Sneaky rollforward day, expect chicanery, here is Thursday trading plan

NASDAQ futures are coming into Thursday flat after an overnight session featuring elevated range on extreme volume. Price was balanced overnight, balancing inside the Wednesday range. At 8:30am jobless claims data came out better than expected. As we approach cash opne price is hovering above the Wednesday midpoint.

Today most active traders rollforward to the December contract. However this report will quote prices from the September contract through Friday.

Also on the economic calendar today we ahve 4- and 8-week T-bill auctions at 11:30am followed by a 30-year bond auction at 1pm.

Yesterday we printed a normal variation down. The session began with a slight gap up. Sellers drove down into the open, resolving the gap and nearly taking out the Tuesday low before a responsive bid stepped in. Said bidders worked price a few handles above the midpoint before sellers stepped back in and made a new low, effectively making a new low for September. There was one final attempt lower right around New York lunchtime before buyers stepped back in. We then spent the rest of the session grinding higher, eventually buyers recaptured the midpoint and we ended the day chopping above it.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work up to 15,700 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 2 sellers press down through overnight low 15,546.75 and tag 15,500.

Hypo 3 stronger buyers work up to 15,800.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

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NASDAQ futures are coming into the second week of September about five points below the Friday close after an overnight session featuring extreme volume on elevated range. Price drifted slightly lower overnight after printing a new record high early in the globex session. As we approach cash open price is hovering in the upper quadrant of last Friday’s range.

On the economic calendar today we have 3- and 6-month T-bill auctions at 10am, 52-week T-bill auctions at 11:30am and a 3-year note auction at 1pm.

Last week the major indices had a bit of strength early in the week and then a steady drift along the highs into the weekend. The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

On Friday the NASDAQ printed a normal variation up. The day began with a gap down in range. Buyers drove into the open, quickly resolving the gap. Buyers continued the drive for the first 30 minutes of trade but a sharp excess high formed before buyers could take out the Thursday high. Instead price checked back to the daily mid. Buyers defended the mid sending price into a steady drift along the daily high, eventually making a range extension around 1:45pm New York. Price drifting along the high into the close.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work up through overnight high 15,708 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 2 sellers press down to 15,609.75 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 3 stronger sellers tag 15,500 before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

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Speculating is a game played best when the spirit is zen and the body sufficiently depleted. I’ve been at this trading business full time now for nearly ten years. Admittedly, I do not sit in front of the markets from open-to-close, lording over a set of computer screens. My approach is more akin to a sprint.

I used to be one hell of a sprinter in real life.

Anyhow I noticed myself becoming overconfident last weekend and wrote a little note in red marker to myself saying, “Cut risk in half.”

And I did.

Last week I traded with half the size I normally do and I traded it just as earnestly as I would normal size. The win streak continued. I earned less than I could have. Which is fine.

Now I feel some humility. Perhaps that is a good thing. We don’t know.

Heading into next week my signals are crossed. Stocklabs remains in a bullish cycle clean through to the Monday after Labor Day but Indexmodel is Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish for the third time in four weeks.

Seasonality stats indicate September is the most bearish month of the year for the equity complex.

Summer is coming to an end. People are finally dropping the pandemic cosplay shtick and acting like normal fucking humans again, for better-or-worse. We are in another transitional phase.

I suppose I’m just typing out my thoughts and not really adding any value to you there, the reader. So be it. I’ll say okay for now and we’ll pick things back up Tuesday.

Raul Santos, September 5th 2021

And now the 354th edition of Strategy Session.

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 09/06/21 – 09/10/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.40, medium bull*.  Choppy week that perhaps sees selling pressure early in the week but recovers and holds the highs into the weekend.

*Index model flagged Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish bias, see Section IV.

