= Gone Till January =

So what did I decide to take with me on my vacation? You guessed it.. the biggest loss of my trading career. You can save the applause for later but I gotta show how the market can mess with your head even if you think your good.

How does -$450 sound? Sounds good if it ain't you. :)

I always say that there will be a tomorrow but this time there ain't no tomorrow.

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Going on a vacation for a month.. then busy moving my stuff and won't be able to get back to trading until I have a reliable Internet access at my new place and a good place to trade. Until then click on some AdSense ads if you like something there and I guess that's it.

- ciao -

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Finally the end of ranging days...

Today was quite difficult to trade to be honest with you. I had my last minute doubts until the very end and I was able to make 2 trades both for win, first wasn't big enough to be mentioned here but the last move was quite something. A lot of other futures trades were expecting another run down to make a new low but quite the opposite happened and I was able to take advantage of that. Unfortunately, I also called out the down move at 13:50 but just wasn't sure enough to get into it and missed it completely.. I don't like to chase the market if it's moving too fast without any entry indicators.

Also, tomorrow would be my last trading day for the year as I am leaving for a month long vacation on Friday and when I come back I will be moving to the US so I may not be able to get back to trading for a while ..probably until mid-January or so.

FOMC; Fed Days

Fed Days are days when the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) make announcements on interest rates. These FOMC days usually see a low range and low volume day up to 14:00 EST when the announcement is made and then the day changes into a volatile high volume afternoon. The FOMC change (or leave the same) the Fed Funds Rate.


This is what the E-Mini S&P500 Market did after the last FOMC rate change announcement on 31 October 2007 when the FOMC cut the rate by a quarter point from 4.75% to 4.5%.

Here is a list of charts from the last 3 years of all the fed days from MyPivots.

http://www.mypivots.com/articles/articles.aspx?artnum=11&page=2

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I don't plan to have any open positions before the Fed announcements and will probably join the move in the making if my indicators confirm a safe entry. I have known people who bought 5 minutes before the Fed announcement on the last meet and emptied their account in the next 10 minutes even when the Fed cut the rates. The market becomes very volatile so special attention needs to be paid on thee days and don't go off fixing yourself a lunch with just a trailing stop in place.

For beginners trading the FOMC day, including myself, below is a video made by PureTick.com on playing the Fed move safetly.

http://puretick.com/video/fed/

Here are the pivot points for tommorow used by price-trend which are the closest to real floor pivot points.

PP: 1513.5 R1: 1533.3 R2: 1526 S1: 1506.3 S2: 1593.8

Update: 9:22 AM Eastern

On September 18 after a 0.5% cut in the fed funds target, the S&P surged 43 points. On October 31 after a 0.25% cut in the fed funds target, the S&P gained 18 points. The market has rallied more in advance of the announcement this time compared to the two previous occasions, however, so a subsequent rally of similar proportions is a long shot. There is even a chance that some "sell the news" reaction occurs following the announcement.

Just a few risky moves..

.... Few risky moves and the rest of the day has been very choppy. Everyone is looking forward to the FOMC meet.

Time is Money..

..presents the 'Holy Grail Setup' and much more. I came across this interview by a sucessful trader on the Time is Money blog.. and I have to tell you that much of what she uses is also used by me and works wonderfully well in Emini markets. It's hard to explain one by one as to how it should be setup but for those who understand it will surely benefit from it.

http://www.lbrgroup.com/images///raschke_pt2_0304.pdf

Here are two charts of S&P both with EMA and SMA, decide where it's heading.
















IMO, it's heading sideways Monday then heading higher on FOMC announcement. I think it has a long way to go and will probabaly be making a new high in the 1600's.

December 06, 07 - Day Trading Futures E-mini

Double Bottom in stochastic & Momentum, sharp bounce off the multiple-Ma's, pierced resistance with a solid candle, calculated 6-7 point move to the next pivot level, upward trending day, multiple time frame confirming the move and I didn't take any trades today.

Well, isn't that wonderful.. Got back from work around 3:00 pm est and this classic move had already taken place, I didn't get in because the momentum started to turn down but price kept making higher highs. You shouldn't follow divergence/convergence indicators on trending days because they fail like stochastic but I like to be safe then sorry so I didn't go long and just watched the market struggle up and up. However, if you look back at the chart I posted of the S&P, you will definitely notice that we have broken through the MA lines or have come up to them to retest, very interesting time in the market.

Day Trade Emini Blogspot S&P, Russel, Nasdaq 100

Don't ask, I was bored!

Timing is everything!

Again, another sunrise another day..December 05, 07

Got back from work around 12:40 pm est and ate something.. then started watching the market and boy did it mirror the financials today. I logged on yahoo to see what was up and found out they provide free real-time charts for National Investment Brokerage index.. well that helped me decide which way the market was likely to go. Check it out yourself,

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^YHOh760

As for the trades, I took one today and added one more contract which again cut into my profits like yesterday. I got up to average $150 and gave about half of it back to the market and ended up with 1.50 pnts of profit with 2 contracts. Saw a great move in the making with financials confirming the move I got long well after I should've gotten long... (don't know what happened to me I just couldn't trigger at that moment).. and then another contract only to switch back to the financials chart on yahoo and realizing that the Yellow MA had been hit and the market was likely going down. Took a bit of my profit and walked away.

I think the reason I didn't enter on time was because I was scared of taking a loss, you know my statistics, one win and one loss.. so I made sure.

Market timing is everything..

Again a very choppy day in the market. Overall, it seems that we maybe heading for a retest of the yellow MA or 1450 area in the chart from yesterday and if that the case then December may end on a good note. A retest and then a move up before the end of the year but what do I know.. I will let the price-action speak on behalf of me.

Today I took a trade after I got back from work and I learned a hard lesson about Market timing. I went short with 1 contract on a good move then went short again when market seemed to be in a strong downtrend and the next second the bar shrunk and those two contracts cut into my profits. I was in a loss until the last few bars broke down again, wish I had more time to wait out because I still think that it may continue down.

Anyways, there was another opportunity around 1:00 pm est for short but I couldn't avail it as I was at work.

Anything goes Blog - Did you make money today?

Monday December 3rd, 07

Stocks Struggled on Monday

Market was very erratic today and obviously the sellers were strong. Last night I was looking at a few charts that mirror S&P emini and it seems that we are hitting a major Resistance point. Today's price action agreed with my analysis and I didn't take any trade as I wasn't sure of the market direction. I plan to stay on the sideline until market decides it's direction then I will likely get involved again. I find it a bit risky at the moment and you may have also noticed the chop in the market in the afternoon and around lunch.

There were a few short opportunities at time but I couldn't take advantage of them as I had work in the morning and only watched the afternoon when the market was very choppy with momentum all over the place.

Noticed the positive divergence as market made lower lows? The Chart Pattern Trader utilized that opportunity and made hefty gains on that move.. However, at the moment there are a couple of things going on here; Long-term MACD crossover, RSI positive divergence, stochastic moving away from the undersold territory and there is strong upward momentum.

The problem lies with the price-action. Two major Ma's are pushing market lower and there is a major resistance at the current price. It is likely that we may have either more choppy side-way days ahead of us or a rally into one direction that should trigger a new trend direction.