Take a look at the daily and weekly SPY charts below. It sure looks like the SPY took a dump…
Below is the daily SPY chart:
Below is the weekly SPY chart:
Just bought myself a starter position on TZA and SKF.
Unloaded some of my long-term position to lock in profit and to protect my YTD gain of 17+%.
Current cash position is 82%
Good Hunting!
Comments »The SPY weekly bar now shows a Doji bar. In other words, last week price action was a [PAUSE] and the direction was NEUTRAL.
Although we have a higher high and higher low; a Doji at this point is actually not a good sign for the bull since Doji can sometimes represent a “topping” of the chart; a point suspended in mid-air before turning the corner. Doji bar generally meant that neither the bull or the bear won the battle for the week. However, a long-tail (from top) meant the bull gave back a lot of gain before settling back to the week open price.
From here, I’ll watch how coming price action move relative to last week closing price. If price action starts the week trading below Friday closing price, it is considered bearish. And if the price action takes out last week low, even more bearish. Nevertheless, if it trades above Friday closing price with a low that does not drop below last week low, the bull may still be in charge.
Based on Friday after hour price action and current Sunday night price action, it sure looks bearish to me.
Good Hunting!
Comments »That’s right, a falling dead cat from the dead cat bounce.
Unless there is a significant rally later on to move price beyond half-way point of yesterday down bar; it is my opinion that today is the bear catching its breath after a speedy run yesterday. Yeah, yeah, I got bumped out of my SKF and TZA in the morning ’cause I didn’t want to see a big red numbers on my position. I like to keep these red numbers small; so I used tight stops and they got filled.
But don’t worry; getting out of a position at a loss only mean that I’m willing to take a “hard” loss (as opposed to paper loss) while waiting for price to regain traction on the direction I’m betting on. And if price action decides to take the opposite direction of what I like to see; fine by me because I’m already out with the hard loss. Hell, I may even go long if that is what the price action wants to go.
But for now; I see nothing here to refute the downward bias from yesterday Big Ass down bar. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the daily SPY chart below:
By the close of the day, it couldn’t even close above the 38% retracement point…
Good Hunting!
Current cash position: 75%
The remaining 25% sit in the long-term portfolio
Comments »I’ve been patiently waiting for some sort of retracement from SKF and TZA and finally got a small ones.
Bought starter position in SKF and TZA.
It’s a good thing I sold earlier this morning when the warning bomb blew up at 10:00am EST. Sometimes, if you are thinking of getting out; it always pay to be the 1st to get out and not worry about getting out too soon. It is to your benefit when others are still “thinking” of what to do (indecision) while you are getting out; otherwise, you will be fighting for that narrow door when everyone is running for exit.
The daily SPY bar isn’t looking good, it took out the low of the last 4 bars! See chart below.
The weekly SPY chart now shows a red bar; not very endearing for a bullish outlook.
Good Hunting!
Comments »The 10:00am melt-down was a sight to see. Exactly at 10:00am, BOOM! Down it went!
With shell explosion everywhere, you have to retreat!
Sold all of the following for some gain, breakeven, and small losses:
DDD DNN MCP SSYS SYNA URRE USEG USU
Still holding AMRN plus my 25% long-term holdings
Current cash position = 70%
Will sit back and watch instead of trading to see where the market goes. It is definitely too early to initiate any short position since this morning mini-meltdown is not enough to call into question the weekly bullish bar yet.
Good Hunting!
Comments »For the next few moments; put aside the noises of economy and simply look at the charts below:
Below are two weekly charts; one Dow and one SPY.
The Dow mid-week green bar is a little tepid but green nevertheless. Giving the volume is quite low so far, we are still waiting for the final verdict of the big money. Will they make the move Thursday and Friday?
The SPY mid-week bar, however, shows a green bar with more range. Since the SPY mirrors the S&P500; wouldn’t that mean there are more stocks with strong upswing to back up this green bar?
Let’s see where Thursday & Friday will take us.
Good Hunting!
Comments »Trading journal update:
Bought starter position on SYNA. Chart looks promising and will add more if it takes out 6/7 high.
– SYNA turned out to be a nice capture. Initially, it put up a good fight which gave me a moment of doubt. Good thing I fought on and locked them in my book. I’m surprised at the resiliency of SYNA’s ability to hold the price above $29 despite the Dow being down 70+ points. I like the fundamental of this company due to its compatibility and ability to enhance the coming MS Windows 8 operating systems. I don’t know if SYNA will be included in the coming MS Surface PC tablet but if it does, expect to see a “PoP” in price action. I’m very happy to have captured SYNA today!
Bought USEG. Chart looks good and I like the hidden value in Mt. Emmons they own.
