firewalker

Does the time it took to break down mean anything to you? Would you see it as another period of distribution perhaps?

Most people mistakenly attribute slow speed to the graphics card. But in today's computers (and even in laptop models) the usual bottleneck is the hard disk drive. Make you sure get yourself one with 7200RPM and preferably 16Mb buffer SATA-2. For desktops 32Mb buffer is freely available and if you look around a bit you'll find 10000RPM as well which makes a big difference. Not that common amongst laptops though. I would be surprised if you have a laptop that's less than 3 years old that you the GPU is the problem. Unless you have one of those models that use shared memory ofcourse,... Vendors often want to push you towards this or that model with 512Mb memory on the graphics card. But, unless you are planning to play games in 1280x1024 or higher, most of this memory will remain unused and will just cost you more money. Most trading software (charts) and classic office applications hardly require any 'graphic' processing skills. It's plain 2D, Check out the minimum requirements of IB's Trader Workstation. Even a 10-year old computer would still suffice. If you run Vista, it's a different thing though. All the shiny details, the (typical for Web 2.0) glass floor effects, and the transparent windows will put a significant higher load on your graphics card. Even if I had the most powerful laptop around, I'd still prefer XP because I don't need all that stuff and will usually turn even in XP all the templates/colours off and switch basic to a very slim and basic 2000-look.

It doesn't matter if you order if from Amazon or from stockspeculationclassics.com, both originate from the same publisher. Shipping costs depend on your location and whether are not the national customs department charges you with an extra fee. I paid $25 in total, which is really a bargain considering those are normally the shipping costs I have to pay when ordering a product from the US. Going through the +1200 pages however will take me considerable time and I have set those books aside for my summer literature. If I get through them, I'll try to provide a book review, but don't hold out for me

Well I had a quick look around the web and found some stats for January 2008 on the DOW. They came up with very similar numbers actually: "Of the 20 trading days in January, 13 (65%) of those days produced gaps in the DIA, and of those 9 (70%) of those gaps filled for a profit using the classic “fade the gap” strategy." http://blog.afraidtotrade.com/gap-fade-stats-for-january/

It might have been wrong of me to label it support, what I meant to say was that 1962-63 seemed to be strong enough to hold price up... Does that mean you think price reacts differently as the day progresses, less technically and you give more meaning to what happens in the first two hours than the rest of the day?

You referred to the chart I posted of the NQ, but I didn't mention volume in my comments. I take it you were talking about the higher low around 1645 (my local time, as annotated on the chart) which presented itself on lower volume but below support? And if the trader had not been tossed out there, wouldn't the break higher, above the last swing high, signal a (albeit perhaps temporarily) change in trend (regardless of whether or not the 1950 level was still valid as S/R)?

This one's for wasp... or anybody else who is interested! I posted my live trade with entry, scale out and exit in the appropriate thread, but this isn't about my trades of today. Here is the 1-minute chart of the NQ, June 11: Given: the short (red dot) entry, and support at 1947.50-1950 (from May 23 and before), further support at 1937. Would the green dot signal a long entry? At the green dot we have (a) break of the supplyline and (b) break of the trendline and © failure to make a lower low and (d) a break of the last swing. The green dot would be a clear signal to lighten my position again. You could hope on a trend continuation after that (or re-enter short at a later time)... I just wanted to illustrate that an exit signal isn't always a reversal signal. Suppose you stayed in further and drew a new line, beginning at 1955 and along the swings down to 1937. Line breached, no lower low, support confirmed and up we go. Long again at the blue entry. These aren't trades I've taken. But they might have been, had I not decided to call it a day after the first one. Main point here is, imo, that unless you trade multiple contracts and leave one on till the end of the day - preferably with your stop at breakeven - you're never going to catch the complete range...

Although I've never given it much thought nor attention, I have read (and observed some things in my -relatively short- trading career): Fridays then tend to be difficult days, especially after lunchtime. Fridays tend to be trend-following (it was especially true last year, when we had the parabolic rise). In bear markets, Fridays then to be the days when not a lot of people want to be long... To determine whether there is any correlation with gaps being filled or not on certain days, I think you'll need a whole lot more stats than just 20 days for that.

Nice idea to open a thread for... I thought I'd just copy my original reply from your blog here, just in case anyone else want to follow the discussion with these things i mind: Several comments: (a) [starting a new thread, which has been done] (b) Don't forget to take into account the news that often is released 30 minutes after the open. © Traditionally there are four types of gaps: common, breakaway, continuation and exhaustion gaps. See also here: http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.p...ool:glossary_g (d) What might be more significant in trading gaps, is to determine whether or not the gap means a break of important S/R. This might help in determining the probabilities of a move in the same or opposite direction. (e) In futures because of the overnight trading there is technically no gap as everything is pretty continuous and markets can be traded 20 hours out of 24... I was wondering if anyone else played with gaps? Because in general, they do have a tendency to get filled...

Zen and the Art of Poker by Larry W. Phillips ISBN 0452281261 High Probability Trading: Take the Steps to Become a Successful Trader by Marcel Link (although it can be summarized in 10 pages) - 0071381562 Art of Contrary Thinking (Paperback) - by Humphrey B. Neill 087004110X Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioural Economics by Gary Belsky 0684859386 Techniques of Tape Reading by Vadym Graifer

I ordered them myself and got both books delivered today. Incredible price, they are fresh printed books (not used ones) and the seller (publisher) was very accommodating. Given that this was an international air mail order, the speed at which the package was delivered was even more amazing. Just thought I'd make an update.

Thanks, nice couple of charts put together you got there. One glimpse and you see them all... Before the cross you also had a lower high and lower volume (12330 on the DOW). This happened two hours before the open and I didn't take it... A shame again, because price started to fall before the US open and was already trading at 12260...

Amazing entry! :applaud:

scaling out last third at 1344 for +11.25 points a nice change as opposed to yesterday...

scaling out other half at 49 for +22, short position closed on this instrument.

scaling out another 1/3rd at 1348.25 for +7 stop moved to 52.

scaling out 1/3rd at 1350.25 for +5, potential selling climax stop moved to 55 on rest of position.

half out at 61 for +10, stop moved to 66.

first target is 1548.

it's not going lower much though... next thing I'll be stopped out too

we have the same entry... in opposite directions one of us will be wrong soon :\

ES short 1355.25, stop 56.75.

NQ short 1971, stop 73.

1960 proved pretty solid as support yesterday, but price didn't do much for the first two hours, except for bounce between 1960-62 and 1972-74. I was wondering at what point do you call it a day? Considering all the posts I've read and all the charts I've seen that you posted, you don't seem pretty fond of ranging days...

Thanks. I'm not planning on trading commodities, just thought I'd see what all the fuss was about Seems rather volatile indeed!