Posts Tagged ‘retracement’

Federal Reserve takes drastic step, Buys 300 Billion in Treasuries

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Today is March 18th and the Federal Reserve took a big step to buy treasuries.

All I can say is, “What a day.”

I did not know that today was a Fed decision day. Shame on me. I usually check the economic calender for that. I don’t usually pay too much attention to news, because it always shows up in the price anyway, but that is one I always look for – because of the explosive moves following the news.

It usually happens at 11:15 am West Coast time and I was in a trade just before the announcement, with only 1 contract and then, boom, a 10 point move for the S&P in minutes. I re-entered for another move up after a consolidation for another 11 point move and again I only had on 1 contract. I kept re-entering long, and some short, to the very top of the market.

The S&P hit 800, which was the support at the purple trend line that I had talked about a couple of months ago. Support, when broken, usually then becomes resistance and the market traded right up into that resistance. After noticing that,  combined with the fact that now we had traded exactly to a 62% retacement from 873, the last recent high, to 666, the last recent low and back to 62% retracement at 800 and previous resistance, it made more sense that this would be a higher target for the market to trade up to. And it did – with me in it.

Once the top was reached I saw a good spot for a short and went with it, still trading very light, I think I had 2 contracts there. That was good for about 12 points to the downside. I must have had about 50 S&P points in all, which is about 25 times the amount I need to get my daily goal of 2 points, but that would be at 5 contracts. I traded very small once my equity started to get over $1,500, but it added up real fast for a finish to the day at $5,500 after commission. I took 33 trades total. Yes, that was a lot. But it still turned out better than 75% winning trades in about 3 hours. I have a couple of short video’s showing some of this, take a look below, at the end of the first one is where the Fed released the news and the market shot up.

I must say, that I was a little surprised that the Federal Reserve said that it was going to buy 300 billion in Treasury securities on the open market and 750 billion more in mortgage backed securities, bringing their direct involvement to 1.25 trillion. This is the first time they have done this since 1960. Does anyone know what that means? To me it looks like there was no one to buy the treasuries. China said last week they were very concerned with the U.S. debt market.

Do you know that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation for profit and is not a federal agency. It’s as much Federal as Federal Express. If you did not know that, all you have to do is Google it. The Federal Reserve is owned by a group of private banks from the U.S. and Europe. Basically, the government brokered out the job to a private banking corporation. I know this may be a shock for many, but people are reacting to the news like this is a good thing. This group is beyond reproach and no one has ever performed an audit on this group.

It is relative to the markets and to the economic equation because, while it is holding interest rates down for now, it will have a reverse effect in the near future. The Gold market did not like the news at all trading up nearly 6% for the day at 965 an ounce. The dollar did not like the news at all either, dropping against all major currencies. But the stock market did like it, or so it thought.

It is going to be good for the market in the short run – how long that is, I don’t know – but in the long run, it will be disastrous. There is so much money being floated out there right now that no one can keep up with it.

Here is another thing you may not have known. The total bail out so far is said to be 8-9 trillion dollars. That is a lot of money. Again, why is that relevant? It is going to cause inflation like nobody’s business. All I can say is be careful with your long term money. Let’s hope the market moves up over the next few months giving those who want to get out of their long term investments an opportunity.

Everyone has been trained in thinking, “it will come back, it always does”. This time could be different. Do your own research and think for yourself. Don’t listen to the experts and don’t even listen to me on these matters, but spend the time and check it out.

If you do a Google search using “total bail out so far”, you will get a few figures, but they are all up in the range I mentioned. It is nowhere near the figures we hear on the nightly news.

Sorry for the ramble, but it kind of ticks me off when I hear news like this. To those who are considering a career in trading and have the risk capital, the time to make money is now. The markets are moving nicely up and down and there is profit to be had for those who can wade their way through the noise.

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

http://www.screencast.com/t/u9xVvzQlpfW             Some of today’s live trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/kTfMA2×13w              Some of today’s live trades

Daily goal met 20 minutes today

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Today is Tuesday February 24th, and I had a nice smooth day today.

The early market had some nice swings that I missed, but that is just fine. I came in at the top of a market run and picked a few points off here and there. Charts are posted below. If I have time later, I will post some additional information. Have a good day.

I have a little more time right now, to comment on today’s action. We did get the start of that bounce I was expecting in the overall market. There should be some additional follow through in the days to come as well. It is hard to say, but the retracement should take us up to 810 to 820  on the S&P. That would be a 10% move for the whole market. That is a lot, let me tell you, but it would represent the natural flow back to the middle, even if the market drops again after that. We don’t know if it will make it past that point, but we will just have to read market action as it happens to give us greater insight, we shall see. The Dow recovered all of yesterdays losses and then some with a gain of 236 points, a nice move.

