to learn my method of trading and be able to pull good money out of the market each day. If you are one of them, send me an email message and I will get back to you with more details. I will write about this again in the coming days.

Today’ s trading went very well. I had 10 trades with 8 gains and 2 losses. I split some of the exits up for some increased profits again today and was still trading small, but had very good profit of around $ 1,200 plus for the session.

Again some of my trades below.

http://www.screencast.com/t/LnlvBx6z             Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/ZckxwreoV        Screen shot early trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/9kx1aNNQxfu    Live -some of todays trades

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Posted in Market Call | No Comments »

Sentiment numbers stronger than expected

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

This is for Friday’s market March 6th, and the sentiment numbers are out.

I had talked about the investment newsletter writer’s poll out for this week, expecting them to be a bit weaker than last week was, adding to a more negative environment, which would set the stage for a bigger rally. It did not work out that way.

We may still get a rally but when is the big question? The numbers changed in the positive direction, which is a little bit of a surprise. They were 28.6 bullish last week and they moved up to 29.7 bullish this week. A reading below 35 is typically a bullish sign, with a rally potentially at hand. With this sell off, extremes are difficult to time and it can take longer for the signals to have their usual counter effect. The reading only went up by 1.1%.  That may help in prolonging the coming rally. We will have a rally, that is for sure, but we don’t know if it is going to be from 1,ooo dow points lower. These numbers are just something to watch and keep in the back of your mind.

Most people who write investment newsletters have their opinion taken each week and some of them became a little more bullish this last week as of  the Tuesday reading. The point is they are usually wrong when polled as a group. It is just like so many other investors, they follow the trend and as the trend continues in the initial direction for some time more and more of them become bullish or bearish, whichever the direction.

Basically, they are late to the party and become bullish at the top of the market, when it is only then apparent to them The herd mentality. The same is true during a market sell off, they then think it is going to continue down, since that is the direction of the current trend. Last week 45 percent of them thought the market was going down. This week only 44 percent had those same feelings. That lets up the pressure a bit for the market to continue down possibly, but I would say, not by much. It is not a science. I have posted and explained this before, but for the benefit of those who are not aware of it, there you have it.

There is another point to all of this. Learn how to read the markets for yourself and you won’t be victimized by other people’s opinions. There is a way to do that. It is kind of like a language. If you don’t know it, you will be lost, wandering from place to place, looking for your way. I am not the only person who knows how to read the markets, for sure.  But I would say, there are very few who can do it effectively and consistently. I will be talking more in the future about just reading the charts themselves, with no indicators at all, just the price action.

This is a great way to start understanding what is happening on the screen. There is a struggle going on, constantly. A change in ownership, from weak hands to strong hands. Those that want to sell to others who want to buy – but at what price. It is their price, the price that they are willing to pay. In the case of a sell off, it is people who cannot handle the heat (weak hands) who sell to those who can assume the risk and are at that moment strong (hands). It usually takes only a short while of seeing lower prices until those strong hands soon become the new weak hands and begin to offer their shares and/or contracts to other stronger hands, but at their price (the new strong hands). This is how a sell off is carried on and how we get continued lower prices.

There is always someone buying, all day long, but again at their price, which often times does not hold and then the selling continues. This process stops when there are no longer a majority of sellers left to sell to and the buyers are taking the upper hand, taking all of the available supply the market has to offer and the struggle continues. There is always someone selling and there is always someone buying – but at adjusted prices. That is how and why the price changes.

We step in now and then and help them out. We create liquidity for the market place. When a mutual fund manager is faced with selling a large portion of his portfolio to meet redemption requests, but feels the drop is only short term, he can sell futures contracts by the thousands and give himself the insurance that he needs from a large market drop. If he had to sell all of the shares in the open market, he may be pushing the market down with his large size and thus adding fuel to a down market. If the drop comes, he is protecting his portfolio ( a kind of insurance ) from a market decline. When the market comes back up, the original value comes back into his portfolio but he has made a big profit from the decline. If the market does not come back, his portfolio has taken a big loss in the drop in value, but he has large gains in selling the futures contracts so he has offset his portfolio and has not lost money for his clients. If there was no one to take the other side of the trade, when he wanted to sell thousands of contracts over time, he would not be able to do what he did in the example above.

Traders and yes, day-traders, provide an essential part to the process. We make it possible for so many to buy the insurance they need to protect themselves. The market would have so much more volatility to it if we traders were not there to help smooth out the process. So there is a purpose being served here.

It is the same for the farmer growing corn or the company selling orange juice or coffee beans. By them selling futures contracts in the future, they are agreeing on a price they can live with, a set price in the future. If at that time the current price is much higher, they do not get to enjoy that higher price. Their contract says they agreed on xyz price and that is the price they will get 2 or 3 months from now when the crop come to harvest. By same token, if the current price at the time of harvest is 20% lower, they will still get the agreed price of xyz at the day the contract was agreed on.

Traders take the other sides of those trades and speculate that the price will be higher or lower in the future. The farmer is guaranteed on his price and he is happy to get it. If he came to market in the future and received  30% lower than current price, he may get financially destroyed and he can’t afford to take on that risk. But others are able to.

