zeon

Sledge, it doesn't seem a good idea to discuss this topic in this thread. Whether there is market manipulation going on or not, it's a off-topic to say the least. It would make up for an interesting discussion and perhaps we should start a separate thread on this matter. I agree that to a certain extent professional money manages to influence the market more than others because by nature they have more size to play with. But even the originators of the Dow Theory said that manipulation on a major scale cannot be done. As for what Tom Williams said, I'm quite critical about other people's opinions when they don't back them up with any concrete facts. And as far as your description of what happens around news releases is concerned, that's all fine and correct, but it by no means would be logical to conclude that the smart money is staging all this. By nature a lot of people will be trying to trade around the news, but it's my belief that the smart money will trade after the news, not before.

Well ehm, no. To be honest I'm not. I'm not as paranoid to believe that some have access to more information than others. Besides, there are definite regulations concerning the release of news figures. Perhaps we ought to do a poll on this topic

I'm not sure to what extent this was "a trap". This looks like a springboard to me with a typical volume dry-up. I doubt professional money has any knowledge of these figures before the are released...

Ehm, sorry? I don't see any references to what I mentioned in my post about S/R at that particular level.

Why isn't the 57.50-60 area support on the futures? I agree there's another support level 10 points lower, but according to how I define S (and that might not be the right way to do it), that particular level was very significant to me... On the attached charts, I've annotated all the "action" around that level: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Please tell me if I'm just imaginening things here The levels are 50-52.50 because this is a chart of the cash market, but apart from the offset, it's the same on the futures (57.50-60).

Anybody tried Markets > Today's markets? Doesn't seem to be accessible... all the rest seems readable

I don't know, this thread is about YM/ES analysis after all? Anyway, it's not up to be to decide what should be where, but I hope the discussion can focus on the content of the posts and not the location of them.

A chart of the YM and ES has been posted, I might as well add one from the QQQQ (the ETF of the NQ) now. It seems to me - could be wrong though - that this instrument is moving much smoother in regards to support and resistance (look at the pink line at 45.57). However, there don't seem a lot of traders around on forums (except for dbphoenix) that trade this market. Most tend to focus on the YM or ES. Anyway, there's a huge surge in volume when price approaches support and I can't really say I see demand coming in, because price closes all the way down (this is a 5-minute chart of yesterday's action). The next bar however is very low vol, why isn't this just a pause for a continuation to the downside, but instead the beginning of a complete reversal? Just by looking on a 5-minute chart, I can't seem any justification for taking a long entry at 45.15.

Given the talk about a potential long trade yesterday, and James' YM chart in post #238 ('inability to break support') I'd like to ask anybody what they think of the following. It's related to the same setup, but on the ES instead. Dbphoenix also posted this in the VSA thread: 'long entry at double bottom off support and no supply at 11:00', but given the nature of the debate there it seems safer to post the question. I actually had support drawn a bit lower, because of the highs on the 24th of March. It seemed like logical place and also there was some pre-market action around that level (1357 on the attached chart). Now, I'm not clear on the 'double bottom' concept. Db, are you refering to this on the 1-minute chart (because I know you tend to use them) identified by the two red lines I've drawn? First being a high volume peak (potential selling climax) and the second one is lower volume but price closes way off the lows and rises on the next bars without much trouble. Is this what you are refering to when you talk about 'no supply'? The fact that the rise takes place without much trouble? Or... does the double bottom refer to the first touch of support around the open and the second time around 1100. However, the second time price doesn't really go all the way to support, and if I were to consider a long there, it feels like taking a gamble. Price might as well go to 1357 and then reverse. I've seen it happen several times. Next thing I did was draw a trendline, after the first one was broken another one. It strikes me that before the second is broken, price has failed to make a higher high ('x' on the chart). So when the line is finally breached, would the trader still have a reason to stay in a long trade? Despite that, 15 minutes later we rally up 10 points and after that it lookes like price has lost any sense of directional movement. All comments or suggestions appreciated... Regarding James' chart, support is drawn at 12540 but looks like slightly breached (price goes to 12528) and then recovers. On the ES it's a different picture, price looks well above support. Do any of you guys ever consider what happens in another market (YM/ES/DJIA/NQ) to pre-empt your plan?

Hi Eiger, my comments are probably not much worth, but I don't see it as a trade that failed. If you placed your stop a bit lower, you would've stayed in. You mention "pretty good support". Have a look at the overnight, there's a congestion area between 71 and 73, it looks to me as if price has indeed found support there and is now looking to test the previous day's highs.

Action observed so far: a strong rejection of 1368 (at the time of news), and price traveled all the way back to the opening low. It reversed again there but on apparently not much selling pressure and made a marginal higher low. After that it started drifting upwards. The next potential resistance levels to watch out for are 1372 and 1379.

Levels for today: 1379 1372.50 1366.25 1359

That wasn't really my question... :\ Ofcourse I know that 14 losing trades in a row isn't "normal", which I why I stopped trading.