U.S. markets will be closed Monday, September 7^th in observation of Labor Day.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Bit of strength early in the week and then a steady drift along the highs.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

A second week of non-ideal sector leadership. Tech hanging tough but investors can be seen rotating into more risk averse areas of the complex.

neutral

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Ledger skewed slightly positive after majorly skewing positive on the prior report.

slightly bullish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Season change

September is a vibe for sure. Summer is coming to an end. Fields are being sown once more before winter. Kids are headed to college and school. Folks really like American football this time of year. Pumpkin spice lattes.

I don’t often check out the seasonality tab inside Stocklabs, but when I am feeling moody I do. Turns out September is statistically the most bearish month of the year.

Perhaps folks check back in with reality after savoring their final few weeks of summer freedom?

We don’t know. And also past performance is not indicative of future results. That said, what is better to back our decision process than data?

Seasonality paired with the Rose Colored Sunglasses signal issued by IndexModel this week has me considering cutting my risk a bit via raising some cash.

Developing…

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

Choppy week that perhaps sees selling pressure early in the week but recovers and holds the highs into the weekend.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Semiconductors put in a higher low, transports interesting

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports broke their downtrend a few weeks back and have been consolidating above it since. This is a nice clean chart to read here. My primary expectation is for buyers to make a push out of the current intermediate term range.

See below:

Semiconductors may have printed a higher low on the way to continuing discovery up.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is Rose Colored Sunglasses [RCS] bearish again after being neutral on the last report and Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish for two consecutive weeks prior to that

We had a Bunker Buster twenty seven weeks ago.

Bearish heading into next week.

Here is the current spread:

VI. Six Month Hybrid Overbought

On Friday, August 27^th Exodus went overbought on the 6-month algorithm. This is a bullish cycle that runs until Monday, September 13^th. Here is the performance of each major index so far:

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Keep focused on the step in front of you. Nothing else matters.” – Bear Grylls

Trade simple, totally focus on the next trade

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NASDAQ futures are coming into the second day of September with a slight gap up after an overnight session featuring normal range and volume. Price was balanced overnight. After briefly poking below the Monday low price stabilized. At 8:30am jobless claims data came out in-line with expectations and as we approach cash open price is hovering along the Monday midpoint.

Also on the economic calendar today we have factory orders at 10am followed by 4- and 8-week T-bill auctions at 11:30am.

Yesterday we printed a normal variation down. The day began with a gap up beyond the prior two days’ ranges and a drive higher. Said drive achieved new record highs before flagging in a tight range for many hours. Late in the day sellers reversed the morning drive making a late range extension down and closing near the lows after nearly filling the overnight gap.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for sellers to work into the overnight inventory and close the gap down to 15,623. Sellers continue lower, taking out overnight low 15,600 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 2 buyers press up through Wednesday high 15,699 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 3 stronger sellers work down to 15,555.50 before two way trade ensues.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

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NASDAQ futures are coming into the final day of August with a slight gap down after an overnight session featuring extreme range and volume. Price drove higher overnight until about 5:30am New York, marking a new record high. Since then price has retraced the overnight move, effectively returning inside the Monday range and dipping a bit below the Monday close. As we approach cash open price is hovering in the upper quadrant of Monday’s range.

On the economic calendar today we have consumer confidence at 10am.

Yesterday we printed a double distribution trend up. The day began with a gap up beyond the Friday range. Buyers drove into the open, campaigning price right up to 15,500. A bit of back-and-forth at the century mark occurred before the campaign continued making new highs, eventually tagging 15,600 and sustaining trade up at this next century mark into the close. This effectively migrated value up to the highs.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work up through overnight high 15.677.25 before two way trade ensues.

Hypo 2 sellers hold buyers around 15,605 setting up a move down through overnight low 15,563. Look for buyers just below at 15,550.

Hypo 3 stronger sellers effectively erase much of the Monday rally, trading down to 15,500.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

Comments »

NASDAQ futures are coming into the final Monday in August gap up after an overnight session featuring normal range and volume. Price worked slightly higher overnight, making a new record high and then drifting along it. As we approach cash open price is up above the Friday high.

