Old Possum's Book of Practical Charts

Discussion in 'Journals' started by John Merchant, Dec 27, 2004.

  1. Very clever. Sounds a lot like how LBR described her trading, she knows the probabilities of occurrence of any given kind of day, and in relation to what the previous day was.

    But you don't watch volume? (I make most of my money off of volume anomalies.)

    And you don't watch other markets? (I always keep oil up. And use porn to keep ME up.)

    Do you have theory for why your system works? Superstition? Dynamic relaxation? MMs working back to net flat?

    What if I told you that I believe that today was foreordained to be an up day, and not by statistics? That it was evident from the behavior of cash and fut at the open, and from the artificial floor put on price during the oil/rate shock? That the market was forced to look good? That everything is beautiful? That I could tell you what women want?

    I was so sickened by the manipulation I saw today that I went out and bought some more gold. And put more of the wife's 401K into the foreign fund. And explained to her one more time why I don't have her in any bonds.
     
    #201     Mar 2, 2005
  2. Yes, I watch volume using Quotetracker through IB. DTN satellite doesn't have any volume for futures so all my heavy duty chart studies are based on price and its vagaries.

    The markets I watch are pretty weird -- most of them just index quotes on sectors pertaining to the Russell 2000 and general market conditions. I've found that covers the Dow pretty well, too.

    Just this evening I was considering adding QM to my Quotetracker display. Yahoo was gushing (bleh) about oil today in their market commentary from Briefing.com.

    My trading system works because it is as near perfect as can be. An article in this month's Futures magazine by Art Collins describes something very similar to mine. Ultimately, my trading system is a guide for trading as the signals can dissappear as price changes on trend continuations instead of reversals. That is why it is nearly perfect. Trying to trade it has its ups and downs. Before I understood its limitations I lost a lot of money blindly following the signals.

    I don't doubt that you can read a market based on various signs presented by other markets and by news stories. I was never any good at this but those who can do it have an advantage as I see it because I am pretty much chained to my methodology to gain some insight into the coming day's market activities.

    Well, you gotta know, being the first of the month and with Greenie speaking the markets are going to tango a bit...thanks for the conversation...
     
    #202     Mar 2, 2005
  3. Utterly fascinating. Thanks for sharing. And your secrets are safe because you posted them in this thread! I heartily recommend watching QM. It's a case of when it works, it works, and when it doesn't, it doesn't. F'rinstance I made a little scalp today (as I do almost every day), where the MMs game plan is to take the market in a particular direction after a consolidation. Oil inconveniently and rudely disagees. You can see them gamely hold the line while oil keeps running counter to the way they want price to go, and then the pain becomes too great and they give up. This only works in low volume. Generally otherwise the herd doesn't give a shit about oil. Why should they, the grocery store don't sell it. It takes an oil shock like today's to move the stock market in high volume. Good talking to you, and especially to see that you are in such high spirits. Dying men don't worry about perfecting their trading systems. I am only annoying ET because I am between gigs for a week. When the bars close this is the best place I know to go next.
     
    #203     Mar 2, 2005
  4. From 9:00 to 9:23 AM PT today oil went up a whole fucking DOLLAR, and MR. NAZ says "What, me worry?" THEN when the run is over, Mr. NAZ says "Are we done now?" and rolls over.

    The lesson? Instead of shorting the NAZ, long oil! Much as I am loathe to bite down on the 50X, I started trading QM today.

    Where am I going to put the 500 bbl if I miss the rollover?
     
    #204     Mar 3, 2005
  5. There is a song from Hair that goes:

    "Fellatio...cunnilingus...pederasty!
    Mother, why do these words sound so nasty?"

    Add manipulation to that.
     
    #205     Mar 3, 2005
  6. lol. u do have a way with words. glad to see you finally got some time off.

    p.s. manipulation can be a good thing when you recognize it.
     
    #206     Mar 3, 2005
  7. gnome

    gnome

    Have you got a barn? :D
     
    #207     Mar 3, 2005
  8. Easy and Gnome. This is not funny. I spent all morning trying to guess where NQ would go based on where I thought QM would go, and finally I said to myself, assisted by half a bottle of White Star, "Why the fuck are doing this? If you think you know where OIL is going, why not just trade OIL?" We traders develop such convoluted thought processes! Thank god I go back to work Monday! I am a bullshit artist, not a trader!
     
    #208     Mar 3, 2005
  9. Enginer

    Enginer

    I just posted a question about shorting (which tic could be the short?) on another forum. The reference material is the T&S for this morning's action for PKZ. Utterly wild!

    I know you wouldn't tough an equity with a piece of drillpipe, but it's a Canadian -based Asian oil, for pete's sake. With a PE of 7.09 (forward 3 months of 4 or so)

    PKZ on TSX, data from Prophet. Don't go there it'll make you sick.
     
    #209     Mar 3, 2005
  10. A PM correspondent kindly informed me that if I did not actually take receipt of the 500 bbl I borrowed to short 1 QM, I am not in fact obliged to pay it back. Thank you so much for clearing that little concern up. Commodities are so much different from index futures.
     
    #210     Mar 3, 2005