Friday, September 02, 2011

Now What?


In the last two weeks we rallied over 10% off the lows straight into resistance ( see our posts earlier this week Don’t Get ComplacentResistance is Futile) where we urged our readers to go short at resistance (the first test of resistance short on extended move is a bread and butter HCPG type short strategy).    Not surprisingly we reversed at resistance but today hit support.  Now what?
Look at where we gapped down to this morning — exactly at support:
$QQQ reversed at 50SMA and gapped down this morning right at gap fill.  We came in with the plan of buying an intraday reversal off of 53.3 but backed away once we got the gap down on the horrendous job report.   We like buying sharp intraday reversals with stops on low — gap downs to our levels usually get us on the sidelines.
$SPY filled gap — and 20SMA right below.  Do or die territory.

$IWM filled gap and opened on 20SMA, again do or die territory.
The leader of the bounce has been the Nasdaq — let’s review
1. Rallied off the bottom all the way back to 50SMA.   Check.
2.  Reversed exactly off 50SMA.  Check.
3.  Held gap fill area at 53.3.  Check.
Now what?   There’s some further support near 53 (20SMA and short-term trend-line from bottom) but that’s about it — through there and we probably revisit the lows.   And if we rally, we have the 50, 100, and 200SMA walls right above.      The lines in the sand could not be more clear.
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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Resistance is Futile


Resistance against the first touch of resistance in an extended move up is usually futile, especially if you have a short time-frame.   A bit of a pushed title but always wanted to fit something in from the Borg.   Anyway, we hit and faded from major resistance today on multiple sectors.   This isn’t necessarily bearish but typical price-action in which an extended move hits supply.   Bears would gain upper hand if we reversed hard and fast away from these zones while bulls would win the hand if we can base near resistance and digest the move.    Longer trend we’re still in bear territory but shorter time-frame bulls have been printing better price-action.
We came in with several short spots on the $QQQ (50,100 and 200SMA) and the first one, 55.7,  hit and is currently working   (today’s high 55.74)
$IWM hit resistance and faded:
$XME hit resistance and faded.   Again though this could become a bullish set-up IF we can base under and digest the move.
Disclosure: short QQQ
Update: covered 3/4 on move back below weekly 50SMA, and last partial stop now under break-even at 55.5

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Don't get complacent


The leader of the bounce, the $QQQ is now in difficult, uphill waters.  No chart illustrates this better than the weekly:

We bounced on the 100SMA and today stalled into the 50SMA.  Very nice move but we imagine things will slow down now and more range-bound strategies will again come to the fore.
To further the argument note the triple resistance just above us on the daily chart — we think the 55.7-56.4 zone will offer excellent resistance shorts for our type of active trading.
Any basing at this upper range would further strengthen the bull argument.  However, a further move up in a quick manner into major resistance would likely fail.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Usain Bolt DQ at 2011 Finals


Brutal to watch as Usain Bolt gets disqualified from 100 M 2011 World Finals.  Contrary to what the sport announcers are saying though we had to respect how he didn't protest it and took it like a professional.  Mistakes happen.


Friday, August 26, 2011

The end is near


As crazy as this market seems it’s actually acting technically perfect IF you are trading it range-bound.   We came into yesterday telling our readers in the previous night newsletter that our game plan was to short $SPY 119 resistance.  We gapped a bit over and then ran straight down for many good shorting opportunities.  We came into today with 114 $SPY support — the last chart we included in last night’s newsletter.

114 was trend-line support and it held like a champ as we are now 3.5 points higher on the intraday bounce.
Now the plot thickens — with two clear trend-lines above and below the current print.   One more time through the 20SMA on the daily could do the trick and nullify this bearish pattern.    On the other hand one more trip to 114 and 112 is next stop.
Either way we believe we’ll be leaving this range soon which will likely coincide with the end of summer trading.  Gun to head we like the long break more than the short break, but at same time we’re not willing to ancitipate an edgeless pattern with hard-earned money.  Once the range breaks we’ll go into the closet and grab back the swing-trader’s hat but for now all cash by EOD is our modus operandi.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Resistance Shorts are all the Fad


The theme of the day was the reversal of the 20SMA on daily .    Let’s take a look:
Crude ($CL_F) reversed on the 20SMA
$ES_F and $SPY reversed on the 20SMA  ($SPY 119 short was our game plan spot)
$IYR reversed on the 20SMA  (another HCPG pick resistance short from our newsletter last night)
And the freebie we put out yesterday on the stream  $LNKD 73.2 short which set up great at 74 today for a nice smooth ride to 70.
Range bound strategies rule right now — we’ll see if that changes post Jackson hole.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Market Road Map


A good start for the bulls today as the rally is still holding (3rd time indeed was the charm) but we have tons of resistance coming right up — ideally we base near the top of the range and then break-out.      Red line is resistance and the hard zone is  1146-1153 on the $ES_F.
 Note how this re-test is much smoother than the first — less wide as bulls trying to hold the fort.    If we can close over the red-line then we could get some continuation to the up-side.   Expect backing and filling around these levels.    And for the bears — if we go through dotted red trend-line and most likely we’ll go back to test 1077 $ES_F

Bulls doing good job keeping bonds and gold down today but a pop in the trannies ($IYT), which are lagging today, would also give the bulls some more confidence.    The animal spirits are there — the missing piece is bank stabilization.  If financials can get their act together we could be in for a decent counter-trend rally up.
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Monday, August 22, 2011

Random Thoughts


We’re looking for a few possible “tells” to give us indication of when to enter for a tradable rally.  Here are some thoughts and possible action scenarios:
  • Gold ($GC_F) keeps ripping, going  through $2000 while equities hold stable.   Gold then starts to reverse, market rallies.    We want the gold/equities correlation to break-down.  Today was a good start as market closed flat while gold again rallied hard.
  •  Is Gold $2000 like Silver $50?   We were all over the silver short but don’t have strong feelings about a potential gold short.  Not yet anyway.
  • We sell off and take out the $SPY low of 110.27 but make a higher low over the overnight $ES_F low of 1077.
  • There was whiffs of panic into the close as $GS got machine-gunned but we liked how tech held green and stable.   That’s a good start.  Small step, but in right direction.
  • We would prefer an intraday reversal 10x over these gap ups that are so often faded in bear trends.
  • We have a number of breakdown shorts on our list — we want them to all be taken out and THEN reverse.   If they don’t trigger we think the pain will only be postponed.
  • This action reminds us not of 2008 but of 2002 where we grinded down every day in a market that didn’t scare out the bulls, but wore them out.
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Monday, August 15, 2011

Without conviction, we're nothing


We felt edge-less today.  We didn’t like longs as there are no good set-ups within our strategy parameters (need more base, moves are too Vish from 1077 $ES_F) and yet we were hesitant to short into a good-breadth trend-day (we did try a few scalps but only managed to churn).    The close we thought was silly and spontaneously decided to put on a decent sized short right into the highs for a  swing into tomorrow.  Then we started second guessing and thinking well, next resistance is at 1219 and maybe we’ll get there.    We hesitated, second-guessed ourselves, and ended up just taking 1 point profit on a very good entry on decent size (  currently ES_F is 5 6 points more in the money).
For our type of trading we need full conviction.    Our whole strategy is built around very clear patterns.  Basically, if it’s not a lay-up, we don’t trade it.  And when we do get into a trade that we’re not sure about, like today, we don’t execute well.