Those are just a couple of examples in the financial and commodity markets of the functionality of the instruments that we trade and why. On a personal note, most traders trade for personnel profit and that is understandable. They are taking a risk, and for that risk they can be rewarded when they are right.

The trading day was good today, picking up 1 & 1/2 times daily goal. I have some of those trades in a small recording from the session. I think it may be helpful for some to see the market trade in a live environment. I have had technical problems in posting my equity chart so this is the next best thing and probably better for most. As soon as I can get it fixed, I will post them again.

http://www.screencast.com/t/m8FOo2HQwNj       some live trades from Friday’s session

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Posted in Trading Turning Points | No Comments »

At last, an up day

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Today is February 4th, and we finally got a move up.

It has been a long time since we have had a move up and it sure is welcomed. I had gotten that feeling that we would rally today, when I heard Obama say that Americana’s with the means should consider to buy stocks. It is not very often that you will hear a sitting president, to buy stock in the market. I think he got tipped off by Goldman Sacks. If we do get a rally, everyone will be saying, “see, Obama told us the bottom is in and we should buy stock”.  Knowing how people think, heard mentality, people went out like good little citizens and did what they were told, buy stocks. I am being a little sarcastic and maybe I should not be, but I can not help myself right now. I do not ever remember a president making a market call like this today and I have been following the markets for 25 years. Oh well, there is a first for everything.

The rally was welcomed, I am sure by all. I thought yesterday, that as the market closed close to the low of the day and Tuesday is the day that the sentiment numbers come out by the news letter writers, that the numbers must have dropped again, which is good news for the bulls. I will post those numbers tomorrow, because I get them two days late. I am not a subscriber so the best I can do is a little delay, I will take it. My guess is that it dropped 3-4 % to 23 or 24, with a reading under 35 as a traditionally a bullish signal. You need to remember, that all of the times we were in more or less, normal market conditions, these readings were very very accurate. But as we find ourselves in this massive sell off, which has happened before, like in 2000, sometimes the readings get stretched to extreme levels before the market reacts. This is such an environment currently. When the numbers got to the mid 20’s, we had a big market bounce off the bottom in November of last year. Since then the numbers started to rise and are now getting back to what they were before, pending Thursday’s reading. So, I am thinking that we may be in for a bounce up for a few day’s. In addition, I heard a lot of people starting to say that much lower levels are coming, like now. When you hear people on TV and Newsweek, Time, etc. saying the same thing, look for a move in the opposite direction. Those people are rarely right and it usually can pay to bet against them. With all that being said, the current trend of everything is still down. Let hope we get some follow through this week.

The market did sell off just at the close, by 100 Dow point and 10 S&P points, in just a few minutes. That sure was not good, so for tomorrow, look for a continuation of the pull back initially and watch for a rally back up. It is possible that we could get a few days of consolidation at these levels to give us a better footing for an up move, but we will just have to wait and see.

Yesterday, I made a comment about the Pension Funds being underfunded and I found a chart of just such a story, explaining the facts. Below I will post a chart of some of the underfunded companies that are having the most problems. Over all, I hear there is a $ 409 billion dollar shortfall in the pension funds right now. Last year there was surplus and now, a big underfunded liability. These companies have some time to make up the difference but if things do not improve soon, it is really going to hurt. They are regulated by the government to make these pension contributions to cover future retirement obligations. They are currently only funded to 60%, which leaves them 40% short. They are going to have to take more of there earned income and kick in a bunch of money to make up the difference and that is going to hurt earnings potential. On Wall Street, its all about the earnings. “What have you done for me lately”. That is an old saying in my family and is appropriate for the current situation hear. Oh, the reason for the big shortfall, is that a lot of these companies invest that money in the stock market and with valuations going down so much, it is putting a big strain on there balance sheet. This can turn into the old snow ball effect, if things do not turn around soon, lets hope. Just reporting the facts here.

In my day-trading effort, I only had a limited amount of time to trade and did so for only 15 minutes in the morning. I did get my daily goal with all gains. I placed 5 trades with 8 exits in the morning and as I said all were gains, nice. I found a few minutes in the afternoon session around 11 am and traded for about 25 minutes and added nicely to my gains. I posted around $1,300 for the day with 22 pieces of profit and 3 losses, 88% . I started out with a 1 point gain on 5 contracts for $250 profit, then started to reduce my size, played it safe, because I had a limited amount of time. If I had draw downs it would be harder to come back, not having the time. It worked out just like I wanted and so, I chalked up another days worth of gains. I think I am now about 30 days in row of posting solid profit every day, no loosing days. I had many days of profit before that, but in the last week of January, I started to post every day, no exceptions and it has been going great. I have had struggles and came close to my daily loss limit, where it is, that I will have to stop for the day, but my streak is alive and I plane to keep it that way, by trading smart and following my rules as best I can. Below is an equity chart of the days gains and a chart of some of my trades in the 233 tick. I am taking these trades in the 100 tick, but I am looking at other time frames to give myself a larger view and perspective.

 http://www.screencast.com/t/E8oNvlEsc6r         Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/KTX51dkd               Some of today’s trades in 233 tick

http://www.screencast.com/t/dOBUnSMx              Chart of, some company pension shortfalls

http://www.screencast.com/t/MAWnN1pts7b     Day trade chart of IBM, my promise from yesterday

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S&P 500 bounces off double bottom & Trading Lesson

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

It is Sunday February 22nd with a weekend report and review.

