Absolutely Art. Don't feel you're on your own. Wifey's calling me for dinner now (you know how they get if you don't drop everything and go at once) so I'll reply in a little more detail later. ETU
Art - markets get choppy and nervous near tops and bottoms....I think that is the case here. The eRL has been painting zorro-like patterns up here around 780-800. Bottomline: tight stops are likely to be taken out with higher frequency than previous periods. Solution: widen stops and/or trade less contracts; impose daily stop-trading loss limits.
Hi Art, First I have to tell you that I know little about the markets and trading. I'm an old (very) guy who messes around in the market for a hobby. What follows is more in the way of asking your opinion of my views rather giving you my opinion. I hope that makes sense? Secondly I ascribe firmly to your belief that simple is best: A) because I can understand it, B) because I don't confuse myself with too many signals, and C) I believe that in life everything returns eventually to, or near to, the norm and your methods encompass my views. And last year I did make a modest amount of money incorporating your signals into my technique for which I thank you. This year I lost money at first and have only just climbed back into the black. Your comment about being stopped out to the tick was echoed just yesterday by my-son-law. He said that for the last month he had seen the markets swoop down to his stops and then reverse immediately. So much so that he is becoming suspicious that someone is looking over his shoulder I have experienced much the same. So, I've looked for reasons to excuse my lack of judgment. I've decided that there's an awful lot of money sloshing around out there. People and institutions no longer invest but gamble and one is up against very clever people with a lot money and powerful computer resources. The bull market is coming to an end and people get very nervous at such times and it makes for sudden, violent moves. The home computer and on-line trading means there are now millions of people around the world influencing the market by what they see on their screens. So far this year we've had a number of low volume days and low volume days make it cheap for the big money to drive the market and run stops. Options expiration week was a good example. The FOMC meeting starts tomorrow and the report comes out Wednesday. Next Friday the monthly employment report is due out. It has always seemed to me that in such scenarios the institutions retire to their corners and that has an effect. I believe there are other factors too but in the interests of brevity I won't list them. In short I think that January has been unusual for range reduction/expansion and low/high volume switching and this has exacerbated the difficulties inherent in trading. Regards, ETU
Thanks for sharing everybody. In a sense, we're all trading islands unto ourselves, but in another sense, we're all part of the same grand and glorious (and sometims maddening) experience. one futher observation as i sit here formulating plans for tomorrow. monday's S&P futures close was within 2 points of the dec 29 last-day-of-year close.
Art's futures biases for Jan 31. A "1" means bullish bias. A "-1" means bearish bias. The total is the sum of biases. A positive sum will be long bias. A negative sum will be a short bias. A sum of zero will be a neutral bias. ________________________________________ The bond slide has been pretty relentless, and even a skilled specialist I know has been cautioning against trying to anticipate the turn-around. As you can see, though, the CzarCharts are urging buys in both the 30-and 10-years. (The 5-year is neutral). This could be a good play considering that it is dovetailing with tomorrowâs latest Fed decisions. If you enter on the opening as mandated, you may have a decent profit cushion by the time the report is released.
Some real smart guys on the RealTraders list have been mentioning this 107 level in the 30 year as mombo important to hold. That could be the reversal point. If so, and there is a bond rally, incredibly, we could see one last pop-up in the equity markets.
syswizard wrote Some real smart guys on the RealTraders list have been mentioning this 107 level in the 30 year as mombo important to hold. That could be the reversal point. If so, and there is a bond rally, incredibly, we could see one last pop-up in the equity markets. -------------- thanks for the info. as they say, the plot thickens.
...and so it did....and "the rest was history"....as they say. The eRL was so "special" today, it goes beyond words. The late afternoon swoon was quite a "tell"...I see massive distribution of these small caps at these historic levels.
Syswiz: Forgive my ignorance but what exactly do you mean by "massive distribution"? Regards, ETUser.
Art's futures biases for Feb 1. A "1" means bullish bias. A "-1" means bearish bias. The total is the sum of biases. A positive sum will be long bias. A negative sum will be a short bias. A sum of zero will be a neutral bias. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As I said a few posts ago, we are apparently in a flippity-floppity-boo timeframe. The bonds finally rally in line with strong buy signals and then give equally insistent sell flashes for Thursday. The other two complexes have similarly flipped from net buy to sell. Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to follow the systems or die. (Sometimes both).