Posts Tagged ‘Support and Resistance’

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Scalp Trading the Emini

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Today’s Trades are below;

Here in this last day of January 2012, scalp trading the emini markets has grown in overall interest the last several years. There are new players coming into this market all time as the opposite is also true with players leaving in defeat.

What does it take to find your way to profitability? It is usually harder than most believe as they are drawn to the often fast action and allure of financial freedom. Sniper Day Trading will attempt to bring some of this into perspective.

Scalp trading is a way to participate in a very large leveraged market with limited trading risk. With margins as lucrative as 50:1  or more for pure day trading margin, it is easy to see why so many feel the lure of participation. That leverage will work for you and against you just the same if you don’t know what you are doing.  Using excessive day trading margin is also another reason why traders struggle, as they always trade to their margin limits and increase their losses all at the wrong time.

Knowledge is power and those who have it, can leverage the knowledge to obtain their trading goals. Without a working knowledge of how price action takes place in the course of a day, you will get whipped around and be left for dead when its all said and done.

Limiting your trading risk down to a very small window is in my estimation is a big key to success and stretching out gains when it is appropriate is also important. The key here is, when it is appropriate. How are traders to know when that is?  To answer that, it takes us back to knowing how to read the price action charts as you take in time, energy and space as it relates to support and resistance, which is often misunderstood.

Support and resistance in trading is often applied in a way that will cause the average trader to lose on his position because the market has a way to get you in, only to take you out and then on in the original direction, but without you in it. This again has to do with knowing all of this ahead of time and waiting for those false moves for the real move, the one with the limited risk and high reward.

Scalp trading at key energy points will yield you fast acting trading results combined with low risk, giving you the best of both worlds. Knowing when to cover your trade is also just as important as knowing when to enter. You can have large profit in a position only to quickly see it disappear as you are looking for more. That often leads to frustration and more bad entries.

Which brings us to the mental side of trading and that is a whole other issue that keeps traders from gaining traction. You need the trading edge in mind and method. Most do not realize it, but they are the problem, not the market, to achieving the results they seek. The market is there and it will always be there with the participants coming and going, but not having a solid mental strategy in addition to a solid trading strategy or method is where the separation begins.

To many traders become “feeders” for the professional traders and institution as they strip newbies of there capital. The best strategy to not let this happen is take your time and triple the amount of time you think you need before going live in the markets. Get your mental game down and don’t become reactive but proactive in stalking trades as you wait and let them come to you. This is the approach of Sniper Day Trading and reason all of this works. One needs to take into consideration all the points mentioned above and then the playing field can not only be leveled but tilted to your favor, giving you the trading edge.

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Looking for Market Reversal

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Today is December 14th, 2011 as the short term selling continued today, but am looking for a market reversal in tomorrows session.

I could see the S&P futures moving on down to 1197 early on and think that we could see a significant bounce and eventual turn around into next week. This is just my opinion and I will be willing to trade long and or short depending on the days action. This call is mostly for the daily market as I think the selling will start to dry up at the above levels.

In today’s trading I took 3 trades and invested about 30 minutes into my trading before coming up with enough for a modest daily goal. I came into the first trade a touch late but the second attempt was right on.

I put back up the same screen shots as I normally do but did add one other thing into the picture. There are yet more things I build onto the screen and other time frames that are tied directly into each other to make a complete picture, which is not shown. Let me post the days trades and I will continue below.

I recently in a few previous posts, blanked all the indicators off the screen for a reason and that is to make the point that traders really need to trade the price as it moves on there screens. If you only rely on trade indicators you are not really making progress. We need to know why the market moves, not just that is does. Knowing the “why”, is the empowering part that is missing from many traders. If we only react to what we see as trade indicators signal long and short, we can to easily get whipped around the screen and feel out of touch and ultimately out of control. So, the key is learn and understand price. How it moves, how it reverses, when is the likely times for turning points and continuation points and do all of that while risking very little.

