brownsfan019

Nick, I WISH I could just sit there and bet based on other people's emotions and tells. Wow, that would be great. I am the guy that tries to play it cool, but I have a lot to learn when it comes to poker. I really enjoy it, so hopefully my trading can fund my little hobby here. Maybe one day you'll see me on one of the many poker tours on TV. And a TL no limit poker tourney sounds great some day!!!

That's all it's about Nate. Trex's comments are a bit cryptic... In the end, the numbers do not lie and if your system has the edge, you trade it regardless of current feelings, P&L, etc. in my opinion. That's all this thread was about that Trex dug up that was 3 months old.

Ok... thanks for sharing. As I attempted to state, the thread has NOTHING to do with the act of gambling. It was an ANALOGY.

MrPaul, If the ER2 is not a possibility b/c you liked the movements and the ES is too 'small', why not trade the ES with more size and go for smaller moves? Just an idea.

James, Let's look at today's candle on the DIA... Some things we need to consider here: 1) Really low volume. How convinced are you that the bears had this or that the bulls took the day off? 2) We have a bearish shooting star in candlestick terms, near the SMA. Could be forming a classic pullback. 3) Assuming we were long on the hammer, do we exit the hammer? Do we initiate a new short? Those are the questions any candlestick trader would need to answer here. I personally would consider exiting my long if the low of the shooting star was taken out tomorrow. I can't tell on stockcharts the exact price levels here. I need to see about getting EOD data into Multicharts as that would make things a lot easier.

I would STRONGLY recommend you start building a portfolio now then. Keep detailed notes, with annotated charts and print them on nice paper and start creating a binder of your work. You want to walk into an interview at the bank or hedgie and say 'I've been conducting market analysis since I was 19, here's my work, all of which is detailed out for you. While I know I have a lot to learn, I wanted to provide you an example of how serious I am about the markets and in turn, working for your firm.' You think anyone else (esp younger candidates) would have a portfolio of their work since they were 19? As long as you aren't going up against me, I think you'd have a good shot at standing out. :tongue: And that's all the interview is about - standing out.

I say if you're going to have them, then let's do them up right!

That is a nice feature as well Jake. I think we've mentioned it here, but not sure if James can do it or not.

Abe, MrPaul has a great suggestion there on where to place the stop based on the hammer.

Is everyone else's smilies reverting back to the old ones (or ones that resemble the old ones)? I enjoy using the smilies but these guys are boring James! :blushed: Bring back the fun smilies!

Great point Darth. This is just the start. It really is going to be interesting to see what happens - either the gov't steps in as many are begging them to do (not sure how though) or we see A LOT of foreclosures. From a possible money making opportunity though... those with cash and good credit will be king here. Looks like there could be a possible housing upgrade in the brownsfan019 household possibly... :o

Good trading Abe! That was some bearish movement in pre-market.

Also, I should note that the ARM is just one option available when getting a mortgage. Not everyone in the US has one, just those that were looking for a very low monthly payment @ the start of their loan. I just have a simple 30 yr fixed payment. Difference being that I was paying more initially than those with an ARM and now my term and rate looks like a bargain to those with an ARM.

James, Most of these buyers received a 'teaser rate' - a very low rate that was set for a short period of time (usually no more than 5 years) and after that teaser rate was adjusted 'accordingly'. Well, if you got a 2% rate, I can pretty much guess which way that rate is going when it needs to 'adjust', right? And these adjustments are causing people to be late on the mortgage or just unable to meet the new payment period. Which of course then leads to foreclosures and the domino effect from there that we are seeing now. Most of these mortgages here are referred to as a ARM - Adjustable Rate Mortgage. Even in the name of the loan it tells you what may happen.

Good question James. There's one train of thought that says 'they' are keeping prices where 'they' want them to be able to accumulate a large short position. In other words, let's say you worked for a large institution and were told to get aggressively short on the ES but do not make your move obvious. What would you do? You'd try to get short at your preferred level as much as possible w/o red flags going up everywhere. To do this, you'd need to accumulate positions over DAYS or WEEKS.

James, Check out this thread - http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f2/cftc-reports-of-commitment-of-futures-2325.html Interesting... with price rising on low volume and the amount of shorts increasing, the question becomes who wins and when? Were 'they' increasing price so to be able to load up on short positions? Are 'they' going to then unleash the fury on the bulls or will those bulls step right in and do what it takes to find the stops of the bears?

Interesting note dogpile, thanks for posting. That coincides with my discussion with James_gsx in our thread here - http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f104/djia-candles-2275.html I was commenting there was a buy and while it has been working, James pointed out that while price has risen, it has done so on low volume, which is a big concern for the bulls. Perhaps this report is an omen of what to come... I think we'll see these shorts win and bring this thing down or that magical 'someone' will run this up to find the stops of these shorts. Should make for some interesting action soon.

James, Here's my thoughts on BSC... As for your DIA analysis, I can appreciate the work you are doing, so I say keep it up. Since there's so many ways to trade, I don't necessarily follow everything that you've stated here, but it does look like excellent work. I am a candle purist and in my opinion, you needed to ALREADY be long, not considering a position now. That's just my opinion, but it's nice to have this discussion since the Candlestick Corner can be a bit quiet... :blushed: Side note - you're obviously doing some homework here and that should be recognized. Not sure how old you are and/or what your future plans are, but I see the groundwork of a technician here in the making... We'd all love to just trade our own money from the Bahamas, but that's not always the case, at least in the beginning. I would start building a little portfolio of your analysis now if you think that some kind of analyst/technician job could be of interest later. I mean, you are already doing the work, so just do it assuming this could be your ticket to a job in Manhattan helping to run a billion dollar mutual fund or hedge fund. I offer this advice b/c there's some stuff that I wish someone would have told me when I was younger.

