The Middle is the Middle

Wild day.
That’s all I can say.
This market is not for the faint of heart; nor anyone without seat belts or stop losses.
How many ways can it trick us? More than I can tell you, that’s for sure.
Selling highs, buying lows, that’s all I know. The odds are better there.
What’s high?
What’s low?
Everything is relative.
Keep it simple, [...]

The Soloist

This is a true story.
I looked at my notes, charts and spread sheets last night before going to bed, and I made out a plan.
I drew a horizontal line at 63.25 on one my charts, as a reminder of an important pivot today. I wrote down 45 as support, and 75 in bold, with +/-and [...]

Fomc Follies

The key to this business is exits and entries.
I call it strength and honor.
Strength and courage to take the trade, and the will to Honor your stops.
On FOMC days, conservative traders should stand aside until a reasonable “area” is found.
I noticed more than a few guru’s calling for shorts all the way up.
Amazing.
In an uptrend, “Resistance” [...]

Santa sighted !

As the man in the cowboy hat used to say, look for breakouts from a long narrow sideways channel.  Today’s behavior certainly qualified.
Today we saw the FOMC announcement trigger stops and the shorts who don’t understand breakouts got beat up the rest of the day.
Seriously, even if you liked the short side, what is wrong [...]

FOMC = Fake Out Most Charlies

Wrong way charlie got stung again on FOMC day.
Now don’t get me wrong, trading the markets is certainly not easy, and I sure as heck make lots of mistakes just like everyone else.
But there is probably a difference between myself and a lot of traders: I study and take this business seriously. It’s my edge, [...]

The Market Speaks…

In yesterday’s post we discussed the possibility of a ferocious rally, and we finally got it with a punctuation mark!
Shorting rallies this past year has been quite profitable, and we said it makes sense to continue shorting until it stops working.
Today it stopped working at the 2 o’clock pivot.
Shorts who developed bad habits lately and [...]

Lemonade

The lemmings were fresh squeezed today, making lemonade out of yesterday’s late day sell-off.
The end of day plunge serves four purposes:

The market seeks to find hidden support
Profit taking from the last move
The early longs yesterday get taken out
The stubborn shorts who cannot change their bias today get taken out

Successful traders view the markets as a tug of [...]

Rocket Man

Did you sense today’s long overdue spike was about to happen?
Bear markets are notorious for a turnaround day that knocks your socks off. Like the original rocket man or the latest one .
Yesterday’s post we hinted at this because certain signals were going off suggesting a bounce was coming. Traders who cannot turn their minds around get [...]

Sideways shuffle

So… what can’t go up, must go down. Or what can’t go down, must go up.
So we have been led to believe. If that is your reality, you may want to enroll in OT, overtraders anonymous.
Sideways action is often a path the market takes when it is indecisive and digesting a big meal like Friday’s. [...]

Continuation

Position trades that were initiated on Monday found their way home today after the FOMC excuse for the selloff.
There were many gyrations and range trades available until the market broke right before the announcement.
It looked like the insiders were already jumping in, as if the smart money knew something.
There is ony one way to play [...]