brownsfan019

ptop, The data restrictions are from IB NOT MC. I had the same problem with Open ECry data. It all depends on how much data IB is allowing. Contact IB and see what they say.

Wow, those were incredibly bad plays. I think a little more research will be needed on stocks before I consider getting back into these plays. Let these be a good lesson - just buying hammers on volume is not enough. I knew that going into them, and it just provided another reminder of buying hammers with no support.

James, It's nice when you get some additional confirmations as well. I'd guess some of the other indexes look the same. Doesn't guarantee a good trade, but could help.

Just some ideas for discussion. These could be completely off for credit spreads, so go easy on me. SPY The overhead resistance is kinda close though, so maybe that would void this trade? Or would you consider just making the upper even wider? This is a SPY weekly chart, so not sure if that's good, bad or indifferent. IWM I guess the real question is where is the 'sweet spot' on putting a credit spread on? What I mean is, as I flipped through some ETF's, I saw a good lower or upper area, but would be concerned that the other side of the trade was too close. In other words, with the SPY chart here, the upper side of this trade seems close to me. I think the lower end is 'safer', but the upper end would have me concerned. How do you view this and handle this?

Tin, I really like the idea of these credit spreads. I mean, I find that many of the candlestick Support/Resistance areas that I find are often respected, so this would seem like an easy trade. So, what am I missing here? Once the zones are identified (and it appears they can be pretty wide), it's a matter of finding the right options and getting filled, correct? Is that easier said than done? I'll see if I can find an example or two for your inspection.

Hey guys, What a week, huh? Here's the short we were looking at: We learned two things: 1) Holding during the Fed can pay big time or hurt big time. 2) Stop placement on this trade was absolutely critical AND you had to take some heat on the trade IF you held through the Fed. So this short had 3 possibilities as far as I see it: 1) Exited at the close on Tue b/c you did not want to hold during the Fed. End result: +4.25 (bought beginning of Tue and sold end of Tue). 2) Got stopped on Fed day based on where stop was. End result: -10.75 pts 3) Held and kept your short, but now exited based on new buy (more below). End result: +23 pts. So, as you can see, where you place that stop was just critical. In this scenario, as I mentioned in another post, the stop would need to give the trade some room to work due to the Fed announcement coming. -------------------------- NEW TRADE SETUP AS OF FRI! Wow, this is a nice one. Here's what I see: 1) Strong support @ a strong psychological number (1500 even). 2) Look at the volume on this spinning top at this strong support level. 3) We saw a very similar pattern recently that produced a decent profit. If we add the 50 and 200 SMA, here's what we now see: I'd prefer it to be touching the 200, but close enough. Here's a long that has 2 possible entry points: 1) Enter @ market Sunday evening to go long. 2) Wait until price breaks the high of this spinning top. The high was 1525, so once price breaks this level, go long. There's good and bad of each, which has been discussed here. One last note - as we saw earlier, stop placement is critical. In our trade here, note that this spinning top's low is not quite the low of the previous hammer: As we also saw previously, the hammer's body/low can be retested so your stop placement is critical here as well. Good Trading and Do Your Own Due Diligence At All Times Before Placing Any Trades!

Here's an explanation I found through a Google search: http://www.premiumdata.net/support/futurescontinuous2.php

aik, Check out this how to: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f30/how-to-post-a-chart-properly-805.html

Hopefully you saw the 'action' Mitch - a few moments before 2:15pm and shortly thereafter.

FYI - it appears the new version of Sierra Charts will support constant volume candles. http://supportboard.sierrachart.com/showthread.php?t=13917 http://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?file=new.html

Just a friendly reminder that the FOMC announcement is today at 2:15pm EST. http://premium.econoday.com/reports/US/EN/New_York/fomc_meeting/year/2007/yearly/10/index.html

JUST A REMINDER: IF YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE THE POWER OF THE VBC, SET UP YOUR CHARTS TODAY BEFORE THE FED ANNOUNCEMENT AND JUST WATCH HOW THE VBC LOOKS COMPARED TO A MINUTE OR TICK CHART. Today is a perfect example of how these can REALLY work.

Good question Mitch. I mainly use the VBC's for intraday trading to smooth the charts out. I am a candle trader by nature, so the VBC's seem to be a great fit with them. I'm mainly looking for strong candle patterns at support/resistance levels. I also want to be in trades when things are moving and the VBC allows just that. Make sure to watch a VBC today before the Fed announcement and you will really see how these work in fast moving markets.

Yes, I would have trouble shorting a hammer. The formation may be a hanging man, but I have a really hard time seeing that as bearish. To me, it says the bears tried to push it down and the bulls ran it right back up. I suppose you could consider shorting a hammer/hanging man right at a resistance level, but I do not play those so no idea of the reliability. You could be onto something here, but make sure you do plenty of homework.

ptop - do a search as MC has been brought up a few times. I was using them quite a bit before moving over to Open ECry's charts.

