Marcus:
As we discussed before, how about some trader (you??) making some brief (1 or 2 paragraph) comments on overall stock market status, market health, trends, or any other macro observations that you might care to note for all of us in your fan club?? What I am suggesting is not mention of any one stock, but rather "BIG PICTURE" stuff which hopefully could be done each day. For example, if overall NYSE & Nasdaq are oscillating, what type of trade set ups would you still consider, if any.
I am sure that as we gain more experience with DT more ideas will come. Above should be enough to start, without putting undue load on commentator.
Regards from nice, warm, no snow Clearwater FL. You can keep the pretty picture of "White Xmas"; it's very much over rated. Jon
Hi, Jon,
That sounds like a good idea. Let me think about it. It would require a great deal of preparatory work each day, but I am interested in the idea. Maybe we can consider it for a goal at the first of they year.
For what it is work, we just introduced our 'chat' within the DT Profile Forum. Maybe that could be another way traders could help each other by going into the chat each morning and compare perspectives as well... That might be an even better way of us all helping each other during the course of a day. Different perspectives and inputs could mean better interpretation of current market sentinent?
As of today, Monday 19 Dec 2005-- my 24th wedding anniversary, might add -- here is a 'quick look" market observation attempt ( I will work on a better bigger picture scenario idea, but for now all I can put together....)
The market opened flat. Currencies trading a little more active than normal, which could translate into some good day-trade room setups. Gold and silver up. Energy holding with slight indication of some weakness possible today. Couple Dow stocks in news-- MRK and PFE-- could hold up Dow today. Nasdaq drifted weaker first 30 minutes, but now showing slight positive. Noticing slow and steady buying creaping in. Not sure how strong if at all it is today. GOOG hot today. They just hit the Profile SD and SC targets. My two personal trades holding own-- C and RT.
I am a little concerned Overall USA Market may have entered earlier than usual the end of the year trading dulldrums. Typically we monitor for a holiday rally... It might have come early already. In my opinion, the market should still have some buy strength left in it before the end of the year is up. Unfortunately, if we are in the dulldrums, buying will only come in as little waves, not necessarily slow and steady buying. This will make trading harder, andit could psych traders out of some good trade setups. If correct, if we can remain a little patient, go into a
conservative trading mode where we try to get more fully developed pauses or controlled pullbacks. We won't necessarilly be loading up on trade setups that may only be moving slowly right now. (For options traders you might want to build into your strategy a little more time element that will allow for more time decay, just in case the market remains somewhat stagnant.) Will be watching for an indication of a potentially stronger trending day. (that is where if we all use that new chat feature, it could help us all out.) Until then, just going to scan for ideas today, see what setups have better potentials. Will work on getting a better feel for the overall market conditions going on right now and try to get back here later with an updated post later this week, or when appropriate.
Hope this helps.
Marc
PS- Couple stocks got my eye on for DT Profile trades are: AAPL and CHK. Because I am in a "conservative" (more selective, cautious trading) mode, just watching them for now. Here is a recently list of stocks I have been watching for a while... will be working to get an update this week and will post more updated watch list: AAPL, CHS, CHK, BCO, MRVL, CME, GOOG, FAST, FCX, PD, THE, HRB, TOM, TS, GS, CELL, DGIN, ITG, RE, GLW, AGN, AMGN, UNH, RHAT, LTR, GLT, KRI, PAAS, BOW, CC, DNA, BOOM, CNX, USLM, SLB, STR, BRO, AMD, WF, R, STV, ESRX, MCK, PNK.
(I only edited out a typos's, and improved some sentence syntax, is all....)
Jon,
Here is an example how I can see traders using the new DT chat. I gave my overall market comments earlier, as per your request. Been in the chat all day. As soon as I saw indication weakness filtering into overall market, I comment on it. It wasn't too many minutes later I got stopped out of my RT trade. It is possible, knowing in advance, energy is filtering out to market, we could all benefit. We could use it to report things quicker, and maybe all help each other out. Maybe at, the beginning of the new year, if everyone started using this chat, it could become a very helpful forum for assistance. Just an idea.
