Catching the wave: ideas for finding trend days
I received a question from Alex, which appears to be a simple question. Digging deeper, it actually drives straight to the essence of intraday trading: If I am wanting to…
China is in a bear market! Now what?
If you could hear anything beyond the screaming this morning over Greece, you probably also heard the news that China is now officially--yes, that's right officially--in a bear market as…
Using context to refine an entry in the EURUSD
The EUR/USD provides a good example of how we can use higher timeframe context to motivate an entry based on a lower timeframe breakout. First, the big(ger) picture, from the…
Your best trading book is your own trading book: four steps to making it real
There are a few practices that consistently separate winning traders from the losers. True, there is an incredible diversity of winning strategies, approaches, and personalities, and winning traders do and…
MarketLife Ep 21 – Pulling the trigger: where, how, and why?
A look at how to execute trades: where they set up, and how, when, where, and why to pull the trigger--to make the decision to get into or out of…
Six keys to effective risk management
1. It is not just that risk is hard to understand--some risks may be impossible to understand. Your risk management plan has to leave room for the unknown and the…
Where are your risks?
Traders talk about and think about risk all the time, and for good reason: this is a risky business! A lot of things can go wrong, and some of those…
MarketLife Ep 20 – Market cycles and regimes
A_Joe sent me a question on market cycles: You wrote a post (here) that talked about market cycles. I request that you share some more information on market regimes and…
Chart of the day: Short term setup in S&P 500 (6/5/15)
Yesterday’s moderately strong downtrend came within higher timeframe consolidation. This is still a market primed for a stronger trend move. Do not fade a break above or below key levels…
Time of day influences in currencies
In my last post, I looked at intraday activity in stock indexes; I had a few requests to repeat the same work, showing time of day influences--intraday volume (tick volume)…
Chart of the day: S&P 500 short term setup (6/4/15)
This is still a market seeking a catalyst, though bullish factors continue to accumulate. Look for a strong rally above the 2121-2124 level; do not fade a breakout that holds…
It’s all in a day’s work
I want to share a few observations on trading activity during the trading day. I will focus on the S&P 500 futures here, but may extend this (if there's interest)…
Chart of the Day: S&P 500 short term setup (
Little motion and no new tactical information [yesterday]. Market is still consolidating and still in breakout mode: expect sharp continuation once the consolidation is decisively broken. The edge is still…
Short term trading strategies that work
Over the past week or so, I've written a bit about short term trading strategies on my blog, and I've also done two podcasts (here and here.) Starting tomorrow, I'm…
MarketLife Ep 19 – Short term trading: what works for me
This episode continues my look at short term (intraday and daytrading) systems and ideas. Here are the episode notes: What’s really happening intraday Academic studies of market behavior show departures…
Chart of the day: S&P 500 short-term setup (6/1/15)
Overall context is a broad consolidation, with volatility contraction visible on intraday charts as a triangle. Within this area (and expect wide, “messy” definitions of the confines of the pattern—not…