Quick Short off the open

Nov 20, 2008

Morning Trading

I decided to go with the continuation at the open and short NQ. Since the markets broke support from the last trading session after a few range days and closed at their low it was a low risk trade. I wasn't planning on holding any trades long, just a few quick in and outs.

NQ Daily


The bias for today seems to be down, but I would allow the markets to trade up to Pivot R1 today before trying for a longer short trade to Pivot S1. That is the (low risk) setup I am would be looking for. Most likely the markets will keep selling down, NQ is making a new low as I type.

After today I will be going back to neutral in terms of market bias. Tomorrow is Friday, so possibly the Bulls will need to prop up the markets to keep Panic at bay over the weekend? I am sure a lot of retail investors, mostly the baby-boomers I keep hearing about buying the bottom or holding on because they don't want to take a 40%, 60% loss will be the final capitulation point! Suffice to say, we are not at the bottom. Possibly the next shoe will fall when one of the Big three auto makers declares Bankruptcy, maybe as soon as the the first quarter of next year.


My morning short trades.

NQ 5 Min



Pre-Noon Trades

I decided to get back into the market before lunch to the long side. I got stopped out a few times trying to enter and finally settled to go long and exit just under the Floor Pivot. Final entry for NQ was in @ 1081, scaled out on the way up with a few scalp trades in and out and and exited the trade @ 1111.50

I lost early profit getting stopped out and not waiting for my entry, broke discipline and started to chase the trade a bit and gave up ticks for it. Could have been a much more profitable day had I just waited.

NQ 15 Min


Profits for the day $1305



I've decided to stop trading, the short from Pivot P1 would have worked, NQ is down from it's high of 1115 to 1098 as I update my post.

On the sideline

Nov 19, 2008

The markets have not gone anywhere in last few trading sessions. Today was a new push lower. It seems with the previous trading days either the Bulls or Bears are getting flushed out, one day is a close down, the next day a close up. The higher timeframe traders, like hedge funds and institution seem to be taking position for a much bigger move to come. The markets look like they are setting up for a few trending days, one side will soon have to blink then it's all over when the other traders pile in.

I have not been trading since I lost the feel for the markets and have stepped back to take a fresh look at things. What I see forming for the Bulls (On the S&P) is a wedge that if respect will give some good upside. With all the bad news coming out lately, if the Bulls can hold the support line drawn in the trading channel, they might have their day to reverse the markets for a little while.

ES Daily


There could be some easy trading to the downside, shorting ES all the way down to 757 area could provide quick profits. However there could always be a 2nd retest of the mid-line before a bigger move lower. The past few trading days I am sure are chewing up swing traders left and right. I actually felt a bit bullish the night before, but realized we are in a Bear market and a trader will be hard pressed to see consecutive follow through days to the upside!

NQ Daily


Happy Hunting Traders.

Profit

Rallies are sold into, what a Bear market does

Nov 14, 2008

Today trading started off tough for me I tried a few early scalps and I was finding I was getting back in chasing the trades or having them go severely against my entry. I later decided to stop trading and hold for the longer trend to (hopefully) materialize in the afternoon session. NQ was trading weaker against both ES and YM, in the morning both ES and YM went green and NQ was still 40 ticks under water. I knew then that some funds were walking out of the semi-sector and NQ was going to be a drag to the markets for any upside rallies.

NQ 10 Min


I was already in a long trade after I noticed the following bullish channel forming, as a result I adjusted my stops on a portion of my position and it saved me, I was a few ticks shy of getting stopped, I got the feeling we all do when we know the gig is up! I started to doubt my trading plan, when the bears sold down NQ to the S1 pivot and it looked like we had the reversal happening but after a few volatile moves up and down the bears broke S1 support and all I could do was hold my breath looking at my stop.

NQ 5 Min


I already took a few stops in the 1185 area scalping and I didn’t have any appetite for more so I switch over to a higher TF that I was trading from the get go and told myself to stop over-trading the scalp trades.

Also my matrix on TradeStation was not very responsive, there was a lag between click and seeing your order show up and not getting the fills even when price traded on each side of my entry! This is what was killing me on my scalp entries. I did OK overall today but I am still down for this week, with the breakdown in the rally back to the low of the day in the last 15 min of trading I have to admit the bulls may be done next week.

The outlook on the Daily globex session Sunday night looks like this, the downtrend still seems intact.



Trading Report

TGIF

Nov 7, 2008

I had to make a change to my plan on game day today. Easy money on Friday is usually in the morning session, specially when there is a move underway and the market is somewhat biased for a retest of resistance.

I took my first probe trade at 10 AM today, it didn't take any heat and I had a quick profit with some market money to trade with. I was a bit nervous and was trading small because I was expecting a push from the sellers to check support at the opening level around @ 1257.

NQ 75 Tick


In total I had about 5 trades, 3 long trades and 2 short trades with one losing trade. Even thought I missed the meat of the move up I was happy with my early profits and decided to call it a day. It's a nice was to end the week with $700 in pocket change and another $300 from the Globex session trading last night.

Trade Summapy


We will find out at the end of the day if the bulls have managed to put in that swing low that I mentioned in the previous post. As I write this post (11 AM) I see we are still trading under R1 @ 1274 and under the 20 day MA, so we are still trading in the bear zone.

A shout out to my friend Marius, if you're reading this I finally came out of my draw-down today. My recent switch to NQ from ES was a good choice, on the mental side it was a smart move to trade smaller after a draw-down. Also I am happy trading both the Long and Short side and not allowing my fears and minds to get biased to one side. Sometimes you got to face your fears head on, take those stops as they come and keep looking for the setups and taking them.