James, Your charts look good. Just keep in mind with the S/R you are looking for times where price hit the level at least twice and you are really looking at the upper/lower shadows. You want to see where price was rejected a number of times in the same area. It will never be perfect - where price always rejects exactly at the same price, so I refer to them as 'zones' or 'areas'. It's basically a connect the dots if you will. We can start a new thread dedicated to drawing S/R levels based on the candlestick analysis and nothing else. I'm guessing it will just be you and I discussing (maybe Tin will chime in ).

Unfortunately, no. Due to our discussions here, I am strongly considering doing more swing plays. My main focus for awhile has been the day-to-day trades and out by 4:15pm. While that works, as you know, I think there's more stresses and such involved. For me, the daily just is cleaner and gives plenty of time for analysis. So, it's a good thing we got this forum area going b/c it's re-opened my eyes to a few things.

Let's see what these puppies are up to since these were all long plays and the market was down today. PMI - ugly. This downtrend may be too strong. Stop not violated but getting close. RDN - up on Monday, down today. Not much happening thus far. TGIC - not much happening so far. Well, stocks sure can suck sometimes. I guess when you are used to futures moving, stocks can seem like pulling teeth. As much as I enjoy screening stocks and looking for them, I am really thinking that I am best suited to just playing the indexes and futures. It's just so hard and time consuming looking for stocks that are worth playing and to be perfectly honest, that's a lot of extra work right now. I have a list of futures put together to watch on the dailys and probably best to stick with that for now.

This long should have been closed out today after seeing an inverted hammer/spinning top type pattern on Monday's close. Not a big trade, but approx: entry @ 1513.50 exit @ 1540.50 (one tick from the low of the inv hammer) gross profit of 27 pts = $1350/ct Not bad for about a week of work. New chart: The inv hammer was confirmed today with a bearish day. If you want to go short (disregarding Fed on Wed), the short was at 1540.50 (reversal from long position directly into a short position). Current price is approx 1536.25 Tue evening. Again, a pure chartist is short saying that the Fed news is priced in already and gave a nice short opportunity. I personally would be leary of holding a swing trade into a Fed announcement as we know price can spike everywhere. I think to hold this short into the Fed would require a looser stop, which at the minimum would need to be placed above the most recent resistance level. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I should just follow the chart and leave my wonderful analysis out of the picture. We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

Taking a look back at the EC.... (I am really scratching my head here lately on how I don't just trade these daily moves... :doh: )

I think it's a matter of semantics. Your screenshot says hammer, so I interrupted that as you think there is bullish price action. If that is a hammer, then we cannot short. From stockcharts.com, the hanging man says: The Hanging Man is a bearish reversal pattern that can also mark a top or resistance level. Forming after an advance, a Hanging Man signals that selling pressure is starting to increase. The low of the long lower shadow confirms that sellers pushed prices lower during the session. Even though the bulls regained their footing and drove prices higher by the finish, the appearance of selling pressure raises the yellow flag. As with the Hammer, a Hanging Man requires bearish confirmation before action. Such confirmation can come as a gap down or long black candlestick on heavy volume. Here's my interpretation, which is different than your standard candlestick definitions - I see a bullish hammer. Yes, by the book, a hammer at the top of a move is a 'hanging man' and while I 'get it', I don't like it. What I mean is, a hammer is a hammer is a hammer to me. Now there's a big difference between a hammer that you ACT on and a hammer that you IGNORE. You simply cannot play any hammer you see for the sake of playing the hammer. So, in your example here, I would consider a short on this 'hanging man' that resembles a bullish hammer as aggressive. Some sort of bearish confirmation would help any bearish sentiment and I would go so far as to say that I would want to see a bearish candle signal before considering a short here. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I saw hammer and immediately thought there's no way to short a hammer, at least in any way that I've ever traded them.

James, STOP TRYING TO SHORT HAMMERS. Hammers are not reasons to short, at least in the sense you are using them here. That's a topic for discussion WAY down the road. Your candle trading checklist should be: 1) Identify pattern, if any. 2) Is it bullish or bearish? 3) Bullish = possible buy; Bearish = possible short. 4) Run your S/R levels and see if the Risk/Reward works. Let's start there. So in this example, we found a hammer = bullish. We cannot short a bullish pattern, that defeats the purpose of using candlestick analysis. There could be more here, but I have to run, so I'll check in later tonight or tomorrow. Let's just start with identifying whether the candle pattern is BULLISH or BEARISH. And for now, if you say BULLISH you CANNOT short based on that analysis. OK?

Very true OAC. Check out the volume based candles on Fed day and you will see how these may or may not help you.

It's hard for me to take a trade with low volume after a candle pattern... Just seems counterintuitive to me. I would like a strong pattern, at support or resistance with healthy volume. That is a great setup in my book. Now taking a trade after a strong candle pattern has formed only if the volume is weak on a retest just seems that you are late to the party doing this. What if that retest never occurs and you get a large WRB after the candle hammer? Just say oh well? As I've mentioned before, the candles are one of the quickest ways to get into trades. Of course, that will lead to false moves as well. You just have to maximize the gains on the winners.

James, It would be cool to see this new spreadsheet in motion, if you are able to.