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PokerSam,
I would expect a bounce, too, but the failures on Friday make me weary. Today might "fix" the situation but the real world events have the ability to override it all....
Again check last 7 years
and this time there are fewer points of lower readings:
a period around Jul 02 stayed below 20 for a weeks and bottomed at 4.
A word of warning
It can get a lot more extreme. Just going back to 2000 shows these numbers:
mid-April 2000 it was 11
mid-March 2001 12
late September 2001 it was 1
Jul 02 it got to 8
So extreme but proceed with stoplosses on all longs.
Crashes happen in oversold conditions when buyers go on strike, not as many thing from sentiment highs and over bought.... (It's logical sentiment high and OB, the sell off is expected and viewed as correction.)
Seems like most people in the world differes in many aspects in this
"I think any reasonable, open-minded person with even moderate intelligence would conclude that there is a God."
This is insulting and patronising.
OT: Universe and god - again
"The singularity of energy as you call it can not be God. Working through the logic, you will find that God is the uncaused cause of everything. There has to be an original causation and it can't be non-personal (or you could ask what caused that)."
This is silly. The boldfaced bit has no justification. It is what you want in your world view but nothing but your desire for some quasi logical justification for your faith requires it.
"Most atheists realize this and try to attack the KCA at the first step -- denying the universe had a beginning. They haven't done a very good job of course."
The atheists that would attack KCA in the first step are pretty poor. That step is is completely irrelevant. The real issue as I have pointed out comes at the final step which voila, goes and assumes what it set to justify. You do note that by KCA argument the creator of the universe could be devil instead of god. Maybe it is just a big game for his/her entertainment and everything is meaningless.
"Theists have been gaining momentum in recent years. Last year, long time atheist Antony Flew became a theist due to the compelling evidence from intelligent design. There are quite a few universal constants (I think there are 34 now and the number is growing) where even a tiny change in the constant results in no life anywhere. An example is the gravitational coupling constant—i.e., the force of gravity. Those would be some incredible coincidences if they all happened to be perfectly balanced by chance. LOL. The only other theory is that there are an infinite number of universes and there is no evidence to that effect."
There is absoloutely no evidence for intelligent design.
As for using natural constants and the range for tolerance in them for the existence of the universe utterly fails to understand theory of probability.
Just look at this way:
Flip a coin 100 times and record the sequence of the heads and tails. The probability that you got that particular sequence a priori is 1 / 2^100 or roughly 0. (add 30 zeroes) 1.
But the probability that you would get some sequence of 100 head and tails is pretty close to one (I guess if we want to cover all the basis, you might lose the coin accidentally before the sequence gets finished or die of hearth attack).
We are in the post coin flip situation: the universe exists as far as we can say and the probability of this situation right now is one.
Note that you have no way of estimating or knowing how many bad universes went ahead before we got here. In fact, some theoretical physist speculate that universes actually pop in and out of existence in huge numbers all the time. But that is pure speculation.
I have no problem with people believing in whatever they want, but they should not push it to others and try to mislead others into believe that there is a logical reason for belief.
OT: Are we back to this?
My offer to take this to the OT board and disect the argument logically is still open. Here's another link to the
http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/kalamcosmological.html
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
and summary of the argument:
he Kalam Cosmological Argument
(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore:
(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.
(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Therefore:
(5) God exists.
The proponents of this argument on this board seem to focus on the step one. The real issue is step four which simply assumes that it is god that created the universe. Utter tosh which in no way forms a basis for a logical argument.
As I stated before, the arguments assumes what it sets to "prove". There are many variations of the argument but they all are based on the simple idea that the mere existence of the universe is a proof for the existence of god. All the rest around the argument is irrelevant, pointless drivel used to confuse the argument.
Just spend a bit of studing the structure of the argument instead of focusing form of one minor part of it.
I will repose the questions I set last week:
If a tree falls down in a forest and there is nobody to observe this taking place, does it make a sound?
