wjrusnak

A little long term look at what I discovered last night at 1 am. We have that bull channel and the newest bear channel. Should be able to tell who wins here in the next day or so. (or today... who knows...)

Hmm... Maybe instead of talking about this trend line since open, I should have shut up and traded it? How about Firewalker? :doh:

Alright, unless overnight does something crazy again, this is what I'm looking at for tomorrow. If you have anything else to add, please do so. Before it plummeted, the NQ made an overnight range which I have boxed at the top left. So far this bottom of this box is representing some R here in the evening. I'm also looking for importance at the top and middle of this box. And here is the "zoomed out" view (30 min), which further demonstrates the importance of 1315. As far as downside, I think we can revisit "Firewalker's levels" at 1285 and 1305.

Don't cringe if this is horrible, but this is what I have from today's session for tomorrow. Keeping in mind 60, 30, and 05 due to the past few days and also 45 being that midpint from the 24th and the reactions after.

I actually watched the end of the game. Pretty nice job on Japan's part. Extra inning and everything...

A better day to end the week. Unfortunately I'm still falling into the category of scalping, which I feel is way too much work. Sort of hard to let profits run though when you're working with smaller capitol. With time...

Can't only display the good days, so here are my last two bad days. Hopefully Friday can keep my week in the black. Last two days had too many stop outs and I missed a really nice short on the NQ this morning because I didn't get filled at the price I had ordered. Missed out on many points. Again, though, I kept my discipline and abided my stops.

Mine says that too. That is the total commission (1.20 per side = 2.40 total), but they are not including the exchange fee. In the end it comes up to 2.35 per side, or 4.70 round-turn to trade ES or NQ with Tradestation. In essence then, you need to subtract in 1.14 from each of his trades to get his final P&L for the day.

To add, I suppose, the DOW seems to have broken above the top of your box, which seems to be strength, but I have this channel drawn and it is right at the edge of the top trend line. This should make 7500 a fairly interesting level tomorrow.

As you requested. I was reluctant to post due to my small account size, but never-the-less, here is my past week. I think this should help me to keep consistent and disciplined, knowing that I will display my results. Today I had only the last 4 trades on the list and was finished by 10:10 a.m. I'm a college student until the summer, so I can be forgiven for making only $400-$500 every two weeks or so (or can I be...?), but I definitely need to step it up a bit. More importantly though, I've been working on the patience to take trades and as you can tell by this week, I've succeeded in doing so. Also, if you notice I was extremely conservative in my gains and I would like to work on let my profits roll a bit longer. This was due to an urgency to make up for last weeks losses. Most traders can relate to that I think? -- Bill

Well nothing will cover up that interview. Too many people watch the Daily Show and too many "laypeople" saw him get humiliated. Even if this doesn't stop the Cramer express, it will offer some skepticism for a large population of people, primarily the "suckers" who feed into his calls in the first place. In any case, I feel better knowing that someone called out CNBC (even if it was a comedy news show) and that is one extra reason to fall asleep easier.

Your questions allow me to assume that you haven't done too much research on chart basics, such as resistance, support, trends, patterns, time and price, and so many other topics. What you're trying to predict is what each one of us here try to predict on a daily basis: Is price going to move higher or lower? No one here can spell that out for you and I'm sure no one wants to, especially if you end up losing your money. I suggest you getting into some of the forum topics around here and getting some basic market knowledge. In addition to that, it sounds like you are in serious need of charting software. You cannot trade efficiently without having a graphical representation of what price is doing over time (unless you are extremely gifted). If you don't have a broker yet, try some of the demo platforms, which I believe can be provided by Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, or AMP Trading (http://www.ampfutures.com). If you are new to stocks and futures, you really need to learn what it is that you're trading. Plenty of that information is available at Investopedia (check out the beginners section: http://www.investopedia.com/university/buildingblocks.asp) As far as getting a start to understanding price movement you can try a number of threads here. For instance, if you want to learn about a method known as Market Profile: check out http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f6/. Also I am definitely biased toward the Wyckoff method of viewing the market: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f131/. Either way you need some basic understanding of what you're looking at and until then, you will only see random patterns. Remember what you're seeing: price of an underlying asset (or contract) changing due to the buying and selling of thousands of people. People buy when they feel its undervalued and sell when they feel its overvalued. Essentially you want to find out who is right and get on that side. Best of luck to you with your trading and more importantly with your trading/investing development. -- Bill

So what you would be looking for tomorrow is the 75-80 area. If it breaks we can assume some strength and possibly head back above 1200. Don't know if buyers are strong enough to punch that through in one shot though. Personally, I'm looking at this area is a R, maybe for a small short. 67.75 was the high for yesterday and it looks like overnight is having trouble getting higher than 65. We'll see later in the AM I suppose. NOTE: I guess you have to subtract 2-3 from the values above since we want to focus on the June contract now.