For further reading on the subject see    http://highchartpatterns.net/daytraders-hang-with-your-own-kind/

Now the hard work begins


The panic last week took us straight to the 200SMA on the monthly chart of $SPX.   The resulting bounce took us back up to close the week off back to the 50SMA:

Today we stopped dead on at 1200 resistance:
And to end the symphony even the intraday set up today at resistance at R2:
We’re now up 10% from the $ES_F 1077 bottom in a very short time.    Our best case for the bulls is to start basing near the upper side of the range (without giving up too much) and  thus a) negate the bear flag pattern  and b) set up longs that are much too V-ish to work right now.    
The more we rally from here in an extended form the higher the chance of failure.       The bounce from extremely oversold levels is always the easiest bounce.  What comes after in a completely broken market, the slow healing,  is the difficult part.
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Saturday, August 13, 2011

Post 2008 international bank performance


Here’s the legend of a small sampling of international banks but interesting nevertheless:
Black: Bank of Montreal ($BMO), Green: TD Bank ($TD), Blue: JP Morgan ($JPM),  Purple: Banco Santander ($STD),  Red: HSBC ($HBC), Orange: Bank of America ($BAC), Yellow: Citibank ($C), ,
Note how they look like they converge near the bottom of the 2008 crisis and how differently they rebound (especially the top two Canadian banks).

The more volatile the market, the better the weekend reading


Some of the best articles we’re read in a long time came up this weekend.  Grab a coffee and go through these:

We’re big fans of Jeremy Grantham (even though not actionable in any sense for traders of our time-frame we find his writing brilliant) and this interview did not disappoint:
Can Jeremy Grantham Profit from Ecological Mayhem?   A few of our favorite excerpts:
“Phosphorus makes up 1 percent of your body weight,” he said, looking up from the page to catch my eye. “It’s a basic element, the residue of exploded stars. You can’t just make more.” He also pointed out that most economists see global trade as a win-win proposition, but resource limitation turns it into a win-lose, zero-sum contest. “The faster China grows, the higher grain prices go, the more people in China or India who upgrade to meat, the higher the tendency for Africa to starve,” he said.
“Grantham believes that the best approach may be to recast global warming, which depresses crop yields and worsens soil erosion, as a factor contributing to resource depletion. “People are naturally much more responsive to finite resources than they are to climate change,” he said. “Global warming is bad news. Finite resources is investment advice.” He believes this shift in emphasis plays to Americans’ strength. “Americans are just about the worst at dealing with long-term problems, down there with Uzbekistan,” he said, “but they respond to a market signal better than almost anyone. They roll the dice bigger and quicker than most.”
“Grantham, who says that “this time it’s different are the four most dangerous words in the English language,” has become a connoisseur of bubbles. His historical study of more than 300 of them shows the same pattern occurring again and again. A bump in sales or some other impressive development causes people to get excited. When they do, the price of that asset class — South Sea company shares, dot-coms — goes up, and human nature and the financial industry conspire to push it higher. People want to hear good news; they tend to be bad with numbers and uncertainty, and to assume that present conditions will persist. In the financial industry, the imperative to minimize career risk produces herd behavior. As John Maynard Keynes, one of Grantham’s heroes, put it, “A sound banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.” All these factors contribute to a surge of what Keynes called “animal spirits,” which encourages people to convince themselves that this time prices will just rise and rise.”
When prices go up and stay up, it’s not a bubble. Prices may always revert to the mean, but the mean can change; that’s a paradigm shift. As Grantham tells it, oil went first. For a century it steadily returned to about $16 a barrel in today’s currency, then in 1974 the mean shifted to about $35, and Grantham believes it has recently doubled again. Metals and nearly everything else — coal, corn, palm oil, soybeans, sugar, cotton — appear to be following suit. “From now on, price pressure and shortages of resources will be a permanent feature of our lives,” he argues. “The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value. We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.”
Here is the full text of the GMO letter.  Not exactly “merry” reading but definitely worth your time:  (thanks @radenmasbowo for the links)
Part I
Part 2

Two articles focused on the stink bombs coming our way from Europe:

Can Germany defend the Euro?
Global Jitters Gather Over State of Société Générale

Post from Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture who is our Go-To guy for times of marco crisis:

How the Fed Got Itself Boxed In — fantastic article that gives light to our current situation.   Even this week you could hear traders/investors complaining about the lack of Fed intervention into the crash.   We expect the Fed now to get us out of trouble everytime the market crashes, and that mentality is problematic.  Read the excellent post.

John Maudlin’s “The Beginning of the Endgame” (via The Big Picture)– very stark letter by John Maudlin, great read.
And of course as traders we need to end off with a trading link.  As usual, good stuff from Trader Ken:
Bear Flags Everywhere by IndependentTrdr:  great quick review of major sectors and the bear patterns.  Woof.   As he writes, we either break down the bear flags or negate the patterns.  Stay tuned.

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Daytrader Toolbox, EMA talk


We wanted to go a bit further into how we trade futures and use the EMA.  A couple of points:
 
  • The reason we watch 3 min, 5 min, 15 min, and 60 min simultaneously is because we always want to know which time-frame the market is keying off.   Our golden standard for 10AM to 1PM is usually the 5 min chart with 9/20EMA.  But we also often have an eye on the 15 min chart.
  • Most times the market responds to the EMAs/ pivot points on the $SPY, but not always.   Lately we’ve found the $ES_F has been leading.   Note that Pivot points on SPY/ES_F do not correspond with each other.
  • We’ve also often found that the ES trades better when we have no daily spots (stock alerts), which of course works well as a complement.  Volatility in stocks makes things very messy, but often gives excellent ES opportunities.
  • We try to only trade futures when the EMA is smooth ascending/descending.   For our way of trading if we only trade the ES_F when the EMA is non-wavy our consistency rate is excellent, and the exact inverse is true when it’s wavy/flat. 
 