Being able to zero in on the low risk spots is so very important. Trading with a 3-5 point stop to make 2 points on a trade is totally out of the question. If you are doing that, you will have problems sooner or later. The key again is risking little for a high probability of making the same at a minimum or preferably 2 to  3 times your risk.

Question; Do you catch yourself saying, “I think the market is going up” but don’t really know why?  If you had to explain your reasons for the market move to go up to someone and or had to write it down, could you. If you can not do that, then you need work. You can not just say, “I think”, you have to know “why” it will and or should go up and have clear compelling reasons.

This kind of thinking takes place all the time and traders are pushed into trades that are far less than desirable. They then have to struggle to justify the position and then do worst damage by blinding themselves to everything that says it is going the other way.

All of this can be eliminated and or reduced a great deal if traders would not take trades solely based on trade indicators. Seeing how and why markets move and positioning themselves in those low risk area’s for gain with limited risk is where you want to be.

Don’t trade just to trade, trade with purpose and a clear understand of price action, the trade indicators could then confirm your decisions and may be a comfort, but don’t let it be a crutch from you learning what you need to know.

Do you want to have fun or make money? Many would say make money, but there action say a very different thing. Think about it. You can do both as long as you strive to make money first in a responsible manner, then that could be fun.

So, the moral of the story is, learn what you need to learn to trade safe and responsibly. What support and resistance is and how you can harness it to your advantage. Easier said than done for many, but having a complete trading method that is spelled out with rules and objectives will take a lot of the pressure off as you will be creating some structure to your approach. It takes time, for some a long time, and for others not as long and still others never get there. Do the hard thing, not the easy thing, that could be your first clue and assignment.

Good trading to all ! Vince

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Major Index’s move to New Highs

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Today is Wednesday January 12th, as we saw the Dow Index +83 points and the S&P emini futures +12.

The volume came early on and very late in the session. From 8:30 to 12:30 West Coast, the market went to sleep. That was 4 hours of nothing. It can be hard to trade with no volume and movement as I saw today.

I have gotten off to a slow start this year, with a few points gain on Monday and 1 point gain yesterday. Both of those days I was only in the market a few minutes combined. I did not have the time to trade and was able to slip in a few trades. Today I had more time but hit that slow patch in the market, that is just how it goes. I was down about 1.50 points with a few small losses in the S&P, but decided to take a trade out of the Nasdaq Market. I don’t usually switch markets, but did today and hit a piece of that late market move for a few points.  I show it in the U-Tube video below towards the very end.

The second video under that is from Monday’s sessions which just shows more of the same, turning points and continuation entries.  I or any trader does not have to trade all of these area’s, but just a few will do and often times, just one to make a nice daily return. It is not to hard, but using good judgment and the method in full which is never really talked about, can help you get that done.  Being successful at day trading is a lot harder than most people make it, because they are acting from emotions. Having a solid method that looks to price structure, support and resistance in a very unique way and the nature momentum of the market to help get this done is key. The trade indicators are only a reflection of all of these things just mentioned. When you have both, it can be a powerful combination.

Monday’s Session

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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Chart Pattern Showing Previous Resistance as Current Support

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Today is Thursday, August 26th, 2010 and the markets pulled back into the consolidation zone as I call it, -75 on the Dow and 9.75 for the S&P futures.

Today we did pull back inside of yesterdays range and after all is said and done, the market needs to make a stand here and now. If we hold, we rally. If we break down tomorrow, there is no more grace for this market as the breaking point will have been reached.

That said, I am not without hope that this market will hold on. I could only be blowing in the wind, but until I see how we close tomorrow, I will hold any judgments off until that time. Getting the daily direction right, really does not mean anything to my day trading and I could get this wrong, but I will be sure to play the short term swings as that I am sure of what will happen. Moves in my direction, long and or short as the day unfolds its hand.

Last week I mentioned that the market momentum was down in the daily and hourly and that is still the case, but I was and still am looking for things to turn back up. Thursday and Friday was my days for a significant market rally as stated last week. We did drop down a bit more than I thought, but my idea is sill alive by a thread.