Then answer this: does the number one exist?
How are those two related? Once we've made progress on this, I will give further steps (if anyone is interested) that at least refutes some of the silliness around the Kalam Cosmological Argument as presented on this board.
Rusell emini is er or er2 if I remember right
cruzship,
I'm in full agreement with you:
"Certainly a mere human such as yourself cannot know unless you talk directly to god and, if that is the case, you need some serious psychiatric drugs and a court order restricting your access to weaponry, especially guns, and other people."
Or you become the president of the USA...
Hi capt_jmj,
I've got a maths background, too. Funny that you focused on the issue of the infinity in the argument. I noticed that, too, as an indication of that the person posing the argument is very unfamiliar with mathematical concepts. You have to recognize that the Kalam argument dates to middle ages and takes certain points of view as given when in fact now we would view them as silly.
The whole issues around infinity in the text that I quoted parallel the classic arguments in mathematics and set theory about two different things:
1) Constructionist mathematics which argues that only valid proofs are those that actually give you a description how to build (even if it is in the abstract) what you set you to prove. I.e. proof by contradiction is not valid. And no existential proofs are valid. This lead to extremely limited subset of mathematics that no one argues for, as our knowledge of the physical world and real life application depend on things that cannot be proven when limited in constructionist view of things. (E.g. you are limited to rational numbers, as the proof of existence of irrational numbers depends on proof by contradiction. And forget about imaginary numbers or quantum physics; it ain't gonna happen in the constructionist world) So if you want to live in this world, no PET scans for you.
2) Whether axiom of choice should be part of the foundations of mathematics or which (more limited) version of it can be accepted. To accepted full axiom of choice (which I do and all mathematicians of repute that I know accept except when working for a specific reason in a more restricted set of assumptions i.e. in some parts of computer science) gives raise to some of the most intellectually amazing theorems such as Banach Tarski paradox: it is possible to take a solid ball of gold and divide it into five pieces, then reassemble three of them and two of them to form two balls of the original size and weight. Only actions in division and reassembly needed are translations and rotations i.e. things that keep the volume constant.
The bigger flaw in the argument is that it presupposes the need for something to cause something to come into existence and assume the need for a god to do this. It makes a big deal about making a logical but less than sound argument (this is all the stuff about the infinity) that the world/things/whatever must have had a starting point.
Then it says that the reason for things to come into existence is god.
What utter nonsense. Just because we do not know what was before big bang in the sense of physical science, does not require the existence of god. Anyway, I thought everyone know that the world is about 7000 years old
Unknown does not require supernatural to explain it. It requires further research and thinking. Otherwise, we are no better than those who sought to pacify the gods by untold cruel acts in order to end a drought or thunderstorm.
As for a comment that Einstein did something and set time=space, that is not right even close to being right. Time is part of the space. It is the fourth dimension. The famous revelation of Einstein was that energy and matter are the same thing and one can turn into the other given the right conditions.
Quantum physics poses a whole new set of problems that are much more difficult to make sense than the above described Banach Tarski paradox. No matter how uncomfortable those things are (btw. Einstein spend large part of his life trying to disprove quantum mechanics as he found it too absurb.)
OT: freemarket
I really, really object to the patronising tone in your last post. As they say, when logic fails, resort to ad homiem attacts. You know nothing about my background or knowledge of religion, philosphy or science. You have no grounds to write this:
"now you are just being intellectually dishonest. You haven't followed through with the Kalam arguments and you have never heard of the defense to the Problem of Evil (you didn't even know its name)."
Can you please provide a single example of me being intellectually dishonest? As for following throught the argument, yes, multiple times and you have failed to respond to my statement that it's a lot of correct but irrelevant logical arguments and then the last step assumes what it set to prove.
I did not recognize or know about Kalam argument prior to this conversation. As for the problem of evil, I know a lot of it. We were not talking about it.
Please go back and see what I wrote. And please try to answer the questions I posed.