 
 
We were keying off the 15 min on the ES_F today — note the perfect Indy set-up.  We run up fast to 1150 zone, base until 9 EMA catches up, and then rip up.  Excellent long risk/reward trade. 
—————-
————-
SPY 5 min was also decent pattern, but not as clear.   Note how SPY constantly hammered on the EMA refusing to close under it, finding support on R1 – very bullish sign.
—————


Second clear trade came at shorting R2 with a very tight stop on the ES_F for a decent scalp.   The only way though to take a short like this is when stock rips up from base extended from base, and into resistance.  If EMA had caught up we would never go short this pattern.  
——————-

————-
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

More Random Thoughts


  • We’re deeply oversold and we feel it in our bones that the US market wants to rally (be it even a few day dead-cat bounce) but it can’t until there’s some semblance of order in Europe.  You can hear the collective sigh of relief at 11:30 EST every day as Europe markets close.   We rallied on what was perceived to be negative news yesterday and even bad news that is not catastrophic could get this market going.
  • That coffee stocks are rallying today shows us there is some appetite for momentum, which is bullish  ($JVA $GMCR $DNKN).  Again though we need the European stabilization before this can mean anything substantial.
  • Rumors need to dissipate (no France downgrade would be nice start) and French banks need to stabilize.    (If you have Interactive Brokers you can watch Societe General via GLE once you subscribe to Europe data feed)
  • We’re itching to pick up some names but just can’t do it with the current overnight risk.    Our swing-trader hat is in the closet and we’re only daytrading and barely that right now.   Today thus far it’s been edge-less chop.
  • We  live by charts and make our living via charts but charts aren’t going to help us if Europe implodes.   Our rational side tells us that Europe won’t let France go down as the stakes are too high, similar to”knowing” in the back of our heads that the idiot politicians wouldn’t actually let US default.  But at same time we don’t want to risk our hard-earned money on that either.
  • This leaves us to hitting singles and forgetting about home runs for now.    When things stabilize we’ll pay up for it — in no rush to get into anything right now as it’s beyond our risk tolerance.    Everything we do is vis-a-vis risk and the risk right now is too high for us to try to find the bottom of a news-driven market.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Random Thoughts


  • Historic range today as we are now 9% higher than the overnight low ($ES_F).   The only way to interpret the close was that it was very bullish — FOMC was perceived as a negative for the market in that there was no QE3– market sold off, paused, and then ripped higher finishing on the highs.
  •  As the trading maxim goes:  going up on bad news is always very bullish.  Of course we also to have to keep in mind that the best rallies come in bear markets.  However, as active traders, let’s not worry about that one yet and enjoy some possible short-term moves up for the immediate future.
  • The big test for us as to whether this is a bottom, or nothing more than a dead cat bounce, is what happens on the test of the underside of the 2009 trend-line:
—-

Trend-line on the $SPY currently near 128 –  still a long way off but definitely something that is on our radar.     Unless there’s some new events coming out of Europe our thinking is that the short-term bias is long for the next few days at least.  1077 short term bottom.

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Monday, August 08, 2011

Orderly Panic


As we wrote last night $SPY had significant support at 115.2 and 113.2.   Today’s bounce came at 115.28.    Nice to be right (daytrade 115.2 to EMA at 117 was the typical HCPG strategy day-trade which is now finished), but on days like this we don’t expect perfect, text-book bounces, we expect messy overshoots.

Bounce on 115.2, rally to EMA, and base.    This is the kind of chart we expect on a normal support trade on a typical day.   Not after the day the US loses triple AAA status.     If indeed we bounce from these levels we think it would just be a pause for further selling in the coming days.  This is orderly selling, no fear.   No overshoot, no mess, no blood.    This is what we meant earlier when we wrote that we were “non-believers” on this 115.2 bounce.    It’s too clinically perfect.     We go through today’s lows though be it today or later this week and things will get hairier.  And if we’re wrong, well then we just missed a bottom by being in cash.  Worse things have happened.
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Too Perfect


As we wrote last night $SPY had significant support at 115.2 and 113.2.   Today’s bounce came at 115.28.    Nice to be right (daytrade 115.2 to EMA at 117 was the typical HCPG strategy day-trade which is now finished), but on days like this we don’t expect perfect, text-book bounces, we expect messy overshoots.

Bounce on 115.2, rally to EMA, and base.    This is the kind of chart we expect on a normal support trade on a typical day.   Not after the day the US loses triple AAA status.     If indeed we bounce from these levels we think it would just be a pause for further selling in the coming days.  This is orderly selling, no fear.   No overshoot, no mess, no blood.    This is what we meant earlier when we wrote that we were “non-believers” on this 115.2 bounce.    It’s too clinically perfect.     We go through today’s lows though be it today or later this week and things will get hairier.  And if we’re wrong, well then we just missed a bottom by being in cash.  Worse things have happened.
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Sunday, August 07, 2011

Going Forward

From our newsletter this weekend:

It really all started to fall apart after we broke the big 2009 trend-line that we have been talking about for months.  Our motto was, as long as we hold the trend-line, bias is long.  Once we break it, then re-assess.    If you haven’t already please read our post http://highchartpatterns.net/technicals-meet-fundamentals-again/.   

We expect some sort of oversold bounce but after that most likely the most frequent set-ups will be a) resistance shorts and b) breakdown shorts.   If the market starts to heal itself (which occurs when bounces are not automatically sold) then long set-ups will appear in our scans.   
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Next significant support levels for the $SPY are 115.2 and 113.2 but the technical case for the bull market — which we have always framed against the 2009 trend-line– was over on last Monday’s break of $127.5.


For the shorter time-frame Sunday night futures $ES_F are holding the Friday lows — no panic yet, just a give back of the last few hours of the Friday afternoon rally.
That’s the first short-term line in the sand for tomorrow.
————
It feels like we’re lurching from crisis to crisis these days — prepare for some crazy times.   Our game plan is to go for consistency, playing defense, hitting singles, and not looking to become heroes.
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Friday, August 05, 2011

Technicals meet fundaments, Again

If you’ve been a reader of our blog you know that for months our argument was to stay long/buy dip as long as the “big kahuna” March 2009 trend-line on the $SPY held.    We broke it on Monday and it’s been a free fall since then — but then it’s also coincided with a lot of negative fundamental news.

