This blog http://timing-market-turns.blogspot.com/ is a bit easier than posting on a blank screen - titles and sign offs, etc. Here's todays 2 posts this far. What I want is what I had as child. A party line telephone, then all my friends talked at the same time. Then one could set down the phone, walk away and come back later to pick up on the ongoing conversations. No keyboard involved. Some things used to be more functional. Market Timing for 01/26/2006 After midnight here, I saw Europe open and the futures indexes held their ground and then advanced. It looked as though strength had "been proved". I went to bed with the intent of sleeping in, and, I did. It's not market timing related, but it was what I did. Structure here seems slightly 'over the wall'. The SPX and OEX has left an opening gap. I expect an attempt to cover it which means indexes will likely have another range bound day. Some might call it a retest of the breakout. I expect the move upward to continue to at least the SPX 1288 level. We will assess the action along the way. Today, I have a few brief events to deal with off the www. I will post next at 1430 E.S.T. Good Trading and God bless W. B. Busin posted by W. B. Busin at 8:02 AM Thursday, January 26, 2006 Timing Market Turns 01/26/2006 Update 1 Market timing for Traders: towards the close, we are looking for test of support at SPX 1271. Investors: we are staying long all core holdings. The indexes are significantly above bearish reversal levels, as we posted in yesterday's postings. Today has been a typical post-breakout day - go make an even higher high than the breakout day, then selloff into a trading range. These usually end with a seemingly strong move in both directions to clear out the unsure and uncommitted. Good Trading and God bless W. B. Busin P. S. Will update if the unusual happens - such as breaking the range on this current spike up near 1500 EST. posted by W. B. Busin at 11:43 AM 0 comments links to this post
Market Timing 01/27/2006 The indexes are speaking for themselves and don't need me to elaborate on it. The upward move continues. Keep an eye on the blog for answers to your questions, and if you have other questions, IM me here or go ahead and post them there. It was a excellent week for the market. I hope your wallets and purses are a wee bit fuller. I will post answers this weekend. God Trading and God bless. W. B. Busin
Timing Market Turns â 01/30/2006 We have updated the blog. You might want to look in. <a> http://timing-market-turns.blogspot.com/ </a> Good Trading and God bless W. B. Busin
We are still in a 100% cash position in our core investment position and swing trading since the opening this morning. We are content to let the indexes clarify the next significant move. We will update if anything changes. Good Trading and God bless W. B. Busin
================ Excellant point about risk management being more important than timing; & frankly they restrict ALL to 10 minutes edit time . You got off easy WB , they closed a thread i posted on for [wrongly] posting LBR groups toll free telephone; actually its understandable. Peolple should pay for ads. You probably should keep posting ; dont see you as a 3 day cod, thats an unlikely stretch . Good trading,good time & God bless.
Thanks Murray. I do take risk factors more seriously than you might think. It might be better stated that timing makes taking the risk of a large position trade much more attractive because an "expected turn" is normally at an extreme in price, volume and indicator ranges. That contrasts with an extreme in those elements that comes upon a trader or investor without expectation of a change in the direction of a recent sustained movement. In a sense, it's a surprise. Suddenly, the trader is faced with a very high risk and emotionally charged decision. "Should I trade here and now?" Even with a solid plan, it is still a lip biting moment for many traders. The reality is that everyone can afford some trading platform and can control transaction costs with discount brokers. It is not far astray to assume traders are all looking at the same thing. Isn't it? When we started applying our methods to different non-equity markets (retail and wholesale), we attempted to forecast days and times when buyers/shoppers would descend in large numbers on the various establishments. The proprietors were always caught short on personnel and inventory at these times. We were able to get very close to these times and days by finding factor precursors and pattern precursors. Very sophisticated data analysis, eh? Our results impressed those who wanted our service. BUT, we found an alarming piece of information in one test site we focused on. While explaining these important discoveries to the floor manager and her assistant, they both seemed rather unimpressed, almost uninterested. I couldn't help but notice, so I asked about their opinions of this information's potential to improve scheduling of floor personnel, stock levels. etc. Ever so politely, they explained that they already knew everything we had told them! How did they know? They said it was the