If you are actually interested in the philosophy, can I pose you a counter question:
Let's start with a very basic and fundamental question and well debated one:
If a tree falls down in a forest and there is nobody to observe this taking place, does it make a sound?
Then answer this: does the number one exist?
Lastly, how are those two related?
The only intellectual dishonesty is the assumption that my truth is the only truth.
Answer those two questions and the next step is about infinity.
If you are willing, I would like to take this to the off topic board and go throught the Kalem argument in detail because I think we can both agree that this is not the forum for it. Agreed?
OT: Freemarkets - god
I do follow the argument. It is not complicated at all. And it is spurious as far as existence of god is concerned. Unless god is an elf or spaghetti monster. And no offence meant to anyone of any believe. It just that that argument is completely spurious.
One of my objections to the argument is that it clearly assumes what it sets out to "prove".
Whoever mentioned this originally said stated that the argument blew the mind of atheists that person told this argument. If it did so, those people must have not had a very good background in philosophy and logic.
The basic thing we SHOULD accept is that religion is a question of blind faith. There is no way to rationally to argue about it. There have been periods in human history where bogus arguments were accepted as such because of two factors: the overwhelming power of the church and appeal of rationalism. The dogmatic approach to rationalism made it irrational: they were trying to square the circle and explain faith rationally.
I do not believe in god or after life or bigger meaning of things. Maybe the burden of self-awareness is to ponder with these questions. Just because we feel that there needs to be a more rational and just world does not make it so.
Morality does not need a god or an institution to tell us what is right and wrong. As I wrote before, all religions have amongst them some saintly (not saints) people and some fanatic fundamentalists. And only real "teachings" that have survived the test of my life is:
Be true to yourself and try not to hurt other people unnecessarily.
And even that is quite a big task: how do you take guidance on the two big ideas "true to yourself" and "hurt unnecessarily". What I really, really fail to understand about the world religions that they seek power and dominance instead of trying to use the common ground that they all share to better the world.
I think it is complete utter disgrace to the humanity that we go back to debate issues such as torture. Or the fact that millions of children die because they have no access to clean water or even the medication that was available to the privileged since the beginning of the last century.
(rhetorical question warning) Does it matter if you neighbour believes in a "wrong" god more than whether that person is caring, responsible and humanist individual?
Remember Christ did say that the one of you who is sinless cast the first stone. Why is it that all major world religions are dominated by institutions that tend to try to dictate and add rules which mainly support and grab more power the the religious establishment instead of emphasing tolerance, acts of charity and humanity?
OT: FreeMarkets - Kalam
I did not miss it. You missed my point that nothing in that argument in anyway supports the existence of god. It is all in the last step where voila god appears. %The hitchhiker guide to galaxy has much more convincing argument for non-existence of god.
The logic of the argument is flawed as it clearly assumes what it attempts to prove or justify.
"Everything that exists came to exist."
I have no real argument with that in this context, there are other conteces where I could have long conversations about it, tgough. I guess what the whole crux of the question is whether something is "eternal". The stuff around infinity in the argument is very, very weak as it is just irrelevant.
"You can't get past an infinite number of real things. A day is a real thing. If the universe (all matter in space and time) had no beginning, then today would have never come because there would always be one more day before today to get through. Yet today has come. Therefore, the universe had a beginning."
I agree that universe had a beginning because of science, not because of a flawed argument. And I see that having nothing to do with the existence of a god.
See the fundamental problem is that you are asking for an argument against a non-argument.
OT: Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God
A bit of googling produces several variations of this. One of many analysis:
http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html
I don't see why anyone would be blown away by it. It's just another way of dressing the statement "I want to believe in god; thus god exists" with a lot of unrelated arguments.
First of all, the postulate that everything has a reason for its existence is unjustifiable. What is a reason in this context? Something that caused the thing to exist or reason as a purpose?
The step by step argumentation often changes the frame of reference when it suits the discussion.