Take care, Marc
Marc:
Just what I had in mind, hopefully not too onerous. I vote for more of same.
My market oscillator GET indicators are still slightly negative. I just have 2 paper trades, both options, AU & WFMI. Because of market volatility, will watch both closely. Will not enter any more trades until more clear trending in market
Will continue with paper trades until have about 20 completed & then review for overall performance/risk characteristics. Right now 8 of 11 with net gain of 25% & average hold of 4.4 days.
Entered AU on 12/15 10:30 @ $46.22 with Jan 45 call @ 2.80, delta 59. Target $49.54 in SB room with RF 14, 3 segments of arch in Trade Balance, 4 Star, RI 1, confirmation in SD with RF15. Before market correction hit 48.31 yesterday.
Entered WFMI on 12/19 10:09 @ $152.49, target 157.90, RF 14, Stars 5, 3 segments of arch in Trade Balance in SC room, RI 0; confirmation in PA with RF 15. Because of option costs, entered via spread bot Jan @ 150 5.30 delta 64; sold Jan @160 1.50 delta 37, net debit 3.80. Before market correction net spread reached 5.00 yesterday.
That's all for now.
Jon
P.S. Congrats on anniversary, we hit 22 in September.
Tuesday, 20 DEC 2005--
FTSE flat in thin trading at noon. Shares are trading close to even at noon with what appears to be lack of market direction prior to Christmas. Fundamental traders in USA market looking for PPI, Housing Starts, Store Sales, Redbook and a confidence index for some direction today. Seems like no surprises will come today from that kind of information.
Earnings releases today worth tracking: MWD, JBL, NKE, PALM, CHAP, APFC.
Noticed the currencies are setting up from possible profit-taking after last two weeks advances. Euro and Pound retracing a little today, while Dollar, Yen, Swissy advancing. A small range trade pattern could be developing shorter-term. Would be looking to day trade these currencies in direction of their current action, early AM, NYT. If DT sets up those kinds of day-trades, it seems like a quick trade is possible today. (Is only minor behavior, no great strength atttached to it, so would manage trades aggressively to lock in any quick profits.)
Overall market close to opening in 5 minutes. No pattern or direction showing up yet, so anticipating flat to mild swing early trading. Watch to see if there ends up being more profit-taking later today. Seems like the best bet for now. Same type of behavior going on in European markets.
Energy rebounding a little today, but not dynamic behavior. Gold staying above $500.
Will update as soon as I see anything else.
-MR
Tue, 11:40am-- Nothing definitive, but seems like there is slowly more buying filtering into the overall markets. Noticing the DA red color backing off from the extreme high in that room. It could be some small indication traders are beginning to square some postions before they go on their lunch breaks? You can see some evidence of buying because the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq are showing now some mild positives.... Again, nothing convincing yet, but first hint of some across the board buying trickling into market...
Marc:
Sorry for delay, earlier this am, stopped out of both positions with break-even. With NYSE & Nasdaq showing more oscialltions, I am not comfortable holding positions. So much for trying for "Quick profits" in face in opposiition of DT day trade & GET indicators; not worth effort. Last time I try for heroics, glad I was just paper trading.
Unless you have some great insight for something I'm missing,will wait for more stable envorionment, whenever that is, before I re-enter.
