james_gsx

What exactly do you see in the third highlighted candle? These are the type of setups I usually miss because my eyes aren't adjusted to seeing them as setups. Would it be because of the 3 candles pushing price down, then that would be a reversal candle? Is there any kind of psychology behind the candle I should be aware of? And what makes the second highlighted candle bullish?

Good analysis Brownsfan. I am remaining bearish, and I hope to be saying that based off what the charts are telling me. I worry sometimes that I get too excited for the market to fall and I get overly bearish, and vice versa for a bull market. But I will explain why I am remaining bearish. On the Nasdaq daily chart, we had our second attempt to break the 50 SMA. Both times we closed right on the SMA - last time we fell a considerable amount. One thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb to me is the volume. Volume has been extremely light on this retest back to the 50. This leads me to believe that with the recent news most of last weeks buyers weren't institutions but dumb money thinking everything is golden. NAS weekly, we see a bullish candle that closed above previous resistance. Lately the NAS seems to be following pivots very well (using former resistance/support) and the fact we closed above the resistance seems bullish to me. Now, I could see a quick rally up to 2630 before going lower, the low volume is what makes not want to be long here. I'd rather see better confirmation. Now for the Dow. Again, we found resistance at the 50SMA. If you open up a simple 10 minute chart of the YM for Friday you'll see a major sell off (sorry my screenshot does not include volume) in the last 30 minutes, if you add volume you will see how much it intensifies. This tells me that a lot of people were not willing to take home their position over the long weekend because of their lack of confidence in the market. Then where the candle closes, it fits in very nicely with the current trend line. Again, very low volume. Again sorry, this chart is a 5 minute chart and has no volume even though I mentioned a 10 minute. You still get my point though. Now for the Dow weekly, this is where I think things will get interesting. Looking at basic psychology this last week the bears took early control only for the bulls to push price higher. But again, the point where the bulls took over fits in with the bullish trend line. But, in the short term we closed at the top of the bearish trend line - essentially forming a wedge. Volume is lacking which tells me everyone is taking a pause and we will see a breakout in the next two weeks. Right now I wouldn't be long or short, I'd be waiting for a breakout move and tag along. Seeing as how price is finding resistance around 13,500, I'd suspect we will see more downside, but that's not always true. One thing I absolutely love about the DOW is the dow 30 components. We can quickly look at a quick chart of all 30 stocks and get an idea of where the market will be going. I did this (didn't save any charts just did a quick glance) and to be honest only a few stocks stuck out that could be a possible buy. Everything else looked bearish or uncertain.

Of course for intraday positions they really don't do you much good. But they give you a feel for the market, at least for me. I feel more "in tune" with the market if I know where it's been and where I feel it's going. Of course that doesn't make me biased on where to place my trades, but I like to have a heads up.

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: :haha:

I would love to go to Dubai. I actually have it on my list of places to live before I die.

One other thing, I know this is possible and maybe you can point me in the right direction to start searching. But how can I figure out where the majority of the volume was traded? Can't you use market profile for something like that? I believe it could help figure out who was in control and where.

I finally got tradestation installed and ready to go :thumbs up: Looking at the charts that were formed today I noticed that we still fit inside a wedge. But there are definitely some things to consider. Depending on how you draw your trendlines for the Nasdaq, the naz could be a leading indicator. Before all of this started, the Nasdaq was being used as a leading indicator by John Carter. I no longer use his service and just rely on myself, but it would be interesting to know what he's looking at. I wanted to make sure I was looking at the big picture here too, so I looked at the weekly charts. One thing stood out, on the Dow, Naz, and S&P we are forming a (hammerhead?). But we are not breaking any form of resistance, and I still think the candle could mean something significant. I have too many images to attach so I will just post them via imageshack. Let me know what you think Brownsfan...

Notice how the candle couldn't break the low of the shooting star, and had less volume. It has to make you wonder if it could be a bull trap, I think watching the rest of the week would be a good plan of attack, and be ready to exit any short/long position. GDP numbers are released tomorrow, pay attention to that.

I am seeing some sort of wedge on all 3 indices. The Naz closed at the 200SMA today. Does anyone know where the TRIN finished today and what went on with the VIX?

