The hourly chart has been in a very weak trend on most days for a while now but this daily chart is starting to finally look good again.  After one or two big up days i might want to go long on the daily chart.  I would probably try to buy around 1300.

Gabita is the best girlfriend in all of TOMBALL!!

Nice 5 minute move that i would have gotten into if i found the setup.  it was after hours and not that big of a move.  Good for 3.5 points, decent for  5 minute chart though.

Hourly chart is still wiggling sideways.  Found this short and sweet 5 minute move good for over 15 points.

If price closes above the 4hr resistance line, i would buy.  seems like it could happen real soon,  monday morning at the latest.
daily chart is in a weak trend up, 4hr chart is wiggling sideways but this hourly chart is currently in a strong trend.

Would have wanted to enter at 7am but trend is too weak leading up to the 4hr 50 EMA b/o.  Better for me to skip this trade anyways, even though i would be up about 12 points at the moment.  Chances are most of that could easily be taken away with a big down bar.

Nice move that would have given me at least 23 points.  Seems like a lot of action for the hourly chart right now since europe is having weird problems with Italy and greece.  Good news one day, bad news the next.

This recent trade was a dud.  I would have lost 8.25 points.

I would have entered at 1254.  Up to that point it looked like  a pretty good spot to jump in because there was no major resistance in the way on the 1hr, 4hr or daily chart.  It happened to start wiggling sideways right after my entry point but i would still be in it up to now.  I would be at break even at the moment.  Ill watch it....

Found a nice trade that i would have entered.  It would have been the first trade for me to get into after price broke above the daily 200 EMA.  Good for about 23 points.  Picture perfect setup too.

I would have went long on Wednesday.  So far this move has turned out to be pretty nice.  I would be up over 35pts so far.  It is still going so i'll keep watching it.

I would have exited right after this pic was taken.  I would have gained 30 points, maybe 30.5.  very nice.

The last trade that i would have entered was good for a measly 2.5 pts or so.  But then if i would have kept watching it, i could have shorted again and gotten at least 18 pts, which was the real move.  But i only would have gotten the 2nd move if i was not too strict on having oversold stochastics.  Not sure if i really care to require those anymore anyways.  I usually dont even look at them anymore.  I think i would rather drop them to get into a few more trades and take whatever i can get. 

The last trade that i watched ended well.  Unfortunately a large chunk of the gain was lost on the last bar.  I would have entered for a short trade on Friday afternoon.  I will be able to watch this entire trade play out.  Major support is 20 points away, just enough for me.

I didnt like the ema's enough to enter right at the close above resistance.  If i did enter it would have been once the 20 EMA caught up with price after its big initial pop.  By then the ema's would have been angled up and straight.  No major resistance (4hr) for a while on this move.

Daily chart has been too trendless for me to trade for a while now.  I keep watching the hourly chart.  The hourly chart happened to be kinda lousy also for the past two weeks until a couple days ago.  I found a move that i would have gotten into which would have given me a gain of almost 22 points.  Very nice.  The move bottomed out so far at what was the next major 4hr support, as expected.

I love u Gabita, you are the best!

The latest hourly trade that i would have entered was good for a 15 point gain.  Just as i thought, good, but not as good as those other recent trades since it had major support near by.

A possible long entry is setting up.  Just need a solid breakout bar.  Some pointless optimistic dribble in the news would help.

Market has been moving around very well on the hourly chart this week.  The media has all the people worried one second about europe, then hopeful the next second about Obama...then worried again, over and over.  Keeping the public emotional creates nice trading opportunities for me.

I found a 35.5 point move and a 27 point move that i would have gotten into.  Then i found a 3rd move which i would have entered and would still be holding right now for a small gain.  There is major support coming up for the current move, so i would not expect it to be as large as the other two.  About 12 points would be good.

The move i was following ended for me.  I would have made 27 pts, which is over $1300.  A couple moves that i might have gotten into before this one were break evens. 

