Taking Care Of Business

Taking care of things at home. Be back in a few months.

Happy Holidays!
Dave

Slow Week

TOS made some app changes so I'm working on a way to show P/L. On a side note here is an interesting video.

Fib What... Here is the visual.

Fibs and Trends = Profits

=Music from the past! What a movie!

Forex, Fib lines and night trading

So I plan to post my results every night I night trade. Not looking for a huge home run unless it comes but base hits. So here above is tonights results. My Max risk at anytime was $50.

Fibs and Trading

I just LOVE Fibs! Even when the market is NUTS (VIX Spike over 90) we can still use fibs for support/resistance entries/exits. I shorted this a few times tonight with tight and easy stops.

Learning From Mistakes

Learning from Mistakes

We all have winners and some we don’t like to talk about but I’ve come to the painful conclusion to TRADE WITH THE TREND. Better to stay on the side on the counter trends.

Why?

1) The counter trend move is not going to be the largest of the move and will most of the time be the smallest.

2) The trending move direction will help overcome the Bid/ASK spread AND the missing the perfect top and bottom.

3) If I am not able to nail the perfect top and bottom and I have to make up that Bid/ASK spread as in number two (above) then the Risk/Reward will NEVER be worth taking the trade.

4) The ONLY exception would be a trend reversal.

Simple but basic rules ONCE APPLIED has some nice $change$ to my account.

Now What

After a nice butt kicking this week trying to go long multiple times and getting whipped around I'm saying now what? Friday looked like a nice short term reversal point. Over 1000 point range on the DOW. A drop off the cliff at the open and then a bounce, drop off again then a bounce with volume things were setting up for a reversal. Looked pretty good going into the close and tonights future opening confirmed it. We might fill the gap over night but the market is soooo over due for a few bullish days and I believe we are here. I don't believe this is over by any means. Once the bounce stalls, I'll be shorting this market with just about everything I have.

Forex Markets

Seems I was right and wrong about being bullish on Friday. The Bill passed the house and then the market dropped. I have a few long positions and while hedging the downside overnight I started to swing trade as profits were coming pretty quick.. Turned out to be a pretty good night swing trading. My max loss was at any time was $180 and I did get to $-140 early on in the trade when the pair was slowly coasting up while being overbought(I was shorting). So here is the result of tonight’s trades.

Dave Turns Bullish With Stops At Todays Low

The SPY is showing we are at support looking on 20 day 30 min chart. I'm long AUD/USD which tracks the market well on the up side. Shorting EUR/JPY works well shorting the market.We shall see, but my stops are at the low of the day.

Dave

Place Your Bets!

This reminds me of when I lived in New Jersey when I was younger. We use to place bets on horses. Win, Show and Place if I remember. This whole bail out seems just like that. I’m in cash going into the weekend. A coin toss doesn’t cut my trading rules. Trading with an edge does.

40 minutes left. Place your bets if you so desire!

Have a great weekend!

Dave

Market Forecast

My Magic 8 Ball is saying we are going to start to sell off this large 2 day run up. 1) We are at resistance, 2) Intraday chart shows no follow thru, 3) Volume was less on Friday than Thursday. 4) News has been priced in IMO. 5) This bail out is just an outline as the deal is not done yet. 6) Since this will drag on into next week I would expect some very wild swings. The SPY/SPX hit a 50% retracement on the weekly chart and closed at the 61.8% retracement (Bullish).

Into The Groove

Powerful Music


A short clip showing the emotions of the audience.

Music From the Past! U2: 40

I have always loved this song from U2 ever since seeing them in concert on Sept. 1987 at JFK stadium in Philadelphia. U2 Played this song close to the end of the concert, the crowd sang "How Long To Sing This Song" for about 10 minutes until the band came back out for another 20 awesome minutes. Truly one of the best and most memorial moments in my life. I don't know the exact number of people that night that attended that concert, I would guess 80K to 100K, but it was truly amazing having that many people singing the same song.

What a way to chill after a wild week in the market.

Red Monday as LEH Goes DOWN!

Trading the Forex this evening. Current open plays within the last few hours.

Long EUR, Short USD-Stopped out.

Initial Stop at 142.00

SPY 40% Return in 42 Days. Iron Condor. Filled

Call me Crazy but I'm putting my money on it.

RUT 2000 Umm! 750 Stopped Again!

Nice 10% 24 hour profit taken today.

Bears Are Back 1260 Gone! Nice 38% Gain on my TXT Puts

Oh! Non-market related

One of the things I need to do this weekend. The bulb in my LCD screen for my laptop went out..

