MC

All I can say is I see shorts going in Friday. Great place to get short as it seems, 50ema/trendline/fib ambush zone/structure resistance/. Notice it did break those only to be rejected, another reason I think those were shorts going in on an upthrust. I'll be amazed if Monday is green, but I'll be ready to trade either way. If the above mentioned resistance cluster breaks with buyers we could get a HUGE rally.

Daily DJI. You can see the triple rsi divergence, AKA kiss of death. Fibs are getting into the ambush range for a short. White trend line was support but is now resistance and also there is structure resistance meeting the same point. 13,350-13,360 is formidable resistance whether you love TA or not. Weekly DJI. Here again triple rsi divergence. Fibs are in the same boat here. Again stuck at structure resistance. And look at the weekly volume, modest volume, so unless the news tomorrow sparks lots of institutional buying there really is little bullish about this rally. Just my 2 pesos worth.

Thanks for the added pointers. I like the momentum style but haven't played that for awhile. I used to play stock breakout plays back in my earlier days and they worked well. I've been a divergence/counter trend trader lately and want to get back into being able to ride momentum as well. Especially when the market has a heavy trend going on, no point in fighting the wave. And the timeframe comment is a perfect outlook for this style too.

Interesting, I may just borrow that method after some backtesting. So buy when the sar passes through and use the swing low as your stop loss. Nice. Thanks

Thanks, yeah if that was at a new high I'd say 1000% distribution and bet the next day would be red with more sellers . The part that's throwing me off is that volume and spread in the range its in. Very odd and I'm not sure what to make of it. In my limited experience I'm leaning towards absorption since it closed up and the next day wasn't followed with more selling. But I also note the volume is quite similar to that of 8/8 so maybe those buyers unloaded. Also demand wasn't there recently to break resistance. Another odd thing is I pulled the intraday charts but the 18th volume has nothing like what's shown on the daily chart. I know the insiders are and have been selling so maybe those were insides sales or other pre/after market actions? Thanks again

Could you VSA pros take a look at ticker IM for me and time permitting post a chart on your thoughts. October 18th is the main day I'm looking at. The 18th had heavy volume with a narrow spread. Then October 26th looks like more buying at the lows. So I see this as bullish longer term with the 19th having low volume on a down day, but that 18th has me wondering really how that volume could have been buying and had such a small spread. I'm wondering if you see that as distribution or as absorption. Thanks guys...keep up the great posts.

:cool: Thanks a ton.

I loved the simulated trading on OECry. I may end up with them though I'm quite fond of the programming options on Tradestation. I love the chart trading on OECry and the daytrade rates and DOM order entry tool are kick a$$ too. Decisions, Decisions.

You really just need to tinker with the setting till you get one that provides the most instances of your setup that end up profitable. Back testing along with forward testing is really the only way to get your answer. And if you don't have a setup yet that's the first step because to just trade on a whim or a chance will end up with you in the poor house. Get that setup with a nice risk to reward ratio and get testing. On the YM for my setups I use 144 tick. The ES is usually about 10 times the volume so in theory 1440 tick would be best for me. Guess what, it doesn't match up so if I ever want to trade the ES I need to do my testing all over again. :o:crap:

For equities you need a separate $5k+ account. The accounts aren't universal, for some dumb reason they subcontract their futures accounts. DOM is just slang for a depth of market style of order entry as I understand it. Tradestation calls theirs "matrix". Time n' sales will be supported if you pay for level 2 for whichever equity data feed you need. http://www.tradestation.com/fees/platform_fees.shtm Platform and data fees link http://www.tradestation.com/fees/All_Asset_Types.shtm Commish and other stuff

Same here on trading the YM. But you need to be able to trade the ES or some other index to hedge worst case scenario. ES most closely mimics the YM movement with every 10 YM points equaling about 1 ES point. If Tradestations platform or your connection to the net goes down you can still call in a exit order though you get hit with I believe a $20 fee. If the ecbot goes down thats effects all brokers and you will be trapped in your position till the ecbot comes back up. You cannot call an exit in and are left to hedge or pay the piper should it move against you. :crap:

For you US long term investors...do you have concern over the long term value of funds since they are based on USD which is tanking on inflation? I find myself wondering what would come of all our US savings and things that are valued in USD should the USD collapse. I'd like to think they can't just evaporate but on paper they are worth less and less each day. GULP! That's a monthly chart, It's being pinched off lower and lower so a pop is bound to happen at some point in the somewhat near future. I don't think it's going to be anything major, but maybe enough to lower oil and metals perhaps. Might be a good time to buy some gold, gold stocks or something of the sort. I'm wondering if I should cash out of USD vehicles and put my money in something more globally supported like gold? Input, thoughts?

