markets are there to fool the masses. If you have a trading plan based on newsflow then i am willing to bet a heck of alot of money that you willl end up losing. Its that simple. I trade off objective strategies that execute trades based on rules rather than subjective opinions.

As I have said before, don't follow the news . Can't spell it out any easier than that

everyone seems to be expecting downside whether its driven by the impending month of September which statistically is weak or the recently confirmed Hindenburg Omen

This tells me to be wary of a short term rally to some degree to unwind some of the oversold status

Its also approaching month end and 401k money will probably find its way to the market over the coming week or so

Short term, I lean to the upside rather than the downside. Short term being the next week or so!!

H Matt. I was thinking something similar but have been tied down with so many projects that I haven't had the opportunity to pull together a spreadsheet.

What I was thinking was to take the LT Indicators, populate each signal for each indicator and combine it to produce a heatmap (or scoring system). If you have 7 indicators for example, then you trade based on the majority vote

Thats a starting point but then of course from that, you get a real handle on which specific indicator on its own performs well or which combination of indicators perform well....and then to forward test

Just thoughts anyway so good you are doing this!

just from experience (and having backtested various strategies), doubling up/adding to positions when an instrument is in some form of downtrend is very dangerous and will lead to pain more than gain

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

(define downtrend how you feel most comfortable. I have my approach but its not something I wish to expand on if thats ok as its part of several of my strategies....but hopefully the principle of what I am trying to say is clear)

I think using Trendlines in conjunction with other indicators are good to use. Infact it might be worth checking historical newsletters because Matt does something similar with GDX on a 60min chart from memory. I can't recall which exact chart

The difficulty I have is knowing which points to use on the trendline. I know in hindsight it looks simple but in the heat of the battle, which points do you use to join on the trendline? I know its the key peaks or troughs but what in reality you only know the key peaks and troughs after the event

So I guess yes trendlines are great.....in conjunction with other indicators is my opinion

what I try and gain from a blog like this is to understand new trading ideas and techniques that will add to my knowledge. Asking others for their opinion without asking exactly why or what setup is driving to a conclusion is in my opinion not something that will facilitate a trader in the long term to build the necessary skillset to trade the market

I do look at the charts that Matt and Steve post because they are excellent. What i don't do is listen to the audio because it could have their thoughts/opinions in it which is fair enough. However, i like to draw my own conclusions based on a series of charts and rationalise for myself why I think the market is going up down or sideways

I went long yesterday at the open and see no reason to close....just yet. Think there is probably upside left to the 1100 to 1110 region

Apart from this we have a rising wedge in the S&P which once 1100 breaks, will give it the impetus to move towards 1105-1110

Last thing I would do is take a poll by the way on any blog or from anyone. My advice would be to look at the charts and indicators and draw conclusions thereon

Read Trading in the Zone

Dont follow the news

Backtest all strategies/ideas so you know which market conditions they work/don't work in. Automate them where possible to take out some emotion

Implement a money management plan

Most of all.......have fun trading!

I don't follow the business news or blogrolls. Simple way to avoid this trap. Bad news/predictions of gloom and doom make better reading than the rosy garden scenario

For what its worth, I went long yesterday when the S&Ps were down a couple of ticks for a swing trade using a 60min system. We will see what happens over the coming days but hopeful of scalping 10-15S&P points 

I follow the charts, several good strategies and also where the clever money is going. Thats about it!

Enjoy the day!!

this gap open will fill based on my gap closing rules and I wouldn't be suprised to see us end higher on the day

we shall see

I won't bore you with the conditions required to trigger a Hindenburg omen but by my calculations we haven't quite got the omen based on todays closing prices and statistics

Maybe this should be a sticky post. Every dog has its 15 seconds of stardom

in the cold light of day though, it remains a dog

i am referring to the theory and not the individuals. look at it this way. EW is their life yet even they cant make it work. its beyond common sense that the retail trader would think for one minute these guys who study ew day in day out

my simple advice.....ew is nothing short of Extreme Waffle

....my opinion so feel free to follow it if you like donating money

http://www.erictyson.com/articles/20090616

if you would like a completely free platform that doesn't charge any monthly fees etc , has great standard indicators and also the ability to add custom indicators and allows you to trade from as little as 0.01 lots then try a Metatrader driven platform and the likes of either FXDD, Alpari or FXCM

Regards

.....your darn right Steve. Following news is not a good thing to do. Just ignore it. Trade off the charts. The other thing I do is to not read too many other sites. Most sites like to be bearish and its usually because being Bearish makes "better reading/dramatic reading" than positive news. Its easier to dramatise negatives if you know what i mean. Hence I ignore it

I just let my strategies do their thing and if I am doing any manual trading then just the charts. Cant see why any manual trader would want much more than the charts put in a daily or weekly update here on BPT. Without listening to the audio, its easy to quickly scan them and get a sense of direction

Felt like a capitulation for sure yes. I looked at retail futures positions and they are still marginally short by 7000 contracts as of yesterday

Bit frustrating. Its only one piece of information but it does prove very useful. Retail investors were short by 100k contracts several weeks ago in Euro since which its rallied 1000pips

Low risk as you say here so worth at the very least to scale in to

I want to go long of this Matt but the only thing holding me back is that euro retail investors are still net short as of last Friday. I will do a further analysis tonight when COT Data is through

Otherwise, its due some form of bounce for sure

1.35 I think is the 50% fib of the recent peak and trough with 1.39 being the 61.8% level of the move so it will either turn at 1.35 or before.

Very difficult one!

Audusd is very close to a short here and i will start scaling in next week once MACD starts to roll over or we break the rising wedge

In addition to this, Retail longs are at pretty high levels relative to their 10period MA which is what I use to measure mean reversion in this pair.

Contrarianism suggests shorting.

Some of the indicators in the chart by the way are ones I have had custom written so they are not availbable in the standard Metatrader platform

thanks. I have stockcharts and will check on intraday P&F charts. There are some strategies that may work using intraday P&F charts on a daily setting and seeing how they are looking before the close. Its kind of pretty simple stuff.

Will keep you posted once I get to the bottom of the formula. Kind of tied up over the next few weeks on some other projects so will pick it up properly mid August I guess

Hi. Does anyone know which site you can get Daily P&F Charts updated on an intraday basis on?

Regards