All of that argument is not actually needed as in the conclusion, the existence of god is simply assumed:
"The only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time. "
Why?
As for this argumentation for existence of god:
"Questions:
-Do you know everything there is to know of all knowledge and experience in the universe??
-What percentage do you know, 10%, 1%, .1%??
-Then is it reasonably possible that God could exist and operate in the area you do not know about and you have not chosen to look in those places as of yet??"
By the same argument, the spagetti monster, Darth Vadar, tooth fairy and elves exist.
But Gleno,
I don't think you can call god as your witness in court and since there are no title deeds, the claim on those grounds would fail.
Oh god...
And I thought this was about trading. Out of curiosity what is the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God? I tend to think religion as awhole has been a curse on the humanity, but there is increasing evidence that we also do have biological need to believe. It, of course, in no way means that god exists. But to have faith can be powerful antidote to dispear, gives hopes and reason to go on even when the situation is utterly miserable and unhappy as many people have had throughout the history and still do in the current world.
I see things like this. If a god exists, he or she is either
1) indifferent to the human plight
2) benevolent
3) manovolent
If the god is indifferent, there is no point in paying attention to her/him/it. If the god is benevolent, surely the god won't be upset just because you failed to believe in her/him, surely much more important is how you lived your life. And in the last case you are screwed over no matter what.
Only "religious" type of "teaching" that has stood the test of time in my life is what a hindu friend of mine told me a long time ago:
Be true to yourself and try not to hurt others unnecessarily.
All organized religions have been polluted by the power and greed. All of them have fundamentalist fanatics among their members but they all do have also good humanist people.
Btw. someone stated that Christian fundamentalists do not tend to kill. False. Very false. Even today they do it. E.g. the extremist anti-abortion protestors, conflicts in several African countries, South East Asia.
Equity options expiry
Actually the previous explanation was quite wrong as far as equity options are concerned. The last trading day for them is Friday and they expire on SATURDAY!
Some index options have differing rules because some of them use the opening quotations instead of the closing ones for the calculation of the settlement price. E.g. DJX jumbo/normal
http://www.cboe.com/Products/indexopts/djx_spec.aspx
http://www.cboe.com/Products/indexopts/dxl_spec.aspx
Last Trading Day:
Trading in Jumbo DJX options will ordinarily cease on the business day (usually a Thursday) preceding the day on which the exercise-settlement value is calculated.
Expiration Date:
Saturday following the third Friday of the expiration month.
Expiration Months:
Up to three near-term months plus up to three months on the March quarterly cycle.
Settlement of Option Exercise:
Exercise will result in delivery of cash on the business day following expiration. The exercise settlement value, DKU, is calculated using the opening sales price in the primary market of each component security on the last business day (usually a Friday) before the expiration date. The exercise-settlement amount is equal to the difference between the exercise-settlement value and the exercise price of the option, multiplied by $100.
On the other hand, OEX options follow the equity options rules:
http://www.cboe.com/Products/indexopts/oex_spec.aspx
Before trading a specific type of option, always check:
1) last trading day (NOTE: THIS MIGHT NOT BE FULL DAY FOR THE EXPIRING OPTIONS, IT MIGHT STOP BEFORE THE NORMAL MARKET HOURS)
2) how settlement price is determined, what are the settlement rules
3) expiry date as you have a specific amount of time from this date to meet the cash/stock demands
The reason that equity options expire on Saturday is that you can on Monday buy stock to meet an assignment. Cash settled options you receive the cash on Monday or have to have the cash on your account for delivery on Monday...
It's a bit similar for oil producers
The important thing for a novice (you clearly aren't one) investing in these areas is that the shares are geared investments on the underlying commodity: the shares price in the current price plus the future production. An ounce of gold is just that. It actually costs to hold as it pays no interest or dividend. It is pure bet on the price of gold which is a factor of fear plus demand and supply.
