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n4807g, thx for that. I was trying to figure out why, as a daytrader, I missed that one. I had chalked it up to slow Monday action, and that the shorts (aka "longs" ?) were being "sneaky" by unleashing a low-volume sell program, into a falling VIX, but it definitely "got the job (price) done." After seeing you mention oil, that definitely explains it; oil crossed above 66 that hour. Thanks again.
One of the ads on this site made my iexplore task crank the CPU up to 100 percent, which causes my laptop fan to kick on. I can't recall which ad it was, because I closed IE immediately, which is becoming habit on various sites with "visually active" ads. I don't know if it's a bug in IE or what. I'm running XP home SP2.
JW, thanks for the perspective.
Yesterday (Aug. 10) was incredible.
Aug. 9
... bears display clear control after FOMC, albeit a low volume retracement after the bears made their point.
Aug. 10
... I await the "real" bear party.
... Futures up, gap-n-go.
... Tick visits 1100 numerous times, never goes below zero.
... VIX pegged low all morning
... 1MM upvol NYSE before noon vs. 200K dnvol.
... noon everyone goes to lunch expecting a breakout to alltime highs at 1:00 and 2:00.
... 12:20pm massive, violent sell volume slicing 100 ticks from SPY
... 1:00 bulls don't even show up
... 2:00 no bulls
Questions:
1. Who unleashed that sell program at 12:20?
2. Why did the bulls not fight?
I will not rest until I find the answers to these questions.
I will not let myself participate in a business where I don't know the identity of the key players and what they are doing.
It's like watching a football game where all you get to see is the scoreboard and a realtime (and historical) graphic of where the ball currently is and has been. Nobody would watch football if they could not watch the players.
Crude oil doesn't matter, then it does matter.
Is it really bulls vs. bears, or are the bulls really bears?
None of the advisories I pay had anything whatsoever to say about that violent reversal yesterday, except the high level reference to $65 oil, or perhaps they hope I did not get hurt too badly, or perhaps that, although they forgot to mention it earlier, they were fortunately hedged net short so they made a handsome profit.
I feel like such a chump.
Thanks Nick. Appreciate the good work and effort you (and the others) do on the fundamentals here. Tough trading environment for a daytrader (me) these days (calling tops, reversals, etc.). Especially frustrating is my "advisors" (weblogs, paid subscriptions, etc.) range from not knowing what the big money is doing, to borderline dishonesty (claiming they were positioned correctly "after the fact"). One of my favorite things here is the honesty, the realtime calls, and minimal amount of publicizing only the winning trades.
I'd like to know who unleashed that sell program at 12:20pm. I'd also like to know why the bulls never returned from lunch after such a strong morning. hmmm.
Thanks JW. Had a good day shorting SPY using your "system".
wacky, wacky stuff. My charting platform "adjusted" the open interest data, so now all of last weeks values are different than they were over the weekend. The put and call volume figures look highly suspicious for today (calls 2-to-1) and yesterday (puts 2-to-1) also.
Q: for anybody "options literate" (Dimension, you around?):
How can open interest rise more than volume in any given (appropriate) time period?
QQQQ options data:
Date Volume OpenInterest (calls)
6/8 149,276 4,356,550 (an increase of 743,192)
6/7 121,213 3,613,358
6/6 74,756 3,592,564
Date Volume OpenInterest (puts)
6/8 246,416 4,920,933
6/7 284,674 4,138,879
6/6 136,735 4,108,549
Generally, the same time frame you intend to hold the stock.
Also, look at longer time frames, because they tell you what the larger trend direction is.
Finally, look at shorter time frames for your exact entry/exit point.
SP500 bouncing off 50ema, QQQQ bouncing off 50sma, SOX bouncing off 50ema. Interesting crossroads.
My take on today's action was a rebound from yesterday's "mini-capitulation" selloff. My chart tool had NYSE $TRIN (ratio of up/down vs. up/down volume). clocking in the 1.4 - 1.7 range all day (extreme oversold).
Stochastics are a good tool to use on large-caps, IMO, for the following reasons:
1. The fast line is an average of each bar's CLOSING price relative to the range (high minus low) considered. If the fast line is rising, it indicates the stock is closing nearer and nearer to the top of the range. Since institutions like to buy large caps in the last hour, this is one tool that is sensitive to that activity.
2. A touch of the overbought would be a sell signal for large caps, because they tend to not spend lengthy time in overbought, whereas small caps can stay overbought for days.
A "different" take on oil's relationship to markets
(Rev. Shark)
Oil Isn't the Market's Boogeyman
6/28/05 8:44 AM ET
Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
-- Kyle Reese, "The Terminator"
Is crude oil an economic terminator? Will the prospect of steadily escalating oil prices kill both the economy and the stock market?
If the stock market falters, it isn't going to be solely because of oil prices. All you have to do is glance at the charts of crude oil prices and the indices to see how little correlation there is between the two. During the past year alone the market has moved up very nicely at the same time oil prices were increasing.
Despite the weak correlation between crude oil and the indices, it would be a mistake to conclude that oil doesn't matter. In fact, sometimes oil matters very much, such as last week when the market was psychologically and technically vulnerable. Oil was used as a very convenient and logical excuse for an extended market to pull back sharply.
If you are a market commentator, the obvious headline was "$60 oil causes the market to crumble," but the real headline should have been "vulnerable market uses crude oil as an excuse to correct."
Oil is not so much a causative factor as it is a very high-profile and convenient excuse for market participants to take profits and for the indices to correct. Oil certainly has some real economic impact, but the day-to-day market gyrations that it causes are more about the market's mood than dollars and cents.
