Stock Picks Recap for 6/13/11
With each stock's recap, we will include a (with market support) or (without market support) tag, designating whether the trade triggered with or without market directional support at the time. Anything in the first five minutes will be considered WITHOUT market support because market direction cannot be determined that early.
On a dull day in the market, most of the main triggers didn't have a chance.
AUXL triggered short (with market support) late in the day and literally didn't go more than a couple of cents either direction:
OVTI gapped under the trigger, no play.
QCOM triggered short (without market support due to opening five minutes) and didn't work:
In the Messenger, Rich's GS triggered long (with market support) and didn't work:
SINA triggered short (with market support) and worked:
AMZN triggered short (with market support) and worked for a point:
Rich's WFC triggered long (with market support) and didn't work:
His AAPL triggered long (with market support) and didn't work:
In total, that's 5 trades triggering with market support, 2 of them worked well, 3 did not. First day under 50% winners in several months, and of course it comes on the lightest volume day of that period.
Forex Calls Recap for 6/13/11
Actually, a decent session for everything but the EURUSD, which was fairly contained. I was half size for the session due to the European Bank Holidays, which obviously played a role. See EURUSD below.
Here's the US Dollar Index intraday with our market directional tool:
New calls and Chat tonight, back to normal size until the CPI Wednesday.
EURUSD:
Triggered long at A and stopped. Added a call in the morning, triggered long at B, but it was very late, made a little move, and closed at C, right at entry:
GBPUSD:
On the other hand, the GBPUSD made a nice move through the UBreak level:
Forex Calls Recap for 6/13/11
Actually, a decent session for everything but the EURUSD, which was fairly contained. I was half size for the session due to the European Bank Holidays, which obviously played a role. See EURUSD below.
Here's the US Dollar Index intraday with our market directional tool:
New calls and Chat tonight, back to normal size until the CPI Wednesday.
EURUSD:
Triggered long at A and stopped. Added a call in the morning, triggered long at B, but it was very late, made a little move, and closed at C, right at entry:
GBPUSD:
On the other hand, the GBPUSD made a nice move through the UBreak level:
Stock Picks Recap for 6/10/11
With each stock's recap, we will include a (with market support) or (without market support) tag, designating whether the trade triggered with or without market directional support at the time. Anything in the first five minutes will be considered WITHOUT market support because market direction cannot be determined that early.
From the report, FOSL triggered long (without market support) and worked enough for a partial:
AMLN triggered short (with market support) right at the close, didn't have enough time to do anything:
SEIC triggered short (with market support) and did not work:
In the Messenger, AMGN went in the Messenger twice. Both triggered short with market support. The first did not work, the second one did:
BIDU triggered long (without market support) and did not work:
Rich's AAPL triggered short (with market support) and worked great:
In total, that's 4 trades triggering with market support, 2 of them worked, 2 did not.
Forex Calls Recap for 6/10/11
Another nice winner to close the week after an early half-sized stop-out. See EURUSD below for the 140 pip winner to close the week. New calls and Chat Sunday. Here's a look at the US Dollar Index intraday with market directional lines:
As usual on the Sunday report, we will look at the action from Thursday night/Friday, then look at the daily charts heading into the new week, and then look at the US Dollar Index.
EURUSD:
Triggered very early long at A (half size for early); INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_category`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES stopped. Triggered short at B, hit first target at C, lowered stop, closed out final piece at D for 140 pips:
Stock Picks Recap for 6/9/11
With each stock's recap, we will include a (with market support) or (without market support) tag, designating whether the trade triggered with or without market directional support at the time. Anything in the first five minutes will be considered WITHOUT market support because market direction cannot be determined that early.
From the report, NVDA triggered short (with market support) and didn't work (this is different from the call in the Messenger):
FMCN triggered short (without market support) and didn't work:
In the Messenger, Rich's AMZN triggered short (without market support due to opening five minutes) and worked:
His VRTX triggered short (with market support) and worked:
His NVDA triggered short (with market support) and worked enough for a partial, we used this as an early entry to the main trigger off of the report:
AIG triggered long (with market support) and worked great:
GS triggered long (with market support) and worked great:
Rich's VMW triggered long (with market support) and didn't work:
GS triggered short in the afternoon as a separate call (without market support) and worked some:
In total, that's 6 trades triggering with market support, 4 of them worked, 2 did not.
Forex Calls Recap for 6/9/11
One winner and that was it. See GBPUSD below. New calls and Chat tonight, back to normal size.
Here's the US Dollar Index intraday with market directional tools:
GBPUSD:
Triggered long over red UBreak line, hit first target at R1, second half stopped:
How Futures Contract Roll Impacts Trading
I get a lot of questions from people about what "futures contract roll" is. Today, we're going to discuss it.
Futures contracts expire quarterly. Just like options, the expiration is the third Friday of the month. The expiration months are March, June, September, and December. Each contract has a different symbol, so if you take the ES (S&P e-mini futures contract) and add the last digit of the year.
Thus, ES M1 is the June 2011 ES contract that expires a week from Friday.
Traders typically trade the contract that is coming up for expiration next because that is where the action is. In other words, the December contract might be trading already, but it has almost not volume and is essentially illiquid. Hedgers use that contract. Traders don't.
However, traders also don't wait until the day of expiration to start trading the new contract. They don't want to risk owning the contract through delivery. It is widely accepted that on the Thursday one week prior to expiration, the volume shifts to the new contract.
