Interesting Action in the Eur/Usd

I hope everyone is watching the Eur/Usd right now.  We're seeing a strong move higher and it looks like it's going to test the highs of September--roughly 1.3170.  I've got a long position and have been trading in and out of some short term rallies..break outs like these are when you've got to trade heavily in the currencies.

From here, I'll be looking for intra-day rallies to open additional longs (like the opening range break set up) and then I'll look for the Eur/Usd to take out the 1.3170 high from September.

TLT 

AEGR: The Highest Implied Volatility of any Optionable Stock

Straight from Options Alert today, they announced that AEGR has the highest IV of any trading optionable stock.  The stock is at 14.17 as of the close of today.  Right now, you can sell a Oct 15 call for $2.55.  That is some serious implied volatility.  So why the IV?  Because the FDA is meeting on October 17th and October 18th to debate the risks and benefits of two experimental drugs..one of which is from AEGR.  Here's a chart:

So how does one play this?  I bought the stock and sold a call...a covered call position as it is known in the options world.  My main risk is that the FDA announces something negative and the stock gaps down.  The FDA is meeting on the 17th and 18th and the option expires on the 18th, so I'm betting that either good news is released early or no news is released prior to expiration.  The ideal situation will be for the stock to trade up to the $15 area by next Wednesday and be able to cover the call after some loss of time value and hopefully some loss of IV.  We'll see.  This is one of those longer shot trades that you don't want to allocate too much to, but it's just attractive enough to nibble on.  I'll post an update on it next week.

TLT

Romney Coming Back on Intrade

At this point, everyone seems to be in agreement that Romney won the debate...I'm pretty sure that was the consensus going into the debate as well.  The interesting thing that I noticed is that after selling of heavily for the last month, the Romney To Be Elected President contract on Intrade is rising again.   In fact, check out the price action on the day of the debate..a big rise on much larger volume.  

It will be interesting to see how predictive Intrade was once this is all over.

Have a great Friday!

TLT

The Fat Finger F#%$ Up!

Well, it wasn't truly a "fat finger" trade but I did manage to accidentally put on a trade that was 10 times the size intended..so it's pretty much the same thing.  Tuesday, I scanned for potential weekly options trades, meaning I would put the options trade on Tuesday morning and the options would expire, hopefully worthless, on Thursday.  I put on 3 trades, all of them Bull Put Spreads.  A bull put spread is where you sell an out of the money put and then buy a put that's got a lower strike than the put you sold...the idea is that the stock trades up and you keep the spread between the contracts as your profit.  Worst case, the stock tanks and you're out the spread..generally $500 or $1,000 per contract on a 5 or 10 point spread.

Well, I put on trades in AAPL, BIDU and GOOG..all good candidates at that time.  The only problem, I accidentally put an extra zero behind my AAPL contracts and that meant the position was ten times larger than it should have been.  Even worse, I didn't realize the error until Wednesday morning when I checked my account and noticed a large loss.  As it would happen, the only stock to trade down to its strike was AAPL and after fretting about it for a couple of hours, I decided to take the position off and eat the loss.  For these types of trades, I risk between 1-3% of my account value.  The AAPL f-up instantly took my account down 10%..however, the account could have gone down to 25% if I'd of left the position on and it kept going against me.

As much as this sucks, it could have been worse.  I can make up a 10% hit, it will just take time.  The take away for me is to double check my orders when entering the order and then check it again after the trade is put on.  I have had a busy week and was likely multi-tasking when this trade order was entered...that should never be the case.  Furthermore, I hesitated on getting out of the trade when I realized the mistake..not a good idea.  The loss would have been a little less had I just bailed immediately.  I haven't made a good tuition deposit to the school of hard knocks trading university in a while, but that was a good one.

Mistakes happen and we have to deal with them.  We also have to deal with the psychological effects of the mistakes.  One can easily begin to over trade in order to make up a loss and that generally turns things from bad to worse.  For me, the game plan is still the same.  Next week, I'll be scanning for weekly options trades that fit my trade criteria and slowly but surely, I'll dig out of this little draw down.  Just thought I'd share this with everyone...you might relate to it or will some day.

TLT

DT 2000 Gave a Buy Signal a Month Ago: Here's the Thinkscript Code for the Indicator

The DT 2000 is a trend following indicator that I came  up with about a year ago.  It uses linear regression and it's purpose is to determine the trend of the overall market.  It uses linear regression slope readings on 4 different symbols and its defaults are qqq, xlv, xlf, tlt.  The indicator tends to work well on the weekly time frame..which makes sense because the longer time frames smooth out the choppy price action of equities.