Found a recent opportunity on the hourly chart.  I would have went long in SP500 futures at 2pm yesterday.  So far price would have inched up prett well overnight.  next major resistance is a good ways away.  i would be up about 10 pts/$500 so far.

Mostly day trades were all that was available for the past few weeks.  same old story, if i just wait i find good entries which usually turn out to be good trades.  right now there is a nice hourly short move that i would have gotten into a couple days ago....i would be up about 40 pts on the sp500 futures as of right now.

i will start saving up money to trade with soon.  maybe in about 9 months i can start trading SPY, then later on i could start trading SP500 futures.

it looks like i might see an hourly long setup later today.  ema's are looking good, just need the market to push up above the next resistance level. 

Monday was a big down day.  There was a 15 minute short trade that i would have entered but it would have ended up break-even after several bars.

On Thursday, the largest trade i could have gotten into was on the 30 minute chart.  The daily and hourly charts did not look good enough to me.  I would have entered around 9:30 thursday morning and exited around 2:30 Friday morning.  It would have been a long and drawn out trade but well worth a 25+ point gain.  That is a lot of money to make in less than 24 hrs.

The daily chart could reverse big and shoot up real quick soon.  Our politicians are still pretending to argue over the country's debt.  i really don't care.  I want to trade the largest time frame i can.  I would have gotten into a daily short but it never pulled back to the 20 for me, so thats when i would have just entered the nice 30 minute trade.  I want to get into the largest trade that opens up first.  I will drop down to a smaller time frame to get a better trend or if the bigger time frame chart is not setting up for a trade soon.

hourly chart is not looking good right now but the daily chart is close to having a good pullback short entry.  sp500's price could pull back up to the 20 any day and thats when i would short it.

The hourly short trade would have ended right now (3 am) with a 29 - 30 pt gain.  Lot of money for such a short trade.  There was a tricky pivot high which i should skip.  The bar before the high was techinically positive but it was basically a doji so that really shouldn't count.  A pivot high is supposed to have a positive close followed by a negative close, with the high in between.

The daily chart is finally starting to look like a decent setup.  Several more days are needed before entry.

Gaby is so pretty and she is the best girlfriend in the world.  Her family is very nice.  Gaby treats me good.

The last hourly trade i was watching ended soon after i took the pic.  It would have been a 16 point gain.  Pretty nice.




On Monday before the close, there was a nice hourly pull-back short entry that i could have gotten into.  So far it has been trading down well in after hours.

The hourly trade with /ES that i just found would have been good for 16 points.  Me likey.  I would have had to exit at 2 am though.  I stay up late anyways.

I could have entered this 5 min move "a little late" at the open and i would have gained about 9 points.

 Even better though, is this hourly move which i would prefer to have gotten into, if i had th choice.  It is still going and it is about a 17 point gain at this moment.  This could easily tell me to exit this bar or the next.  I used the 4hr chart to draw resistance lines, which is good enough if i cant use the daily chart.  There were actually two lines but the first line i could have ignored since the trade setup didn't look perfect enough until the 2nd line was punctured anyways.

Found a nice 15 min move.  I would have had to enter at the open, then ride it out into the late evening as the trend weakened and volatility dried up.  It would have been good for 13 points on Sp500 futures.

The hourly chart looked "almost there", but during its break out bar the EMA's were not good enough, so i dropped down and found the 15 min move with a great set up.  There was also a move before this one that i would have entered but that one would have been at or just above break even.

The ES hourly trade that i was watching turned out very well.  It would have been  a gain of about 41 points if i had exited early monday morning.  Im sure i would stay up late or set loud alerts to go off with an hourly trade like this one.  Using the pivot high/low trailing stop is definitely the best way for me to exit.  I really like it and i had only switched away from it a while back for what i thought were tactical reasons.

as of the close today, my hourly sp500 futures trade would be a $2350 gain.  market really shot up today.  new, higher pivot lows keep getting made.

Not much reason to watch those international ETF's that i found last week since everything turned up with the american market/euro/greek reversal. 