Jon
Jon,
The last two days I have been commenting that I basically don't see much going on in the market. I even expressed concerns we could be entering a end of the year dulldrum period of trading, where nothing of great substance happens. When this happens trading can be a lesson in futility. To help explain as easy as I can this logic, here is an illustration. Attached is the current daily Nasdaq 100 chart and a Trade Balance picture of it. It shows, since October, a steep trend rally up to a newer recent high. (blue color) The past five trading days we see a pause in this rally, and the last two days more weakness, more of a pullback in price. (red) Prior to this, for two weeks, the market has been churning and building more of a topping action type behavior. When you look at the Trade Balance you see the smaller rooms filling up with red, indicating weakness. So long as the PA and SD rooms maintain blue in some form or fashion, we still have a bullish longer-term tendency developing. I am just waiting for the red in the smaller rooms to slow down, to begin dissipating, then turning blue again. The blue will show up first in the smallest day trading rooms. Once this happens, and once this strength continues to return for a period of one to three days, I will then grow more more aggressive, more bolding bullish, and then try to identify the strongest new stock trends potentially setting up. Those higher rooms where strength is still identified at that time will be my focal points. To me, that is the key to getting back into the next major uptrend. As of right now, it is too early to grow strongly bearish, only partically short-term bearish. We are in the middle of two major religious holidays and a third is coming on the 25th, which, I think, keeps a great many active traders out of the markets right now. We have the end of the year issue where major institutional traders and mutual funds have to figure out ways to close out trades, and prepare new strategies to handle next years possibilities. We also have some institutions, I think, who are hiding on the sidelines preparing to pounce on traders at this time of the year when there is extremely low volume and they can take advantage of it for a day or two. (We call them trading day anomolies, but they seem to happen every year, this time of the year, and they can ruin in a couple days a good months trading.) We have people worn out from working extremely hard this year who basically want to finish their final end of the year work so they can spend needed time resting and regrouping for next year. All those factors makes me continue to grow more and more cautious leading up to Christmas weekend. If nothing happens before Friday but we drift lower, I might start watching next week for a hint of a last week rally prior to New Years eve weekend. In the meantime, I am going to take this time to get better prepared for next years trading action. I promise if I see anything at all that could help our friends out there, I promise to share here in our new forum. That is my best guess what is going on in the overall USA market right now. Hope it helps. Will try to post later the other index examples and maybe share some technical analysis to help setup for next substantive price movement actions.
Take care, will keep in touch, very sincerely, Marc
Marc:
This is the type of commentary that I was hoping to see. You've taken my market feelings & tied them to DT. Looking forward to reading more. You might want to share your note with Tom. Good job.
Jon
The headline in news this AM: "Economy Grows at Fastest Pace in 1 1/2 Years". Market holding its own this early market open hour. Anticipating a positive, up day today, how strong has not determined yet... 20 minutes after the open, so far, so good. It should be able to hold its own today. Watch to see if buying continues during day. If so, monitor more closely the DT Profile setup ideas. Currency that seems somewhat day-trade interesting is GBP. Metals still a little defensive.
Wed, 21 DEC 2005, noon update-- The overall market continues to hold up today. GBP did weaken further since earlier this morning. Watching it now for any evidence of a rally today because it could setup a trade opportunity worth qualifying at that time. We talked today in our "Live Session" about how I watch the overall Trade Balance when trying to better time setups, particularly higher room setups. I also ended up placing a very small order for CSR basis our discussion at that time. Currently in only two stocks, only 25% left on Citigroup (C), and now 100 share position in Credit Swiss Group (CST) at 51.55. (I explained why only a small position now, mostly because of the holidays coming and my skeptism still we will see a fully participatory market when people are leaving for other interests.) Ironically, both stocks seem to be related to the financial sector. It wasn't planned that way.
PS- for Kelly, use that DC room short to help you with your current put strategy in that put trade we talked about. I think it is going to take out that target and then break to go strongly lower. Crossing fingers and toes because if that happens, you will have a better Christmas... just for a followup... anticipating it breaking more, and harder. Will keep an eye on it for you my friend. Stay with it....
Really good stuff!
Thanks for taking the time!
Michael
PS anyone on google talk etc.
See, market not sustaining strength shown earlier. Helps continue to confirm impressions, not much conviction going into Christmas holiday weekend... more justification for only aggressive trading, smaller positions to accommodate potential higher risks. To followup on earlier "Live Session" discussion on reading/watching periodically during the day the Trade Balance for changes in the most sensitive day trade rooms to help guage a better feel of strength/weakness flowing in and out of overall market during course of day. If it is a trending day it continues to build same color. If it is not, it changes during the day, such as shown in this example.