For traders who trade off charts, we’re actually very much on the non-religious/cultish side of the powers of technical analysis.  But once you see this “coincidence” of charts lining up with news happen a thousand times you have to become a believer.    There was fundamental bad news all the time for months (Japan nuclear disaster anyone?  Greece anyone?)  But we started going into 2008 type crash mode ONLY after we broke the trend-line.    Yet another point for chart-chompers.
For further reading on our mentions of the importance of the March 2009 trend-line from the last few months please see:
http://highchartpatterns.net/march-2009-trend-line-sirens-calling/
http://highchartpatterns.net/like-a-zombie-that-wont-go-down/
http://highchartpatterns.net/it-is-what-it-is/
http://highchartpatterns.net/time-to-re-assess/
http://highchartpatterns.net/two-bullish-scenarios-and-one-bearish-one/
http://highchartpatterns.net/technical-symphony/
http://highchartpatterns.net/i-promise-you-i-will-punch-you-in-the-nose/
http://highchartpatterns.net/countdown-to-trend-line/
http://highchartpatterns.net/multiple-bull-advantage/
As for our plan going foward please read from earlier today:  Now we wait
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Thursday, August 04, 2011

Now we Wait

We wrote yesterday that “The bounce is no surprise — the big question is whether it’s sold or not as we re-visit the underside of the March 2009 trend-line and whether we can close the weekly bar over the trend-line.”     Yesterday the head-fake option of a daily break, but not weekly break of the 2009 trend-line was on the table.   Today, not so much, not unless we rally 5% before Friday close.  Possible, but not likely.
Everything we wrote on Monday in our “It is what it is” post still applies to today.   The trend-line is broken, and bulls have to accept that.   The remaining and last standing support now is the horizontal support which held today:
The last two days we’ve sensed real fear — gold and USD ripping at the same time is often a good indication.    Today it was even more palpable as the miners were being blown out while silver and gold futures were green (they reversed later).       Market is waiting for some type of intervention from Europe.     So what do traders like ourselves do now?
1) We wanted to buy the blood on the last-standing support on $SPY which we did yesterday and today (tweeted entries and exits).    That was the last support long on $SPY for a while and we’re done with that trade.
2) If we base around here and build on the 122.5 base with some upward momentum we will find new long set-ups and trade those next week.   If we base around here and do not build any type of upward momentum then we will switch to short alerts.
Either way after today there’s not that much to do but wait for direction.   So far the bulls are holding but it’s by a thread, and distance away from 122.5 will be needed to build any type of confidence.   That being said the first test of the underside of the 2009 trend-line and 200SMA will likely be shorted.   Lots of action for a normally quiet and boring August.
No positions, all cash.
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Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Headfake?

The weekly bar closes on Friday meaning bulls have 2 more days to close that bar over the trend-line on $SPY.  This would make it a head-fake on daily but just a test on weekly.   Next few days will tell the tale.

Position, long SPY.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

It is what it is

We’ve written for months about the big kahuna, the March 2009 trend-line, and how we would stay bullish until market proved otherwise with a break.  Well guess what, it’s here.  We believe we’re at the most important inflection point since the March 2009 bottom.     Here are our thoughts:
1.  $SPY is  just a chart, like any other chart.  Leave emotions out of it.   We’ve been talking about the possiblity of the trend-line break in our last 5 posts and here it is.  Now we’ll re-asssess and trade accordingly. We won’t change the plan or make excuses to deny the possiblity of the end of the bull market.   It is what it is.
2.  As we wrote before today is day 1 of the break and head-fake is still an option on the table.    We want to see how the weekly bar closes on Friday.   The next few days will be absolutely pivotal.   A head-fake break down and a continued move up is definitely an option (and our most preferred one as we invariably make more money in bull markets).
3. We’re extremely oversold and way out of the Bollinger Band so a bounce is likely.   That’s not that important.  What is important is whether the bounce is sold (making it a dead cat bounce).

We look at this chart and at best we can be neutral due to the lack of close of the weekly bar but we cannot by any means feel bullish.  This is THE trend-line we were trading against for months and now that it’s broken we’re not going to change our story.  Sure we’d be happy to trade long for a bounce (especially $SPY 123, but if we bounce before that tomorrow we’d try to ride that too) but if you ask us our intermediate term opinion we’d say, neutral to bearish, at best, with a hold on judgement until weekly bar finishes on Friday.
A break is a break, and denial is a river in Egypt.

Time to re-assess

We have written for months that we would buy the dip until we broke the 2009 trend-line.   Well, today we broke the 2009 trend-line.  Our last support idea was a break of 2009 trend-line and overshoot to 50SMA weekly, which worked well for a small day-trade today.  However, the lack of buying on THE break of the big 2 year bull-market and 50SMA on weekly is without a doubt a red flag.     Today is day 1 of the break.   Head-fake is still an option and definitely on the table — the tale will be told not by just today’s action but by the next few days.
Our biggest focus now is whether dip-buying mentality has changed.  If today is any indication then yes, indeed, dip buying has changed dramatically.  But again, one day not enough to make a judgment and we’ll see how the rest of the week plays out.
For our trading we’re back to more defensive trading.     If this is just a head-fake then we’re fine with missing any bottom and playing it safe.   Our plan all along has been reversion to mean trades against the trend-line.  Today we lost that strategy edge and again, as per the plan, we’re stepping back.

Clean break of $IYT two year trend-line.   If it’s a head-fake, great, but we’ll wait and pay higher prices on long set-ups than buy the blood on a clear break.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Two bullish scenarios, one very bearish one

We wrote this AM that the 2009 trend-line was at 127.5 on the $SPY — look where we bounced, at 127.53 with $SPY (currently at 128.1).   We can think of two bullish scenarios and one bearish scenario:

1. We hold today’s low and distance ourselves ASAP from the trend-line test (currently at $SPY 128.1)
2. We break the trend-line, hit stops, reset, and bounce on the weekly 200SMA at 126.5

And the bearish scenario is to base on the trend-line, break down, and for the first time in 2 years, not bounce as the dip-buyer mentality finally changes.  Then we’d have to deal with the first important technical break-down of the year on the March 2009 trend-line failure.
We perform better in bull markets and thus are rooting for #1 or #2, however considering how close we are to a major inflection point we’ll be looking to have a plan in action also for #3.    We scalped the $SPY today for some dinky profits (i.e. small) and are happy to be on sidelines in this news tape.  Next time we’ll get involved is on any reversal of 126.5 or pay up for a bounce on any stocks that set-up long.