The hourly trade that i would have gotten into on SP500 futures is still going.  I would be up almost 27 pts as of right now ( $1350 per contract).  That would be nice for only a few days of watching a trade work.

If i did enter that ES hourly trade that i saw yesterday, it would be up well so far.

Also found a good 5 point move on the 5 minute chart.  Problem is it was from 2 and 6 in the morning.  I would never be trading at that time anyways.  It must have happened because of traders in London because thats the first half of the LSE trading hours.

The hourly short i was waiting on before today never made a close below its S/R line and instead reversed back up strongly.  Thats why i wait for a close past the line first.

Today, i found another nice 5 min move that i would have gotten into if i didn't have to sleep.  This one is extra interesting to me because it would require the pullback/crossover entry at 20 EMA.  This is a good example of when i would actually use this set-up.  I would use it when the "breakout" price move is so strong, it goes vertical quickly which would make it overextended/overbought in the short term.  I would have entered here right after the stochastics crossed while sitting on the 20 EMA.

There is also an hourly entry at 1288 that i would enter.  This would be a normal entry set-up since it wasn't so vertical and looks more like a steady 45 degree climb on the hourly chart.

Market is still thinking about where to go on the daily chart...

Don't know if ill be awake at the time, but after making all my charts show "extended session", i see a really good hourly short set up.  The daily trend is already down.  The hourly trend is already very strong going down and i would short on a solid close past the major low.

i like this description:

Much of the stupidity we see exhibited by others is due to laziness. It takes effort to be knowledgeable, and some people just don't take the time necessary to be informed.

EIS - israel, EWI - italy, EWN - netherlands, THD - thailand, EWH - hong kong and EWA - australia are not available to borrow.  Most are setting up for what looks like nice sell offs.  I will at least watch them to see how well they sell off.

I did see a nice 5.75 pt move on the 5 min sp500 futures chart this morning.  i couldn't trade it since i was sleeping.  hopefully i can get into an hourly move soon.  i should be able to day trade on mondays from now on if i want to.  with a little luck i can get some decent practice on mondays by watching 5 minute charts.

i was wondering why my futures chart stopped printing bars after 3:15.  oops, i forgot my charts were set on 'no extended session' quotes.  i i prefer to show no extended session on daily and hourly charts, but on 5 min its a bad idea.  sp500 futures didn't pull back enough to let me enter.  it turned out to be about a +4 point ($200 per contract) move. 

Looked at global etf's again.  Wanted to sell Israel short right away but it isn't available to short. Oh well i'll just watch it and see what it does.

Waiting on EWI - italy, EWN - netherlands, THD - thailand, EWH - hong kong and EWA - australia to close past their major S/R levels and then i'll think about entering them for daily trades.

I did see what looked like a good entry for me on the 5 minute chart.  I missed it but ill try to get in at the same price in the evening.  if not then ill just watch it.

i printed out another entry checklist.  This time it has each step printed on a chart.  the little pictures i tried squeezing in between my rules on the last checklist were looking a little too crappy.  Best checklist i have ever made, so far.

I was really wanting practice.  The mistake i made on this is something i normally do.  I was assuming it was "strong again" since it was temporarily holding at the 20 again, but now i see that this is pointless.  once the strong trend is breached, i should consider weak from then on.  if i ever considered it strong again, it should have been after several successful tests of the 20 ema, not just "probably one".  oh well, tiny .5% loss.

sold short the /ES sp500 futures at 1pm today at 1259.50 for an hourly trade.  i dont know if i will be able to watch it when it happens to give an exit signal but ill try.  i want the practice.

I have the patience needed to only get into the best setups on the daily chart but right now, there is nothing that i like and i've hardly gotten into anything lately.  I have been busy though but i still should have been trading more.  I want to be patient for setups but i dont want to give up money.  i might try to find an equity to trade here and there.  if an index futures ever looks really good i would make that a priority.  maybe i can just trade index futures on the hourly chart with my new work schedule coming and if im using pivot hi's and lo's again.  with that trailing stop i can use stop orders that require a close past.