Here's a chart, the DT 2000 is at the bottom and it's coloring the bars on the chart as well:

This indicator is just one more tool in my collection that I look at to help gauge risk and market bias.  I don't necessarily trade this like a system in and of itself--such as buying the SPY or SSO on buy signals.  What this buy signal does for me is it gives me the confidence to put on more long positions, whether the positions are stocks or covered calls or options spreads.  As you can see from the chart, we've had 3 other buy signals in the last 4 years and the buy signals tend to last several months before petering out.  We'll see if this signal has any legs to it.

Here's the thinkscript code for you thinkorswimmers out there:

####DELETE THIS LINE WHEN PASTING INTO TOS####


declare lower;

input symbol1 = "qqq";
input symbol2 = "xlv";
input symbol3 = "xlf";
input symbol4Inverse = "tlt";
input lrlength = 20;

def data1 = close(symbol1);
def data2 = close(symbol2);
def data3 = close(symbol3);
def data4 = close(symbol4Inverse);

def trend1 = linearRegressionSlope(data1, lrlength);
def trend2 = linearRegressionSlope(data2, lrlength);
def trend3 = linearRegressionSlope(data3, lrlength);
def trend4 = linearRegressionSlope(data4, lrlength);

def score1 = if trend1 > 0 then 1 else -1;
def score2 = if trend2 > 0 then 1 else -1;
def score3 = if trend3 > 0 then 1 else -1;
def score4 = if trend4 < 0 then 1 else -1;

plot DT = score1 + score2 + score3 + score4;    

def buysignal = crosses(DT, 0, crossingDirection.ABOVE);
def sellsignal = crosses(DT, 0, crossingDirection.BELOW);  

assignPriceColor(if dt > 0 then color.green else if dt < 0 then color.red else color.blue);


####DELETE THIS LINE WHEN PASTING INTO TOS####


I hope everyone is having a great week so far.

TLT

2016..I you haven't yet, go see it.

This is a well done and very interesting moving.  I encourage everyone to go see it, regardless of which party you affiliate yourself with.

TLT

Do More of What Works...

I've been reading Jack Schwager's Hedge Fund Market Wizards, which is a phenomenal book and is just as good as his first two and I highly recommend it to anyone who trades or is interested in trading.  One of the hedge fund managers in the book gives the advice of "find out what works and do more of that" or something to that effect.  Although simplistic, there is a lot to this.  One thing that I've been doing more of lately is active currency trading.  Why?  Simply because my account records show that it works for me.

That is why I want to talk about how smooth the currency market and in particular the Eur/Usd currency pair has been lately for short-term trend and swing trading.  When trading currencies, you must have a routine and specific set ups that you look for and then trade them.  And when those set ups are working well you have to trade them more.  Right now, the opening range breakout trade has been excellent.  The past two days have provided great opportunities to make significant returns with only trading this set up.

I have addressed the opening range break out trade in several posts, but I'll quickly explain what it is for those that are unfamiliar with it.  Basically, you take the first 15 minutes of trading (or it can be 5 minutes or 30..different people use different times) and you note the high and low of the period.  That creates the range. Then you patiently wait for the price action to trade out of the range and trade in that direction.  Generally, I'll day trade with the 5 minute and 1 minute charts.  I'll first look to the hourly and daily charts to determine the bias or the primary trend and then look to for break outs in that direction to trade.  So for the past few days, the bias has been to the higher side...that tells me the path of least resistance is higher and I should look for long trades.

Then I wait for the break out and put the trade on immediately after a 5 minute bar closes outside of the range.  After that I trail a stop with the 1 minute chart and look to book partial profits into momentum and use the trailing stop on the remainder of the position.  If the currency trades back into the range or to the bottom of the range you get out..or have a stop sitting there.  With currencies, it is a little difficult to determine the open.  I will generally trade the 8:30 stock market open with the Eur/Usd since it is pretty correlated with the US stock market.  After I've exited a profitable trade, I look for pullbacks and the support to initiate a follow up trade back to the highs.  After this, I'll look for the highs to be taken out and then trade that break out.  Then I'll look for another pullback from the new high and once it finds support I'll put on another trade.  That's it..plain and simple.  If I'm seeing follow through and the trade is working, I'll keep doing it over and over and over.

Here's a 5 minute chart with today's Eur/Usd with an opening range plot on the chart and some of the trades that I made today.

