Wild Wed

Hey Guys, sorry I haven't been around much this week, my girlfriend of 5 1/2 years broke up w/ me last week so I wasn't really in the right state of mind to be trading (we actually just got back together today so everything is good now). Anyways I felt good enough to trade Wed as is, thank God, because we had the perfect, perfect, once a month setup, and let me tell you, Mav loaded the boat, & this 1 trade made my whole week. So let jump right in, here is my review of Wed trades and why I took them. I'm just gonna go over the trades I took from 9-12, because I dont want to get into my other trades I took later in the day so people dont get confused, because once we move far enough away from the IB, my style takes on a different look (more of a trend trader) and because its gonna stretch the chart out and make it hard to see.

Red line: Opening price
Yellow line: IB high/low
Purple line: Yday high

Trade 1: Long 98.27
My Thinking: After the first 2 min of trading we could only push down 7 ticks under the open, we had a gap above us, and yday vpoc just above us, so once we traded back through the open and I saw it hold, I took the long and basically rode it up to fill the gap.

Trade 2: Short 99.29
My Thinking: The inventory # came out (dont even know what it was, & dont care) but we spiked through the IB high, then dropped right back through it, where I hit the bid, and rode it back down 50 ticks to the "scene of the crime" were we trading at right before the #. I actually though it was gonna go lower from there, but then grinded right back up the IB high where it stopped me flat.

Trade 3: Long 99.32
My Thinking: If we were gonna head lower we shouldnt have traded back above the IB high, so I took the long. Yday high was just above us here, so it was an area I was watching very close and knew it would be key for the rest of the day. My best out on this trade was again only 50 ticks, because we dropped back under Tuesdays high where I went flat.

Trade 4: Short 99.47
My Thinking: If it was gonna hold and go higher, I was expecting a quick bounce off of Tuesdays high, but instead we just chopped right on it for 5 min, this is very telling, this is where the all important factor of time comes into play. If it was gonna continue higher it should have just re-tested it real quick, then moved away, but it did just the opposite, so I took the short right at Tuesdays high.

Trade 5: Added Short at 99.30
My Thinking: I hate hate hate adding to trades, but this setup was the once a month 95% probability setup, and here is why: we had every reason to hold this area, we had Tuesdays high, Tuesdays close/gap at 99.46, and the IB high at 99.30, WE COULDN'T HOLD ANY OF THEM! Just not holding 1 of those areas is usually enough for me to make a trade, and all 3 were within 20 ticks. As soon as we dropped back into the IB I was licking my chops, and loaded the freakin boat short just in front of the IB high, and knew I was wrong if it traded back above 99.46. Two min later we puked right back down to the open, then later we dropped to Tuesdays low (97.10) where I closed the trade out for 250 ticks! (Then right after that, I got short again when we lost Tuesdays low to the downside for another 200 ticks, unreal day.

Let me know if you have any questions

Monday Naz trading prev days range

Just a quick post on trading yday range in the Nasdaq today, will try to do one on oil later if I have time (was def not as easy a day in oil, but we still got nice setups later in the day).

Pretty cut and dry here, we auctioned below Frydays low, were I took the short, got 1 scale off, then was stopped flat and flipped when we auctioned back into Frydays range, where we got a nice trade off. And where did we auction right back to when we failed to hold the breakout of Frydays low? If you answered todays VPOC you are correct.

Wed 6/8/11 OPEC

Hello tweeps, a little better volatility today, and we got some nice high probability setups today. The first two trades, I was obviously just playing yday range, took a loss on the first trade when I tried to short at yday high, but then flipped it quickly for a nice trade.
I think the only trade that probably needs explanation is the long at 100.50. My thinking was, we had such bullish price action up to that point, bounced off the composite vpoc on this range we have been in for 2 weeks twice (buying value) we had basically a perfect bull flag on the 5 min, had 5 higher highs on the 1 min, basically everything was saying higher, so thats why I took the long there. Then the last trade, took the short because we dropped back into the IB and basically moved right down to todays vpoc, pretty textbook. Let me know if you have any questions.

Yellow lines are IB high/low
Red line is opening price
Purple line is yday high

-Mav

Trade review of Monday 6/6/11

Hey tweeps, you guys know the drill by now, this is just a review of the trades I took today, and why I took them.
Chart notes: Red line is opening price, yellow lines are IB high/low, Longs are green print, Shorts are red print

Trade 1: Long 99.20
My Thinking: The 99.08 area had been key from Friday, as we bounced off it 3 times, we then traded back through opening price, so I took the stab long (only 1/2 size) w/ a stop just under opening price looking for a test of the low volume node (LVN) we had at 99.85ish, and maybe get to the composite high volume node (CHVN) just above it in the 100.20 area.
Result: Got lucky and we moved straight up from there, scaled at 99.60, 99.85, & came 15 ticks from closing me out at 100.20, but I stopped out when we lost the lvn at 99.85 and couldn't make it up to the chvn (which I really expected us too)

Trade 2: Long 99.18
My Thinking: I was really just looking for about a .50 cent bounce here when it appeared we had bounced off the open, and we had a fairly poor high.
Result: Got 1 scale off then was stopped flat, hindsight, I should have taken the short when we rejected 99.85 on the re-test and couldnt auction up to the CHVN aka we were selling value, and when that happens we almost always go lower.

Trade 3: Short 99.18
My Thinking: We had range extension lower, and actually got back into the IB, but I figured the risk was larger on long attempts at this point. This is a trade that I was only going to give about 7 ticks & if we pushed through and held the open I would have flipped it.
Result: We auctioned back out of the IB which was what I really wanted to see, but I only got off 2 scales as we bounced right back up into the IB where I closed it out.

Trade 4: Long 98.99
My Thinking: Yall should be familiar w/ this play by now, if were gonna go, were gonna go, were not gonna keep coming back into the IB aka failed breakout so we "should" return to value (vpoc). I also saw some nice size buy blocks go through on the tape, so I front ran it a little bit right in front of the IB low.
Result: Textbook, failed breakout, return to vpoc where I closed out at the LVN we had failed at earlier in the day at 99.85.

And that was it, not my best day tick wise but for a Monday in front of the OPEC meeting, I'll take it. We should see some nice moves later in the week. It depends on what the OPEC folks have to say, but I think we see a very nice push down at some point, price action the past week has been pointing lower, hence why I have a nice position in SCO (the double short oil etf). Any questions/comments/ideas tweet me or just post them on here.

-Mav