I didn't have time to make comments today, but am in the 'Chat' window now with a few other guys. Wanting to find a way to short JYEN and NZD, GBPJPY today, couple comments made. Also, tracking CSR, C, PDE, BJS, CHK and GOOG for a couple friends as well. If you want to play with that new feature, we can compare notes there. Will be sharing in the new chat today... come on in and share your ideas with us, too.... -mr
Out With 2005, In Comes 2006-- Welcome To A New Year of Trading!
It is exciting to enter a new year filled with great promises, and a chance to start over. I promise to do my very best to help you this year. I pledge hard work and my determination to assist you in achieving your personal goals for greater success trading.
First Day Trading Observations
I, typically, don't get excited the first three trading days of a new year. We have had strong new year openings, only to end the month with opposite weakness, and vice versa. Hence, the first week of new trading I mostly observe overall trading behavior, trying to identify where new money is moving in to or out of, and is it a sustainable behavior. I want to see if any of these trend potentials are worth trading at this time, and will try to identify where the lower-risk entries could develop.
For example, today, precious metals and energy futures contracts/stocks, having stabilized after last months weakness, now 'hint' stability can continue enough to sustain potential new trends the first quarter of this year. I will be monitoring these futures contracts, and stock sector/groups for any 'controlled' pullback, for Dynamic Trend Profile to identify in higher rooms buy setups.
In the Forex, for example, the British Pound continues to catch my attention. It retraced 90% last month after a strong rally. If that low holds, it suggests to me a nice basing pattern, which in turn improves odds for another sustainable rally in the Pound this month. Is certainly worth monitoring. Will be monitoring Euro as well. It retraced 62% before today's strong advance.
This morning, the overall market opened with a strong gap open. Two hours later that advance has halted, and the overall market is now in the red. It is premature to yet conclude anything significant. I will be monitoring the remainder of this week for stability in any weakness. If this happens, I think we still have respectable odds for a return of the previous bigger trend sometime this month. If no consistent buying comes in for say a period of the next two to three days, then we will have to allow more time for the near-term pullback that started last month to complete itself and, also, then odds shift back toward taking short-term sell setups that will develop, and we will have to get ready to trade that direction. (My gut feeling is the market still needs just a more time to finish out a 'pause' or 'profit-taking' phase, but I do have a 'feeling' this phase is getting closer toward its end. We just need is more evidence to verify tangibly this intuitive impression.)
If I see anything useful, I promise to do an update here. Again, best wishes in your trading this new year! I pledge to work very hard on your behalf! I promise to do everything I can to provide additional technical analysis assistance, if it can help.
Sincerely,
Marc Rinehart
Market continues to build strength this afternoon. This is an encouraging sign for bulls out there,
but... as the saying goes, one day does not make a new trend... not yet... keep an eye on it. -marc
Trading Day 2-- 2006
(Wed, 4 Jan 2005, 10:50am)
Attached is current Overall Trade Balance new year trading picture,
first and second days of trading action. (10:15, 10:22am NYT, both days.)
Year 2005 ended weaker. First trading day of new year was positive.
(Notice the removal of red from Trade Balance to more blue color showing up.)
Now monitoring the remainder of this week to see if positive pattern continues. (ideal)
So far this morning we are holding stable with a little more upward bias.
The longer this behavior continues, greater odds develop next pullback or pause
leads to improved room-size buy setups. This is what I would like to witness;
can it develop this way? (ideal scenario)
Marc
Thursday 5 Jan 2005, 4:15pm, NYT-- The market only paused mildly today, as evidenced by a very slight change since yesterday's close in the most sensitive Overall and Nasdaq market
Trade Balance DA and DB rooms.
Monitoring tomorrow for two things: (1) Can this "pause" not develop into a bigger pullback before tomorrow's close, or (2) can the overall market finish with another rally before Friday's close. IF the Dow, SP, Nasdaq end Friday on a positive note, I feel confident trading for at least the first quarter will be much better than it has been the last few months. Maybe it my optimistic nature. Maybe it is a trading theory that purports a belief that the first week of trading in a new year is often a good precusor of what is to come, and often ends up defining the overall bias for that year. Whatever it is, I have a strong feeling 2006 is going to end up being a better trading year than the past two years.