The opening range is the yellow shaded region.  The bars are all green on this chart because my trendfuzz indicator was in Strong Up Trend mode all day long...not a common event.  Notice that I did not take the OR break below the opening range, as this was a low probability trade given that the trendfuzz was green and the overall bias was up...that's not to say that it always turns out this way, just that today was a perfect day not to take the short trade.  Other days I might take the short trade even with a prevailing bias to the upside, I would just trade a smaller position and book profits very quickly.  Today was a little different because yesterday was incredibly strong and my personal sentiment is very bullish.

This type of trading can be very profitable and very rewarding, you just have to maintain discipline to wait for the proper entries and cut losses quickly.  It is by no means easy and often is very frustrating which is why some people are not suited for day trading.  Over the years, I've gone through periods where I thought I was good at it and was very suited for it and other times where I questioned whether it was for me.  The thing that I've noticed is that day trading equities is a little more hit or miss with me but currencies have been profitable for several years..I just have to stick with it and trade through those incredibly difficult draw downs that have a tendency to leave traders gun shy right at the moment that the next winning trade needs to be put on.  Ok, that's enough rambling for one day.  Hope everyone had a great week and has a great weekend.

TLT

Bullish Percent: Another Useful and Free Indicator

A friend of mine showed me the Bullish Percent charts on Stockcharts.com about a month ago.  I guess I've never paid attention to these but I'm glad he showed them to me because they seem very useful.  The chart that I like the most is the Bullish Percent of the Nasdaq with a couple of exponential moving averages.  Here's a chart:

As you can see, the crossover's have some fairly decent signals...at the very least they can indicate when to aggressively trade to the long or short side for you shorter time frame trades and for the longer time frame investor/traders, it could indicate a time to lighten up or put on a hedge.

Here's the link to this actual chart.  I keep this chart, along with several others, bookmarked on my computer and I just glance at each chart once a day.  It's just one tool in an arsenal that I use to help navigate the markets.  Remember, this chart is using moving averages so it will be a little lagging in nature, but it can help confirm moves as they are occurring.

Hope everyone's summer was good.  We're about to enter the fall, which is generally a great time for trading.

TLT

Popular Post Replay: The New Erkel

Originally posted on March 10, 2009...it seems more fitting today.

The Real Cost of Fees: Wall Street's Dirty Little Secret

I've been doing some research on portfolio construction using ETFs and decided to see exactly what impact fees have on a portfolio.  The portfolios that I've been testing are very low fee--most of them have a total annual expense ratio of .25%.  To illustrate the impact of fees, I ran annual compounding rates of 10% and included different levels of fees over a 50 year horizon.

The results are staggering.  Wall Street has a dirty little secret and it's that Wall Street is designed to make firms money first and customer's money second.  Kind of like the classic book by Fred Schweb, Where Are The Customer's Yachts.  Given that the book was originally published in 1940, this secret isn't anything new, it's just that the industry wraps up the fees/commissions in new products and gives it a new marketing spin.  Whether it's called a management fee, an administration fee, a commission, a surrender fee, a front-end load, a deferred load, a 12b-1 fee, or an "other" (yes, I've seen a statement that said "other" next to the fee), it's all a way of making the firm money and slowly and quietly charging the client.  It happens more than most people think and most individuals are in products that have fees baked into the product that have other fees on top of them--for instance, the mutual fund fees that are inside a variable annuity that has its own fee.  Yes, most people reading the blog are not likely to have variable annuities in their portfolios, but tons of individuals have them and they usually don't even understand that it's an annuity platform and that they are getting fee'd to death.  Enough of my rant..let's look at the numbers.

 Here's a table that shows a portfolio starting with $10,000 that is compounded annually at 10% with the annual fees taken out.

Here's a graph of the results.

Here's a graph of the first 20 years zoomed in.  This is helpful for those that say it's too late, that they only have another 10-15 years before retirement...look, it still costs thousands and thousands of dollars.

So what is the solution?  Obviously, replace your mutual funds with low cost ETFs.  If your comfortable with it, replace your financial advisor with low cost ETFs.  There's no sense in having an advisor tack on another 1-2% on top of the fees just to put you in the product and re-balance it for you if you're able to do it yourself.  Some people like the help and want an advisor and I understand that, but many do not need it.

If you're interested in learning more about ETF portfolios, there are plenty of great online resources and books to learn from.  Look at John Bogle's book, The Little Book of Common-Sense Investing, or Mebane Faber's The Ivy Portfolio--both are great places to get started.

I hope everyone has had a great weekend.