I added back DDD & SSYS due to DDD’s ability to withstand a sell-off. SSYS is a sympathy and a “catch the falling knife” play. Will re-evaluate position based on tomorrow price action.
Current position: AMRN DDD DNN MCP SSYS SYNA URRE USEG USU (18% 22% 24% 35%) plus 27% long-term portfolio.
Sitting on 55% 51% 38% cash.
“What about Fed meeting? Ain’t you worry about no QE3 and thus tanking the market?”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t that a ‘What if’ scenario? Price action looks good on these positions I’ve and that is all I care for now! Believe it or not, my portfolio actually is up today!”
Good Hunting!
Comments »
Daily trading journal update:
Sold the following for profit or breakeven:
CCJ CHK DDD LMLP NUAN SSYS
Add or increase position size today:
DNN MCP URRE USU
Remaining positions:
AMRN DNN MCP URRE USU (together is 12%) plus my other 25% long-term holding
Currently 37% invested and 63% cash
Good Hunting!
Comments »
I’ve had my share of “what if” back in the old days.
“What if there is no QE3?”
“What if Spain default?”
“What if the Greek coalition fail?”
“What if there is solvency issue?”
“What if the market is over-bought?”
“What if I buy now and the market tank tomorrow?”
Well, I guess you get the thrift of what I’m trying to say here. You can “what if” all you want; but all that is going to do is to freeze you from taking proactive action to grow your portfolio.
I know there are a lot of bears out there just waiting for the market to “tank” because they have all the logical reason for it to tank. Well, maybe the market WILL tank; but it just won’t be tanking according to your time frame. Maybe it will tank early next March? How ’bout that? No, wait, the market may even tank tomorrow or next week. Or maybe not!
Regardless, if I follow the price action and the price starts to tank; guess what I’m going to do? I’ll start liquidating my positions, locking in profit (probably give back some), and cutting my losses (if I buy late). And then, if price continues to tank unabated, guess what? I’ll start to initiate short position to commensurate with the continuing falling market until price action tell me the fall is over.
Meanwhile, your mind (and even mine!) will be developing thesis of where the market is heading based on the “lagging” information that is already out there. No wonder that by the time you decide it is time to buy; you may be buying when the risk is much higher because the market already run enough for a correction to take place.
All this fundamental information we ALL can see, to me, are stale information. Market is a forward looking machine. It looks forward based on where all the big money is looking forward to. We, the retail investors/traders, usually do not the fire power these big money players have. Therefore, our prediction based on stale information can only have a 50/50 of being right because the big money prediction may be different from ours. And even then, you may be right but way OFF in your timing. Lo and behold when these big money becomes irrational in their way of prediction!
So, what should we, the retail investors/traders, do?
You guess it! Forget predicting and just follow the price action. When you follow price action, you are flowing with where the big money is going. Meanwhile, while you are following the price action; ALWAYS think of protecting yourself. ALWAYS think safety.
If you’ve been reading my posts; you knew that I traded both sides last week when the market was going thru the yo-yo sessions. You also knew that by Friday, I saw price action began to show strength and began buying. Thus, instead of wasting my time trying to predict where the market is going, I follow the price action and ended up being long from Friday to now.
Of course, I trade my own style and temperament. Therefore, I really cannot tell you that my way is better than yours. And I am definitely not advising you of anything here. I’m simply typing my thought here for my own review later. My whole point is that it is much more productive to spend more time learning the mechanism of trading (profit target and stop loss, option strategies if you preferred, etc) and then implement your trading plan based on price action.
Like some of you suggested here at iBC before, trade more (start with small positions) and think less. In time, trading actively with a plan (this is very important) will help you develop good habit and overcome your emotional hindrance, mainly fear of being wrong.
When you trade actively (in a small way), you will learn that it is OK to be wrong. In fact, you HAVE to be wrong in order to trade successfully. Being wrong is no difference than losing a Black Jack hand. You know you will lose some at the BJ table and win some with your basic strategy; why can’t you approach the market the same way. It is OK to be wrong! Just admit it QUICKLY so you can cut your loss QUICKLY!
Prediction is fun to write and even entertaining to read especially if ones tend to agree with the thesis. But on its own without following the price action, you can watch the market run away and leaving you in the dust…
You know how I know?
Because I’ve been there and done that!
Good Hunting!
Comments »If you look at the 5 minutes chart below; what do you see? An up or down trend?
Needless to day, I bought back some CHK and NUAN that I sold this morning as well. In addition, I also added to SSYS and DDD.
Current positions:
AMRN CCJ CHK DDD DNN LMLP NUAN SSYS USU (now back to 55% invested and 45% cash)
Good Hunting!
Comments »