Exited my ZBU1 30 yr futures trade today.  market bounced well off of its 200 ema and that made my bond futures go the other way.  out with a tiny $31.25 gain.  not sure what percentage my 000'01 gain is worth?  kind of confusing with the bonds...

went ahead and exited my lumber trade for a 2% loss.  i didn't like how it was acting.  now, i think i should either exit using pivot hi's/lo's or ema's as trailing stop.    the ema's confuse me sometimes and the pivot method is easier for me to use.  i remember using it a long time ago with great success.  i had too many possible exits.  it sounds good to me but mainly relying on one makes more sense in the long run.  i will try to exit using pivot highs and lows, a close past a recent hi/lo will make me exit.  this works very well when trading in trends.

only holding 30 yr futures long now.

I do think that universities have brainwashed society into making too many people go to college, spend lots of money, get into lots of debt, hardly learn anything and take classes for degrees that noone cares about.  To get a good job, its just as important to have related work experience in your desired field as your required degree.  Many dont really hear about this concept until their last year of college, as i did.  I felt like i hardly learned anything in 4 years of college.  I feel like i had learned much more out of class and after i graduated.  In college i was too busy cramming and memorizing for tests, none of us cared about actually understanding anything because you didn't earn points for that.  Then when you needed to understand something, you didn't get any extra time, only enough to memorize.  Also, when i began attending college noone mentioned to me about how critical having experience is for getting a good job.  There are people with work experience and no degrees making just as much money as many college graduates.  Later on i realized that 99% of jobs that require degrees also require several years of experience.  You would have to work in a job related to your degree, all through college, just to meet the "minimum requirements" of employers when you graduate.  And if you want to start your own business, school matters even less and experience matters even more.  Cutting back on education is now on the table since the government debt levels are so high.

As Mark Twain once remarked: "I never let schooling interfere with my education".

My lumber trade "did good" today but if it gets any worse i will have to kill it.  My 30 year bond trade is looking great after today.  I already took a nice gain from lumber earlier so if this lumber trade doesn't work it would be like one big break-even trade.  We'll see what happens.

/ZB long entry

Entered /ZB 30 yr treasury bond futures today at 123'26.  I just wanted to jump into what appears to be a strong trend and ill stay in it as long as i can.  Until i am signaled to bail.  /ZB seems to have a lot of room to move up.  I would probably have entered a few days ago if i had seen it.  But if the trades works out, I definitely got the best price.

Im short /LBSN1, so ill see how that trend holds up.  I just jumped into that trade after my /LBSK1 expired, but they are slightly different charts. 

Im waiting for a good futures set up with an index or commodity.  Im mainly watching the SP500 to see if its trend becomes strong.  Its trend was been going up but pretty weak.  I want to trade on the daily chart so ill have to be patient.  Will daytrade for practice if i ever have the time.  I understand how i need to just jump into what i think is a good trend and don't worry about anything.  I will exit if any of my exit signals tell me to.  and thats it.  Jump in, ride it for as long as you can, jump out, tally your profit/loss.

gained 7.2% on my /LBSk1 (may lumber) trade.  exited because contract expired.  immediately entered /LBSN1 to stay short in july lumber.

there was an ES trade that i missed and watched on the 15 minute chart that would have been stopped out today.  hopefully, it would have been one of those trades that just doesn't work sometimes.  Some losers are expected.  I dont mind.

my /LBSK1 trade gained well today.

Rajaratnam was found guilty on many charges.

Missed an entry for /ES on 15m chart.  I was waiting to enter it, but had to let someone else use my computer.  If it works well, this trade could last for a few days.

My /LBSk1 trade is still looking good.  I had been watching the /LBS chart and was going to exit since it was looking bad.  I actually entered a contract for /LBSK1 which looks much better than /LBS.  This made me learn about how many different commodity contracts there really are and how you can trade different expirations.  a june lumber chart can move significantly different from an august one.  Some of the contracts might be hard for me to find setups in since their charts tend to be too new.