I posted this over at et, but thought I'd share here as well... Here's my exciting poker story to share - today I played in a local poker tourney at a home days festival. $50 buy in, $25 rebuy (unlimited in 1st hour and one more in the 2nd hour). The first hour I didn't have much to play and played a whole 2 rounds. Won one, lost one. Ended up needing to rebuy w/in the first hour. Total cost now at $75. After the break and into the 2nd round (only one re-buy allowed), I was doing ok but got caught and ended up needing to rebuy one more time. And from there it looked bleak until I caught some nice cards and was able to slowly build back up. Ended up making to the final table of 10 players. I am about average stacked at this point. Big/small blinds quickly force you to make some decisions and I won some nice sized hands to take the chip lead. And then 'my moment' happened. I am last to act. First guy folds. 2nd guy makes decent bet. 3rd guy goes over the top, I think assuming no one else would come is as there was A LOT of folding going on. 4th folds. 5th is short stacked and goes all in. 6th & 7th calls, not all in (yet). I'm sitting there with pocket A's. I just go all in as my hands nervously shake. Everyone that is not all in, goes all in and since I am big stack, if I win, 4 people are done. And that's what happened! My pocket rocket's held up and in one hand, I eliminate 4 people. Wow, what a rush. I know. This was a small local tourney with little money at stake, but for a guy like me that does not play much, it was a rush to be sitting there with pocket A's and all these bets are going into the pot. I couldn't believe it. I thought when I got them that I'd be lucky to get 1 person to play the hand with me. I ended up tying for 1st.... I eliminated the 3rd place guy and the guy remaining and I just split the 1st and 2nd place money in half instead of playing heads up. It was his idea, and while I had a few more chips, I was ok with that as I suck at heads up. I have a lot of work to do on how to play heads up. End result - cost was $100, walked out with $700. Not bad for a little local tourney! ------------- As a side note, I really enjoy the rush of playing poker. There's obviously some similarities to trading, but there's some distinct differences as well (esp playing in person) and it's fun. I enjoy it. One of the guys at our table mentioned that he had played in a $1500 tourney in Vegas recently and it sounded like a nice tourney. I like the tournament style better than joining an existing table and seeing what you can do (which is what a lot of these local festivals are like).

Whether you planned it or not James, you found a great example here in the DIA/YM potential plays. I just wish now we would have discussed this BEFORE the hammer appeared! Here's one piece of advice - when there's a large rally or selloff, watch those daily charts like a hawk. We all know that those rallies/selloffs are usually the result of some news and people overreacting. Candlestick analysis can help immensely at giving you some idea when that overreacting may be ending. These hammers we found are perfect examples. Candlestick analysis will never get you long at the bottom or short at the top, but it can get you pretty close to those levels in my opinion. I have to say, after looking at some of these charts (I was looking at other indexes as well, just didn't post the charts here), it's hard to argue with taking a longer term approach on some of these trades - you pay a lot less in commissions and make more money. Think about it... if I played that hammer on the YM or ES, I would have to go into the trade with some acceptable risk parameters, but once I was comfortable with it, I could sit back and relax. I really don't know what I'd do with my time then! :unsure:

Bear, The biggest issue right now is people's mortgage payments going up more than they anticipated (or even considered to begin with) and now their payments are going up more than they can handle. Property values are suffering as a result since now is a 'buyers market'. It's an interesting situation to say the least and will be a good one to watch going forward. Some in gov't are calling for the federal gov't to step in and stop this mess from getting worse. I'm not sure what they can do to fix this, but it's bad. Time will tell.

Unfortunately Nate, it's much easier to just point the finger at someone else.

I'm sure everyone has read about the mortgage 'crisis' that is hitting the US, but I take a step back and say 'no kidding!'. Allow me to explain... About 3-4 yrs ago I purchased the house I currently live in. Interest rates were so incredibly low, it was great. IF YOU HAD A BRAIN. Low teaser rates were advertised EVERYWHERE - tv, radio, internet, etc. - with these low teaser rates that common sense would tell you could not stay that low. I remember seeing ads for 2%. TWO PERCENT. Now, anyone with a little common sense SHOULD have thought... wow, great rate, but WHAT'S THE CATCH? Well, the catch, as we all now see is that these rates are skyrocketing on people. Here's the gotcha - people were taking loans with monthly payments that they could barely afford at the TEASER rate. Now, with everything that is going on in the mortgage biz, people are freaking out. I bring this up, b/c the local paper here in Cleveland finally ran a story on it. It was FRONT PAGE. Here's the link to the story - http://blog.cleveland.com/plaindealer/2007/08/mortgage_mess_hits_home.html I just sit here and think... what did you people think? Your rate was going to stay at 2% or 3% for the life of the loan? Give me a break. The paper is trying to play this up like it's the mortgage co's fault, and while they are to blame as well, there is some accountability needed here. If you get a teaser rate, whether it's a credit card or home loan, you need to read the fine print. End of story. Anyways, looks like there will be some nice home bargains in the Cleveland area soon.

SnagIt is a little tricky on the zooming thing... Let me know if that's not clear.

James, My thought is this - if you went long on the hammer, you remain long as price continues to rise. You made an excellent observation that the volume is decreasing, so I would be watching this closely. I personally would consider staying long until a bearish pattern formed AND confirmed the following day. Excellent observation.