Time to bring out the tech in me!
http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/12/09/replace-laptop-backlight-ccfl-lamp/

Stops

I might pick a direction on a stock like ILMN or oil, gold etc. Well what if I am wrong.. Happens! My entries are based on 'x' and 'y'. If these start to fail then I am out and then wait for another setup. I have taken a loss larger than I care to have again. On the flips side I have taken a gain as well,, so if the reasons I took a trade are no longer there, then I exit, loss or profit I am out.

My entry on ILMN is based on the channel and price support and over sold MACD. If we see a breakdown of Fridays price action then I will exit. NOW,, I might still hold if the overall market pulls back hard with a jump of the price of oil. To a point.. A very short point.. I also have a bullish spread on oil and bearish on an index so a pullback with an increase of oil would be just fine with me.

Chart attached.

Busy

I have been out of town a lot and busy with wife, kids and work, computer hardrive and LCD monitor failures......
I always check in on the market and swing in and out of small positions. USO being one. TWM being another. I have pulled off my RUT 640/650s for a profit. The 750/760s have been a pain this month. Got a little to greedy but I have been close to my shorts before and understand that time is on my side here.
Since we are in an election year I would not be suprised to see leaders of all the parties helping out and trying to keep oil prices down with this huge hurricane coming.

Market In A Channel.. Looks bearish for Thursday, Turned out to be Friday. News Trumps All.

Busy with life and sweating the RUT 750s...

5 weeks straight up and a nice topping tail last week. More to come this weekend.

Oh! Long CHK with a close stop.

Looking Forward with OIL (USO)

BUY BUY BUY if you ask me. Stop at $95.00 (Trade at own risk)

Looking Forward with Gold and Silver

BUY BUY BUY if you ask me! With a stop at $156 (Trade at own risk).

Looking Forward with the NDX

On the daily we are over sold and building a base or is that resistance? Use the fibs we lost the 31% fib mark and are trying to get back to it. We did hit the 23% mark and usually if we bounce off the 31% mark we are going back to 0%.

On the weekly chart we are still in an uptrend with intermediate over sold conditions. MACD is mixed which I would see a neutral.

Looking Forward with the Russell 2000

Just like the SPX we are over sold on the weekly and over bought on the daily. Notice the MACD on the weekly(In the upper reversal zone).. The RUT is also at the top of the downtrend channel. I see us heading down with a stop of 730 if I am wrong.

Looking Forward with the S&P500

Weekly chart shows over sold. Daily chart shows over bought. Bollinger Bands are squeezing the price. We should see a big move. Which way I’m not sure. We could move to the top of the channel to 1325... That I can see and the same for the short term berish side since we are over bought.

Showing The Actual Damage To The Banks

This Ticker came from Tim Knight's Blog.. Years of gains. Gone in no time!

Buying POT.. The Ticker!

My order for buying a Dec. 190 Call was filled last Friday. Looking good so far. I'm in with the strong support at 200 and the MACD about to roll to the positive side. Up 9% today on ROI not ROR.

The Next Bottom Leg... Drum Roll Please!!

Looks like the SPX will find some support pretty soon at 1200. This is the next lower Fib line.

Where are the bulls? When are the bearing going to stop?

Peter does a great job with a video market analysis at the link below.
http://www.redoption.com/shadow_video.php

Why Long Term Berish On The S&P 500

One more chart. If you notice on this SPX chart we retraced down to the 78% mark like normal. Then we didn’t make another high, but went lower to the 61% and bounced as we should with Fibs..

Now the bounce of the 61% hit the 78% mark and turned down. Normally I would call this weak but not over, but it looks to me like we are losing the 61% mark and are heading to the 50% mark. A bounce off the 50% and to the 61% would be normal for a Fib bounce then a turn down next to the 38% would be in order after than….

Bought Calls on JOYG

Bought QID PUTS

S&P 500 finds support.

With wayyyy oversold daily conditions we were due. This is a stop at support but is this 'the end of the bears' ? Don't think so if you ask me. Anyway I'm bullish for now. Long QID PUTs, Long SPY calls, Long JOYG calls, and neutral with the RUT Condor. I did move my lower condor leg down (swinging my way). My RUT shorts are 750 and 570.

Attached is the S&P chart.

RUT Rolling! Rolling! Rolling!