I will try to focus on stock index futures, again.  They are simple.  The SP500 futures have all the profit potential i need.

oil is finally crashing a lot today.  thats good for all of us. 

just got out of my EWO trade because i realized it was in a weak trend.  i entered it with a market order this morning.  WHy did i want that trade?  i took a 1.7% loss on it.  should not have entered.

exited my long M6E trade which closed below its 20 ema with a large bar today since oil close way down today.  i got a 0.4% loss.  i entered late on this trade just because i really liked it.  if i had seen this setup at the right time, i would have just exited for a small gain.  oh well.  i guess ill stop entering trades late and just watch them from now on, so it doesnt make my performance look bad.

0.4% lost in WAG.   I just got out of it for a tiny loss since it had closed too far down on hourly chart.  After entry i realized the trend was crappy.  WHy did i enter this?  i dunno.  probably in a hurry to go somewhere as usual.

1.1% lost in XOM.  WOuld have taken a slightly smaller loss than that if i had been able to watch the hourly chart yesterday.  No time yesterday.

I guess from now on, a major bad guy getting killed is another exit signal for the market.  The same thing happened with Saddam Hussein apparently.  I need to just get out of everything because of osama.

2% gain in EWA.  it was closing low enough to exit today, but either way im getting out now.

gained 3.2% from my ADM trade.  osama bin laden was killed yesterday afternoon and today the market sold off a little.  i will go ahead and exit WAG as soon as i can since it has closed well below its 20 and 50 ema's.

I never entered the SP500 futures like i wanted to.  Its already gone up .5% which is $350 and its not even half way through.  You can see in the chart how price consolidated on my resistance line after closing in my area, before pushing up again.  I am long a few stocks, so i should still benefit from the strong hourly trend in the market.  It looks like the top of a channel for the SP500 daily chart is too close for me to enter a daily trade, but the hourly trend is surging for now.

Exited HPQ short trade for a 2.8% loss.  I wanted to see how a short trade would do against the market.  It has done a lousy job so i got out of it.  Going against the market has proven to be pointless once again.  Ill forget about this trade and only trade an equity when its market looks good too from now on.

Most of my current trades are looking good right now.  The market is trying to break up through its resistance right now.  A new daily uptrend could start soon.  There is a nice hourly uptrend right now which is helping my long stock trades.

ADM, XOM, /M6E, /LBS entries

Exited PFE for a 1.7% loss.  It might turn back up but its showing too much weakness for me to stay in it.

A couple of my trades aren't surging towards their targets like they should but no reason to exit them, yet.

Entered ADM, XOM, /M6E for long trades and /LBS for a short trade.

 
 

Forgot to exit PFE before the close, ill get out of it by monday.  it made a large down bar today.  EWA  and WAG are looking good.  HPQ is not looking good but ill hold onto it.  HPQ is going against the market.  I wanted to see how well it would do since its downtrend looked good while the market is starting to push up well.  The move in X that i watched also is not looking that great and it had a nice downtrend too.  Ehhh, i think ill just stick to trading with the market from now on.  Trading against the market trend is tricky no matter what the stock's trend looks like.

Thinking about entering right before close into my no resistance areas.  Sometimes the area works so well that the first close into it is a big gap.  Id rather not miss out on that profit or sit through a temporary pullback.  Or i could just enter the trades that give me an entry at the bottom of the area.

WAG long entry

Exited GGB for .6% loss.  This was an interesting trade for me.  I think i should have exited much earlier and for a decent gain.  It had a large down bar.  I should have exited after the down bar even though it wasnt right next to my target yet.  I need to expect exhaustion after any huge bar.  It would have been a less rewarding exit but it would have shown profit.  Im already wanting to exit after huge bars that close near my target level but now ill be a little more liberal with it.  A huge bar closing in the last 1/3 of the area might be how i'll exit.