Now that oil has cracked the $60 level and the market has pulled back sharply, investors will likely start focusing on other matters such as the FOMC interest rate decision and end-of-month window dressing. Oil has done what it needed to do: It has caused a market correction and can now be dismissed for a while as market participants look for reasons to support a recovery of some sort.
Oil isn't the monster that it seems at times. It is just one of the many factors that sometimes become dominant as the market looks for reasons and excuses to justify its gyrations. The market itself is what causes oil to be an important factor, not the other way around.
Oil is back under $60 this morning and the market is perking up. Overseas markets were strong and the dollar continues its recent strength. I strongly suspect the sensitivity to oil prices will lessen over the next couple days as the focus shifts to the FOMC and the possibility that we only have two or three more interest rate hikes to come. I believe that will be the catalyst for the market to recover somewhat from the recent beating.
Gold star for full disclosure. So refreshing, and informative.
I got in ASTM 2.78 today. Thanks for the heads up. Now I'll keep my head down lol.
What, you think we're all Unix junkies here, to know what that means? LOL
scalped qqqq gap fill play 37.22 -> 37.03. woo hoo. watching to play gap in other direction 37.75 -> 38.05
must have been, you can't even type right! LOL. thx for update.
Nice Play.
wow, great call Dim.
Thank you, Dim, for the critique, and for the additional features (very good).
Thanks for the enthusiasm!
At this point, the logic is very simple. It was just the bare minimum "proof of concept."
As I understand it, Tradestation does not allow you to scan "per-se", but it can be achieved via their "Radar Screen" tool, which is basically a spreadsheet into which you load your domain (stock list). They have prebuilt stock lists of various indices (SP500, etc). This is less efficient than performing a scan against a back end database, to say the least.
My code calculates a value which represents the BB width as a percentage of the 20MA. It can be run on any interval (5min, 60min, daily, etc). After running my program, I perform a sort based on my resultant field ("BB width percent"). The stocks with the tightest squeezes then appear at the top of the list.
I will start adding more filters or sort fields (MACD divergence, etc) as I think of them. Any suggestions you can give will be much appreciated.
Code:
inputs: price( Close ), length( 20 ), numDevsUp( 2 ), numDevsDn( -2 ), displace( 0 ) ;
variables: avg( 0 ), sDev( 0 ), lowerBand( 0 ), upperBand( 0 ), bbWidthPct (0);
avg = AverageFC( price, length ) ;
sDev = StandardDev( price, length, 1 ) ;
upperBand = avg + numDevsUp * sDev ;
lowerBand = avg + numDevsDn * sDev ;
bbWidthPct = ((upperBand - lowerBand)/avg)*100;
Plot1( bbWidthPct, "bbWidthPct" ) ;
Dim, just wrote my first BB squeeze scan in TS. This is getting interesting!
Dim, great call. Continued down today to 50% retrace. Do you have an opinion re: will it continue down to 61.8% retrace?
No kidding. They just took it back out into the alley and put the boots to it.
re: TASR, that was easy. Thanks, Dim!
Wow. The way you've marked it up, the geometry (triangles) is simply Pythagorean. I dare say "textbook?" I'm thinking, is it "coincidence" that those bottom two support lines just happen to coincide with the 50% and 61.8% Fib retrace marks right about now? Hmm. And is that why it started dropping around Dec. 6, cuz they knew they only had a month to get it down to where a 50% retrace would coincide with a key support line? Hmm. Lots to ponder on this one.
no prob. one of the administrators said he just sent an invite to your yahoo ID. When you get access to casinoclub, just send a short message letting them know you are there. I'll be on the lookout for it, and acknowledge it. All new members usually get a nice welcome. After your first message, feel free to lurk til you feel comfortable. Basically, what that group likes is to see your trades and brief explanations of why. They don't like alot of questions, but will answer when they can.
benn, I'm still trying to get any administrator on casinoclub to admit you. They are typically slow about such things, but I'm basically re-requesting every day, so they'll get sick of that soon (in a good way).
I am an expert on Cw/H. This is definitely not one, per IBD's definition. Their minimum time to form the cup is 8 weeks. In that timeframe, it's still way too low on the right side. I would get more interested if shows power as it approaches the gap (7). Then if it closes the gap, I would look for a possible handle to form. That said, IBD basically ignores good runs early in the right side of the cup. They have never addressed that part of the formation, which is often a source of good gains.
Once again, kudos to the ad sales team. That ad with the girl touching her rear is a real day-brightener, without fail.
benn, if you give me your yahoo ID, I'll request admission for you there
Brilliant
Dim, thank you for that play. Where should I send your "cut?" ;)
JWG dropped out of that chat (some sort of family situation), but the others remain. Last I heard, they did not have administrative rights, but were going to try to reach JWG to get them. I'll check with them, and communicate to benn. It will be after Jan. 3, though, as I will be out of town until then. Any friend of Dim ...
Wow! Simply amazing. It did exactly what you said it would do, and in that timeframe. I know you're not right every time, but this is yet another example. Thank you, Dimension!
Dim, thanks for updates.
CIEN - I'm still holding also, same reasons as you.
CL - ahh the 200ema. I had not looked at that. Last time it tested that (Sep.), it failed and fell hard. Thanks for the extra pair of eyes.
CL (Colgate Palmolive). Has the daily ADX setup I like. I look for it to venture at least halfway into the Sep. gap (50-54.5). Current price = 50.23. A dexprs type play.