On the economic calendar today we have pending home sales at 10am followed by 3- and 6-month T-bill auctions at 11:30am.

Last week featured a big gap up across the board to start things off followed by a conviction buy trend Monday. Steady gains through Wednesday. Selling pressure Thursday immediately negated Friday morning by another day of conviction buying. The Russell 2000 lead the way.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

On Friday the NASDAQ printed a normal variation up. It nearly resembled a double distribution trend up and these labels are only generalities but given the auction behavior I am classifying it as a normal variation up.

The session began with a slight gap up in range. After a brief two-way auction sellers made a try at closing the overnight gap. They could not and this was followed by a initiative buyers spiking price higher, to new all-time highs. Price nearly checked back to the midpoint before buyers came in and began a slow grind higher, a slow grind that migrated value up to the highs and made new highs. We ended near the highs.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for a tight drift along the highs, ranging between 15,450 and 15,420.

Hypo 2 stronger buyers campaign price up to 15,500.

Hypo 3 sellers close the gap down to 15,423 then take out overnight low 15,415.50. Look for buyers down at 15,400 and for two way trade to ensue.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

Comments »

It’s feast and famine at the House of Raul. I went down this estranged life path and fully accept the consequences.

Sold a jpeg Saturday. Turned a one into a five and it may end up being a grave error.

Taking a quick profit on an investment never feels good. I tend not to sell things. But with jpegs I find myself casting snap judgements based off the most absurd metrics. A tweet came across my stream suggesting Jack Paul was buying World of Women jpegs. I loath Jake Paul. Artchick.eth seems like a nice lady but not nice enough to brush aside Jim Paul and his tide of influence. Then like one of those Las Vegas DJs Kaladescope or Key-o-dee or something (I refuse to look back) said he was into World of Women and I was like you know what? Fuck him too I’m from Detroit bitch we birthed techno and we still grime.

So I sold World of Woman. Three weeks. Turned a one into a five.

Spent the morning figuring out how to put 2 back into jpegs because I was suddenly filled with anxiety that I was under exposed to jpegs.

This too may turn out to be a grave mistake.

But I have a nice lazy lion now that I do believe resembles my current state, and that’s enough for me right now.

You see lads, I truly have a rare look. It is quite degenerate. These milestones of life keep sort of coming and going, and I just keep chasing paper and chunks of earth.

Check out this week’s Strategy Session. I will be bullish heading into September until otherwise noted. I wish I hadn’t been bearish last week but fortune’s wheel did spin in my favor with that early Monday rally. It was early enough to spook me from doing anything crazy, like shorting the NASDAQ. I did short Wednesday, and for a moment that looked like a solid trade. I hustled the opening bells okay last week and that’s all I am really supposed to do—execute the signals put out by Stocklabs/IndexModel and hustle opening bells on the NASDAQ.

I’ve been eating so much homegrown corn and summer squash and onion and tomato that my skin is smooth and glows and all the wrinkles typically found on a 36-year-old meat homo aren’t anywhere to be seen. I am smooth and non-porous, like a fiberglass swimming pool. Maintaining 185lbs of cultivated muscle on a vegitable diet requires eating lots of plant meat and right now I am growing most of it myself.

Okay for now.

Raul Santos, August 29th 2021

And now for the 353rd Strategy Session. Enjoy:

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Stocklabs Strategy Session: 08/30/21 – 09/03/21

I. Executive Summary

Raul’s bias score 3.50, medium bull.  A bit of weakness Monday is met with strong demand leading to a week-long rally. Consumer confidence data out Tuesday may serve to strengthen the rally, as may the nonfarm payroll data due out Friday morning.

II. RECAP OF THE ACTION

Big gap up across the board to start the week followed by a conviction buy trend Monday. Steady gains through Wednesday. Selling pressure Thursday immediately negated Friday morning by another day of conviction buying. The Russell 2000 lead the way.

