Friday, February 20, 2009

Some Measuring Sticks

Here is a five minute bar chart of the day session e-mini trading. The question I am considering is whether or not this market is showing enough strength to indicate that its short term trend has turned upward.

Yesterday's price action gives us three measuring sticks we can use to make a judgment about this. The last rally on the way down to this morning's low measured about 10 points, and the e-minis have already put in a 10 point rally (blue rectangles). So far there is no price indication that the trend has changed. From Wednesday's low to yesterday's early high the e-minis had rallied about 19 points. A similar rally from here (red rectangle) would put the market at 781 or so, just a tad higher than yesterday's close. Should we see such a rally I think the odds will be shifting in the bullish direction but it still would not be definitive evidence of a turn.

The final level to watch today is the midpoint of yesterday's trading range, roughly the 786 level. Any strength above there would be very bullish. Similarly, on Monday any strength above the midpoint of today's range will be a bullish indication.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carl I am disappointed with you, you should BUY gap down and ask question latter, especially with this down move is getting long in the tooth. 830 is the target.

Anonymous said...

There are three kinds of longs.
1. After dow fell 30% jumped in--thinking it cant go down anymore.
They have been taken out

2. The previous poster--buy on gap downs..patient--they will be taken out next.

3. The sidelines. By now they are so
relived..that they wont get back in soon..

Dow 6000 --now who would have thunk it..
Tally Ho!!

Anonymous said...

It doesn't feel like we'll break the November trading low, but I think we'll get so close it will scare a lot of people. Probably a spike to 750 or the 740s....and that's when to pounce for a buy trade. Not much risk there, either, since you put your stop at, say, 740, just slightly beyond November.

May you live in interesting times, indeed.

John M

Anonymous said...

Dear
Carl,
yesterday i was in my air-craft,i remembered S&P when we was landing.
i think we are going deep down....target 560 soon(my estimation is in the 2nd week of april),gaps will be bigger.
Regards
R.J.

Anonymous said...

Carl I am telling you this down move is almost done, it has only one more day at most, you better start buying here. I am starting to build my long since this morning.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 11:28, except for the stick rallies caused by the PPT, which invariably fail, reversals are slow and they take their own sweet time. We will get plenty of buy signals before that will happen.

Meanwhile, staying out of the market may not be a bad idea.

Right now, it is late to short and too early to buy, IMHO!

Nevertheless, we all must do our own things because, after all, that's all we CAN do.