TLT 

Summer Reading: Deemer on Technical Analysis and a TOS Code for His Break Away Momentum Indicator

This summer, I've been reading Walter Deemer's Deemer On Technical Analysis and it has been one of the best technical analysis books that I've read in a really long time.  Mr. Deemer gives his take on using TA for longer term investors and he shy's away from the ultra short term time frames that many modern trading books focus on.  He had a long career as a technical analyst and his book is chock full incredibly interesting and witty observations based on his own experiences from his career.


Deemer  not only breaks down what he feels is useful about TA, he also does a great job of explaining his beliefs on why the TA that he uses works.  You're not going to see pictures of massive charts with multiple indicators and squiggly lines in this book..he keeps his charts to the bare minimum of what he considers useful tools.  This book will likely be the book that I recommend to people when they ask me for a good book that can help them get started with investing/trading or with TA in genearl.  If you haven't read it yet, pick it up or order it for the kindle/ipad.  It's well worth the read.

As a bonus, I coded his Breakaway Momentum indicator for think or swim.  This indicator uses the NYSE advances and declines that are added together for the trailing 10 days and then a ratio is created of advances to declines.  To be breakaway momentum, the reading has to be above a 1.97.  These readings only happen once every 31 and a half years on average.  That being said, we had three in 2009..a bit of an anomaly and a testament to how oversold the market was after the 2008 meltdown.  For more info and historical recordings of breakaway momentum check out Mr. Deemer's website here.

Here's a chart, note TOS has some data issues with advance decline numbers starting in 2009 and going backwards, however, this indicator works well with recent data and you can still see the 3 breakaway readings in 2009..there are just some holes in the data that don't look pretty.

And here is the code for you thinkorswim fans:

####Delete this line when pasting in TOS####


declare lower;

input adv = "$ADVN";
input dec = "$DECN";
input length = 10;

def up = close(adv);
def down = close(dec);

def sumup = sum(up, length);
def sumdn = sum(down, length);

plot ratio = sumup/sumdn;

plot breakaway = 1.97;

####Delete this line when pasting in TOS####


Have a great weekend!

TLT

Divergence in Equities and Bonds

Was a weird Friday in the markets.  One thing that jumped out at me was that stocks were up and treasury yields fell...a bit of a divergence.

This is probably a good indication of the market's overall uncertainty as we head into a weekend with important elections.  I give it a strong chance that the market merely reacts and quickly corrects back to pre-election levels to the outcome of the Greek election with a small chance of everything hitting the fan.  The lowering of yields was likely the institutions protecting themselves from the "hitting the fan" scenario.  We'll see.

TLT

Yikes...

France is having some employment problems...not an uncommon problem for many countries today.  It's not the employment problem that is scary, it is the socialist president's ideas of how to suppress further unemployment that is down right terrifying.  Here is a section from this article:

Employment statistics from France reinforced recent data showing a slowdown in the European labor market. The jobless rate in metropolitan France rose in the first quarter of 2012 to 9.6 percent, up 0.3 percentage point, the national statistical agency, Insee, reported.
 Faced with the growing jobless problem, the new Socialist president, François Hollande, is planning new rules to make it more expensive to lay off workers, the a French minister said Thursday.
 Labor Minister Michel Sapin told France Info radio that the government would try to make “layoffs so expensive for companies that they’re not worth it.”

Way to go France.  Looks like you have a real winner on your hands.

TLT 

Late in the Day Turn Around for Stocks

The buying this afternoon gave the first long set up that I've seen in a while.  It's likely that lots of traders are looking to trade a bounce, the only question is will it bounce now or later.

Stocks are pretty much oversold across the board and the run up in bonds in crazy to say the least.  We'll probably see a good bounce this week, unless there's significant news from Europe that drags the market down.  The key indicators to be watching are bonds (TLT) and the Euro (FXE).  Note that even when stocks were negative earlier today, the euro was still up and bonds were still negative...that was a good sign play the market to the long side.

We'll see what happens.

TLT

Current Watch List

Here are 7 stocks that I have on my watch list.  These stocks have been flagged by my screener because of their technical strength and their high relative strength compared to the overall market.

The above charts are weekly charts, which is a good way to keep track of trending stocks.  I like ECL and AMGN in particular.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend.

TLT

General Update and a ThinkScript Code

I almost let an entire month go by without posting...just a sign of how busy (crazy) my world is right now.  Recently, I opened up a Title Company and that has been eating a lot of my time.  Generally, you won't hear me comment on real estate because this blog is about trading, however, the title company is a play on the overall real estate market.  Here in North Texas, real estate is really beginning to pick up.  Real estate agents are seeing lots of activity on the residential side and commercial spaces are filling back up as well.  The title company seemed to be the most direct way to really profit from a rebound.

