February 12 - CLF - WFC

I would say that there is a lot of fear in the market right now and the action was choppy until the last hour. What the hell happened in that last hour?
Anyway, I missed the morning action (again). But these two trades gave me something. CLF is not a very high grade setup. I am basically going against a stock that is making higher lows and higher highs (intraday) but the failure to hold above RZ and the shooting star against RZ encouraged me to participate.


WFC is a bit cleaner, Weak sector, gap down, struggle with ORL, and a NR bar (doji) against the ORL. Unfortunately, WFC printed another doji 2 bars later and that doji foreshadowed a reversal.

January 9 - POT - FWLT

FWLT was a perfect reversal hammer at RZ. This a Trader X type of setup and it actually feels good to find one in real time and be able to execute the entry with success. Partial at PDH and then I was called for an emergency job meeting so the exit was a bit rushed :-(


POT was a bull flag setup at the base of the PDH. It was nice and orderly and it took off after my entry. I partial at the ORH (and R1) to protect my profit and exited after the shotting star in the 15m chart.

January 7 - DUG and SU

I am back!!! It feels like 2009 started today for me!
I am unable to upload images to blogger (for some reason), but here are my trades:
DUG: Entered at 7/5. With that bullish bar the bulls invalidated the bear move on bars 2 to 4. I exited at the 38% extension of the fib drawn from the PDL to the ORH.
SU: Entered at 10/5. Price tries to recapture the PDL, but the bears take it away on the 10th bar. Exited at the doji bar that takes place at $22.68. The whole sector seemed due for a pause so I exited in full.

Edited to add the charts.

December 30 - JPM

JPM gapped up slicing the PDH at $30 (round number and an important PP). It consolidated for a few bars at the ORH and pulled back just to touch the $30 line printing a perfect doji reversal bar (trigger bar). I sold at the first sign of weakness because of the way the market behaves during the holidays. A more reasonable strategy would have been to allow price to retest the ORH.
JPM was trapped between $30.60 and $30.25 most of the day and went it finally broke, it provided a nice entry. Sold at $31.00

December 17 - SRS

I was mostly studying charts today but I saw this setup and I put some money into it.
SRS gapped into the previous day low and it lingered there for a few hours. In fact, since it wasn't doing anything, I decided to set an alarm (in eSignal) close to the PDL. BTW, I find alarms to be quite useful in these cases, but many times I even forget the functionality is there. SRS broke the PDL with a solid WR bar and high volume and it retraced just a bit to touch the PDL forming a quite bearish candle that I used as my trigger bar.
The first blue arrow marks my exit and the second one a potential second entry. I was really, really close to entering a second time, but I chickened out. Too bad!

December 9 - X (again)

My X trade yesterday did not work out well, but the one from today did

Price rallied above the PDH and retraced to the 34MA (which acted as support) where it printed a lower high. Price bounce from there but it hardly made it above the previous high. Also the volume on the second push higher was not very large so I was curious to see how price would react to the 34MA. This time the MA did not hold, and a few bars after the initial thrust X printed a nice bearish bar just below the MA. I entered on the break of that bar’s low andI held my position until EOD.

Note: This past weekend I started playing with the 34MA in my 5 min chart and all I can say at this point is that it is another interesting point of reference. Right now I am experimenting with it. We'll see if it stays.

December 5 - Q's - BTU - UAUA

The hardest thing about the Q’s trade was the psychological struggle of seeing the market going up (after the initial move down) knowing that the unemployment data was the worst in over 30 years and thinking all the time that the market should be really going down. Anyway, I was able to get over that and traded the chart. And that was really a success in itself.
The rationale for the trade is simple. An initial thrust down and a steady climb up hat makes higher highs and higher lows. Finally, price breaks above PDL, retraces back to the trend line, steps up above the PDL and prints two IBs, with my trigger bar being a NRIB. I exited at $28 considering the RZ, the 50EMA and 5DMA (in the 15min chart). Anyway, price sliced through that area. And, as it usually happens, I felt like a fool for not riding it all the way. But hey, nobody wins them all.

BTU broke down below PDL and at 11:00am started climbing up slowly, but steadily. The two sets of offsetting bars (point A and B) told me that buyers were in control of the action. Just before 2pm BTU makes a decisive move above PDL and then it retraces to test the trend line, and it proceeds to form a small base. I set my buy-stop order a few cents above the top of the base and my protective loss-stop at PDL.

UAUA did not work out. I saw a picture perfect bull flag and I entered on the break of that flag. But I was shook out because price came back to test PDH. I exited because I thought the whole thing was a head fake (especially when I saw that full body, WR red candle at 12:30) , but UAUA ended up making a very nice move to the 38% fib extension (without me).
If you know or have any theories about this failure, please let me know.

December 4 - HAL

I discovered this one at the end of the trading session. I entered short on the break of a very weak, bearish bar that is sort of hanging from the previous day low line. Although my target was the 38% fib extension, I exited as soon as I detected buyer strength. And I should have gone Long at that very moment, like Jamie did with the e-mini trade yesterday.

December 3 - RIO and WFC

My charts are a bit cleaner now and although I will continue tweaking things, this is a bit more comfortable for me.
- the doted acqua lines are the previous day high (PDH) and previous day low (PDL)
- the black lines are the value 0 and 1 of the fib extension (in my charts when the lines coincide with the PDL or PDH, the black line hides behind the doted acqua line)
- the red lines are the -50% fib and –1.38 fib retracement
- the green lines are 38% and 100% fib extensions


I took two trades with RIO. The first one was a long trade after a head fake at the ORL. After printing two offsetting bars (the second one with long lower tail) RIO printed two NR bars. The second bar was also touching (although a little bit lower) the ORL. Exited at the first sign of weakness around at the –50% retracement area.
The second entry was short when RIO printed a spinning top right below the –50% retracement area. I exited at the first sign of strength.


The second trade was a failed one and I played an offsetting bar right at PDH. I am going to study this chart a bit better because I am not sure why it failed. One possible cause is that WFC had already tested the ORH at noon then made a lower high before testing it again. So one way to interpret the chart at the point of my entry could be to see it as an inverted C&H. Another thought is that price in fact reversed at $25.50 (around 2pm), and that is pretty close to the ORH (ORH was $25.64). So in fact the real support area was the ORH, not the PDH.

November 24 - PBR

PBR gapped above the previous day high, but immediately dropped below the ORH (previous day). The 5^th bar was a NRIB below the ORH, but I decided against this entry because I thought the upslopping moving averages from yesterday’s move may act as support.

PBR bounced against the 20EMA and rallied above the ORH (previous day) but again dropped right away below that important line. My entry and exists are marked on the chart.

November 18 - YHOO

Yahoo gapped up but could not really make a solid move above the ORH. At 11:30 price broke below the ORH with a solid red bar and then YHOO printed 2 IBs. I entered on the break of the second IB's low and exited at the 50% fib retracement line. I plotted my fib ext lines from the previous day low to the ORH following Trader X post: Fibonacci lines, indicators, and the Holy Grail.