Entered WAG for an hourly long trade.

Exited STX for an 8.2% gain.  I got out because its earnings report was coming out this afternoon.  That is one of my exit signals. 

HPQ short entry

Exited my /SB short trade for a 10.1% gain.  It marched towards its target. 

Entered HPQ for a daily short trade.

watching CSCO, INTC, T , ORCL

PFE, STX, GGB entries

My EWA trade pushed up a little today.  I entered PFE for a daily long trade.  Entered STX for an hourly long trade.  I entered GGB for an hourly short trade.  GGB closed far past my preferred entry area and i entered because i had set a market order.  If i had been able to watch the trade this morning, i would either have skipped entering or entered on a pullback.  Ill just hold onto it though. 

I really wanted to short /ES but after looking at it again i thought its hourly downtrend wasnt that great.  It would have been a bad short trade.  The market went up all day.  Now i will look to go long on the hourly chart. Maybe later i will try to go long the market on the daily chart.

I have seen several trades that i missed shoot quickly to their targets like KFT, X and VALE.   Oh well.  As long as i learn HOW TO fish.  I can just eat fried chicken or lasagna for today.

SB futures short entry

Shorted /SB. Trading it on the hourly chart. Hourly trend will probably keep going. Daily s/r is far away and 5 min chart has a big trend that is intact. I made a couple of daytrades on sp500 futures, made 1.25 pts on one and lost .25 pts on another.

Right now many international etf's are looking about the same. Some times different regions trade about the same. This makes it less interesting to me. It becomes harder to find what im looking for. If i could get more comfortable with trading the sp500 futures on a daily chart, then switching over to the hourly chart when the daily is not trending, then i would do that. Just knowing one chart, the SP500 futures, would be nice. Instead of just ignoring it while there is no strong daily trend, i will try to trade hourly trends on it. SP500 futures look like they could be setting up for a nice drop. I will look to short it below 1300.

cleaning house today. got rid of almost all my trades. entered and then exited EWK because it was actually sitting just under a weekly 200 EMA. why am i not following my rules? exited RSX for a 3.2% loss. I think i should never have entered it since its daily trend was pretty weak. i want strong trends. exited /GC for a tiny 0.3% loss since it was not in a strong trend either, should never have gotten into it. exited /HO for a tiny 0.2% loss. I should have exited this trade for a few percentage point gain after its big up bar. The big bar closed right under my target but i didn't exit. I should have just gotten out instead of risking a sell off after getting so close. I need to make sure im getting into strong trends that have been around for a little while. I need to follow my rules. Im watching sugar futures /SB for a short trade. It would need to close down a little more and maybe ill short it. The hourly chart is currently in a solid strong downtrend. I have avoided going long in american stocks which was a good idea. the SP500 has been going nowhere. I have a little string of losses while trying to trade "other markets". What i was considering good daily trends, were actually so-so and risky. I would have done better if i had used the hourly trends. The biggest time frame with a strong trend is what i should be looking to trade in. I think my recent losses are mostly due to me not doing what im supposed to do. I printed out an improved entry/exit checklist which should help.

4.4% loss with DIG. It is an oil and gas etf, so it represents an industry within the american market. i dont like the stock market right now. i think the market pulled this etf down. there is no major resistance on DIG's chart but the market does have some. if im avoiding the american market, then i should also avoid the industries within it. Meanwhile my international etf's are behaving differently.

I think the really good trends i was looking for are in the hourly chart. I would get into the same moves but with more precise entries and exits using the hourly chart. The questionable daily trends that i was seeing were actually great hourly trends that i could have been trading profitable with.

EWK is in a nice trend for an hourly move, i will try to enter it. I missed an hourly move in EWI and i would be getting out of the GUR move right about now if i had entered it and considered it an hourly move.

Singapore is on the left chart and its setting up very well. I would buy Singapore if it pops up a little more. I missed a good entry for Emerging Europe on the right chart. It has been moving up well so far but ill just watch it go.