On the trading side of things, I've been working on a couple of mechanical strategies that are designed to be traded with a basket of commodities.  Nothing too fancy, a simple trend following model and a mean reversion model.  The hard work is in determining how to measure different markets to establish which commodities to include in each system and then how to allocate to each system as a whole.  For example, if my measurements are telling me that volatility is steadily declining and certain commodities are trending, then I may allocate 65% of the overall portfolio to the trend following system and 35% to the mean reversion.  Sounds easy enough, but developing and testing rules is a tedious process.  I'll be providing some posts on this is the future.

Over the past month, I've been in talks with a local hedge fund manager that runs an options trading fund.  He has an interesting strategy that returned about 7% this month...generally he targets 1-2% a month but the volatility in the beginning of April really helped him out.  We are working out a deal that involves a couple of entities partnering up to form a new fund that trades a "Collared Dividend" Strategy.  If this comes together, the new fund looks like it will have $30-50 million to trade by the end of July.  At this point, this might be a pie-in-the-sky dream because there are many working parts that still need to get figured out...but, the thought of managing some institutional money sure is exciting.  

Before I sign off, lets take a quick look at the market.  Below is a chart of S&P 500 via SPY, and it has my Spec Stocks Indicator attached to it.  The premise is pretty simple:  select 6 stocks that are popular and speculative and take a measurement of the trend for each stock.  Then put it together and take an average of them.  These stocks tend to lead the market and be indicative of investors' willingness to take on risk.  Here's the chart:

And for any thinkorswimmers out there, here is the ThinkScript code:

//

declare lower;

input symbol1 = "aapl"; 

input symbol2 = "goog";

input symbol3 = "bidu";

input symbol4 = "cmg";

input symbol5 = "nflx";

input symbol6 = "pcln";

input malength = 200;

input malrlength = 5;

input shortmalength = 50;

input longmalength = 200;

def S1 = close(symbol1, period = "Day");

def S2 = close(symbol2, period = "Day");

def S3 = close(symbol3, period = "day");

def S4 = close(symbol4, period = "day");

def S5 = close(symbol5, period = "day");

def S6 = close(symbol6, period = "day");

def ma1 = ExpAverage(s1, malength); 

def ma2 = ExpAverage(S2, malength);

def ma3 = ExpAverage(S3, malength);

def ma4 = ExpAverage(S4, malength);

def ma5 = ExpAverage(S5, malength);

def ma6 = ExpAverage(S6, malength);

def MALR1 = linearRegressionSlope(ma1, malrlength);

def MALR2 = linearRegressionSlope(ma2, malrlength);

def MALR3 = linearRegressionSlope(ma3, malrlength);

def MALR4 = linearRegressionSlope(ma4, malrlength);

def MALR5 = linearRegressionSlope(ma5, malrlength);

def MALR6 = linearRegressionSlope(ma6, malrlength);

def MALRMAShort1 =expAverage(MALR1, shortmalength);

def MALRMAShort2 =expAverage(MALR2, shortmalength);

def MALRMAShort3 =expAverage(MALR3, shortmalength);

def MALRMAShort4 =expAverage(MALR4, shortmalength); 

def MALRMAShort5 =expAverage(MALR5, shortmalength); 

def MALRMAShort6 =expAverage(MALR6, shortmalength); 

def MALRMALong1 = expAverage(MALR1, longmalength); 

def MALRMALong2 = expAverage(MALR2, longmalength);

def MALRMALong3 = expAverage(MALR3, longmalength);

def MALRMALong4 = expAverage(MALR4, longmalength);

def MALRMALong5 = expAverage(MALR5, longmalength);

def MALRMALong6 = expAverage(MALR6, longmalength);

Def BuySell1 = if MALRMASHORT1 > MALRMALong1 then 10 else -10;

Def BuySell2 = if MALRMASHORT2 > MALRMALong2 then 10 else -10;

Def BuySell3 = if MALRMASHORT3 > MALRMALong3 then 10 else -10;

Def BuySell4 = if MALRMASHORT4 > MALRMALong4 then 10 else -10;

Def BuySell5 = if MALRMASHORT5 > MALRMALong5 then 10 else -10;

Def BuySell6 = if MALRMASHORT6 > MALRMALong6 then 10 else -10;

plot SpecScore = buySell1 + buysell2 + buysell3 + buysell4 + buysell5 + buysell6;

plot zeroline = 0;

assignPriceColor(if specscore > 0 then color.green else if specscore < 0 then color.red else color.blue); 

//

Have a great weekend.