The last week performance of each major index is shown below:

Rotational Report:

Not the ideal sector leadership, but overall a fairly broad market rally.

slightly bullish

For the week, the performance of each sector can be seen below:

Concentrated Money Flows:

Massive skew to the buy side, effectively negating the big negative skews we’ve had on our radar.

bullish

Here are this week’s results:

III. Stocklabs ACADEMY

Fresh signal

With the 6-month hybrid overbought signal generated Friday on the close we have a fresh reading to begin trading the algorithm again.

Note: The next two sections are auction theory.

What is The Market Trying To Do?

Week ended searching for sellers

IV. THE WEEK AHEAD

What is The Market Likely To Do from Here?

Weekly forecast:

A bit of weakness Monday is met with strong demand leading to a week-long rally. Consumer confidence data out Tuesday may serve to strengthen the rally, as may the nonfarm payroll data due out Friday morning.

Bias Book:

Here are the bias trades and price levels for this week:

Here are last week’s bias trade results:

Bias Book Performance [11/17/2014-Present]:

Semiconductors snap range, breakout

Markets fluctuate between two states—balance and discovery.  Discovery is an explosive directional move and can last for months.  In theory, the longer the compression leading up to a break, the more order flow energy to push the discovery phase.

We are monitoring two instruments, the Nasdaq Transportation Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

Transports had what seemed like a bit of a false start, breaking out from the downtrend, but that eventually lead to more upward discovery last week.

See below:

Semiconductors charged back higher, effectively exceeding the range we’ve been monitoring. It appears we have returned to discovery up.

See below:

V. INDEX MODEL

Bias model is neutral after being Rose Colored Sunglasses bearish for two consecutive weeks.

We had a Bunker Buster twenty-six weeks ago.

Neutral heading into next week. No bias.

Here is the current spread:

VI. Six Month Hybrid Overbought

On Friday, August 27^th Exodus went overbought on the 6-month algorithm. This is a bullish cycle that runs until Monday, September 13^th.

VII. QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“If you risk nothing, you gain nothing.” – Bear Grylls

Comments »

NADSDAQ futures are coming into the final Thursday in August with a slight gap down after an overnight session featuring elevated range and volume. Price sort of drifted lower overnight, working down into the Monday range for a bit. Then it rotated back up into Wednesday range. At 8:30am GDP and jobless claims data came out inline with expectations and as we approach cash open price is hovering below Wednesday’s range.

Also on the economic calendar today we have 4- and 8-week T-bill auctions at 11:30am followed by a 7-year note auction at 1pm.

Yesterday we printed a normal variation down. The day began with a slight gap up in range. Buyers drove higher off the open, working up to a new all-time high in the first 15 minutes of trade. This would mark session high and sellers quickly resolved the overnight gap shortly thereafter. Then sellers pushed an early range extension down. Sellers could not, however, campaign price down through the Tuesday low. Instead price drifted below the daily midpoint for several hours before ramping up through it late in the session.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for sellers to reject a move back into Wednesday low 15,333 setting up a move down through overnight low 15,295.50. Look for buyers down at 15,262 and for two way trade to ensue.

Hypo 2 stronger sellers trigger a liquidation down to 15,200.

Hypo 3 buyers reclaim Wednesday low 15,333 and sustain trade above it setting up a move up through overnight high 15,383.50 and a prove beyond all-time high 15,397. Look for sellers at 15,400 and for two way trade to ensue.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

Comments »

No NASDAQ trading report today lads. Trade’em well if you do.

Been up since 5am trading ether. Since I became hot on NFTs a few weeks back I’ve been building charts to help wash away the noise and give me a better look at the underlying ether auction. Ethereum is the main blockchain that supports NFTs. There are other blockchains that recently rolled out NFT protocols including Solana which is the preferred cryptocurrency of our favorite crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. RaginCajun has had some recent success with Solana NFTs but me I’m sticking to ether.

