firewalker

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/24/markets/cftc/index.htm I think the last sentence says it the best: "But overall, most experts say the incidents are so scattered, and the energy market so large, that it's unlikely a single trader or group of traders can have substantial sway over prices." All this talk about how speculators are to blame

In that case... I would be very interested in a thread about the 'law of vibration', because a quick google brings up a whole lot of esoteric, mystic, self-help "the life transforming truth"-kind of sites. Incidentally, I also ran across the "Gann Harmony" The Law of Vibration, The Complete Gann I-IX Course Manuals at a special discount offer for only $1500 instead of $2000 :bad idea:

Without taking sides, it must be said that although Gann wrote books too, he - contrary to Wyckoff - has not completely laid out the principles of his "approach". Gann even said himself that he would not be inclined to do so. On the other hand, I think Wyckoff has been very generous in providing information for free...

ehm... not bad for my return to shape out at 628 for +80

I have more confidence in the ES to be honest. This area 11500-11800 has little in terms of S/R, what do you think?

DOW long 11548, stop 35.

Well I wish you best of luck to start with! I do remember those days, but I haven't exactly been doing that well recently, so unfortunately those triple digit profit days seem a long way ago... :\

I'd be surprised if it opens above 600... Right now, imo, ES is at resistance (1275), NQ as well (1825) and DOW... well not so sure... Well done on the longs!

Apologies, but the point is still the same. I'm sure you could find examples where price reacts that smoothly, but most of time it's not that clean.

Multiple touches sounds fine, but the chart example you provided seems a bit too perfect. Reality isn't that close, unfortunately... Might be more interesting to show a real-time chart?

I didn't talk about market profile nor volume... Suppose the chart is from FX where only tick volume is available, what would you do then?

... about divergences. Despite the Industrials making decent now lows (1000 points below March lows), the DOW Transports is quite clearly much higher: Atto posted a chart of the $COMPX, where we are again at the same price level from Jan & March, but the NASDAQ-100 ($NDX), set in a higher low...

The close to 575 high seems like a throwback from the trendline, drawn from May 19...

yeah I noticed APPLE, but their stock went up... Does anybody have a list when these corporate reports come out? I have enough decent sites with general economic news releases, but I'd appreciate it if anybody could show me a site with these kind of things. Fortunately most of them take place after hours, but for overnight traders I can imagine they can spoil things...

I agree Soultrader, but how about online poker? Is it more difficult to gain an edge because there aren't any clues like these? Except for time delay although in turbo games this is relative as well...

Interesting case & thread atto. As you point out that this might be a mid-term bottom but not 'the' bottom, it would be interesting to know how or what elements would define 'the' bottom. Are you looking for a certain number of downlegs in this bear market? Are you looking for a specific time window? Are you looking at extreme pessimist market sentiment (but how do you gauge that, other than using VIX & relatives)? Personally, I think it looks like this second big "wave of selling" might have ended. As the Nasdaq and ES has been discussed, I might add that the DOW has also attained by initial target of 10800 (something I posted 6 months ago on another forum). I had that figure in mind, because of the price action in the first two, and final two months of 2005. Yes, that's a long way back, but the time price spent trading around those levels, proved to provide enough support even three years later to make up for a very decent bounce (+700 points). So, with all indices reacting strongly (+50 ES has been mentioned), I think the market might be entering a period of sideways or consolidating price action. June was pretty straightforward one-way (not intraday obviously, but the big picture is fairly obvious) downtrending, and after strong trending days the market often needs some time to 'breathe'... I also agree with jasont, the selling on the way down, especially near the beginning of July, was of a different kind than what we've seen in March/January. Personally, I've found the market more difficult to trade last couple of weeks, often making new lows, but immediately reacting to bounce higher. I wonder if I'm the only one having experienced this kind of "unusual" behaviour. Normally after a break of support (on decent volume) you'd expect some sort of continuation. But the market often turned violently back up. Only to resume selling the next day or several hours later. I've also attached some charts, with trendlines to illustrate what I'm looking at right now. A break of these lines would clearly show more strength, but right now only the ES has broken one line, and the DOW and NQ are still below this. I've also added another NQ chart, where I think price is finding support on the midpoint of a hinge back from January (at that time a similar chart was posted by dbphoenix). Thoughts, comments, suggestions,... very welcome

Anybody know what news caused that late night drop after the close yesterday?