There is really no more room for error as it is clear that other factors will be at work if we drop significantly through yesterdays lows. That said, a break of today’s highs will be a signal for at minimum a short term rally of significance. The maximum move up while still remaining in the context of this downtrend is around 1100 S&P futures.

So, to remain objective, which is a little easier now, a break of yesterdays lows will trigger a lot more selling and be considered a break down in the market, while a break above today’s highs will get a short term rally started at a minimum. Strong resistance is at the 1100 S&P level and we will just have to wait and see after that.

OK, I was waiting for the update and it just came in at 9:30 p.m. West Coast time for the “investment market newsletter survey” of professional newsletter writers. It did come in as suspected and as I wrote in yesterdays blog. The numbers did drop to 33.3% which is significantly bullish and a trigger point number. The last trigger point moved the market a month ago and now this is a second attempt at this bullish scenario. The position of the market the last time was a little premature just based on a pure technical picture. The market has done the back filling that it needed to do and looks like it could be ready for that larger move now. There is still no guarantee’s but I would say it is much more likely now that this is all complete and we have favorable sentiment numbers to prove those bears wrong at least for a while, which is all that needs to be done.

September and October are traditionally the two worst months of the year for the market and we will have to deal with that, but I would just love to see the market blow through that paradigm and prove so many wrong. The pure technical play of the market will confirm all of this shortly, but getting a jump on the potential shift at least mentally can be an asset.

Last week, I showed a chart of the S&P 500 market but I did it in the cash market. I will show you one today in the futures market since that is what I trade. It does look a little differently and reading the support here is actually right on target as you will see. I know the current financial environment is terrible, but I am not looking at all the reports coming out of which their are many, but just the technical picture. In the chart below you will see support coming in at which was once resistance weeks back. Lets look and see together if prices can stay above that line I drew on the charts?

In today’s trading, I did good, but was just focused on closing out the position that I carried over from the day before of which I rarely never do but on very rare circumstances. I closed out additional contracts today at +16 points and +12 points of which I was very happy. I had a few scalp trades to add to the total of which I was very conservative. I know that a trader will have his biggest losses when he has had some of his best gains. I only know that because of personal experience and share to those, be careful not to let your guard down in protecting your capital, because this is where it could happen. With that said, don’t trade in fear, because you will never reach your potential if you are are afraid of pulling the trigger. When you do, just be sure it is a method trade, what ever that is for you, and if you error, let it be on the conservative side.

The chart below is a small tick chart that I have scrunched together again. This the only way you could see a detailed view of what happened in today’s market turns and include the trade I had from yesterday. Tomorrow, I will go back to showing the first 90 minutes and if I can make it to the action on time, I will have my trades there as well.

I am going over to the coast of Oregon tomorrow morning to a town called Brookings. It is right on the beach and will spend the rest of the weekend there with my wife. So, if I can put on a few trades before 8 am West Coast that will do it for me and my week.

Good Trading to all who follow my blog. I hope you find your way through all the confusion in financial world with much success, Vince.

P.S.  Read today’s message from the “Daily Motivator” (on the right margin of my website) as it is a true motivation to live your dreams. Just click on the title “Imagine Intensely” which will likely be the second post in line. Be sure to read the whole thing by clicking on the title. This can be yours if you decide. Often that is all it takes to get things going.

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Reading Price Action in Any Time Frame

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Today is Monday August 2nd and what a nice day in a perfect world as the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq markets put in solid gains across the board, with +208 on the Dow, +23 points on the S&P and +40 points on the Nasdaq.

If one went only by the news, everyone should be short as things don’t look or sound good on Wall Street. If you uncover the numbers, they are not that inviting, but we don’t trade numbers, or reports, we trade stocks and index futures.

