Is this the break?? QQQQ etc

I find it incredible how 'they' use our money to push commodities down, using upside volume in the short term eg 5 mins (check out the last week or so in GDX,  USO etc) to produce awful daily candles by insistent downward nudging on much lower volume.

Trading is unfortunately dicing with a den of thieves determined to spin reality out of existence. What do supply & demand and impossible trade deficits matter anyway when you can go on lying and cheating another day? When you've gotten so damn good at it ! When all we can do is follow rather than create the market.

Destined to fail in the long term.

Kinda stumped that no-one considers this an important enough question to weigh in on.

QQQQ broken yesterdays flag support

If we do get this energy bounce, how likely are we to ignore it and get index follow through. Are we looking at the intermarket, or counting on bulls ignoring it if they are set on rallying as they sometimes do? Opinions? Prognostications? Matt?

Getting some very mixed signals from you two on gold

Matt's got it on the watch list short from here yet is looking for a GDX long,

Dodger doesn't cover it in the evening at all but says it's a short term long.

It's hit support on good volume - what do you say at this stage? Better to just steer clear?

Are the Qs a worthy short alternative? - Comp did it's backtest right and there's been little drop since then. Or is the setup for agressors not really clear enough?

natural gas UNG is definitiely NOT bouncing ... yet,

long term support, 61%, way oversold and tanking further

could be a wash and rinse, hope so, I got some this morning

Any reasons known? - I thought the fundamentals on gas were even more bullish than oil?

For all the prognosis of gold possibly/likely falling 10% from here, it may be worth bearing in mind that all the dollar appears to be doing is testing its broken support and declining 50MAs (albeit with neg div)

enjoy

Humungous irony/spin of the week/year

Naked shorting is done BY the financials, so if they didn't do it, they'd make a buttload less money, so why on earth would it cause a rally!?

That's awesome, that's just the sort of style I'm developing. I understand if the guys can't take any more on.

I'm somewhere between the hard core 3m 12 screen daytraders and the pop in for 5m a day toothdoctor, and obviously it's difficult to cater to everybody. But what is clear is that without a defined style, which the guys are showing by example but we need to arrange/develop ourselves, the amount of time doesn't make much difference.  (Realistically though maybe it's only a certain amount of time in the trenches down at least on 60m charts and losses from sloppiness that will make the need for that apparent). I set about doing that today with good success.

Some clarification of these terms 'swing' and 'day'trader seems important. Please correct me if I'm wrong or it could be more simply understood, anyone.

In general terms a swing trader is after daily chart patterns but should be using 60m charts for good entries and exits. A day trader is probably concentrating on 15m or  patterns with 3-5m entry/exits and maybe holding out for 60m patterns, and someone like me and this fellow who can spend a few hours day are in between, using a 60/15 combination for both daily and 60m entries.

Though I'd heard it before, just clarifying this for myself has already made the world of difference.

Good trading

Hey, Matt,

What's your sense on holding GDX - is it taking it's sweet time too much or has nothing really changed? - still well in pattern

....then again, if it is too much to take on, regarding this first post at least, I'd understand if you consider it my responsibity to sort that out myself over time.

Also, at risk of asking too much, to get out an additional  truncated summary/overview, maybe 5-10m long with just a couple of charts on these main indices and the state of play clsoer to the afternoon if possible would be awesome too....

As fantastic as they are, for Joe non-super trader to mold his life around taking these reports on daily sometime between 11pm and breakfast is hard going.

Hey, Matt, Dodger etc

I'm finding too that without the experience of a clearly defined style, which seems to be the hardest part to learn,  it is quite difficult to know what to filter out in the blog, or at least to discipline yourself to do so, although it is clear from sitting in on the blog that that is a necessity, or else I'm wasting my whole day sitting there with my head reeling, tempted to enter on all the short term signals on all sorts of stocks, unclear which are which, falling for my worst habits of taking on more than I'm capable of, and not fully equipped on the follow through. What is obvious to a newcomer, though somewhat understandable, is that there is a fairly wide gulf generally between the blog and the evening updates.

I'm starting to think of developing my own hard & fast rules, but thinking that a good place to start is sticking to 2-3 indices and a triple timeframe daily-hrly-15m, and maybe drilling down to 3m if I'm around and forgetting about all the individual stock stuff till I can succesfully nail that. Not that I haven't thought that through before and failed, falling for overtrading and lack of focus and organization. I've tried so many different approaches with less than stellar success. I've been doing a good deal of this for a few years and I'm not stupid but I still feel like a beginner.

Do you you agree this this kind of focus before being able to range around is essential to learning this properly? I feel like I'm in need of reform from 50 positions on many timeframes to a maximum of 5 fully monitored, scaled in & out, and rule-bound.

Like many I suspect, I want to be a swing trader only, checking in a few times a day maybe with a handful of alarms running. Does this sound like a good way to you? I know it's not your job to help people get their system straight, but I suspect this is the issue with may others like me, so succinct advice on a good way in eg stockcharts? QT? real time? 3 monitors setup  might help you keep  & better satisfy many of your clients.

Also though I appreciate your wider perspective and dedication already, maybe you could consider very specifically tailoring certain blog posts (perhaps a different colour?) or one of your guys each day to the swingers eg timely posts on the week's top 3 indexes on 15 and 60m timeframes, with warnings/entries on all timeframes down to 3m, eg I was thinking of following only SPY, GDX and USO right now, and maybe a few days from now that selection could change.

This along perhaps with exact records of watch list entries & exits (which I'm finding a little unclear whether they ever got entered) say to a  maximum of 2 on top of the indexes. Maybe even an initial target and stop loss for the indices based on the entry time frame.

 I know you guys don't want to be burdened in your own trading overly, but I think if the majority of members are in this workaday swingers camp, it may be worth it to you to focus even more effort in this direction, so they can sign in at the open and close & random times of the day and get a clear picture from the blog what is pertinent to them in this simpler style and how the picture from the evening update appears to be playing out, (opinion only of course, but that's what we're after!)  and decide for themselves if they're still in time to carry it out.

Together I think even though it sounds like handholding, these moves would make the blog less dizzying and a better learning experience, until it could be digested whole. But maybe you have a better simple system to suggest that is profitable and educational at the same time.

I offer these ideas/feedback because I think you're already doing a great job and are clearly committed do doing the best you can, and seem to be in a positon to pull such a thing off without too much drama. And I think the results could be awesome.

Cheers and good luck

Nick

Given UUP do you think this gold pullback is anything more than profit taking that won't stick, or is it getting lumped in with crude and commodities and the idea of a bottom here?

Views anyone?

yes, matt, etc do you interpret the ratio breaking as a short term sell on gold stocks or the metals as well? The metals advance to 1000 doesn't look in jeopardy at this stage(?)

I suppose so, but the rationale I had to get into them longer term is that they are selling at outrageous discounts, of 30 & 50$ /oz gold in the ground, which should still well offset increase production costs and hopefully even liquidity issues esp with gold now near 1000$.

..regardless of GDX weak volume and neg divs on 60 & 15? Let's see, I at least took some profits ( to offset some of my pitiful juniors)