Technical Symphony

$SPY is wedged right now between the descending 50SMA (where it reversed today) and ascending 200SMA (where the selling paused).
As an added bonus we have the all-important 2009 trend-line just over 127 and then the weekly 50SMA at 126.50.    Inflection point indeed.  As per our post on Friday we’re looking for a break of the 2009 trend-line — ideally a head-fake through and then bounce on weekly 50SMA at 126.50 zone.

Friday, July 29, 2011

I will punch you in the nose!

The last time we tested the $SPY trend-line (in June) we lifted off perfectly, ran to the top of range, but now have come  straight back down.   We came 1% from testing it today.   For us that March 2009 trend-line now is like negative pressure, we actually now want it to break and get it over with instead of the constant threat hanging over the technical market.   It’s like a big bully coming up to a 10 yr old kid and saying “I promise I’ll punch you in the nose but I’m not going to tell you when, but soon!”  The actual waiting for the kid is worse than any punch the bully could come up with.
We feel it’s similar like that in the market right now — all trend-lines eventually break and we’ve come close enough now that we think the threat of a break is very real, but we just don’t know when.  We’d rather just get the punch in the face now and get it out of the way instead of this constant waiting.
Our ideal scenario is a break, hit stops, put some fear in market, and then new highs.  That would be awesome.  And incidentally, it would also follow Joshy’s plan perfectly.
In terms of trading though it’s still the same status quo for us — buy the dips until it stops working.  Again, it worked today.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Please don't preach

We give advice in our newsletters all the time and often write about what we’re thinking on our stream.   Our subscribers know our style and anyone who has followed us for a few weeks on StockTwits knows what kind of traders we are — active traders who trade around support and resistance with an emphasis around intraday/daily bases.     However, we respect all types of trading and it drives us crazy when we see others express contempt for other types of trading strategies.
Why?  Because talking about how bad a certain type of trading behavior is to a general stream just doesn’t work.    The only time this type of “education” works is if everyone who follows you has the same strategy as you.  If we are trying to teach a guy who wants to know how to trade like us “our strategy” then sure, we’ll say do this, no don’t do that, but that’s our strategy and the advice is focused to someone trying to learn this exact strategy.    Posting on a stream is different — you’re automatically talking to traders who use hundreds of different types of strategies.
Our style is to follow and trade liquid stocks that trade usually between $30-$100.   We don’t trade small-caps but you would NEVER find us talking about why trading small-caps is inferior.     We only buy blood on support but we don’t talk smack to traders we see  buying what we consider completely broken stocks.   If they ask us, sure, we’ll give our opinion, but otherwise, we’re very much in the “live and let live” camp.     Any strategy can work — some are harder than others (for example contra-trend trading we find difficult) but they’re all possible.   Never add to losers?   For the most part sure but again we’ve seen traders who make more than us year in and year out do it all the time.    If you want to give advice, explain your strategy and educate people about how you trade but for the love of God stop talking about how you cannot “believe” how traders are making this and that mistake.
The market gives each type of trading its turn — right now this is an amazing market for active traders who trade around support and resistance.   However, it’s not so friendly to trend-following swing traders.   Soon the market could revert to drip-up trend style and leave us underperforming.  That’s just how it is  and how it always will be.     It works in cycles — and just because our style works well now we don’t assume that other styles are inferior because we know 2 months down the road the “sit tight and hold the leaders” a la Livermore could be laughing in our face.
What “best traders” have in common belong to the realm of psychology and risk management not to details of strategy.
On another note — as we have said repeatedly in our posts, we will stay in the bull camp until a) we stop bouncing where we should bounce (even today even though we closed near lows, we first bounced perfectly from trend-line to 20EMA, where we posted daytrader target had been met) and b) March 2009 trend-line is broken.  Basically we won’t get worried until stocks stop bouncing where they should bounce .   Then we’ll step back and wait it out.
For those who think that one day dip buyers will get blown up — again, we don’t understand that.   Retail Mom and Pop investors?  Sure.  Professional traders?  No.  We assume that we are talking to traders and by definition a trader works on some risk/reward notion, whether they buy penny stocks, trade a la Livermore, are value investors, etc.      If we have bought the dip with 2 point stop for 2 years and it has worked the majority of the time — why would we stop now?    Sure, one day it will stop working and we’ll lose 2 points. We would probably try again and lose another 2 points.  Then we’d say, wow things have changed, and we’d step back and re-assess.   That’s what traders do — adapt, assess, and re-assess.

Not Scary Yet

We wrote a few times about the trend-line/50SMA this morning as the first line of defense (and later as “line in sand”) this morning and lo and behold look where the artillery stepped in:
Right on cue — trend-line/50SMA was defended on $SPY as we’re bouncing from it now :
First daytrader target of 20EMA already met:
When we will get worried?  When market stops doing exactly what it should.    The bounce on previous support at 129.6 again was perfect (and we had telegraphed it for our readers beforehand) and now the trend-line test again is perfect.  Bear markets don’t bounce where you think they will bounce, they go right through.   Until that changes we’re in the bull camp.
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Monday, July 25, 2011

Goldman Sachs COO advice to young college graduates

Passionate commencement address  from Gary Cohn , the Goldman Sachs ($GS) COO, filled with  great advice to the young graduates at American University.    I recommend that anyone either graduating from college or who is  taking online college classes read it.  Dude can hustle and some fantastic quotes.