I have been calling for a significant rise in the market for some time now and have been saying that the surprise will be coming from the upside. That is unfolding very nicely. I am sure there are bears, now running for cover. Those are the smart ones, cut your losses early. The ones who just know that this market has to go down, will be the ones who really feel the pain. It could be financial ruin for many as they hold on and on, just waiting for this market to turn, with hope slipping through there fingers each day. Pride, has often been the financial ruin for many traders and investors. When you enter a trade, you have to know exactly how much pain you can accept before you enter and never move your stop to a worst position. Justification, will soon be the thing that starts to kick in, as traders and investors will not throw in the towel, admitting they were wrong.

In addition to calling the larger overall moves by the market, I said in yesterdays blog posting that we would see 1115 on the S&P Emini futures in the early morning session. It could come in the night trading but a move to that area was very likely in the morning session. Well, that again, is exactly what happened. The market pushed up to 1115.50 and backed off that exact number by 5.25 points. The next part was for the market to continue higher from there through out the session and that is just what we saw.

In today’s trading it went good, as I picked up some nice gains from the sessions. Nothing earth shattering, but good enough. Just traded small, as I am marking time for better opportunities in the coming week. I am sure I will find at least one mega day this week. That is a day with 2 to 3 times or more a typical average daily gain. Having 3-4 of those type of days per month, can make up for a multitude of trading sins. A screen shot below of my trades today.

Being able to read price action is the key to successful day trading and or any kind of trading. I have said that many times before and is a valid point to be reminded. I like trading with trading indicators, but I don’t always lean on there every signal. I always balance my approach to what I know about support and resistance, as well as many other unknown trading techniques that I cannot discuss. I show these trading techniques in my video updates that I send to my students many times each week. It is so nice to see that so many of my students are understanding the trading concepts that I teach apart from any trading indicators at all and are able to apply them to the markets to get what they came for.

Recently, I have been expanding my trading concepts to include the ability to project where prices will likely go based off of many factors. One of those factors being the amount of stored energy in the trading instrument. That energy get reflected back onto the market in the expression of a long or short move, depending on the directional release of the energy. Many times you will see the market pull to the opposite end of the trading spectrum as that release gets played out. That is where and when you want to be able to position yourself in-front of that move. You then possess the trading advantage.

Depending on your trading time frame, a trader can do very well to hold onto large direction shifts in this energy. I am able to see these shifts in energy by understanding the price action trading that takes place on the trading screen. There is a reason why prices move as they do, it is not just random as some would say.

The recent expansion of this concept is what is giving me the ability to project future price action, with precision. I don’t always have to be right, but right enough to make it right. With good money management and having the ability to enter an S&P trade and risk no more than 4 or 5 ticks or a stock equity trade risking no more than .10 cents, gives you certain advantages over other traders.

Currently, my focus is still on short term trades, 1-3 points for many, with the occasional 5-10 point trade. Becoming a good day trader takes time and discipline and a good proven trading method. You need all of those, to make a living at this. If you are lacking the trading method and the discipline, I think I can help. The time, you will have to put in. Nothing worth while ever comes easy, but the rewards are outstanding.

Good Trading, Vince

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“Day Trading Support & Resistance”

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Today is Thursday, July 29th and the market advanced and then retreated after the open to close down 5.25 points for the session.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the early morning move was likely a move to 1106 and at which time we would, ” pull back for a moment” and that is first what happened. The market pulled back 3 S&P points and then broke out over the 1106 area making a run for the 1110/ 1111 target area mentioned in yesterdays blog post. Unfortunately all of that happened in the pre-market before the open. We did go a couple of points higher than that, around 1113 before the pullback began. With such a large opening gap, it looked apparent that we were going to fill the gap and it did.

The market continued with the selling into the late morning session where it gained its footing at much lower levels and staged a good rally back up. Selling came in with a slight pull back and that is where we are now, 1096.75 on the S&P 500 emini futures.

I think we still have more of a pull back to go in early trading for tomorrow. I see some short term resistance at 1100 after which we could pull back with a break of 1095 triggering a continuation of the selling of which could take us to 1080 rather quickly in tomorrow session. Support should come in around that level if in fact the sell off takes hold.