Have a good weekend Traders ... next week things should start to shape up, and hopefully we can catch a few trend days this month.

Profit

Sellers are back

Nov 6, 2008

The last two sessions has seen a lot of selling, the markets have shed about 10% in the past 2 days. Making matters worse for the bulls is that each day has ended at the low of the day. A quick glance at the daily chart for NQ, we can see volume picking up.

NQ Daily


We are trading below the 20 DMA, the recent support around 1268.50 and below the mid-line. Right now price has traced back to the 62% fib level relative to the bottom and recent high. I will be watching this area with interest tomorrow, if support fails I would expect selling all the way down for a double bottom test. What I am expecting to happen is a push higher to test the 20 DMA and the mid-line.

I've noted the key volume levels to monitor, if VR1 is broken I will stand aside, if VR2 is approached we can expect a major breakdown with continued selling for the next few sessions with increased volatility.

NQ 15 MIN


I've notice on the 15min chart a downward channel has formed. I would expect to see the same type of slope Friday when selling continues. If the market can turn itself around next week the following chart shows some technical level I will be looking for.

NQ

Key levels for the bulls are: 1266, 1287, 1335, 1363

Worth noting, the new up trend-line in green. We now need a swing low to draw our up-trend trading channel.

NQ Daily



Profit

End of Day Dessert...

Nov 5, 2008

I watched the markets today, hindsight is 100%. The market totally sold off on Obama. It was a typical sell on the News day. Also there was a gap from the other day in Equities that needed to get filled, I failed to notice this! Costly mistake because today was easy money and I missed out on the party the bears were throwing....whaaaaat you didn't get the invite either?

NQ Daily source www.yahoo.com


Anyways I traded the last 15min close, I saw there was some money left in the corner so I decided to walk over there and pick it up. That's how easy this trade felt. The market was oversold and I figured if there was going to be a technical dead-cat bounce it was going to be now with a retest to the previous floor trader pivot (now resistance) @ 1320.

I got into my scalp trade right at the sweet spot and quickly grabbed a fist full of cash and high-tailed it out of there before the breakdown!

Total time in the trade today 3 minutes, profit $545.
Only if trading was this good everyday =)

NQ Tick Chart


Here is my trade report showing the trades I took. I was looking to make a few quick scalps without getting caught with my pants down.



We now have a unfilled gap higher up. I will be watching for support to come in along the mid-line and possible take a trade for the gap fill. We are now sitting at support as shown by the yellow arrow.

NQ Daily


Traders do your homework tonight. Decide where you plan to have your battles and Good Luck tomorrow!

Profit

Expansion Day

Nov 4, 2008

We finally came out of the sleeper today but didn't hit the technical target I was hoping for. NQ didn't even make it up to the 1391 level.

NQ Daily


Today was my first day trading NQ and I traded it aggressively. I enter the market around 11AM on the push up @ 1367.50, and got some more a few ticks higher. It looked like it was going to be an easy day to trade from the long side, so I didn't care too much about entry. That kind of thinking made me take some heat. I ended up having to hold my trade 5 min after the close to exit with profit @ 1381.00. Good day for most, but I was unhappy too have to sit on my hands all day and watch the markets trade lower and coil, and bounce all around.

NQ 3 MIN


I had to honor my trade plan and hold for the TA target or somewhere close to it. I set my stops at the low for the day and was thinking of carrying this one into the next session if I had too. The carry trade would happen only if the market closed close to where I entered, otherwise all bets were off and I would need to exit.

I got really frustrated when ES took out the highs several times in the noon session and NQ didn't even trade to it high where I got into the trade. It was getting late and I knew I had to adjust my exit.

Most likely Obama will win tonight and we will know tomorrow what the markets think? I am sure the market has already discounted Obama's as the winner, so if he wins we could start to see some selling pressure back down to check the mid-line of the 2 trading channels. If however he loses, I am certain there will be extreme Panic selling in the Globex session with new lows for the next day!

I for one will not be trading the Wed session and most likely this week. I will sit back to see how the markets digests the Presidential winner!


Looking Forward

Taking a look at the NQ Daily and adding a 20 day moving average, we can see that price has been trading in the bullish zone for the last 4 sessions. A retest of the daily 20 MA should be expected which seems right now along the center trend line. We need to form another swing low pivot before we can draw a bullish trend line and start to monitor and trade aggressively on the long side. Support zone seems to be in the area of 1306 to 1264. These are the levels to watch Traders!

NQ Daily


Profit

Going Nowhere

Nov 3, 2008

It seems like I saved myself a lot of headache not even looking at the markets all day till tonight. The Globex bearish formation didn't materialize, and most of the day was spent trading in a really tight range which must have frustrated a lot of traders who participated.

I've noticed even though we closed higher, if you can call it that? The close was done on substantially decreased volume! Which leads me to think traders are waiting from some news before committing serious capital. That could be the result of the US Presidential result, will Obama be good for the markets?


NQ Daily Chart


Is this a sucker's rally? I'm not sure, it's too early to bet on the upside. We still need some decent pullback and support coming in before we can know for sure that we are at some short-term bottom. If the cash does starts to flow we could expect new highs and a test of the upper channel.

What we know for sure is that a big move is coming out of this consolation area. Traders need to stay alert and be ready to make some serious cash.

Profit

Money Master

If you got time to kill and who doesn't these day! Here is a historical look at how banks have enslaved mankind.

The Money Masters - How Bankers Gained Control of America

Globex Wedge Formation

Nov 3, 2008

It look like we're forming a bearish wedge, possibly the markets may open higher only to be sold down to new lows?

Sell the Gap, Down the Rabbit Hole!

NQ 15 Min

Good Luck Traders

Profit