Yes and no. The platform is free if you do 10 round trips per month, otherwise its $100 a month. The ecbot data with market depth is free for the time being, dunno if that will change or not...hope not. You may want opra, nyse and some other data add ons depending on what internals or added things you want to look at. You are going into a heavily leveraged instrument and the ecbot can and has gone down a handful of times this year. You should have a hedging plan in case you are in a trade and the ecbot craps out. If you decide to set that up you will need to pay for data for the ES for example.

Thanks for the explanation, I never thought of that delay issue. I spot divergence fairly well and trained by eye, so I'll stick with what works.

Any luck on the divergence indicator? I'm not even semi programing able but have been looking for a decent divergence indicator myself with no luck. Thanks

I'm not looking for homeruns at all, that would mean I'm giving no room or risk of profit for a continued move. I ride 2 lots...1st target is 10 YM points and then I move the stop to break even. Well every few moves they bump it up to that level of break even just before a solid move in the other direction. That annoys me, and maybe I should move it to break even -2 for example and net $30 instead of $40 if I get stopped out then. So I need to look further into that. For the runners on the 2nd lot I use swing high or swing low which depending on the structure often leaves a very large chunk on the table. I trade off the 144 tick so I'm thinkin of maybe moving to the 3 minute chart once we are in a bigger move and try those swing high/lows since they are a bit less choppy than a tick chart. Not lookin for the holy grail man, just some tweaks. :o

I'm very interested in this as I have the same issue. Understanding I'll never get bottom to peak profit, I do think some volatility model for exits perhaps might do better than my current plan. Currently I trail my stop to the swing high/low and it either leaves good profit OR gets tagged and stopped for break even. :doh: Hoping someone has some good input for us.

What do you VSA guys think of this stock? We had a big red day with HUGE volume closing well off the low showing value buyers. Then that last HUGE volume spike with a small body shows equal buying and selling somewhat. It closed green that day and then had a down day on very low volume. I think this might be a strong swing play if it can break the triangle. Thoughts?

NO, but not because the demo is flawed. The demo is excellent actually. When I went live I realized my "system" wasn't a system at all. It wasn't mechanical and so my emotions would take control and I exited trades well before they were done moving. It was a user/system flaw. I have a new system that is doing very well in it's first paper week. This one I think is mechanical enough that I will be able to trade it without too much stress. I'm going to try it live next week.

8 demo trades today--- +$90 +$430 +$40 +$115 +$40 +$40 -$130 +$340 +$965 net today on paper with the system. +$1840 total in 4 days testing with 27 trades. I'm going to finish the week on paper and see next week if it works live or if I can screw it up. :LOL: I know I'm going to have to fudge around with the stops at some point, this is only 1 week of testing. Also I hope nobody thinks I expect this result day in and day out. Systems need to be changed and evolve with market conditions. That plus I could have a full week of drawdowns, who knows. I don't consider this a proven net positive by any stretch of the imagination...Not yet anyhow.

Very exciting day for me... I made a system over the weekend that is so simple yet so effective thusfar. I'm paper trading it for several days here and will be posting results of the trial. My issue stemmed from not having a true system and also not using 2 contracts, 1 scalper and 1 freebie runner. Once I know I've locked in $40 profit and trail my stops I'll become more systematic. And that's the whole point of this game IMO. 7 or 8 trades...only 1 was a double loser on both contracts. There was one trade that was iffy, below is the net gain with and without that trade. $760 if the questionable trade was taken. $635 if I had passed that trade up. Today was pretty a medium trend day, I should be able to do better on a heavy trend day.

I think in general there should be concern at least in the near term. At this point I would look at shorting any rally on modest volume to that red trend line. Thoughts?

I'm really thinking of going the easier route and swing trading till I have my mind right. Day trading on margin is hectic and I'm not sure I have enough experience to expect the discipline needed to make it yet. Then again how will I get that experience? I'm not giving it up just yet. Side note...and I know what some are gonna say on this (that 401k should not be shifted), but I moved my 401k to stable value on 10/3 (blue arrow on chart) with the exception of my holdings on IM stock. Pretty damn close to the peak. I don't see the big money supporting the 14k levels (see the below chart again) and want to preserve my money. The funny part is "stable value" when related to the USD isn't really all that stable but I can't ask to be paid in Euro or Canadian loonies and my 401k international funds suck.