For now I remain pragmatic. Let's see more evidence of what I think could be stronger near-term strength ready to resurface again in the overall market for a sustainable time. During this time I am using the
Trade Balance utility to help identify the strongest sectors, groups, and stocks. I am making a new list of the best sectors/groups, and try to organize my new favorite stocks under what I call my
Hit List. The new
hit list is organized into three categories:
- [SIZE="1"][/SIZE] Primary - strongest stocks with high RFs and very good strength across all rooms.
- [SIZE="1"][/SIZE] Secondary - strongest stocks with strength in most all rooms and reasonably good RF's.
- [SIZE="1"][/SIZE] Tertiary - stocks with consistent strength in most all rooms, but maybe some questionable qualities.
Depending on what level the trade setup is defined as, will determine how I handle a symbol when or if it shows up in the
Matrix or
Profile. If it is a primary listed stock, I feel very comfortable in taking that trade without too much additional effort. Those trades tend to be more pristine in nature in the DT Profile, for example. If it is a secondary or tertiary level stock, I will most probably have to add my own two cents to trying and better define the technical picture of a trade setup. Obviously to enter this list means it has good qualities, so it may not require a lot of additional work. If anything, it helps me more psychologically by being better prepared to react when I see a favorite symbol show up in the Matrix.
This, for example, is how I came up with that list of stocks I talked about a couple of weeks ago at our evening
Live Session, and I think I even posted that list of stocks the next day in this forum.
(see below)
Marc Rinehart, 12-19-2005, 11:14 AM, under thread titled, " Marcus: Brief Daily Market Commentary Wrote:[SIZE="1"]
- Here is a recently list of stocks I have been watching for a while... will be working to get an update this week and will post more updated watch list: AAPL, CHS, CHK, BCO, MRVL, CME, GOOG, FAST, FCX, PD, THE, HRB, TOM, TS, GS, CELL, DGIN, ITG, RE, GLW, AGN, AMGN, UNH, RHAT, LTR, GLT, KRI, PAAS, BOW, CC, DNA, BOOM, CNX, USLM, SLB, STR, BRO, AMD, WF, R, STV, ESRX, MCK, PNK.
[/SIZE]
If you notice, by the way, BOOM is in this list. It is one reason why I bought into the recent lower-quality SD trade when the opportunity showed up for a brief time. It is identified as a primary listed stock.
I will share my ideas in a post here once I can find time to complete the task.
Hope this is useful information to someone out there...
Sincerely,
Marc
Friday 6 Jan 2005, NOON UPDATE -- So far, so good. (see post below) Nice buying this morning; overall US market holding up well. Notice Overall market Trade Balance DB and DA rooms filled up blue gain, phase analysis close to maximum bullishness again. Notice also how from first trading day to currently today there now is across the board strength showing in overall market rooms. Both positive conditions for potentially more bullish behavior to come under the assumptions and assessments I have been defining in this thread. If all the rooms can now build extreme bullishness phase analysis identification from say SD down to DD, it means we end this week under the best scenario conditions, and it increases our odds of predicting better how to trade in coming days.
FWIW, I still sense* the overall market can to go higher this afternoon. If it does, consider looking at shorter rooms for some potential quick trades to develop. Be a little careful, however, if you are witness going into the last 40 minutes advances in positions do not sustain themselves, and current strength begins to dissipate. It could mean it's time to consider packing it up for the weekend. Monitor to see if market slowly, steadily inches higher this afternoon. Slow and steady advances in price are the very best behaviors for maintaining a potential sustainable uptrend. I have a very strong feeling it still wants to go higher this afternoon.
[SIZE="1"] -Marc
(*caveat: My conclusions, observations stated above based mostly on 'instinct' from watching markets during the day for years.)[/SIZE]
Tue, Jan 10 2006, Preopen -- looks like could be little profit-taking day. Recent uptrend behavior starting to slow down a little.