I made good money on the futures, but I have only tiny position left. I would not touch any shares of those now. And some elliot wavers (Elliot wave international) are calling for the gold to fall big time.
The other thing that I do not understand at all is their call for USD to strengten which makes no sense at all to me. They expect a big break out in the style of the year before when everyone based on fundamentals was calling the USD to fall and it just kept going up.
Btw. anyone who is interested can get their US market forcasts free for a week just by registering: www.elliotwave.com
They called today's action quite well. You get intraday updates and those state the uncertainties.
PokerSam, I think that they disagree with you in the details but not in the big picture. I had no time to try to compare what you say versus what they say exactly, but I think they are more negative but the over all idea they have agrees with what you say and what I think. But I need no fancy waves. Just what always has taken place: end of summer is almost always down and if the start is difficult then it is even more dramatic. Liquidity also falls off so the volatility goes up...
Short covering produces sharp rallies which are wonderful for selling again as long as you don't over do it because it is diffult to predict how far things go....
Futures down after cash market closed
Anything possible tomorrow. As the saying goes: And, hey - let's be careful out there
Just saw that Intel is cutting 1000 MANAGEMENT jobs. Is that positive or bad for intc. Flip again...
Oil at about $77 a barrel.
Gold up but gold shares down
Talk about broadly based market selling
Imagine being a fund manager
What do you do in the next few days? I just read that the mutual fund cash levels are near record lows. You need to be able to meet redemptions. On the other hand, you are selling to a very weak market and push prices further down.
Btw. I am getting tempted to nibble on calls. But I'll sit on my hands. TICK goes up and cames back down. It is not yet clear whether we reached the bottom or not. A lot of shuffling around. Volatility in a narrow band in the mini futures. NYSE tick if it holds for a bit more is indicating a bounce...
I've been out of short futures (a bit too early) and now I just have the nervous feeling of wanting to be part of the action. It usually leads to a whipsaw and loss so I think I will sit out the rest of the day and just enjoy.
NYSE tick fell from 500 to 20, Nasdaq tick negative again. Maybe one more big leg down?
The time to buy might be tomorrow afternoon. Or we might get a small bounce, sell off continuing Monday that goes on until Wednesday afternoon we rally to the opex.
All in the worst case we sell off until opex. It does happen rearly.
Fight going on
TICKS are about -600, TRINS up and mini ES is getting close to testing 1250. Watch out if it gives.........
Looks like futures about to retest lows of the day
The CS board has been completely silent all day....
TICK and TRIN are saying the bottom is not yet in
TICK has problems staying positive. Earlier in the day NYSE tick hit high levels (300 to 800) on some of the bounces and stayed. Now it does not do that well... My guess would be a lower lower and maybe then a bounce. Maybe bounce to the end starting between 3 and 3.30pm. Or we might just sell off.
SPX is in a bad shape if it does not bounce.
Both NYSE and Nasdaq TICK just turned VERY negative...
You are on your own ---
TICK and TRIN to me tell about steady and continued downwards pressure instead of a significant bounce. Might be possible to pick tick here and there but I rather stay with the trend: lighten the position a bit on what looks like extreme and sell again higher...
Why fight the trend?