February 8th ether futures went live at the Chicago Merc and this means I have access to decent raw data to power some charts.

Long-time readers will likely see a resemblance between these charts and the ones I post daily on the NASDAQ. The main difference is I am building market profiles in Multicharts instead of Ninja, and despite a few minor bugs multichart profiles are pretty great:

That 3080 level hit around 5am and a loud announcement came over the PA system here inside Mothership “BRING IT IN A LITTLE CLOSER” (I poached a few hundred audio files from flight simulator and use them as audio alerts). Whether or not high-decibel audio alerts are good for my mental health we don’t know but here we are. I went long and began my morning scans of the metaverse.

I start with Twitter, of course. I want to see what the hot-shot crypto accounts are discussing. Sad happenings last night lads. Two fellas were scammed out of about $600k worth of NFTs. They both did tweet threads. Definitely worth a read:

I was scammed / socially manipulated / hacked on @Discord and @OpenSea and lost three @BoredApeYC, four @0n1Force, and three @worldofwomennft totally roughly 250 eth in value by getting tricked into exposing the Metamask QR Code in the Chrome Browser Extension. I’ve never felt pic.twitter.com/aiaENpwLVP

— Sohrob Farudi 🍌 (@sohrobf) August 25, 2021

Today has been rough. While I’m currently feeling a little better, I want to get in front of this & explain what happened last night as a cautionary tail for anyone – whether noob or seasoned vet – because I believe this can happen to anyone if ur guard is down like mine was.1/27

— jeffnicholas.eth 🙏🏼✨ (@_jeffnicholas_) August 25, 2021

Then I moved into Discord. Discord is super active with NFT chatter. This is fertile ground for finding out about new projects before they’re super expensive. These projects are not mainstream and are high risk if you’re only looking for profitable trades. But if you’re looking for stuff you want to own long term, communities you find interesting, then I think its a good place to invest. I found sad girls bar. I minted a few right away. I like to buy NFTs when ether dips because the denomination of ETH often does not adjust alongside ether. So if something costs 0.7eth but eth is down -3% in the last 24 hours then the product is in my mind on sale.

I do not mean to shill you on this project or any other. Only to blog about my current technique. When I write here in the sacred halls of iBC it is only to discuss means of extracting fiat american from the global financial complex. Do your own homework and maybe find some inspiration from mine.

So that brings us to the present. I have a runner left in ether and a few sad girls added to my NFT collection.

I just had my first coffee and normally I would trade the NASDAQ opening bell but there just isn’t much for me to do up here.

Another note on the NASDAQ. I came into the week bearish because IndexModel said so. I am infinitely grateful the vax-news hit early Monday before I had a chance to make any bearish bets because I would have been rekt. I have no clear set-ups as of yet to go short. Perhaps this afternoon will reveal one. If it does, I shall let the fine folks of ibankcoin know.

Okay for now.

Raul Santos,

August 25th, 2021

Comments »

NASDAQ futures are coming into the second-to-last Tuesday in August with a slight gap up after an overnight session featuring elevated volume on extreme range. Price worked higher overnight, making new all-time high prints until about 6am New York. Since then price has faded a bit, and as we approach cash open price is hovering inside Monday range up near the highs.

On the economic calendar today we have new home sales at 10am followed by a 2-year note auction at 1pm.

Yesterday we printed a trend up. The day began with a gap up nearly above last week’s entire range. Buyers drove higher off the open, putting up at all-time-highs early in the session. The campaign continued higher right into the lunch hour. Then price stabilized and held the highs into the close.

Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to work up through overnight high 15,384 on their way to tagging 15,400.

Hypo 2 stronger buyers rally to 15,500.

Hypo 3 sellers press down through overnight low 15,301 setting up a move down to 15,262.25.

Levels:

Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:

Comments »