TLT

LIBOR Spreads Say, "Bull On"

Spreads between the 1 month and 3 month LIBOR, one of my favorite gauges of market risk appetite are very bullish right now.  Take a look at the chart:

Have  great weekend!

TLT

Wisdom Quote

"Making a few correct calls using only a bottom-up strategy may influence investors to think that they are great stock pickers.  In reality, it's more likely that they have just been on the right side of macro trends without realizing it, such as choosing stocks from a sector that was in favor."

--Fracois Trahan

from The Era of Uncertainty

by Francois Trahan and Katherine Krantz

Stock Market Still in an Uptend..despite what the financial news says

I think most traders and investors too, eventually realize that at a minimum, financial news needs to be taken with a grain of salt and more likely just needs to be ignored all together.  I've started seeing the bearish headlines and concerning stories pop up but when I pull up my charts, all I see is a nice trend that is taking a much needed breather.  Here's the S&P:

I believe Jesse Livermore said something to the effect of he learned to make big money by sitting on his hands..something like that.  What he meant was that timing every wiggle of the market is generally a losers game...the big money is finding a trend and then riding it until it's done.  As you can see from the chart above, my system says the trend is still up, so I'm staying long with stock..plain and simple.

On a separate note, I stumbled across this blog today http://share-tos.blogspot.com/.  It is filled with all sorts of ThinkorSwim codes that the authors share.  If you're into tos, it might behoove you to go spend some time at the blog..I know I will.

TLT

Euro is in a Box

The Euro is stuck in a pretty tight trading range (aka a box) as the world watches the EU to see how they handle all of the mess regarding Europe, Greece, etc.  The buying pressure, or lack of selling over the last couple of weeks, has been tripping buy signals on some of my systems and neutral signals on others.  I'd imagine a bunch of other systems are seeing the same thing.  The important thing to note is that all of these systems were giving sell signals only 2 weeks ago.  So where do we go from here?

Discretionary traders or classic charting traders will be looking for a break of the trading range (see the blue box on the chart below).  A good amount of professionals will be looking for any sign of weakness after a break higher in order to fade the move (short the euro).  I'm currently long the euro b/c that's what my system is saying to do.  Another thing I like to look at in these situations is the Commitment of Traders Report (or C.O.T.).  The C.O.T. is a report of positions of Commercials (big hedgers), large traders (traders holding large positions) and small speculators.  Until recently, the commercials and large trader reports were still bearish, but in the recent report, we saw the first bullish sign in quite a while.  Here's the chart:

When I see a tight trading range and then a change in the COT, I follow signals that are in the same direction as the COT.  Commercials will begin selling (b/c they are hedging so a bigger number is bearish and a smaller number is bullish) and large traders will be buying..and I'm looking to buy as well.  I generally ignore the small speculators number.  There's probably something to be gleaned from it, but I don't use it.  If you're interested in looking at these types of charts, here is a great free website for it.

Have a great weekend.

TLT

St. Lucia: Pics from my recent trip

One of the best stops on the cruise that my wife and I recently took was St. Lucia.  This is a beautiful little island that is a rainforest mountain rising out of bright blue water.  It's a place that my wife and I are considering buying a vacation home/villa at.  Here's a couple of pics.

Have a great Friday.  I'm planning on posting an overall market recap this weekend.

TLT

LIve Trade: Opening Range BreakOut in the Eur/Usd

I've got a position on in the Eur/Usd today.  So far, it is working out to be a potentially good opening range break out trade.  I've put on 2 units of the trade and am trailing one unit with an ATR stop.  Here's a screen shot of three charts:

Notice that I'm looking at the S&P (via SPY) and the VIX in addition to the Eur/Usd.  It is important to see that SPY is above it's opening range and the internals are bullish (as indicated by the green painted bars on the spy chart).  The VIX is pulling in too..so along with spy and internals, it shows that the markets are all working together which gives the trade a higher probability of being successful.  At this point there's not much to do but wait for pull backs to add to the position and/or get out once price action starts tripping sell signals.

Hope everyone's having a great day.

TLT

Got a Sell Signal on the Euro this Morning

Building a short in the Euro/Usd, beginning with a fresh sell signal that occurred this morning. 

I hope everyone's off to a great start for the new year..let's make it a good one.

TLT