Market open
http://finance.yahoo.com/mo
09:00 am : S&P futures vs fair value: -6.1. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: -13.0. Still shaping up to be a sharply lower open for stocks as escalating tensions in the Middle East and the subsequent spike in oil to record highs weighs on markets around the globe. Asia's two major indexes were off at least 1.0% while the European bourses are all down at least 1.5%. Also, the struggling Technology sector could again be in focus as investors digest the consequences behind Dell's (DELL) scheduled "major pricing initiative" at 12:00 ET
Futures down big time
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures.html
NDEX VALUE CHANGE OPEN HIGH LOW TIME DJIA INDEX 11,012.00 -71.00 11,085.00 11,100.00 11,005.00 08:47
S&P 500 1,261.00 -7.30 1,268.30 1,269.70 1,259.50 08:47
NASDAQ 100 1,502.00 -14.75 1,517.50 1,518.50 1,501.75 08:47
S&P/TSE 60 669.60 -3.00 671.60 676.20 667.30 07/12
MEX BOLSA 19,617.00 -155.00 19,750.00 19,950.00 19,575.00 07/12
BOVESPA 36,050.00 -580.00 36,610.00 36,650.00 36,010.00 08:42
Market open
http://finance.yahoo.com/mo
09:00 am : S&P futures vs fair value: -6.1. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: -13.0. Still shaping up to be a sharply lower open for stocks as escalating tensions in the Middle East and the subsequent spike in oil to record highs weighs on markets around the globe. Asia's two major indexes were off at least 1.0% while the European bourses are all down at least 1.5%. Also, the struggling Technology sector could again be in focus as investors digest the consequences behind Dell's (DELL) scheduled "major pricing initiative" at 12:00 ET
Futures down big time
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures.html
NDEX VALUE CHANGE OPEN HIGH LOW TIME DJIA INDEX 11,012.00 -71.00 11,085.00 11,100.00 11,005.00 08:47
S&P 500 1,261.00 -7.30 1,268.30 1,269.70 1,259.50 08:47
NASDAQ 100 1,502.00 -14.75 1,517.50 1,518.50 1,501.75 08:47
S&P/TSE 60 669.60 -3.00 671.60 676.20 667.30 07/12
MEX BOLSA 19,617.00 -155.00 19,750.00 19,950.00 19,575.00 07/12
BOVESPA 36,050.00 -580.00 36,610.00 36,650.00 36,010.00 08:42
Nice to hear that we are in agreement....
And don't read too much to the name. I do trade short term (can help biting when the easy opportunity is given). I most definetly do not "invest" but the most profitable and least stressful stuff in my experience is actually playing things that are 3 months or so out. Day trading is boring work in my opinion. And hard work for what you can make considering what amounts of money you have to risk to make good returns. As I said, I do it when it suits me. This morning FTSE was just too easy: just wait until the energy of the initial trust up dies and go short. Since I didn't want to follow the market all the time, I chose July puts nearest to the money instead of futures. (I tend to follow futures closely and trade around the position.)
Just because I was talking about 50 and 200 period MAs does not mean that I trade them. My commentary was about the general market situations and what to expect. I.e. to me, it is pretty clear that there will not be a summer rally. A bit late to start one. We will have a bounce sometime between now and a week after option expiry. When and what level it starts is completely mystery to me, but a good initial target if it is longer than intraday are attempt to reclaim 50 and 200 day MAs where possible. NDX might reach 50 day MA just to give a promise for the bulls and then kill them again.
I wrote it before that when max pain is far above, sometimes the fix is to go further down.
I just don't understand the people who are just looking for the next uptrend. Nothing ever convinces them that the trend is down. (Not at all directed to you; the post you responded was more generic comment.)
Wrong timeframes my friend....
You would not use 200 and 50 period MAs to do short term trading. By definition, no matter what timeframe you use them, the cross overs are for long term. What you pointed in your chart could well turn out to be very profitable trade. At the end of the day, one would have gone short around 37 and a month later would be about the same place. But even then, it would have been foolish thing to do. The normal thing is to wait for confirmation which in this case was available if your personal rule is the pretty standard 3 day on closing basis. That would have taken you short around 38.5 which is not that bad, is it?
The biggest problem people have is to not do anything. I know that problem very well, it has cost enough money to me Being out of the positon can be so difficult. Always know which time frame you are trading and what is taking place in the one time frame above and below! The one above tells you when not to push it (stay away from the avalance (up or down)) and be nimble enough (don't let winners turn losers; another sin of beginners: perfect entry but no idea of exit. Greed got better of them. Very easy to do with futures in particular.) The shorter term time frame allows you to get better entries than you would get just following the time frame you actually trade.
