You’ll notice the term buyers and sellers used in lieu of bulls and bears when talking about market moves. This is the correct way to relate to an up or down move in the market because we really have no idea whether it’s bulls or bears moving the market. Allow me to explain… John is bullish on the market, you could call him a bull, but he puts on a short position in the ES futures to hedge his long…
The hammer candlestick is a very common and reliable pattern for the reason that it has a defined failure levels. Those levels would be below the tail and about the high and these can signal a strong move to new highs or lows. In the recent rally we have seen in the S&P500 we broke above the down trendline. What usually happens from here is a retest of this trendline, old resistance now acts as new support. We are anticipating…
The doji is a candlestick formation that can be seen on any time frame, but the larger the time frame which forms the doji, the greater the significance. This candlestick pattern represents an even balance between buyers and sellers at the close of the doji candle. The Doji Itself There are really two important factors to look at with the doji candlestick formation, the first being the doji itself. Whether or not the candle closes just slightly positive, slightly negative,…
For those who are specifically interested in trading futures for a living I’ve put together a blog over at EminiMind.com
One great way to track your trade performance and determine which setups are working and which are not is to evaluate your trades at the end of each day and week. This is the breakdown I use and is derived from John Carter’s book Mastering the Trade. 5 – Target reached 4 – Out for win (due to technical factor that signaled me to exit) 3 – Break even 2 – 1 target hit 0 – Full stop out I…
Waiting patiently on the sidelines is one thing you hear some of the world’s greatest trader’s talk about in the book Stock Market Wizards. These are the times I’ve found best NOT to trade. When breadth is at parody, 1:1 When the a/d line is at parody, inside |400| When the tick is at parody, inside |400|
When doing market trends analysis you are looking to identify not only the direction the market is moving, but whether or not it is moving in any direction at all. These are some things we look for when identifying the market trends. Questions to ask when Identifying the Trend Are we in a trend or counter trend on the monthly, weekly, and daily timeframes? Are we in a trend day or choppy day on the 15-min? Is volume on the…
Avoid gap plays on the following days. 1. Options expiry Fridays. It’s OK to play gap up situation. 2. Rollover Thursday and the day after. 3. First trading day of the new month. 4. Day after Fed day. 5. If after a narrow range day, the next day’s gap is larger than the previous day’s range. 6. Gaps where the opening prices are outside the previous day’s session high or low.