On the other hand, if 1103 were to break to the upside, that will be the first sign that the selling has stopped and further sideways to up action could be expected. If 1110 gets taken out, that should spark a very good rally with legs behind it to continue with the overall advance.

By tomorrow mornings pre-market open, I could get a better idea of which way this is going to go. If I had to pick one now, I would say to the downside, but will be met with a lot of buying off that lower level back up rather quickly to continue the advance. At this point its a little hard to say, but I do think the advance will continue into next week after this correction.

Today’s trading went pretty quickly and I did OK picking up my daily goal in short order, about 35 minutes of trading. In-fact it came by way of a few Short trades in the markets second hour. I have my screen shot below and a few notes on it showing the good and the bad parts. I don’t show all of my screen but as I note on the chart, some is better than non. This consistent view of the market on a regular basis, hopefully can give you an idea of the timing that is available to those who see this as a value to there own trading. I don’t say what the tools are and or how I construct it, but the consistent view of price action moving off of the turning points as identified on the screen, as mentioned, may be a help to some traders who think that they could benefit from this.

There is a whole lot more to being successful at day trading, but showing what I do on a regular basis, can help you decide over time if this is something you could see yourself using. I have other time frame charts that work together with this as well as learning how to read the price moves themselves. Trading indicators are a reflection of the price itself as I have said many times, if you can find low risk area’s of interest at short term market turning points and trade with the natural rhythm and flow of the markets, you could do well. The only thing that can likely stop you, is “Yourself”.

We can be our worst enemy, when it comes to trading. Having unrealistic expectations of what we think the market can and should do for us, can be a problem. The first thing any trader needs to do is understand price structure. The market gets taken up, to only get taken down. It does this at key spots for many different reasons. An understanding of support and resistance is also a must. This is the way prices move. When there is a barrier of resistance overhead, prices can not advance. That resistance becomes re-enforced as it attempts to overcome the invisible barrier. As time passes, more resistance and market pressure has built up, and the barrier has now been over-run. A flood of orders hit the market tripping buy orders for different reasons. Some are buying to take advantage of the new move, while others are buying as a means of protection to limit there losses. The same action but for different reasons. I don’t care what the reasons are, but my job is to assess the pressure and see if it is adequate enough for a trade. The more pressure the greater the move.

Time comes into the picture as I mentioned yesterday, by allowing the market pressure to build. If the market has spent all of its energy on a one directional move, it will often need time, to bring in more pressure, trade positions, above and below the current market. Those orders are placed in time and space, which establishes the next level of advancement, long or short. Without the element of time, the process and positions are weak.

This is established on every time frame and with a level of unseen co-operation at every level. Time charts at the yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, minute, and down into tick and volume charts of every size. There is something for everyone at all levels. Your strategy and trading personality will determine what is best for you. Be sure you put the right peg in the right hole, which means, trade according to your strengths and dominant trading personality. Don’t hold positions overnight if you are a scalp trader and don’t scalp trade if you hold for longer swing trades.

More on the topic tomorrow from where I left off today…   Until then, Good Trading.

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Price Action Trading – Key to Long Term Success

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Today is Friday June 18th and the markets were up only slightly, calling it flat.

Another basically flat day across the board. The Dow did move up a bit more than the other index’s and basically touched a similar area and or number that would correspond to the S&P number I was watching 1122, which has not yet been hit.

I know a lot of people are calling for this market to drop and the level of bearishness has increased over the last 7 weeks from only 18% to currently 32% now. This is the largest bearish reading we have had in 15 months. If a minority position develops in the bullish camp to 35% or under over the coming weeks, I can not help but see a rally coming behind that. I might not be seeing something in the individual Dow Charts as of yet and will be taking a closer look to try and gain some insight, but for now we will just have to wait.

Either way the market moves, as short term traders and day traders, we only need to listen to what it is saying. It has a message for traders each day and tells you when to go long or short, but do you know how to here its voice? Many traders do, but most do not. Trading is about timing and trade and money management. If you have it, you push forward, if you don’t, you look, search, read, ponder, guess, analyze in the hopes of trying to figure out the formula of success.