If you trader, those are probably only things you need: three different timeframes: one above and below to the what you actually want to trade. The rest is important for the market direction but not for your trading.....
KovuLK,
You are looking the right things in my opinion. I personally I would pay attention to two things in particular: NDX and SPX. NDX since it will probably lead the bounce and SPX because the real money is there. If SPX breaks down, nothing can stop the downfall. NDX (and similarly SOX/SMH) are probably good indicators of short term (intraday to a couple of days) bounce.
RUT and related are going to have a rude wakening at one point. There are too many bullish players there and no one can have real idea of what fundamental issue will upset the apple cart at that level. (That is talking in the long term and fundamental point of view which is completely irrelevant for trading.)
Or and INDU is just a joke. I trade it, but I pay no attention to it. It is the most manipulated index.
Yep, but then you seem to agree with the long term view
Btw. none of what I wrote in no way excludes a possibility of bounce tomorrow. I just think any bounce of significance is unlikely as the bulls got their come uppance today. No point trying to push the string: there will be people who will sell into any bounce at this point to just get out either taking profits (those who are long from much lower levels; there are those) or trying to get out at even or smaller loss. No point to burn too much fuel in the rain. Wait until the deluge is showing signs of ending.
The other point to remember is that some people who are medium to long term investors (months to years) use 3 day rule for confirmation: after MA cross over, take the trade if the cross over is still valid on the 3rd day on closing basis. Yep, it sounds VERY slow for all of the intraday and swing traders, but there are plenty of people who follow that. I would expect some fight over the 200 day SMAs on the indices where that is still possible.
I'm doing something similar to you PokerSam, but differently: I am building "free" positions in September, October and November puts: I buy a bunch of them on the sharp bounces and sell enough to have the rest ride free.
The near term options (August at this point counts near term for me) and futures are mainly short term (intraday to week or two depending on what situation the trade is taken and which type of instrument it is). Slightly out of money calls or puts offer brilliant leverage (high gamma!) in the near month but you HAVE TO BE RIGHT.
How difficult is it to see a trend? I don't understand that so many people speak as if we were in a bull trend. Fine, talk about bounces or intraday, intraweek trend. To give some credit, I think most people here are shortterm traders and they do then to think in the short term trend sense. But then again, why do they rearly comment on the shorter time frame down trends? Surely the market has both bear and bull trends!
As you say, perma bulls....
Where we go is all a question of interpretation, market mood plus how much cash the feds flush into the markets
Economic slow down is NOT good for markets. Forget what you have heard for the past few months. It's complete rubbish. The whole commentary around equity markets, USD exchange rates and US interest rates has been post facto justifications. Not only that but even then it has been mostly incorrect as well highlighted by the elliot wave international. USD has fallen on several occations over the last 5 weeks when the US rate exepectations moved up! And the equity markets have fallen when the rate expectations went down. Just think about the last weeek. I'm sure there is a long-term correlation between those things but the biggest thing to try to gauge is how much/what has been already priced in to the market. It's the two old stories 1) "newbies" always wondering why a stock sells off when the results exceeded the expectations and the guidance is in line or slightly above (for this ignore the madness of the bubble) 2) buy the rumour sell the news.
The slow down story might get you a couple of day sharp short covering rally until the story is all the sudden earnings and how they might be affected.
I don't know elliot waves at all and I find it difficult to believe in it, but PokerSam is sure doing well at the moment. I remember several ewavers from the bubble bullmarket time when they seemed to well. PokerSam looks much more sensible. Not wedded to one position. All and every indicator will fail you if you are using it to justify your position instead of taking a position based on the indicators.
I'm bearish in the markets but I have no idea how far this fall will go. I think late August and September will be difficult and we will get some kind of bounce between then and now. My feeling/opinion is that we will overshoot PokerSam's 36 target but by how much, I have no idea and I will not bet the house on us breaching 36 on this burn.
