TinGull

Dude....get a mac. First off, if you want a laptop, the charger is held on the computer by a magnet!!! No worries about tripping over the cord and having this sort of catastrophe on hand. PLUS, you get like 3-4 years out of a Mac instead of 2 from a PC. Makes economic sense in the long run. Plus...they look so much cooler HAHA!!! There's my 2 cents

Something interesting to look at in hindsight...what sort of things did the profile tell us on Thursday that could have led to Friday being a "day off" for most of us? First of all...with Monday being a holiday we kind of knew it wasn't going to be a fantastic day. BUT, with that being said, Thursday did give us clues. The biggest clue for me was the TPO count. It is seldom that we have a day when the TPO count is as equal as it was on Thursday. We had volume discrepencies between the futures players and the cash market. Could that have been a sign? I've never done any research on that, so any help there would be awesome. As I had mentioned, any probe into the value area would potentially lead us up through value (as it did end up doing) but we were opening up under value having closed at the very low of end value, looking like we wanted to sell off further. When signals are this mixed, from now on, I will most likely stay out of the market as best I can unless something truly unbelieable comes into action. As it was, I had a losing trade yesterday of -9 points, and called it a day. There wasn't much I felt I could trust in the markets. That's not even considering the CBOT fiasco. Just some interesting things to take note of for when something like that happens again.

Exactly. CBOT went down twice yesterday. YAY! Also...interesting to note the last line of my first post. Yesterday was a tricky day indeed all told by the profile.

Very nice. Thanks Soul!

Mine is really wacky, and was wondering what you guys who use MP with YM are going to look for on tuesday? My value area high for today is at like 629! POC at 602 and VAL at 568. Just curious if the CBOT escapade messed up anyone elses charts. THANKS

Hey Buck, The reason for that is because the regular cash market hours are from 9:30-4, so thats when the majority of volume occurs in the index futures. As for the overnight volume and price fluctuations being lackluster for the most part...yea, it is. If you're in a trade and all heck breaks loose globally, you'll be either very happy if youre short, or very sad if youre long. It's just like stocks if they get some bad news and youre in a trade with that issue. There's never gaurantees, but probabilities there are.

Hi Ryounkin! Welcome to TL! For eMinis, yes most of us here trade them and not stocks, but we love traders of all kinds For differences...I've only traded ER and YM, and those two are the exact opposite of the spectrum from eachother. ER is very fast and very volatile and if played properly, the most profitable on a per tick basis (10 dollars per tick instead of 5 for YM). The YM really suits my personality as it's a laid back easy going contract to trade. The NQ and ES I can't help with, unfortunately. I do know there are people here who have traded these two, so hopefully they can shed some light. Hope that helps! Chris

Welcome to TL! Out of curiousity, how do you know the floor pivots are different? Also...eminis aren't traded on any floor. It's purely electronic. The YM follows those pivots with real accuracy, and ER usually gives a little leeway to them. No idea about NQ or ES as I've never put a contract into either of those markets. Love to know what kind of differences you see. If you have a chart or a formula with how floor traders are calculating them, let us know

Yesterday we had a really powerful trend in the morning, and then come afternoon things faltered and we fell back down...right at the 600 level that provided us with resistance before. TPO count was balanced at 122/123, so nothing to talk abou there. We did see what looks like a short covering rally shown as a "P" formation in the profile, and what clues one into the fact that it very well may have been is the lack of buying through the 600 level. The momentum was there to clear it, but we started faltering at 580 which was a real critical level for days and days, and never made it past 602. Today, we're opening up under value as of this moment. Retail Sales has just come out and the market seems a bit questionable as to it's direction, but just about anything under the close is going to give a price under value. We closed just 2 points inside of value from the downside. After the F profile probed the high of the day, we never came back to that level. As it happened in the first half of the day, I would say buying waned and old shorts had been covered, but no new buying was happening. While volume surged in the cash markets, the YM had it's lowest volume day of 2007 which supports the cause for no renewed buying interest. For those that follow the delta divergence...notice how on the dailies we're moving up on less net buying...interesting! How could we play today? If we do open up under value, I'd look to possibly short at 565. Be careful, as we've got a smaller VA than yesterday and we're very close to it. Any probe back into value could lead us through the value area into the 600 area. I somehow think that may be a more likely scenario...but with the range the YM has traded all '07 (around 100 points a day), if we falter at 600 we're gonna be heading down towards yesterdays lows. Careful out there...could be tricky!

Nice. Did you find him by looking for someone that specialized in trader taxes?

Cool. I figure I prolly won't get audited for 3 months worth of trading... You recommend doing a hometown accountant? Or something like a big box H&R Block or something?