The S&P 500 bounced off the previous low set on November 20th last year. It did close up off of that low which is good. I have been hoping the overall market can hold on for a while before it continues down, but what I want does not matter to the markets. It would be wise, to learn from that point of view. When you trade, don’t try and impose your will on the markets, by your strong directional bias. The market does not care about what we think, it is going to do everything it can to fake you out and get you to establish a position in the wrong direction.

The S&P 500 is currently at the bottom end of it’s range. Usually, when that happens you will get a bounce off that bottom. At this point there is really no way of knowing how big a bounce it will be. I suspect that it would be enough to make up a bit of the drop that we have recently experienced the last week. This rally, if we get one,  is what I would call a retail rally. What I mean by retail, is this is usually not the smart experienced money. A double bottom is a very basic chart formation and it looks to me like this may hold over the next couple of days.  It could turn into something more significant, I hope, for the country’s sake.  The Dow actually broke down over 100 points below it’s November low. Sometimes that can be a sign that a short term rally will come. It broke just enough for investors and traders to bit. Now we shall see, if the market turns.

One interesting thing that many people do not know is that the Dow has recently had some changes in the stocks that make up the 30 companies in the index. It seems that any stock under 10 dollars per share has been taken out and replaced by other companies that have higher share prices. This will change the index values and not really give us a true representation of the market. Its like playing cards and you know you are going to loose with the hand that you have and so you just get a new set of cards and see if those work better for you. Seems a little shady and misleading to me. There has been a lot of that going on these days. On another day, I will have more to say about what is really going on in the markets and economy. Believe me, there is a lot more than meets the eye on this one. I have been following the stock market, politics and world events for over 25 years and there is a story here, but for another day.

                                                               TRADING LESSON: Trading Without Bias

When you establish a position in your mind, that the market should do this or that and when price action is saying something different, you are about to get burned. Fortunately my stops are small and my losses are thus small as well. When you have 2 or 3 stops in a row, you just need to stop. It does not matter what is going on, you are out of rhythm with the markets. Until you let a little time go by and focus on what is actually happening, only then will you begin to see the light. A little time is the best medicine for this scenario. If you still do not get it right, you need to stop for the day.

I have a rule, that if I am down more than my daily goal, I need to take a break, no matter what. After that break, when I come back if I go down in equity by double daily goal, that day’s trading is over, period. I came up to this point once this week and my next trade had to be right or I was going to have my first losing day in months. Fortunately, I waited until I found a high percentage trade and built my equity back up from there, one trade after another.  That bears repeating, one trade at a time.

Many people will try and make up negative equity by getting it back all at once. I do not advise this. If the patterns present themselves, then take the trade, but you may even want to decrease your size for a short time until you know you are back on track. Once you have yourself in tune with the markets again, you can then resume your normal trade size. I would throw in taking small breaks during your come back, to insure you are not getting overloaded or burnt out. A fresh mind can do wonders for your P&L.

This one rule can save many traders from blowing their account out in such a short amount of time. If you don’t stop, it then becomes compulsive negative behavior and that will ingrain in you very bad habits, which you may never break until the market has broken you.

If traders followed this one idea and have the trading discipline to adhere to it, the percentage of successful traders would go up by a wide margin. But human nature as it is, we know through studies of trader psychology that most people will not change. They will insist that they know how to trade these markets and they had just gotten a bad break here or there. Well, if it was not this day’s bad breaks or next week’s mishap, it will be something else. The market has a way of cleaning out all of the weak hands. Whatever their problems are, it will find them and exploit them, until it breaks you. That is the hard cold facts.

Now on the other hand, when you are aware of this force and plan and train for the days that the market is trying to take you down, you need to fight back. How do you do that, you may ask? Well, it first starts out by having a trading plan. You would be surprised how many people do not have one. Second, you will need a trading journal. This helps you record for yourself, if you are following your trading plan with what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. If you can identify what you are doing wrong, then you can take steps to change and/or improve. When you are doing things right, that also is very important, because it is establishing in you consistent trading behavior that you will need to fall back on when things become difficult. You need to have a plum line, something that is constant, your trading plane.  Everyone’s trading style is different, because we are all different in our personalities.

Trading involves emotions, that is what brings most people to make a buying decision or not. The struggle of bulls and bears during the trading day is all about personal convictions for most people. We need not get caught up in the struggle, but knowing that it is going on is vital in positioning ourselves in front of that emotion. When we do that, we will be able to ride small waves of movement or (emotion) and capture profit from that. The markets have proven themselves to be consistent because people are creatures of habit. They seem to do the same things over and over again. We just put ourselves in the position to capitalize on that predictability.

More coming tomorrow

Vince

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