I’m a 1982 graduate of the Kogod School of Business. I understand what you are going through. I understand what you are feeling.
There’s a striking resemblance between what you are thinking and what you are going through today and what I was thinking and what I was going through then. In fact, in April of 1982, unemployment in the United States was 9.35 percent; on its way to 10.8 percent by the end of the year. Today, April ’09, unemployment in the United States is 8.9 percent. GDP in the United States Q1 – while I was sitting there in 1982; minus 6.4 percent. Today Q1 GDP, minus 6.1 percent. Interesting. Interesting, that we— you and I—sat in those seats in a very, very similar economic environment.
That said, when I graduated 27 years ago in the dark ages, little did we know how much was going to be accomplished in the next 27 years. All of the things you as students that you depend on and rely on and think of in normal course of business did not exist when I sat out there 27 years ago. Think about that. I did not have a personal computer. I did not have a cell phone. I did not have a fax machine. I didn’t even have Federal Express. I don’t even know how we survived. In fact, one of my favorite activities at American University was spending late nights in the Mary Graydon Center on the second floor programming Fortran through, you got it, keypunch cards. I was great at punching cards.
Upon graduation, believe it or not, I had no job. I had no interviews. I had no prospects. I had no worries. What I did have, I had passion. I had enormous passion. I had passion for financial markets. I had fallen in love with financial markets. So, like every one of you, I did the only smart thing to do, I moved back home and started having a great time enjoying my life, until that one, early Monday morning at 6:30 a.m. when my father walked into my room and turned on my lights. I had been in bed for about an hour, I think, and said, ‘what are you going to do with the rest of your life.’ I ironically told him, ‘you’re looking at it.’ That did not go over very well in my house.
So, I went through what I consider to be the formality of trying to go out and seek a career and seek a job. I ended up luckily landing a job with a division of the United States Steel in Cleveland. Not a job that I had any aspirations for, not a job that I really wanted, but I had to appease my father and I had to go out and get a job. The only good news is that I was at that job from July 1st to Thanksgiving my graduation year. By Thanksgiving I had found a way into the financial markets, by pure drive and perseverance. I’ll tell you a little story about how I got my first job in the financial services industry.
As I said, I was working for the United States Steel in their home products division. I was in Long Island for the week working with one of the sales offices. I made sure that I worked very hard Monday through Thursday and got all of my work done and convinced the gentleman that I was working for that I had never been to New York City and I wanted to go see the city and could I leave early on Friday. He agreed to that. I literally took myself to the commodities exchange center which at that point was in Four World Trade Center, went into the commodities exchange center…found my way up to the visitors’ gallery and realized that everyone in the visitor’s gallery was just like me, trying to figure out what was going there. I figured out that if I go down one floor, I’m actually down at the trading floors. I got down to the trading floors and I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I stood at the security entrance to the trading floors and stood there for about three or four hours, trying to figure out what to say to someone…trying to figure out how to get a job and trying to figure how to introduce myself.
About four o’clock, I literally gave up. I walked to the elevator bank. I dejectedly hit the down button to go down to get a taxi cab to go to the airport to come back. And, I hear a gentleman say, ‘I gotta run, I’m going to the airport.’ I jump in the elevator with him and say, ‘I overhead that you are going to the airport. He said, ‘yes, I am.’ I said, ‘what airport are you going to to?’ LaGuardia. I said, ‘Do you mind if I share a taxi with you? He said, ‘Sure, by all means.’ I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. I said, here’s my shot. I’ve got 45 minutes, in traffic on a Friday afternoon to convince this guy that I’m hirable and need a job. He literally went through and grilled me on my knowledge of financial markets, grilled me on my knowledge of certain aspects and I think I moderately passed. By the end of the taxi ride, he says, ‘what do you know about options.’ I said, ‘everything.’ He said, ‘great, I want you to come back Monday, I want you to interview. I’m trading options, it’s a brand new market that’s opening and I don’t know how to trade it and I need someone to stand behind me and tell me exactly what to do.’ I said, ‘no problem, I’m your guy.’ I literally got home Friday night and my first stop on the way from the airport was the bookstore. I bought the McMillian Options is a Strategic Investment book and read it four times–as I said, dyslexic guy read it four times over the course of the weekend and came back in and interviewed and was offered a job. That’s how I started in my financial services industry.
So, in my answer to my first question here from the students on career advice let me make it simple. Have a goal. Know where you want to end up. Knowing where you want to end up is a lot easier than figuring out how to start and how to get there. You will figure out how to get there. Do not chart your career. Trust me; you do not want to chart your career. In fact, I worked on the floor of the commodities exchange and everything in my life was perfect. My wife was pregnant with our first child and we could not have been happier. At that point, I got an interview…I wasn’t really looking, but Goldman Sachs at the time was trying to draw me into their organization, something that I had no intentions of doing and I really sweated the decision, do I want to leave what I’m doing now and go to Goldman Sachs or do I want to stay at what I’m doing. In fact, I went home and talked to my wife and my wife said, ‘you got to be crazy. That would the craziest decision that you ever made.’ I said, ‘you know what. It’s one of these opportunities that may come along only once in your life; I know that going back to the floor exchange is always there.’
So, be flexible, have a goal, don’t chart your career and most importantly understand your competitive advantage. Understand what differentiates you from someone else; make sure you have a way to distinguish yourself from everyone out there.
Number two: How to stand out. I thank God that President Kerwin did not read my resume from Goldman Sachs because it reads like I’m a guy that can’t keep a job; every two years it seems like I seem to be doing something else in the world. So, I’ve worked in a variety of jobs, I’ve worked in a variety of locations. Every time you get into a new job, new location, you have an amazing opportunity in front of you. You get to play dumb for as long as people will allow you to play dumb. You get to ask all the dumb questions, you get to ask multiple people the dumb questions, and you get to make mistakes. That’s how you stand out in the crowd. You stand out by asking the questions, whether they are smart, whether they are dumb, but you have to have that desire to learn. Those that have the desire to learn will stand out. Those that work hard will stand out. The old adage that hard work will get you what you want is 100 percent true. Work hard, ask questions, and take risk. If there is one thing out of this on how to stand out, it’s take risks.
Everything I’ve done in my career and everything that most of you have done to this point is to take risks. You may not have quantified it as a risk decision, but believe me it was a risk decision when you choose to come to Kogod, it was a risk decision, you’ve could have gone somewhere else. When you chose to get up and come to work this morning—never mind, you didn’t come to work, when you came to graduation this morning, you made a risk decision. How were you going to go? Was there going to be traffic? Was there not going to be traffic? Understand the decisions that you are making and try to wave them in your respect. Failure is not a problem. In fact, I always saw, that 95 percent of my great decisions started out as bad decisions. It’s one thing that I learned when you trade and you trade your own capital for a living is that you are usually not right, it’s recognizing when you are not right and correcting it is when you take the biggest advantage of the opportunity.
Keep yourself motivated. You’ve got to be motivated, you’ve got to wake up every day and understand what that day is about; you’ve got to have personal goals—short term goals, intermediate goals, and long term goals. Be flexible in getting to those goals, but if you do not have goals, you will not achieve them. You are competing. Every day you are competing and every day you are playing to win. So remember, wake up every morning and figure out how to win.
Next question I was asked quite a bit about is how to balance my career and my life. I will tell you, for those of you that asked this question, and it’s a great question, it’s clearly the single hardest thing that I do. I am the father of three teenage daughters and it is a very demanding group of young ladies that I have in New York. We somehow seem to balance those decisions. Like today, making the right choice…I think its Mother’s Day. Congratulations to all the mothers in the audience. My mother’s in Cleveland, Ohio; I will call her when I land in some other continent in about 14 hours from now. My wife is in New York with our daughters and I’m here. Of course, I make all the right life balances. These are tough choices and you should always make sure that you’re thinking about those choices.
Now, a couple of more points that I want to make here. And, this is probably one of the most interesting questions that someone posed to me in the questions here. If you listen to one section of this speech for those of you in the blue garments like myself, this is the important part. The question goes something like this: What do you know now that you wished you had known when you graduated. How long do you have? Let me start with the basics.
You have the skills. You have the education. You’re education is virtually the same as everyone that you are going to compete with. I know, we hire six to ten thousand kids a year. I must interview, conservatively 1,000 different kids a year; and I will tell you this: You’re education and their education is exactly the same. Most likely you have the same textbooks, you have the same books in your library, you’ve got the same access to the same data on the Internet today that they do and you have the same education as they do. You might not be as confident as them. Trust me; you might not be as confident; some of you may be as confident. Confidence is the easiest single thing to fix, so remember that. I got the same, the same education that I am competing with. I have to make sure that I walk in that room, walk in that interview, and walk in that first day at work with the confidence that everyone else has. Just because you went to an Ivy league school doesn’t mean you are smarter, doesn’t mean that you got a better education; it may mean that you got a little bit more confidence because you think you got a little bit of an edge going in there. That is the easiest thing to overcome.
Let me tell you a little anecdotal story here. This is probably the easiest way to drive this point home. Every summer at Goldman Sachs, we bring in about 1,500 student interns; most of them are juniors going into their senior year. The highlight event in our summer experience in the division that I was running at the time which is the securities business, which is all equities and fixed income trading, is that we have the entire summer class sit down and we do an interview question and answer session with the operating committee of the securities division. So, we get the five or six leaders of the division on a global basis into a room in front of the students and we let the leaders introduce themselves for about three to five minutes and then we open it up for about three hours of questions. I will tell you the most striking part of that day and it’s always my favorite part of the day. We ask each of the operating committee members to introduce themselves, tell the group of students to tell them a little bit about themselves and we ask them to tell where they went to college and what they’ve done. I will tell you that the last time that I chaired this group, of the five individuals sitting in front of the room—and I will admit that the vast majority of our summer intern class comes out of the Ivy League schools—I will tell you that the five individuals that introduced themselves the last time I chaired; me as the division head, American University; one of my other partners, Bucknell University; one of my other partners, Hamilton; one of my others, Rutgers; and then we had this weird guy at the end that went to Yale University. But, that to me was probably the most striking moment of the summer for the kids to come into Goldman Sachs and it really tells you about having the desire, having the drive, having the need and having the want to succeed. It is a level playing field out there. It really is.
As far as being good alumni, I think all of us want to be good alumni. As you sit there today, thinking about your experiences at American University, I’m sure you all think you’ll be great alumni and that American University will have a place in your heart forever. It will have a place in your heart forever, every time you are introduced, every time you are in a crowd, every time you are making a presentation, people refer to your academic background. I will tell you this, as a Board of Trustees member, as involved in some of the Capital Campaigns around here, not all of you will remember that you went to American University when we ask for you to give back to the university; whether in time, effort, money, any of the ways you can give back. Being a great alumni is being proud of your academic university…being willing to tell people where you went to school, wanting to tell people where you went to school, recruiting potential students. This is a competitive business. Running an academic institution is a competitive business. We need your help. You are our biggest advocates; you are our biggest recruiters out there. And, if you want to be a great alum, just partake in any one of the activities that I mentioned here.
On a few a final thoughts, tying back together the 1982 scenario when I was sitting out there with the economic scenario of today which are very similar, this is truly historic times. You are watching history write itself, or rewrite itself. In the financial markets, in the business community, in the political community, in the regulatory community, the world that we have known since literally the 1930s, which was the last time that we really saw the regulatory community in the United States change. We saw the business community in the United States change, we are going through a complete revamp of the world. You have a front row seat. You need to get involved. You can make a difference. You will see things that will surprise you, you will see things that will shock you. But I will tell you this, that said, in times of fear, times of uncertainty, times of confusion and times of turmoil, there are the greatest opportunities to contribute and succeed.
I know most of you feel like, oh my God; I am two to three years too late in graduating and I wish I had been there a few years earlier. It would have a hell of a lot easier….there were an abundant jobs, there were an abundant opportunities. That is the farthest thing from the truth. For those kids that were graduating into the workforce two to three years ago, they had a very short-lived experience; they saw the top of the market and they really didn’t have the time to learn because the environment was so chaotic. You are entering at the optimal time, like I did in 1982 to enter the work world and to really get long lasting real experiences to drive you for the rest of your career. The world needs you to be great citizens and great leaders.