same pattern repeated for years. Then why didn't they order more inventory and schedule floor personnel according to what they knew? The answer was marketing and sales mid-management had rules based on models, scientific models!, which prevented them from adjusting to the known facts in their store. Their models said it was too risky to hold that much inventory and schedule people above normal levels specified by the models. It risked tossing the store's margins out of balance. There are two threads of that story that reformed our research and results. First, risk management can become too dominant in a thin margin environment. The term risk management implies, and by definition requires something of value to be 'at risk'. Purchasing managers, accounting managers and other fiscal types that have never stood on a sales floor have careers to protect and preserve. So they use models, usually with 3 scenarios. Models then become the 'go to' driver of action and also the 'goat' if the action fails. The second thread is people are a lot brighter than they are thought to be - especially those that confront the public customer base of an enterprise. Every successful long-term enterprise I have encountered knows this, believes this and lives by it. Site managers have near autonomy and yet are accountable also. The latter is associated with trading decisions in various ways. When everything says buy but the system or program is neutral, what does a trader do? Violate his system? Wait for the system to signal a buy? Risk management says wait. The infamous trader gut says buy. Who wins? You plan for the who?, what?, why?, when?, and how? of a trade. But the only answer for the "when?" is filled with various if/thens, ghostly variables and a quid's worth of doubt. It is the last question addressed by a trader or investor. It is truly unpleasant and maybe the worst part of trading, except for "buyers/sellers remorse". That is precisely why we address it first and keep it in the highest position of power and influence over our trading and investing perspective. Granted, we have what is an edge. But we have invested blood, sweat and tears, as they say, into finding the answer to timing. It was not a single event of a finding, but a process of many years and scores of iterations to refine and distill our methods and algorithms. Sharing the results and our opinions that go with those results for the market indexes is just something we wanted to do. So we do it when we can. The problem we have had in the recent past was getting continuous time to do this on a regular schedule. That is why we have kept our time loci results to intraday. That helps to avoid the situation that someone might take this factor into a longer-term trade and then find themselves wondering if they should do something because I haven't posted in a day or so. Anyone who has taken a one minute or five minute chart and looked at the time loci we posted in advance can easily arrive at the correct conclusion that this timing system works on any time scale and on any liquid market or stock. If we were braggartly, we would likely be hyping our methods, wouldn't we? I guess we have seen it work so accurately for so many years, we have come to just accept it as a given. A group member once remarked that the methodology and the technology would be worth a lot if it was kept a secret in the hands of a billionaire trader. Why, I asked. She said it would easily add $1 or more to any one hundred thousand share purchase. I am just an ordinary person like most people you see at the pub, the office or the mall. Everyone I know has something special they can do. I can do timing. I love timing just about anything! But it doesn't make me special, nor anyone's better. So I share it with any who want to see and hear and consider it in their trading. Good trading and God bless. W. B. Busin P.S. We are still in cash in all positions. Initial support is near at SPX 1268-70. Wednesday appears to be a lateral range day with some triumphant upward moves followed by equally zealous downward moves. We are happy to be in cash! Risk management works!
Trading positions still in cash Investor positions still in cash Avoiding this lateral congestion is an opportunity to relax and enjoy a good book or the outdoors. It gives you a sense of having done the best thing - recharges your batteries as they say. We wanted to mention the nearby opening gaps at SPX 1275 and SPX 1265 to serve as a band of support at those levels. Good Trading and God bless W. B. Busin
hi W.B.! - hope you are well and thanks for continuing to update the journal here - i'd be very interested if you could highlight a couple of points behind your rationale to re-enter long on Wednesday open (Feb 8) ? - it was a great entry by all means, although i am agreeing with you that the overall structure is looking a bit hectic at this time - thanks and all the best.
Hi W.D.B, Have been following along since October last year. You have once again made a call with breathtaking accuracy. The intraday peak was at circa 15:23 EST. I'm genuinely impressed. Don't go anywhere! MoMoney.