I think we could see another down day to the 200 SMA tomorrow which is around 12,900. I think the volatility is back and so is the volume. From the latest swing high/low we are at a .382 retracement and I don't see any reason why that would hold.

This is great, apparently she missed the bullshitting class.

Okay, I really don't know a lot about option strategies but I want to learn. I have been looking over stuff at think or swim, but I'm not going to lie I'm lost. I don't want to trade them, but I want to use them in aid with my investment vehicles. So lets take some hypothetical charts and see what kind of potential strategies could be applied. Lets say we have a beautiful uptrending chart, obviously just buying a call would be very risky. So what could we do here? Sell a put, buy a call... what? Lets say I own AAPL for a long term position, but I want to hedge against the current volatility. How would I go about doing so? Sorry these questions are so basic, but for some reason it just doesn't click with me when I read it online. I'm hoping one of your explanations will make sense and it will be easier to understand.

BSC broke support today along the 8 EMA - could this be a leading indicator of what's to come? Volume was higher but still very light. GS is still finding support on the 8 EMA and moving sideways on lighter and lighter volume. MER has a gap that is yet to be filled, and shows a very similar candle to BSC before it broke support today. Again, we see falling volume over the last few days. LEH - much of the same. Stuck between the 8 and 21 EMA with falling volume. Although the candles are slightly different, I am still worried that it can't break resistance. I rarely use RSI, the only times I pay attention to it is when I see some sort of a pattern forming. On all financial stocks I am seeing support and the line turning back down. They are all forming some sort of a wedge. Something will push these stocks one or the other sometime this week I believe. Now the question is, what is there currently in the chart that could point us one direction or the other?

I think a major difference after Feb 27th was that price kept moving higher after the initial major pullback. Here, we saw price top at 14,000 (it struggled to get there after 13,700). Then it fell and has been making lower highs since then, and there are clear trend lines and we are finding support against one now. Although this isn't purely technical, some important things are going on tomorrow that may have an impact. We have CCI numbers being released and the FOMC minutes. After seeing classic resistance today I would be very cautious about going long. To Brownsfan. 1 - today I think everyone took the day off lol 2 - I agree, especially since we found immediate resistance at Fridays high. 3 - Personally I would exit a good portion of my long position and tightened my stop. Maybe buy a DIA put as a hedge in case of a pullback.

I like the smilies on srtforums.com

GS may be a good play, I like the hammer on the weekly chart. Look how last week price nearly fell to the 200 SMA then the bulls took control. Now notice how the daily chart looks familiar to that of BSC, but we are finding support on the 8 EMA. Again though the falling volume worries me, but since it's so widespread I'm willing to just accept it. btw Brownsfan, if you want to move these posts and start a similar financials thread then that is fine with me. I know this is sort of going off topic.

This may be a dumb question, but how would the price be rising so dramatically if so many people were going short? Unless these are longer term positions that were accumulated over the last few weeks?

One thing that could explain the light volume is the vast array of economic news coming this week. For example we have the GDP, CCI, FOMC minutes, and Consumer sentiment all in the same week, so I would imagine volume is reflecting that and the rise in price is due to people buying ahead. Most likely we'll get a report that says, "everything is fine!" markets will rally then later shit will hit the fan. Should be an interesting week, good find on that candle btw. I also believe that the charts can "tell the future" if you know what I mean. For example I've seen charts setup before earnings that give me an idea of which way the stock will move when it's announced. Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong, usually once I'm wrong I see something in the chart that I should have noticed. I believe we're seeing the same kind of setup in the Dow right now. Thanks about the technician job. That would be a fun thing to do since I love reading charts. For the record, I'm 19 and future plans are to move to a popular trading city and work at a fund or a big bank so I can trade.

