May 042010
 

I guess we had the crystal ball shined up today. We felt the market needed a flush and flush it did. If you heeded our advice about not knowing which rejection level was going to be the one in a structure with multiple clusters you probably caught the right trade. If not it was a tough open. One lesson we haven’t talked about much is not ever trying to catch a falling knife. It was just auctioning down hard level after level and didn’t let up until the 77.75 handle. One thing to look at is volume at each price. If the high volume price is in the middle of a bar that is indicative of trending behavior and you don’t want to fade into that. You want to see a good stall and price having a hard time advancing despite lots of volume. Then you just wait for institutional orders to start hitting the offers in the other direction. That was our entry today. Long at 77.50. I wanted to target  80.00 – just under the VWAP – NJ did too although he got in at tick higher at 77.75. I bailed out early as usual when I saw institutional deltas shift suddenly as I was very concerned about the volatility swinging too hard on me. I got out with 5 ticks at 78.75. NJ stayed in until the bounce off the VWAP and exited at 79.50. BTW, the S2 helped bring support to that bottom and was definitely a factor in our confidence on these trades. Volatility is coming off a lot as I write and despite all this movement, volume isn’t very significant signalling that large position traders aren’t rushing for the short door. I doubt we grind down more today and instead we are guessing we re-base in around the OL.

 Posted by at 10:09 am

  2 Responses to “5/4/2010 Post Trading Analysis”

  1. Hi,
    Your explanations of volume shift in the past few days are starting to sink in. Thanks!

    Do you ever try to go with a falling knife?
    For example, on the 09:35 up bar, enter short for a continuation of the down move. I suppose that this is still in the heart of the 81,75, 82, 83, 84 rejection areas you mentioned pre-market so this trade would be based on a continuation of the strong down momentum.

    Also curious why a break of 81.75 with target of 76/77 wasn’t listed as a potential trade even though you mentioned it in the morning commentary.

    • Hi ctrader,

      I actually like the falling knife if it can be caught early enough, but it’s not for the faint at heart. The 9:35 pullback you mentioned is a great trend trade entry. Unfortunately for the accounts we trade in the morning, it’s not one of our setups.

      RG and I were reviewing tonight’s webinar material and I think he’ll discuss reasons why a falling knife is a dangerous trade. We actually had an 82 break trade to 80/78.50 listed yesterday in the trade plan. That area was never reached yesterday, so technically it was still in play. It’s funny you mentioned it because I had listed the trade again on my sheet this morning and I asked RG why he did not. He told me that he could not see clean support and there were too many small rejection areas so he passed on listing a breakout trade.

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