What indicators can people use to deny that we are not in a bear market: what is left above 200 MA? How many charts are having 50 Ma crossing below 200 MA? You can become rich by being brave but trust me that those who actually already are rich feel no need to risk it. They want to keep it.
Note all of that is medium-longish term. I will not hold long overnight until we have had 7 day run of down days. Or on FTSE 100, the really safe rule has been a drop of 500 points in three days. You should get a bounce of 50 to 150 points out of that. Btw. Reversing the long to short at that point is usually profitable too.
It is not about squeezing every cent or penny but trying to make money consistently and preserve capital. Always. In this game, those who can run the marathon always wins over those who do the sprint.
I have two likely scenarios:
The sell off goes around the world and the US gaps down and keeps going. Or there is a small attempt to bounce which gets sold off.
What I would consider less likely at this point is a sharp bounce up. I just don't see what could cause that. US interest rates expectations up --> bad for equities. US interest expectations down --> the economic slowdown has finally taken root and the earnings estimates must come down.
It's pretty much accepted that US consumer demand is falling off. The mantra has been that business demand will pick up the slack. One company in the right area of business coming out and saying that they see softness in business demand will really kill the whole market.
I guess dollar rallied on the $1 billion better than expected trade gap. That's one billion when US needs about 12 billion of inflows to keep the dollar exchange rate stable. Also, forex markets are several trillion dollars a day.
We live in interesting times and I'd expect the volatility to increase, not decrease. Btw. oils seems to be ready to make a run to a new high.
Just a feeling but I would not under any circumstances go long today...
At best, scale down on the shorts. The market psycology is changing and daily charts are down/no mans land aside from the oscillators that are free to stay oversold in a downtrending market.
Unless one denies the existence of a downtrend, there is no reason to expect a bounce of any subtance. Maybe, just maybe there is an earnings crap out coming out after hours. No one would no ahead of time, would they?
Who dares to buy and when?
I made 40 and 60% on FTSE-100 July puts that I bought this morning. Now I am sorry that I sold them Oh well, I have all my short futures on FTSE.
All indices except INDU are now under their 200 day simple MA. Many breaking below mid-Bollinger band.
Who dares to buy and when?
I made 40 and 60% on FTSE-100 July puts that I bought this morning. Now I am sorry that I sold them Oh well, I have all my short futures on FTSE.
All indices except INDU are now under their 200 day simple MA. Many breaking below mid-Bollinger band.
TRIN
The important thing about TRIN is not only its absolute level, but the direction of change, too. Although, the TRIN today started at a low level, it has been steadily increasing: the volume of sales is steadily outpacing and increasing compared to the volume of the buys.
Realtime stockcharts is realtime for US equities, ETFs etc
Maybe you are not logged in? Unless they are down, you should get realtime data for the US indices, stocks, ETFs with the realtime subsription.
Careful about maxpain and options expiry
I've seen this before when maxpain is way above the current prices. Instead of attracting the price towards expiry, max pain can repel. The reason: the sellers can be partially hedged or will hedge their position and join the party on the way down.
Fast look at QQQQ Jul option volumes today show this:
6863 Jul 39 calls traded while the open interest is 286656, so I think we will not breach 39 by the expiry.
1065 Jul 39 puts traded, OI is 134107
13123 Jul 38 calls traded, OI 155700
21258 Jul 38 puts, OI 353679
4778 Jul 37 calls, OI 64850
8833 Jul 37 puts, OI 421889 --- This is interesting figure, I wish I had the data on the change of this figure over the last 2 weeks or so
360 36 calls traded, OI 16753
599 36 puts, OI 203935
Maybe we just stay here until expiry I still think we might fall hard. NDX and QQQQ are not the only factors....
Anyone watching NYSE TRIN?
It's been above one and slowly climbing. NYSE TICK is more positive. There is a chance that this gets reversed to the close in part at least.... How many intraday momo players jumped in and will exit before the markets close?
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