I've closed my Russell 2000 Aug. bear calls for a very nice profit yesterday. Today I opened up bear calls at 750/760. Kind of playing defense as well for my bull puts as I see the Russell 2000 as weaker than the S&P 500. While I don't see a move of the Russell to the 630 price point it sure could vist 645 and I'm hedging that move. With all this going on I'm taking in more credit for Aug. which increases my return to 35% in 55 days, in turn I'm going to need to hold the August trade longer than I initally wanted. Holding most likely 52 of the 55 days. So as of now 42 dys left before RUT 2000 August expiration.

I'll be watching my 630 short as time moves on and roll it IF needed. I would rather defend it than move it at this time. If we move down to that point I will be able to close out my 750/760s for a profit. Profit on the topside again which would help on the bottom roll.

S&P 500 Takes a short break from the downside. More downside to come!

The S&P 500 has taken a beating. It seems to be taking a break from the downtrend at a Fib. line. I'm seeing 1200 or 1175 as my next S&P price target. That would be a retest of the lows from 2007. We might pause at 1235 but my target is 1200.

Funny Pic from Incometrader Blog

http://incometraderblog.com/

S&P 500 Finds a short term bottom / Russell 2000 finds support but very weak

S&P Nailed The Target

My View Of The Big Picture-- Bearish (For Now)

With the SPX overbought it has been selling off. I see the next target of 1275. After that who knows. The daily chart is oversold so we might see a few 'pops' or maybe an 'up' week. We are due!

The RUT is being pulled along with the market and I'm in for a August Iron Condor. 25% return in 55 days...

That is all folks. Oh! My July Iron Condor was closed with a net 13% return in just over 35 days.

Closing Down July's RUT Condor with a NICE profit

I started closing down with limit orders in. Pretty much all my Bull Puts are off the table and about 1/2 my Bear Calls are still on which I'm thinking I'll be closing these at Fridays close with trading action from 3pm CST to 3:15 CST when the markets are closed and the indexes still trade.

Enjoy some music to start the weekend.

Inspiring Words For This Week

http://www.simpletruths.tv/movies.php?movie=FJOY

Longer Term Bearish On The S&P 500

If I were to take a tennis ball and drop it, it will bounce but not all the way to where it was released. In my view I see the S&P doing the same(at this point). A climb and close above 1425 will null that view point. Just calling what I see. I see a down trend.

July RUT Iron Condor Looking Awesome

Who says a 25% High Prob. return is crazy. Trading an index with 2000 stocks smooths out the day to day news.

High Gas Prices. Bear Markets.

Updates this weekend. My condor is looking GREAT! Nice roll over in the market. We took that forecast stance after last Fridays price action.

Found this Pic surfing some forums. Kind of funny!

Going Against the Tide/Trend

Well I never really like fighing trends which is bullish/up as of late but we have reached a 50% retracement point on the RUT and the SPX. Both backed down and both have overbought indicators turning over. This bullish move has been pretty fast. While my Magic 8 ball is still at Spencers (need to buy it), so it is of no help,, I'm looking for a downward turn in the market or at least some 'chop' action which is fine for my RUT Condor.

Up or down is fine with me. I'm just calling what I see,,, and I see us rolling over. Please see the charts for reference. They are weekly charts since for me they hold more weight.

Loving The Price Action-More Late Tonight. Enjoy Some Music!

Everything Setting Up Just Right

Futures are down this morning. EUR/JPY is down overnight and profitable.

UPDATE: I was stopped out. EUR had 'interest rate' news overnight. Must have been pretty good.

Short EUR/JPY

Since I'm thinking we are heading sideways to down I'm taking this Forex trade. 87 PIP Risk for 200 PIP Reward (1st Target).

The Bears Are Showing Up. Bulls are Tired.

On the weekly charts but the S&P and the Russell 2000 Index are both overbought and turning over. At the same time they are both stopping at the 50% retracement mark.

Pivot Point Charting Video: John Person with TOS

http://mediaserver.thinkorswim.com/demos/2008/TOSDemoPlayer.html?vidSource=/transcripts/2008/20080528.swf

Comedy: Stupid Human Tricks

Every once in a while I run across a funny video. This one is just too funny.

Closed EUR/JPY with NICE PROFIT

A Nice Home Run In Play

So I had $40 at risk and this morning that Forex trade is up $361! More to come and I believe this is just the start. The price action in red on the chart is todays action.

Current Open Trades. Weekend Review

My July Condor is looking great. Interesting that we had a high of 850ish and a low of 650ish and we are getting toppy around 750ish.. About a 50% retracement of the market correction.

After trading this a few times early in the morning and at night I'm only risking $40. I'm short 3 mini's. Stop at 164.35