A very exciting day, almost all of the levels I wrote before the day opened led to a (temporary) reversal in price. I should probably write, a reaction. 1367 after the open, 1371 in mid-day and 1364 near the close! During the day I observed price flying off 1367 up 10 points, basically in no time. I have no idea why anybody, other than taking a quick gamble would enter there though. It doesn't look like as if price stays long enough around that level... Next is 1371 in mid-day. Unfortunately going long there would be against the trend, there was a breach of the trendline and a secondary high in place (which wasn't really a lower high), but more importantly the swingpoint at 1374 was broken so the last swing low was breached. Going long for that reason would be going against the trend. Finally, there was a nice reaction off 1364 one hour before the bell. Djee, who could've imagined that it would rally to 1371 in the final minutes. The reaction of 1371 was very swift and quick, but going long there would be going against the trend too. To sum things up, I had three long signals today, all of them were invalidated because the uptrend was no longer in place. However, if I leave trend out of the equation I'd have at least one profitable trade. Over the long run this doesn't lead to anything more than a 50% chance of winning on a trade though. The quest continues...

Isn't this a bit contradictory to what you posted earlier in another thread? You said that if a trade goes wrong, it's the trader who didn't listen to the market. So if a trader focuses on a pattern and he sees it but 3 out 10 times the pattern ends up in a losing trade, is he having trouble understanding the market or is he accepting the fact that "there is no such thing as a 100% win approach"?

Here's a close-up of why I mentioned 68-71.

One change: 1362 -> 1364 Price also spent some time in the 68-71 zone this morning. However that was premarket and on very thin volume, I'm not so sure how much importance one must give to that level.

The main reason I felt that, was because the action on the way down didn't "feel" very urgently. It was more like an absence of buying pressure than real selling. It would be nice to say I was able to profit from it by going long yesterday or the day before, but unfortunately I didn't because I've been focusing on intraday moves. However lately someone suggested that swing trading might be easier to do, and I believe on this thread someone mentioned that too...

That's why I posted it, I seem to be having a much better understanding of price on a higher timeframe than intraday. Like I said before, the setup I described used to work much better than lately. Yesterday however it would have led to a profitable trade. Today it wouldn't have. Perhaps putting an extra filter on it like the one I mentioned "not after a breakout" could help me get something better than a coin-toss.

That's why, if I am trading, I'll usually get in a couple of losing trades before I realize it's a trend day. When I finally do, I quit because I can't find an entry in the direction of the trend or - by the time I do - the trend is exhausted. I wasn't trying to fabricate anything to make it look like I would have taken a long, when I wouldn't have. I was merely pointing out that based on my observations, there's usually a high probability for price to continue in one and the same direction after a significant breakout has taken place. What I meant to say is that yesterday was a short signal according to my "plan". I didn't act because I am trying to observe price from a neutral point of view, without trading or papertrading. But the setup still was there and I noted it during the day. This seems in conflict with the higher highs and higher lows that the trend showed yesterday. Or at least up till the point of my short... To summarize things, I see little difference between the first half of yesterday and today. So, assuming there was that short signal yesterday at 1330 and today at 1360, and in both cases the trendline wasn't broken, how could I have know that yesterday's trade would've been a profitable one and today's not? This is why I find it hard to come up with a system that has anything more than a 50% win rate :\ Ofcourse I could pre-empt my plan by saying shorting is only allowed after the TL breaks or after price failed to make a higher high, but by then I'll most likely be shorting when price has already moved a significant part lower. I hope all of this makes sense somehow...

I'm sorry if that was the impression you got. I did focus on finding the elements that are components of the setup I earlier described. As I don't have a real strategy to handle trending days, I try to steer clear from them. I'm either 'in early' or out for the whole day. Perhaps I should illustrate this by a short signal yesterday (just an observation, I didn't act on it) at 1330 resistance. Price was making higher highs and higher lows (annotated x'es on the chart) along the way but there was no break. Are you saying 'xxx' would not constitute as a short entry then, because the demand line is not broken?

I posted this 4 days ago... looks like I was right

Es 1349 1357 1362 1367

No, not every day. But it was either a warning signal in anticipation of exiting the trade when the last swing was breached. I'd probably should have said this, but when price breaks through an important area of resistance (or support if it's on the downside) I tend to look to entries with the trend. Otherwise I just short resistance or buy support. For example, if the day opened around 1325, I would have been on the lookout to short 1330. We opened way higher, so the odds were that this "gap" was going to be a continuation higher.

I vividly recall you saying something along the lines of "the trader has several ways of determining to exit: a breach of the trendline or wait for a break of the last swing low; there just aren't that many possibilities". I also remember you saying "I’m going to draw a supply line and use a break of that as a signal to exit." As for Sperandeo, I know the 2B rule and his definition of trend reversal... and I take it that's what you are refering to. Sorry if I wasn't entirely clear, I didn't mean to say a reversal was taking place.