Pretty good right?  I think this is a great read for anyone who's just graduated college, who's looking at the job market today and feeling a bit hopeless.

Full transcript here
h/t Business Insider for link

Monday, July 18, 2011

Pretty Spot Worked

We wrote this afternoon near the bottom:
“This would be a pretty spot to bounce – if bulls want it, this is the place to defend ”
And once again dip buyers won the day.

We find it astounding that no matter how ugly the market support keeps working, for a trade.   If we want anything more than that then bulls will need to give the all important confirmation move tomorrow.  This also applies to all the sweet hammers on the financial stocks today.   Also recall that we tested the support last week in overnight session and we finally had regular session test that many had been waiting for today.  Bottoms are never made in one day — confirmation is always needed.
As noted before we’re swing long partial $SPY.  Why?  We got off decent entry and have cushion, we like how market acted post low, we like copper holding, and we like the financial bounce off the lows.     Stop now break-even (maximum, we’d probably bail at 130 break) at $SPY 129.66.
Even with all the red, there still is very little fear in this market (note $AAPL all time highs today — as an aside great trading there by our buddy @gtotoy )
Until we get smacked in the face our modus operandi will be to buy dips.   It’s been working for 2 yrs, and we’ll keep doing it until/unless we break 2009 trend-line or we get hit.  Whichever comes first.

SPY talk

We tested the top of the previous range last week at 3AM in the futures and we finally tested it in the regular session today.   If there was ever a place for the bulls to push — and not just a good close but a continuation tomorrow, it is now.

Position long $SPY and will swing on any close over 130

Trading Screen Configuration

HCPG trader screens are more or less configured in a similar fashion — emphasis is on a layout which  gives us a quick idea of what is happening in the market in terms of sector strength and breadth.   Let’s take a detailed look:

The following configuration can be done with 3-4 monitors, our ideal size.  We’ve basically had this configuration for our entire trading career (and have sent versions of it over the years to our subscribers).   It’s basic, and it works for our style.