No worries, if you decide to get into them just ask around and we're all more than happy to help

CME Equity Products CBOT - mini-sized Dow ($5) Quotes Electronic Check out those sites for some contract specs and such. A lot of people here, like me, trade the YM (mini dow). Its a very technically oriented trading issue. Ask Q's and search this site for some great stuff on the eMinis!

True, in the US commodities traders are taxed a blended 23% or so instead of 35% for equities traders.

Thanks Robert!

Gotcha in the chat room. Welcome!

HA!! Will do Tex

Are you only using Market Delta? Or an InvestorR/T package branded by Market Delta?

Thanks Buk, and to you as well

Also to note...our slightly lower value placement.

HAHA! Hey Buk. That indicator is a valume breakdown of the delta of bid vs ask. Simply put, more buyers than sellers the line is green and vice versa. The extreme area just alerts to me to two things...either capitulation or the start to a heavy trend. Also...in my divergence strategy, that extreme will give me something solid to watch for as far as a divergence between that and the price movement as evidenced by the blue trendlines you see on that indicator. Thanks for the kind words on the analysis

Tomorrows action…what might go on?Our TPO count was 188/173 favoring sellers again. Volume on the daily chart shows lighter volume today than yesterday. Every time this year that we’ve had a down day, it’s followed up by a weaker up day. Tomorrow will be interesting as something this evening made the YM jump about 20 points after hours. Don’t know if it was just from Genentech’s earnings report or what, but since then we've been selling off that high with 530 acting as our resistance (highs of this range we've been in). 12417 gave the YM a nice support level today. It is the monthly pivot. Then…S1 (434) was giving us a really nice bounce, as we hit that 4 times. Word is we’ve got some heavy support underneath us now, so bears are having a little of trouble. We may be looking for an upmove tomorrow, even though TPO counts are telling us otherwise. We need some direction from the markets instead of this ugle volatile action that’s been taking place in the morning. 12495 is VAH and 12457 is POC, while 12429 is holding down at VAL. What happened at the end is called a spike. I just studied this today in fact! Weird how that’s been happening lately. The spike started at the P rotation at 12510, which ishe weekly pivot. Any open above 510 and below 545 will lead me to believe that, if price stays there, we are finding value up at these levels and we should rotate there. Or of we, in fact, find that price gets rejected at these levels, some bears will get active. Trades that would look good…depending where we open up…A long from 12495 (VAH) would be in good order. Note, too, that VAH was 499 from yesterday. Right in this 500 area we’re finding that value is at it’s maximum level. Remember, too, that if we open up outside of value but inside the range, one would be looking for any penetration of value to lead the YM through the value area. I think a great opportunity would be a penetration of 490ish to lead down to the 430's. Seems as though we're looking for around 100 point range as well. Watch where the B period ends and if we extend through the IB, add 100 points to the opposite end of the IB and that should give one a fair estimation of the days top. Here is the MP chart for today and a few days back: And yesterdays chart:

What charting software are you using Samurai? Usually charting software will have some sort of range indicator.

Just wanted to update things for the new year. IB breakouts have been on the rise lately... From 1/8/07 it was pretty easy to see where the breakout was going to happen as B/C/D/E/F all auctioned higher, but never left the IB. Then, on I period we slammed through it never to return. A trade placed a few ticks above that (around 468) would have been good for a bit. How much? Estimate the range from the previous day since we opened up inside of value. 1/5 was about 100 points and with the B period hitting 406 we could place a trade long at 468ish and look to cover at 506. YM ended up hitting around 515 for the high. On the 9th we opened outside of value, but within range...so same estimation principles are in effect. Thinking around 100 points. the IB ranged from 486 to 532. Once B period auctioned below A period, there was a hunch we were headed lower. When C period couldn't overcome the A period one should have been looking to go short. At 532 for the high of the IB, and a breakout below, we'd look for things to continue to around 430ish. A trade placed a few ticks below the IB at 483 would've given a nice R/R. Price auctioned down to 436, at which we saw price rejection, and one should have covered the short. Today...same thing. We traded slowly and then we broke out of IB at C period. While placing a trade on the breakout didn't work as well (would have been stopped out as it came back into balance) you do get a second chance to more than make up for it. A few ticks above IB again would have landed you in the H period, and with range estimation of about 100 points, you could look for 510ish to exit your trade. Especially since we knew 510 was a key level. So from 467 to 510 gives you 43 points with a risk of 10. This is how I'd look at IB breakouts now. Things really seem to be working nicely.

My stomach hurts from laughing so much today....that was awesome.