The bottom line, people are not born with understanding how to do this. Logic and reason are not a large help, so being intelligent will not always help you. Understanding how the rhythm of the market moves is a learned trait and would take literally many years to just get a basic understanding of its nuances on your own.  Most traders will have there account equity drained long before they get to the point of understanding. Which brings me to a very noticeable observation. To many traders are relying on call rooms to give them the answers that they need to know and find out for themselves.

Call rooms or trading rooms that give out market calls most often do not explain why a trade is a buy or sell, but make the call for those to follow. Traders end up placing trades without the understanding of why. They do not have an understanding of “Support and Resistance” and how that applies to there positions. Support and Resistance, is just one aspect of trading that goes overlooked. You are not going to learn most often how to trade in a trading room, unless the moderator is clearly showing why, where and when the price will break away from an area and give the reasons.

At that point, it could be a benefit, if you are involved in the process. If the trades are called out, Long at 1105.50 and you follow it, what have you gained. You are dependent on someone else to give you your “daily bread”, not a good idea. Even if it works out, which most do not, you are actually hurting yourself from gaining and achieving your long term trading goals as your mind is not focused on learning how to trade and understanding the probable path of price.

Good traders know how to interpret the “Price Action” of any trading instrument. You will not be dependent on trading indicators, on trading rooms, or anything else but yourself, because you have learned the secret language the market gives off each day.   Sniper Day Trading teaches that language and also mentors you through the process of understanding that trading language.

I know traders are enamored with trading indicators, but they are only a reflection of the price. When you understand how to read the price action of the price bars themselves, you will be moving in the right direction. That is what I mean when I talk about understanding this trading language. The market will tell you what to do, as the evidence mounts overwhelmingly to one side of the equation.

I have talked about this recently, but I only repeat myself to be sure everyone is listening. Trading indicators can be a big plus for many and I do use them. I often trade without them as well, to make sure I am not building up a crutch on anything outside of reading the price action itself.

Recently I have been putting up only a couple of my indicators to show that if you follow them, you will be able to make money consistently. You will not have to trade all day long, as you will probably make mistakes, I know I do at times when I trade all day. The point is, taking a couple of hours or less, depending on your goals, you could make money consistently by just following the custom indicators and setup I offer. That is really not the ultimate goal although it may be for some. Learning why the indicators are saying buy or sell is what you should be after. Then you will have the confidence and conviction to place your orders and expect the market to move in your favor.

If you want to reach your trading goals, you have to do something different than what you are doing now. If you expect different results and do the same as you have before, you cannot reasonably expect different results. The law of  “action reaction” would apply here as it does in the stock market.

I am here to help. It is not all about the money, money can be made quickly in any given trading session. Giving back to those who want to improve there trading and realize there goals brings a lot of satisfaction to me. I have also seen my personal trading improve as I teach my trading method.

I will leave you this. I spoke to one of my students this week and I was so happy for him to see his trading results improve. He was a struggling trader who reached out for help. He told me, he has not had a loosing day in the last three weeks. He trades only one contract and does trade a few different markets, but is making $350 to $700 dollars a day     ( trades one market at a time -S&P, Gold, Oil, Russell) . He understands the language and is able to read it clearly. He see’s price structure the way it should be approached and again, I am so happy for him, you can not believe it. He is too, by the way. He knows that he will be able to make his living from trading and is just beginning to live his dreams.                                                                     ” HOW ABOUT YOU”   Good Trading to all, Vince.


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Sniper Day Trading Method

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Today is Tuesday, June 15th and the market is on a roll, since the open, moving back up and over the last resistance.

So, I am writing this before the close of today’s session and we are currently up 19 points on the S&P emini futures and +165 on the cash Dow Jones and finally +50 on the NASDAQ.  So far a great day.

This is what I thought would come as I wrote about yesterday. I said that yesterdays reversal was not much to worry about as it was just some temporary overhead resistance that the Dow and S&P was encountering and so far that seems to be true as the market has broken out over all the overhead resistance.