Well then lets talk about the candles on BSC, I would definitely call that a correction and the stock is definitely in a down trend. But if you look at the last few candles they are squeezing in between the 8 and 21 EMA the last two days have produced dojis... both days have less volume than the previous. Could you possibly use VSA to figure out who is buying/selling? Just from looking at the chart, I would say it almost seems as if buying has been exhausted and they could be continuation dojis - but as we all know anything new from the Fed and this stock will rocket higher. Now lets look at the dow. We have a nice bullish candle that broke through the 21 EMA and opened right on top of the 8EMA, normally thats a very bullish sign. In fact if we look back to around August 6th-13th nearly the same thing, we opened on top of the 8 EMA and closed well above the 21 EMA only slam on the ground the next day. What I find interesting about that day is it was right at a pivot point where there was previous resistance between the end of May and middle of July. Right now we are doing the same thing, we found resistance again Friday on that bullish candle (with very low volume). The weekly chart is much the same, we are pushing right against resistance. In fact we closed nearly at the high of the previous week and again much lower volume and a clear down trend on the weekly chart. But as we all know, if you look at the "long term" trend that hasn't yet been broken. I think we will see a fight between the bulls and the bears, if we move higher the next stop will be 13,700 so if we close higher tomorrow then it might be a good idea to go long. I think this last week was a lot of the same thing - people finding cheap plays and picking them up for a quick gain. Obviously though they feel confident going into the weekend holding a long position because of Fridays candle. But who was behind the low volume and how does that go into the validation of the candle? Sorry if my post was all over the place, if something didn't make sense just ask me and I will try my best to clear it up.

Thanks Brownsfan, and good feedback - just follow the market and listen to what it's telling you. AKA confirmation.

Brownsfan, whats your thought on the decreasing volume as the markets rise? It looks like we are at the upper trendline of a new bearish trend. I see how bullish the candle is, but what about the volume? Sorry, I zoomed in on the candles on snagit but for some reason they aren't posting like they were when I saved them.

Thanks Torero, I am a bit nervous but I know once I start trading I'll be fine. I never used E-trades powertrade, I tried it a few times but hated it so I just traded from their website. It never really mattered since I was swing trading and investing most of the time. Does anyone know where to find the "Trading in the Eye of the Storm" Webinar? Gramza was telling me to check it out and I can't seem to find it..

Screw that, I just opened up a Trade Station account instead. After 4 hours of not being able to figure out their software and the fact that they transfered us to three countries yesterday while trying to transfer money... I can say that E-Trade is just not worth it. I'm happy

I went to my first trading seminar today, only because it covered options and futures/currencies. I was a little cautious at first that they would treat me like I had no idea what I was doing and they would try to sell me stupid stuff. But I was pleasantly surprised, I really enjoyed it. Granted most of it was review for me, it was good to hear some new things from experienced traders. The Market Guys and Dan Gramza were there, I had the opportunity to talk to Gramza for about 30-45 minutes during one of the seminar sessions that I skipped out on (I figured the opportunity to talk to him was better than learning about TA lol). We talked about discipline, and overall market psychology and how I could myself in the world of hedge funds. He told me that a big stage from moving from an amateur trader to a professional is when you stop discussing your setups and focus more on your psychology and discipline. I immediately thought of this site and realized how great it was, anyways it was a cool event. Overall the event confirmed that I definitely want to stick to trading as my career. Oh and I got a new futures trading platform from E-Trade (it's a long story) and so far it blows. I can't figure out how to get market internals and it's a pain in the ass to customize everything. Even entering orders is difficult, but oh well.

You should check out my introduction thread, here You traded different stuff, but we sort of went through the same thing. Funny thing is, most people go through the exact same thing. The good thing you've done that has enabled you to move onto the next level is you've identified the problem - yourself. You can keep it simple, trust me. I went from as many indicators that I could fit onto a chart and now I'm down to price, volume, and internals. All three traders I was talking to who have been trading futures, options, currencies, etc all use price, volume, and internals. They keep it as simple as possible. Your trades should be mechanical and you shouldn't think anything of them, they are business decisions and that is it. But, as you know, it's easier said than done. We can all tell you different things to check out, and you should check them out, but you'll eventually figure out what works for your and what fits your personality. If that means you have 10 different indicators then so be it - if it works for you then thats great. Personally I find I'm best at scalping, I don't have the emotional discipline to hold onto a trade longer than a few minutes. I find short term support/resistance and scalp the breakouts. I could show you 20 charts but chances are you won't make any off of them because you aren't me and you don't see things the way I do. But you could figure out your own style and chances are I won't make a dime off of it either because of the same reason. If you're interested in some ideas to get you started that worked out very well for me then I would recommend John Carters Mastering the Trade. It's a good read and not too beginnerish .Then from there figure out what works for you.