So, let's have a look at how this works. Here's the ES JUNE contract showing 5-minute bars and trading data for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week:
Notice that the biggest volume bars are just over 50,000 contracts per 5-minutes and it closed at 1277.50 on Wednesday.
Now, let's look at the September contract over the same two days:
Notice that there's barely any volume. The best volume bars are 2500 contracts per 5 minutes. However, notice that it did start to pick up Wednesday, especially at the close. Also, notice that it closed at 1272.00.
So here's the problem. At some point the traders want to shift into the September contract. That occurs generally today (Thursday). However, the pricing is different. If we were to take and calculate a Pivot series based on the June contract activity on Wednesday, here's how it lines up on the June contract for today's action (we're about halfway through the day):
The Value Area makes sense. The Levels are what they are, but notice that the volume is clearly lower today.
Here's why. Take a look at the September contract now:
Clearly, the volume has moved. But, notice the Levels on that chart. Since the ES September contract is moving basically identically to the June contract, but is 5 points lower, the Value Area is clearly wrong. The Pivots, also, don't match up.
So you have a case here where traders are now starting to trade the September contract, but technical tools like the Pivot series and Value Areas should be based on where the volume was YESTERDAY, which was the June contract, and that is a different set of numbers.
Why does this matter? Because this phenomenon discourages technical traders from trading as much on Thursday because their tools are wrong. By tomorrow (Friday) the data will be based on the September contract because the volume is all there, so things like the Pivot series will line up once again with the contract that traders are trading.
What this means in short form is that on the Thursday prior to quarterly expiration, you typically get a lighter volume day IN THE STOCK MARKET IN GENERAL because technical futures traders have less of their tools, and futures trading also drives the stock market in many ways. And sure enough, today is the lightest volume day of the week for stocks.
Put that in the file of "things every professional trader should know."
How Futures Contract Roll Impacts Trading
I get a lot of questions from people about what "futures contract roll" is. Today, we're going to discuss it.
Futures contracts expire quarterly. Just like options, the expiration is the third Friday of the month. The expiration months are March, June, September, and December. Each contract has a different symbol, so if you take the ES (S&P e-mini futures contract) and add the last digit of the year.
Thus, ES M1 is the June 2011 ES contract that expires a week from Friday.
Traders typically trade the contract that is coming up for expiration next because that is where the action is. In other words, the December contract might be trading already, but it has almost not volume and is essentially illiquid. Hedgers use that contract. Traders don't.
However, traders also don't wait until the day of expiration to start trading the new contract. They don't want to risk owning the contract through delivery. It is widely accepted that on the Thursday one week prior to expiration, the volume shifts to the new contract.
So, let's have a look at how this works. Here's the ES JUNE contract showing 5-minute bars and trading data for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week:
Notice that the biggest volume bars are just over 50,000 contracts per 5-minutes and it closed at 1277.50 on Wednesday.
Now, let's look at the September contract over the same two days:
Notice that there's barely any volume. The best volume bars are 2500 contracts per 5 minutes. However, notice that it did start to pick up Wednesday, especially at the close. Also, notice that it closed at 1272.00.
So here's the problem. At some point the traders want to shift into the September contract. That occurs generally today (Thursday). However, the pricing is different. If we were to take and calculate a Pivot series based on the June contract activity on Wednesday, here's how it lines up on the June contract for today's action (we're about halfway through the day):
The Value Area makes sense. The Levels are what they are, but notice that the volume is clearly lower today.
Here's why. Take a look at the September contract now:
Clearly, the volume has moved. But, notice the Levels on that chart. Since the ES September contract is moving basically identically to the June contract, but is 5 points lower, the Value Area is clearly wrong. The Pivots, also, don't match up.
So you have a case here where traders are now starting to trade the September contract, but technical tools like the Pivot series and Value Areas should be based on where the volume was YESTERDAY, which was the June contract, and that is a different set of numbers.
Why does this matter? Because this phenomenon discourages technical traders from trading as much on Thursday because their tools are wrong. By tomorrow (Friday) the data will be based on the September contract because the volume is all there, so things like the Pivot series will line up once again with the contract that traders are trading.
What this means in short form is that on the Thursday prior to quarterly expiration, you typically get a lighter volume day IN THE STOCK MARKET IN GENERAL because technical futures traders have less of their tools, and futures trading also drives the stock market in many ways. And sure enough, today is the lightest volume day of the week for stocks.
Put that in the file of "things every professional trader should know."
Stock Picks Recap for 6/8/11
With each stock's recap, we will include a (with market support) or (without market support) tag, designating whether the trade triggered with or without market directional support at the time. Anything in the first five minutes will be considered WITHOUT market support because market direction cannot be determined that early.
From the report, GNTX triggered short (with market support) and worked a little:
SNPS triggered short (with market support) and worked:
FLIR triggered short (without market support) and didn't do much:
LNCR triggered short (without market support due to opening five minutes) and worked:
VPHM triggered short (without market support due to opening five minutes) and worked:
JDSU gapped under the short trigger, no play.
In the Messenger, NFLX triggered short (with market support) and didn't work:
BIDU triggered short (with market support) and worked for over a point:
Rich's MOS triggered short (without market support) and didn't work:
Rich's JPM triggered long (with market support) and didn't work:
His SINA triggered short (with market support) and worked great:
GS triggered short (with market support) and worked:
In total, that's 7 trades triggering with market support, 6 of them worked, 1 did not.