I noticed a change in the resistance numbers, since the contract month changed and what was resistance at 1106 (what I mentioned last week several times) is now 1102.75. Yesterday the market came within one point of that, 1101.75 and backed off. Those that wanted to sell into the resistance early, jumped on board and caused it to come up shy of hard resistance.

We came all the way back up today and went through it, so far, by a few points and currently +21 points as we sit at 1107.50.  So, we have gone several points over the hard resistance and we are seeing a lot of short covering right now. Those that did not believe we would rally are also jumping on board, to push this up even higher. This will probably continue until we reach those numbers that I talked about in yesterdays post. The average was 1132 S&P emini futures (low was 1122 / high 1042).  Once we get into that area, plus or minus, you should be very careful with long term positions and such. This is just my opinion and is not considered investment advise. But my opinion is as laid out clearly in yesterdays post.

Another update 12:47 West Coast, +24 points and trading at 1110. We will soon hit S&P futures 1122 to start, likely in tomorrows session.

Trading the daily or weekly charts is no different than trading a small tick or volume chart on the index’s or any other trading instrument. It is knowing what the market does time and time again, with advances and retracements. How it deals with support and resistance and the likely moves there after.

The markets always have a certain flow and or rhythm tied to them. It throws off a vibration, as does most emotionally tied instruments. Dialing into the frequency is what will take you home. That takes time to uncover, but it is a skill that can be learned. You often have to think in reverse, since if you use human logic you will most often come up holding the short end of the stick. The patterns and setups in the market place are 100% repeatable and they happen every day. I see it as clear and plan as day. It is no different than picking up the newspaper and reading the headlines.

On the flip side of that, if you don’t know the language, you will misinterpret what it is saying. It would be like thinking you know how to read and understand Spanish, but you only took a few classes, although you are sure you got it down.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but you will need a lot more schooling than that to understand this language. If you have a good teacher, and one that is dedicated to your learning and if you are willing to put in the time to learn this language, than you will over time be able to communicate and understand what is being said. With that, you will be able to get to where you want to go in your trading career.

With the knowledge and confidence of being able to handle yourself in the trading arena, you can write your own ticket. Do not underestimate what it is going to take. I know many try and figure it out on there own, for various reasons, but that will not get you “home” until very late in the day, if at all.

I will admit, I was one of those people. For so many years I learned through trial and error, with lots of error. I never purchased a trading system or method of any kind, never a newsletter, never anything trading subscription related  other than data feed, since I have been following the markets, the early 1980’s. I am not proud of that, but it is what it is. I think, I had a touch of “Pride” — “Ya Think”.

If I did, I could have cut the time it took to understand so many of the trading concepts that I enjoy today. You don’t have to wait that long, but that is a personal choice. The trading knowledge will not come to you so easily as there are so many trading styles and ways to trade. How do you know which one will work best and or, if it will work at all.

That is why I have over the last few months been trying to show my readers the correlation of just two trading indicators I have up on my screen. One above and one below. They match each other closely as well as link up to other larger time frames, (not shown).

I don’t and can not show my whole screen because that would be giving to much information and reserve that for people I am mentoring. What I show is a “Tiny” part of the whole trading method. There is a lot to learn. I have two trading manuals that cover over 150 pages with very detailed information on the whole of the trading method. I recently completed new DVD video’s, spanning several hours, linking all the method together. I send out updates at the close of the market, showing where the method entries and exits were for the day and why (very important for ongoing learning), so you have constant input of where you should be trading and again, why.  In addition to that I will work with any student who wants personal screen time to go over past, current and live data. I commit to working with any student until he or see understands the trading method in whole. All of this helps me as well become an even better trader.

Today’s trading, I went into the NASDAQ market again, as well as the S&P, results below. Video of S&P trades and screen shot of NASDAQ trades. Solid gains in both markets with little draw down, which keeps the struggle to a minimum.

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Having Strong Directional Market Bias can hurt you

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Today is Thursday, April 15th and the market has shown to be pretty resilient as it closed up another few points on the S&P and other index’s.

