only thing i noticed kinda "out of the ordinary" was the dollar shot up n faded early morning.. but i guess given an announcement. .wasn't too odd. might have thrown off equilibrium to some systems
you are trading like me. often I buy "top" and sell "bottom". but one thing different here is I trade symbols with trending behavoirs. I spent lots of time to search symbols with trending chaerestistics. the stronger the better to me. I do not trade those no-where sometimes trend, sometimes random markets. aaple, Fb, bac, fslr, ... anr, wlt,vmed,yhoo,csco....clsn,ung to trade SPY better apply day trading stretegy: fade thrust, buy thrust down, quick flip over. lots of economic news out each week, impossible let it trend. news panic buy fade, panic sell buy... I am contrary though I am a trend follower. to a begineer, start with fading strategy is better. that is very natural since people are full of fears: fear of profit gone. do not be greedy, chase to buy top and sell bottom. i am a vetern, in the market several years,paid high tution fees, 60% time can distinguish which is a fake top/bootom, then can do it. 30%of time I still buy real top and sell real bottom, since I basically trade options, those OTMs end up worthless. I am better and better. last week friday I bought DNDN 5 calls, FB 27.5 calls, all looks to others TOPs. I made at least doubled my risks today. last week my FB 27.5 ends up losing half, I am too earger to enter in the consolidtaion range 26.6+ to 28 the reason is I am not patient, I want to make money fast. those top/bottoms contrary to others are the fast money generated places. my suggestions are: do not chase if you are novice. you need spend lots of time studying, then you can easily distinguish those fake top and bottom, and take advantage of them. this week, the FOMC money policy, and the no-ending fiscal cliff ... all created random chaerestics in SPY. I am kind of bullish in SPY, but I hate to trade it. the street seems they know fiscal cliff will finally be resolved from the chart. find something really trend will make your trend following method work perfectly.
It has been challenging lately due to the uncertainty of the "fiscal cliff talks." The market feels undeceive overall. We are experiencing a general waiting type of mood until this gets resolved. Maybe it is a good idea just to trade half positions for the time being, or wait for a clear trend.
Small tip: If you are slipping into midday doldrums, count the bars in the lateral shaddow. When you get to lat7, then go back and assign each volume bar a name from the shaddow casting bar. Logic result, you get trend ends and you know you know when sentiment changes in longer laterals. Trading result, you reverse during lengthy laterals to catch all of the BO when it comes. For multi fractal (multi synched charts) go to faster fractal and log the ftt's to keep sentiment straight.
This can be happen with the newbie or if you don't check the indicators, where the market is at current level. May be there is more room in the direction or you are against the direction. Lots of reason by which you open wrong positions. It is better to put a SL in your trades or you cut the loss in early stages.
I think all of the trend traders just needs to develop software that will execute the opposite action as you typed in. Then no one would be getting in at the top going long and lose. They would get in at the top going short (without knowing it) and win by accident.
aha I believe if you take Laplace Transform of the volatility and multiply it by the sqare root of Sharpe ratio, you get a better entry signal.
In simple terms what JH is alluding to is; Take the square of the Pythagoras rectangular quadrant and multiply by 10 pi, use an involuted sine wave and mix it up in a milkshake blender. See, you don't need to use a lot of words.
Anybody else noticed how he misuses the word "fractal", which is Hershey-speak for what everybody else calls "timeframe"? Cracks me up every time.