Monthly A up in Gold was 1795. Actual high was 1792.70. Textbook. A down is now the target although we are the end of the month. That level is 1694.
Also, perfect failed weekly A up in the ES as well an intra-day. Weekly A down is now the target at 1346.
We came in 15 handles off the failed A up. Gold came in a 100 pts off the failed monthly A up. Silver down 7%. Where is your office at? The Iranian nuclear facility?
Do any of you give any weight to opening range volume? It's something I've been tracking for a while now, after being inspired by some old posts on Steenbarger's blog. The idea being that below avg OR volume indicates large participants are not active in the markets and therefore significant moves are less likely, and vice versa when OR volume is above average. Of course I still pay attention to how things trade after the opening range because things can always change ( example this morning OR vol below avg but we got a nice down move). Anyone else pay attention to this or is it not really all that useful?
First I'd like to thank you guys for this thread. There is an amazing wealth of information here. I've been on this thread for 5 hours now and its answered a lot of unanswered questions I've had about how exactly to approach ACD, and what requires the most emphasis. The notes I've taken on this thread alone are 5500 words long, so I appreciate the help. In terms of the biggest points, I've isolated seven that I think stood out the most. 1) The number line is Critically important. Knowing where the various numberlines for the stocks/sectors your looking at is of paramount importance for knowing what trades to take, what trades not to take, and where you should be looking for trades in the first place. 2) Its not enough to just look at the daily A values. You also need to look at the weekly and monthly values. Often you will have a failed A off a weekly or monthly value and these are often HUGE trades. A daily Failed A might have a R/R of around 2:1 and 5:1, but frequently closer to 2:1. A failed A on the weekly or monthly can easily have a 5:1 or better R/R ratio. Just give it a little while to confirm and enter, and these are frequently some of the best trades. 3) If looking at the number line, suddenly it makes even more sense to look at the weekly numbers. If the 30 day number line is showing strength, and it makes a failed A down, either on the daily, weekly, or monthly, thats a lot more powerful then if the 30 day or 5 day number lines are neutral. 4) Spreadtrading is a good way of trading because it tends to trend when the market is choppy, and is choppy when the market trends. This implies at least that you can vastly smooth your returns by having both a spread betting and regular trading setup going at once. Even outside from the diversification side of things, if spread trading trends even close to 80% of the time, it is definitely worth looking into. 5) Context is highly important. This is the big point of the numberline. The strongest sector on the numberline is more likely to generate good trades in its underlying components then the weakest sector. Especially relavent for spread trades as well. 6) On top of that, breadth is important. If you have a lot of strong number lines everywhere, then thats a very bullish sign. If you have a lot of weak number lines, thats a bearish sign. If you have a lot of flat number lines... or if you have a mix of both strong and weak lines... these all have different implications for what trades you should be taking, or if you should be looking for spread trades, or even just in cash. 7) One thing I wasn't sure about before hand was the price target on Failed A trades. A couple posts said that if you take a failed A trade, you should be looking for it to go to the other side of the OR at the least, and the other A value is a better target. On a failed A trade, your stop is so tight that you shouldn't mind getting stopped out, just wait for it and see if it will work. Frequently if it retraces back into the OR then it will test the other side. One thing I am curious about is if anyone has a suggestion as to what I can read about spread trading. The other thing I'd like to know is if anyone has a suggestion for a book to look at that focuses on programming from a trading perspective.