The Dow was up 21 points and the NASDAQ up about 11, putting back to back gainers together. As I had mentioned in Mondays post I believe, we needed to stay above some key spots on the charts and I clearly marked them. That was the maximum amount of room the market could move inside and still have the longer term momentum in tact. It bounced off some key support and has not yet stopped.

I did see a slight bearish pattern present late in the day today. That setup lead me to some pretty nice gains and reached my daily goal with ease and room to spare. I did not trade or post yesterday but am far ahead for the week so far with only Friday to go.

I have an equity chart of my results below. I took nine trades in total ( a few exits were scaled out) , a little more than I usually do, but that was fine, I took a few good breaks in between and traded about 90 minutes. I cut my trades off at very slight losses, -.25 and -.50 point, nothing big.

My method is very strict in order position placement. If you are placing your orders in the right place, you should get some movement right away, that movement is basically free cushion or extra room to help you insulate yourself. I very often will see one or two ticks movement right away which gives me an advantage. I take that movement and it helps insulate my position so that I don’t need to have a 6 tick stop. If I don’t get the results I am looking for and loose the edge, I don’t worry about getting out. I can always get back in, but I am only taking a one tick loss or maybe two. It is a whole lot better than my full stop of 4 ticks, which is still very small for most traders.

If a trader is taking a 6 tick stop, you have to make up a lot of ground just to break even, let alone then make a profit. If you take two of those, you are bleeding.  Trying to hard to come back from that will again only hurt you further. You need to let the trade come to you and it should be, feel and seem effortless.

So, the key is, don’t take large stops. Some will say, easier said than done and that may be true for them, but for those who know how to position the entry to get good movement right off the bat, it is not that hard. This is one of the keys to trading price action, order placement. I have talked about this before, but it bears repeating, since that is part of the topic. Order placement is grounded in understanding good price action structure as well as support and resistance.

I don’t often talk much about these things because this is all part of my trading method and course, with everything else. What I do talk about is everything else. All the other parts of trading are really just as important as knowing when to get in and out. There is a lot of good trading advise and know how buried in all the posts I have written, so, feel free to dig in a little to past posts, I believe it could help.

That is what I try to do each day, help.  If a topic or subject comes to me as I start writing, I throw it out there. In fact, before I run out of room, I have something else in mind that may help my readers.

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Traders, are faced with decisions all day, what to trade, when to trade, which direction to trade, etc. I have settled to trading the S&P emini’s so I don’t need to be concerned with what to trade. There is plenty of leverage and money to be made. When to trade is another subject, trading the early morning or late afternoon is usually best, first and last 90 minutes of the day usually provides plenty of opportunities. The direction to trade should be up to the markets to decide and not us, but that’s my opinion.

The last few days, I am sure there were many traders who just had in there mind that this market was going to go down. They have predetermined in there mind a directional market bias, that can really hurt them.

As the market makes an advance as it would have before in previous sessions, where a pull back is in order, the trader is going to look for shorting opportunities. If he does not see one clearly, he will start to make one up that matches his directional market bias. An order is placed short because that is the only trade that meets his disposition. As a bullish continuation pattern develops, he is blind to its setup and only see short opportunities. The market breaks out against him and he is in shock and he may get stopped out. With his market bias still in tact, he waits a few minutes and again does the same thing and gets stopped out again as the market is clearly in an uptrend. This leads to frustration and the next trade, he lets go by as it was good for a small gain short. This reinforces his short bias and after consolidating, he takes another short trade, only to see the market take off against him again in the direction of the dominant trend, up.  He feels now that the market is out to get him and his confidence is shot.

I know that scenario happens all the time, which is one of reasons for the rally, skepticism and doubt. That is fuel for the bull rally. When the doubters start to believe, it is time to sell.

The point to the story is, keep an open mind and read the price movements and try to keep directional opinions to a minimum. This will allow you to see both sides of the market and only then you will know what direction to trade.

I hope this helps my readers.

Good trading.

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