Wow. That definitely had to be uncomfortable for Cramer (talking about the Daily Show tonight). I can't believe they showed that old TheStreet.com video with Cramer talking about manipulating the pre-market. The episode of the Daily Show should be on the site soon (http://www.dailyshow.com). It was a good watch. Old Street.com video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWVmlxhk-tU&eurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/11/jim-cramer-shorting-stock_n_173824.html

Hey guys, I'm with Tradestation currently and there a certain reasons I want to switch brokers. I was looking into Ninja with AmpFutures and I am currently using their free demo feature. Its a decent platform aside from some oddities, but definitely a manageable system. I know a number of traders here use IB, but what are they using for charts and order entries. I saw on the IB site that it has Trader Workstation, but I'm positive I've heard people using other platforms for IB. Let me know what you guys think. So far I'm leaning toward Ninja with Amp, but I'm very open to the IB route also. Pros and Cons anyone? - Bill

Apparently Jim Cramer is appearing on the Daily Show tomorrow (the 12th) to do this "showdown". Guess that means they'll joke about losing money and have a beer together Dammit, I thought we had a real fight

Your explanation makes sense. Now I have to get used to keeping better demand lines. I didn't realize you'd have to make higher highs also (although I know I read that many times). Thanks for the post.

This is the dL I am talking about.

A money target has seemed to kill me in trading. If I wasn't making my goal for the day, I would end up taking trades that I generally would not take and my stop outs end up getting ridiculous. In essence, I get too much pressure from a daily goal and get destroyed when I'm "on tilt" trying to make up for lost trades. Maybe this works for some, but I would agree with previous posts that a better idea is maybe a monthly or weekly goal. Daily is too short term. O and......GO STEELERS (to all you Browns fans)

Personally, I don't like the idea of scaling up. If you get a good 5 point move, then you buy more, and then it moves against you back to where price started, then you're now losing instead of breaking even. By scaling up, you raise your average instead of lowering it (speaking in terms of going long). I don't like it. Scaling down on the other hand, lowers your average, which makes sense, but I also think this traps people into not taking profits with a good trade. Say price goes against your position and you do buy lower. Then price gets back to your new average and you're at break even. Good advice given to me is when you're back at this break even mark, take off the position that you bought lower. Don't just say "okay I'm back to zero, so I can ride this higher with double the position." By taking off the "good trade" (i.e. the one bought at a better price), you are left with your original position, but now you didn't lose anything, even when price went against you. Also, this depends on your market and your tolerance. I wouldn't suggest scaling down 5-6 times when trading a leveraged and volatile market like the futures markets. Really you have to assume that if you're scaling down, you made a mistake with the first position. How big of a hole would you like?

Try This for the alerts: Right click on your chart (in an area with nothing in it) and select format analysis techniques, then double click on the trendlines automatic box. Under Alerts, make sure that "Enable Alerts" is unchecked. Now for the TL easylanguage code: I modded two lines which "truncate" the trendlines. You simply set the values to true instead of false. Now they extend forever. But if you have a low strength under the inputs tab (from the formatting box mentioned above), your chart will look like a jungle of trendlines! I set the strengths to like 11 or so and it seems alright. Experiment and see what you like. Here is the code:

Especially since most people know about these things. Anyone watching a chart is going to see it. Really you have to ask "what are traders going to do with this double top/bottom?" Much of the time, these double tops and bottoms are also pushed even further, just enough to shake/stop out someone with a good position. Look for any trouble that price has when trying to move any further above or below the double top or bottom. And of course, be ready if case you're wrong.

MCM: I've been trading for almost a year now and no I didn't blow out my account. I am actually up over 20% on my accounts (stocks and futures). I did however get into the game before I knew anything about trading and that cost me about $2000. Luckily I made it all back and realized, I still don't know anything. I won, but only by hunches and a few good calls. Beginning this year I got into trading futures since it allows you to day trade. This began my "actual" trading. I started to -- and still do -- glue my ass to this chair and make a grueling attempt to read as much of these forum topics as humanly possible (all while keeping up with school). And of course some of these boards lead you to other valuable information as well. I previously used the stochastic indicator, and it seemed to work, but I had no clue what it did, so I analyzed what it actually calculated and now I understand it. Ironically that is why I removed it from my charts. Currently my style is still developing. I use S/R as you mentioned and I try to incorporate volume into my trading when price is at important levels. One of my "things" is that I limit myself to 3 trades a day and trade with very small stops. I also try to quit by 11:00 a.m. The rest of the time I have during the day, I just watch the charts and try to understand them better and better. Its a great way to still be "in the game", but continue getting better by observation. I would suggest you do something maybe similar and really just sit and watch the market sometime during the day. It really helps when you aren't distracting by trading. Maybe trim down some of your strategies also and really try to master one. Most important though, put in the time to learn. Good luck! -- Bill

Anyone else feel like this is one of those "big" times for the dow? It has been holding the 7000 area since 1997. Should be interesting.

I sent a pleading letter to my Republican senator, Arlen Specter. I guess the only thing we can do is plea with them that this act would not punish Wall Street at all. It would punish lower capitol traders like many of us. The more that write, the better.