I disagree. If it were that easy, everybody would be seeing S/R at the same place, but that's not the case. If "any three year old can draw horizontal S/R", than I'm sure you won't mind showing me where the important S/R levels are on the attached charts

this is screaming to go up imo

check out the commodities thread, we were just discussing how we think the top is set

... "When do you push aggressively? When do you fold? When do you stay flat?" These are good questions... I'm wondering how many traders change their approach after they had a number of profitable trades. Do they get overconfident and double up? Most will probably raise the stakes after a number of successive losses, in order to gain back what they've lost faster. I'm not sure if you should change your position size based on what happened before... is it really the best way to approach the market? I mean, the market has no history of whatever trades you took before that and whether they were profitable or not is irrelevant to the probabilities of the trade you just put on. When playing poker, I think it's better and probably more efficient to raise the stakes when you have better hands and your opponent has less chips. During the course of a poker tournament, I've often seen people call with hands where they wouldn't have played with in the beginning because there were just too many people sitting around the table at that time. It seems logical, when there are 9 people around the table your pocket queens as a starting hand is pretty good, but when there are only 3 people left, you feel even stronger (especially before the flop). Although there are similarities between poker and trading, I think this isn't one of them. Should you trade more aggressive because you just had a number of profitable trades? Yes, you should probably fold if you suddenly run into an abnormal string of losses with no apparent explanation. But in general, I think you should stick to the plan, and only adopt when the market circumstances require you to do so, not because of elements outside of the market. Just my 2c...

... how can you study your opponents if you don't know who they are? When playing poker with friends, I find that in the game the most typical characteristics show up. For example, one guy who is always rather confident and perhaps a tad arrogant, will bet rather boldly and often out-raise another player, often without thinking what the odds are that his cards aren't as good as the other player's. When playing online poker, it becomes more difficult imo. How can you analyze your opponents if you can't analyze body language, you can't read emotions. You can only observe their actions, the time it takes to make a decision. But there is less "bio-feedback" available. In the markets you can gauge what the herd is doing by observing extreme moves. Highly emotional reactions are often translated in sudden sharp reversals, where the smart money comes into play. But what can you learn from studying your 'opponent' and should you really consider the other trader to be your opponent? In poker you are all fighting over one and the same pot. In trading, the only opponent you have is the person on the other side of your trade basically. But it's not because you are short and another trader is also short, there's only one person who can make money. Having said that, poker is more focused on the individual it seems. The only thing that prevents you from making more money, is others taking it away from you (for example by stealing the pot). In trading, it seems better to consider yourself as part of the flow and to go along with whatever signals smart money gives, in terms of price/volume action.

I'm not sure if there is such a thing... In poker there's always the element of chance. In trading I think there is less. If one is highly capable of analyzing the buying and selling flow in the market, he will be aware when a turn is imminent. In poker, even if you have a very good idea of what the other players have in their hands, and even if you know all the odds by heart, the river card might still give the other player a highly unlikely - but yet possible - victory. Suppose you have a pair of kings with nothing on the table but a series of unsuited low cards. The best anyone can make is a pair. But then comes the final card and it's a low 5 making a pair of 5's on the table. The only player who was still calling your bets, now has a three of a kind. In the markets, the only form of 'bad beat' I can think of, is a totally unexpected, unscheduled, unannounced news report. 9/11 comes to mind... Any thoughts?

... I was wondering with all the (ex-)poker players around here, perhaps we could organize an online game (small stakes just for fun), say on Pokerstars? We could have our own private room there. For playing in between trades

Thanks, it's nice to have such a group of active traders continuing to post live trades :thumbs up: I see the commodity & forex threads attract less attention though...