Technical tools for everyone
If you read much of my work, you will begin to see that applying technical tools takes work; it takes a lot of time and experience to know how to…
Buying the Russell 2000 index
A look at the technical justification and support for a long trade in the Russell 2000 index, or other US indexes.
The Failure Test
Despite all the good reasons for focusing on with-trend trading, the first pattern I taught in my book was a little countertrend pattern--the failure test. Why? In this case, the…
Style matters
Last week, I covered pullback trading, which is one of the most common and most important with-trend trading patterns. This week, I will dig deeper into some different patterns, but…
The nested pullback
This is the third article in my series on pattern recognition, and the last on pullbacks. Most patterns in markets are relatively simple, and most patterns were labeled long ago.…
How to trade pullbacks
I'm starting a short series of posts here on pattern recognition, focusing on simple patterns that I have found useful in actual trading. Some of my readers may have questions…
Reader question: Sentiment analysis?
Reader Tom asks: I have been reading your blog for a few weeks and I don't see any mention of sentiment. I also see you trade futures but you do…
What works?
I post a lot of critical thoughts, and spend a lot of time encouraging people to think deeply about the technical tools they use. Recently, I've received a lot of…
That trend indicator, is it helping or hurting?
Continuing from my previous post on moving averages, let's take a look at using a moving average as a trend indicator. Again, here is some material from the unpublished part…
Moving averages: digging deeper
Ok, so I'll warn you up front: this one's going to be a little bit difficult. The response to my post on the 200 day moving average in the DJIA…
Does the 200 day moving average “work”?
This is one of those technical questions that does not have a quick, simple answer. The best answer is "no, not really, and almost certainly not in the way most…
The line in the sand
Everyone does it. I used to do it too, but I stopped because I realized I looked silly a few months down the road. You've heard the predictions: "if this…
About those small and mid caps…
Everyone is talking about the recent underperformance of small caps (and I've talked about it too!) This underperformance is taken to be a sign of an impending crash, or at…
One step ahead…
The most important factor setting up pullback trades, and a simple framework for market and trend analysis that really works.
The one thing I am paying attention to in the S&P 500 right now
We are awash in opinion and speculation. Every trader is writing blog posts or tweets about why the market will go up or down, and citing any number of factors.…
Tracking intraday risk and opportunity
I spend a lot of time writing about volatility and even more time thinking about volatility, correlations, and the implications for risk. I want to share a quick look at…