On one monitor we have our trading broker and a  range look on an Interactive Broker page with some of our favorite trading stocks/etfs gives us a quick read during any time of the market:
We use E-Signal for our charting platform.  Even though HCPG hammered out a  partnership with E-Signal in May  (HCPG subscribers who transfer over to E-Signal are eligible for significant discount) we started using E-Signal even before that date as they are the best charting service that we can find for our trading needs.
We follow our “core” stocks in loose sector groups in one monitor.  Note that we have different pages on E-Signal that we flip through — but this is the main one.
On another monitor we have different time-frame charts of any stock we pull-up.  Note that we use 20EMA, 9EMA   and pivot points.  These are the only intraday indicators we use and find them invaluable to our style.
We follow 3 min, 5 min, 15 min and 60 min.
On another monitor we have our StockTwits desktop and Tweetdeck.
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We’d like to thank everyone who sent us screenshots of their configurations — included below.  Enjoy.
@joeyfishface     I mostly employ a VWAP reversion strategy, supported by OHLC, Volume, T&S, and Volume Profile.
————————
I have been doing a lot of trading lately on a laptop. It’s not a big laptop either. 11.6″ screen, running at a resolution of 1366 x 768. When I started day trading full-time back in 2005, I had 6 monitors going. Over time, I have found it to be more of a distraction than anything else to have so many screens. I do have another computer that I use for net browsing, TweetDeck, etc..
My setup is simple, Esignal and my broker platform. The broker platform is mostly hidden behind Esignal. Starting on the bottom left there is my position monitor, showing symbol, position size, and avg price. Then to the right, I have two order entry windows. All the rest of the windows are from Esignal.
 This screenshot shows the daily chart in front, behind it are two intra-day charts. One for 60-min/120-min charts that is zoomed out pretty far so I see a lot of data, and one for lower time frames (1-min, 2-min, 5-min, and 15-min) that is zoomed in closer. Switching the bar interval in the Esignal 11 is simple. When a chart window is active, just type the interval number you want, then press enter. For example, if I’m currently viewing a chart with 2-min bars, and want to see 5-min bars instead, I just type 5 and then enter.
To the right of the charts are my quote/alert windows, called “Watchlists” in Esignal 11. I’ll start with the first column to the right of the chart. On top is my Focus List for the day. These are the stocks that I’m most interested in for that session. Below this is my Alert List.
All of my Watchlists that are for alerts have the following columns.
  • pPrice = shows the price of my alert
  • ExtHtsL = last traded price for that symbol
  • %Ret = how far the last price is from my alert price (this is the field that the Watchlist is constantly sorted by)
  • Vol % = shows the current days volume as a percentage of the average of the past 30 days volume
The final column of Watchlists contains 4 different windows. On top are my support long alerts, and directly under are my resistance short alerts. Like all of the other alerts, they are sorted by distance to the spot. The third Watchlist down shows my Key Stocks. Just a group of about 20-30 stocks that I want to always keep tabs on. I also sometimes switch this Watchlist to display my ETF sector list. The bottom most Watchlist contains the 3 index ETFs that I follow, SPY, QQQ, and IWM.
That’s pretty much it. Keeping my setup simple helps me maintain calm and focused while trading.”
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I’m not sure how best to capture it cleanly because I have limited screen space so with many charts open at the same time, I tend to just move charts to the forefront when I need to look at it.
I always have the following open:
- IB TWS
- IB option trader
- IB charts (ES, NQ (two days and one month timeframes), and about 12 other names I trade regularly displayed in the 2 days, 5min bars configuration), other charts I need I would open and close as needed.
- Freestockcharts.com
- Tweetdeck
————
My Screen Real Estate has changed over time but here is what I am currently watching on a daily basis:

Center Monitor:  Upper Left is my main QuoteTracker Window that shows my core watch list for the day.  The columns in all my watch lists are Last Price, Net Change, % Change, stock’s current % within daily range, % of average daily volume. Just underneath that is a list that is populated from stocks that may have fresh news that morning that pop onto my radar and below that is a watch list of index and sector ETF’s.

Next to those are my futures charts (NinjaTrader Platform) for the 3 main Indices- They are usually set on 5 minutes but can be changed easily.  Those charts contain 8 and 34 Ema’s along with a parabolic SAR.

I also have ThinkorSwim platform open with two quote windows (Indices/Futures) and charts for the TICK and Advance/Decline Line.  The red and green dots on the AD Line chart are for extreme tick readings.

The remaining ThinkorSwim Charts on this Monitor are USD futures, TLT, TNX or /ZN and Copper Futures.  All of these are 5 minute charts with 2 trading days of data.

Underneath those are 3 Quote tracker charts are for the 3 Sector ETF’s that I watch most closely- IYR, OIH and IYT.  All my quotetracker charts contain the 9/21/34 EMA’s, VWAP, Pivot Points and the prior day’s Hi/Low/Close.  I start the trading day using 1 minute charts, switch to 3 minutes around 9:45 and eventually sync them all to 5 minutes as the day goes on.  In late afternoon they are sometimes changed to 10 minute candles.

Left Monitor: Upper Left is a Notepad where I do my best to write down some thoughts on entries and exits which help me with my trade review and journal.

Next to that are 4 quote windows each containing approx 20 tickers: Retail/Casino’s/Misc Momo, Tech, Financials/REITS/Industrials and Commodity.  Several come and go but probably 70% of these tickers will typically stick around with the most change coming from the left most watch list.   I also have one “bellweather” quote window (12 stocks) for giving me a quick read of what I consider the markets key stocks.  I also have one list for levered ETF’s and for Alerts

Below the watch lists are room for 6 equities charts that I am keeping an eye on at that particular moment and one space for one random Futures chart (/GC, /SI, /ZC)

Right Monitor:
Ninja Futures charts for Euro and Crude
ThinkorSwim 6 window linked Multi-Time Frame Grid (5 min, 15 min, 30 min, hourly, daily, weekly)
Browser with FreeStockcharts and Stocktwits
Chatroom from @gtotoy’s daytraderbootcamp, where I hang out during the trading day.
GChat windows for traders that I rap with throughout the day.
TweetDeck

Laptops: On one laptop I run my Lightspeed Trading Platform.  It has 4 separate linked windows for order entry, level II and Time and Sales and on my other Laptop I have a newsfeed