Oil Hits Record High

Run away gap .. realized but still thought the technicals were sayin otherwise. I am getting tired of these string of loses .. I don't think I can trade anymore if I don't find a solution to this ahole market. =)

s&p strike..

NASDAQ first, market was in a downtrend since 7 or so in the morning.. thought it might break that when things looked bullish from undersold but quickly touched the trend line and starting to fall.. I covered very quickly on first hesitation. Usually that hesitation either gets me out of the move early or gets me out with a minor loss and the market goes on in my favor.

Then traded S&P, market looked to have a bit of mo mo falling from the trend it touched on NASDAQ and made a minor double top as well.. waited until I thought the move was actually going down and then entered... took a tiny bit of heat and the market fell in my direction. I stayed in as long as I could but after the big move down and the retirement on the last bar I felt that it might retrace back and I exited early. As you can see I would've ripped a few more dollars had I stayed in.

Now, one thing missing from the picture today are stops.. and yes I didn't use any. I have been feeling the stop-burn alto lately and they have almost always.. 90% of the time kicked me out of the moves. About 20% of the time I thanked the stops but the rest of the time I have hated myself for using it. Some say that even warren buffet uses stops but does he trade futures. It's wrong of me to preach this but I do have a platform stop-loss in place, once that amount is hit I will be kicked outta the move and go back to stops I think.

I will also be using 1 contract from now on, tried to increase my size but that only decreased my profits. I want to completely learn to make money with one contract before I jump onto another one.

Runaway Gap

Realized that it was most probably going to be a runaway gap as soon as the market opened up but wasn't expecting an early sharp breakout so stepped out for something.. by the time I came back market had taken off and I didnt join in half way.

Then waited a while for another break out.. got in with a good entry and placed stop right after, next few minutes .. stop hit and took me out and market went up without me. Pain, misery and frustration are not words that define today.. 'cuz it's worse.

Green Day

• +120
• -7
• a little confident, larger downtrend
• overbought and losing momo, entered with a stoploss (blue line)
• will be trading with 1 contract for the next little while
• when the price retraced at the end, the market seemed exhausted so bailed out and market turned around.
• working and testing a few stoploss placements, today turned out to be good but again needs tons more testing
• left right after the trade so couldn't trade further.

Not gettin better...

+ 15 profit
- 7 comm
not too confident, upward momo was strong
shorted, anticipated a weak down move, turned out to be weaker
overbought and losing steam.. ended up in the right direction
blue squarish line is the movement of stop, still working on it, almost got hit.. right there the trade was a write off... next time itll hit so need to adjust stops.
es, ym and er dont want to break down to bailed out.

I shorted all the wrong break outs.. my feeling is that well have a good shortin opp at the end of the day.. cuz its been playin around all day..

Another day and more frustration..

- 40

- 7 comm

fairly confident of the trade, loss

counter trend trade

mac, stoch crossover

15 min, 200 MA bounce anticipated, failed

2 pnt stoploss, hit in 20 secs

would've stayed in as MAC showin weakness, proved wrong.. out on stoploss = good decision.

Potential Trade

I haven't been able to trade very much lately due to overnight work shifts and sleeping through the market hours. So I have decided to post potential trades that I would take from time to time. In hindsight, yes they will look good and all but when the market is live.. it's a different story altogether. Nonetheless, we will be looking at the most common setups/patterns that trigger me into the market and I hope to hear your setups/patterns/indicators that also point out the same exact move in the market. When there is an opportunity and more then one system/trader recognizes it then there's hope for us. :)

April 02, 2008
Today the futures were a bit slow and sideways due to the large move yesterday. It seems like a pause day as the market adjusts to the changes happening and balances out.

My potential trade came at 10:10 AM ET. As you can see, you have to be really patient with futures as they aren't like stocks where you can enter and exit on small 'cent' movements. If I had logged on in the morning I would've sat there watching the market until 10:10 AM ET today waiting for the right move.

Here's ESM8 5-Min.

• Two bounces off .. confirming resistance. [Yellow]
  
• M shaped pattern with ST having /\ shape on second leg touching oversold (exhausted) [Yellow]
  
• A hammer patterns that follows with a big drop. [Yellow]
  
• Divergence in stochastic as the price action moves higher. [Blue]
  
• First exit target broke through. [Green]
• Since the drop became steep and the stochastic was falling sharply I wouldn't have anticipated a large follow through in this move and would've exited as the ST reached undersold and turning up. [Yellow Box]
• This would've been a good move as there would be no heat taken if entered late as well.
• NQ confirmed the double top as well.