Trading Lesson: 

Here, is a short trading lesson that you can build upon while trading. When you start out your day, you need to see yourself placing a trade and expecting that trade to work out with  positive results. So, what needs to happen is, you need to take the time to relax and see yourself identify the trend, identify in your mind everything lining up as the method calls for and placing the trade in a low risk area. With targets and stops already in place, you are set. When we get cold feet and become anxious about pulling the trigger, we begin to work against ourselves and create doubt. That doubt creates fear and when you have fear, you will inevitably do the wrong thing. That is why you need to build confidence in a method that is consistent over time and one that can adjust with changing market conditions. There are a lot of different ways to trade, that is for sure, but a trader who expects to come out on top on a regular basis needs to be exceptional in method and emotion. You need to control both and you can not have one without the other.

I came across a trader who says, ” I have a great deal of self control with my emotions and I can follow a trading plan to the letter, but my problem is that I have no method that seems to work with any regularity”. This is an interesting statement, because most people do not have either. A lot of times you may find that you have a good method but you can not execute it because you can not follow a trading plan. We all need to work on follow a trading plan, because this is what takes away the uncertainty and fear when placing a trade. Since we do not know the outcome of the trade, we have anxiety built up inside of us, again because of the unknown. How do we get past this so that we can keep moving forward? The answer is practice and practice some more. If you are able to get the desired results by seeing the expected move ahead of time, positioning yourself to capture a small piece of the move and get out, quickly. When you capture 1 point of profit in a few seconds and it’s over, the struggle is over as well. You do not have a lot of time to feel anxious about the trade, because you are no longer in it. If you are able to capture a few high probability trades and stop for the day, you built confidence in yourself and that is where it all begins.

Doing the same thing over and over again, entering the market in a low risk area and letting the natural flow and rhythm of the market to take you up and take you down, hitting your desired targets with the least amount of struggle. Then you get to do it again tomorrow, what a pleasure. It is not always like that and trading is very hard to learn, but once you have confidence in a trading method, you are on your way.

If you trade all day long, you are going to be feeling and dealing with a lot of emotions, that is for sure, because the market is going to be showing you so many different looks and reads, you will not know how to process all of that information. Knowing when to stay out of the market is very important and getting stopped out repeatedly will cause frustration and what I call, revenge trading. This is very destructive behavior and to keep all of this stuff to a minimum, you need to limit your trading to a smaller amount of time, so that your exposure to these dark events are kept to a minimum. Well, that’s it for now, more coming tomorrow.

Vince

http://www.screencast.com/t/qPLMj3VzouK         Today’s trades

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

Day two / Sample Training

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Today is day two of a small sample training video I have put together.

Take advantage of the training and see how and why I do what I do. It is pretty straight forward and fairly easy to follow. It is only a small sample of what you could learn here. Trading is about support and resistance combined with probabilities and pattern recognition. You need to learn how to read the charts, naked. By that I mean price action alone should be enough in and of itself to make your buy and sell decisions. My method will work in any time frame like I have said previously. It can be applied to daily stock charts as well as commodities, forex currencies and for sure the S&P 500 E-Mini’s. It takes time to be able to understand so many other factors, but having a basic understanding of where price break entries are at, is the first key. Knowing where is your lowest risk point in any trade and knowing exactly where you are going to get out is imperative. I never put a trade on without having a stop in place at the same time. At times I trade without a target, but never without a stop. Having the right timing is what will make or break you. This all goes with knowing how to trade, understanding pivot points, price rejection, chart formations, breakouts, retracements and how to play each of them, will take time, but the rewards can be beyond your dreams for the dedicated.

It was a big day on the street today. The market did not like what the treasury secretary had to say about the financial mess. One thing I heard was, that there was not many specifics, what can you expect, looks like I see a pattern here. You could trade off of that pattern and that is what the street did today and decided to sell, sell and sell some more, minus 4 to 5 % for the market. It took us down to bounce off of the lower end of the range ,(purple support line I have drawn and spoke of before). I might add, if we break down from here, it could be lights out. That line has been hit about 7 or 8 times now. There is going to be a lot of sellers on the other side of that, I can assure you of that. Lets all hope it holds, for everyone sake.  I think sooner or later, it is going to break and we are going to go down several thousand more points on the Dow, but I hope it is not now. It is just a loose opinion that I have and not one that I hold onto tightly. The weekly chart tried to go positive this week, but was meet with what I call price rejection. Trend is still in tack for now, but tomorrow is going to be key, it needs to hold.

Today’s trading was fairly quick, about 20 minutes to reach my daily goal and that was good enough for me. Trades posted below. Have a great day!   Vince

http://www.screencast.com/t/TfnwXw0zEsU           Today’s equity chart

http://www.screencast.com/t/nvcf6ZTr                      Todays Trades

http://www.screencast.com/t/i2ZoV6Wk                   Sample  Training day #2