1-22-2008 Get Ready

 

Going to Be Rough

Well so much for those USD & IYR trades. I don’t know what they’ll be opening up at this morning but I’m sure that it will be below my stops closing out both for a loss. Where they go after open is anyone’s guess. One direction they won’t go is sideways. Either big investors will step in seeking buying opportunities giving the markets a London Bombingesque bounce or fear will win out as it did in the overseas markets and drive the indices ever-lower.

There is some small consolation in that that the EUR/GBP trade paid off. I’m going into wait and see mode for today. The picture should be a little clearer after all the emotions die down a little bit and I can go back in and analyze how people truly played their cards. Either way, there’s going to be opportunities; just going to have to wait and see what kinds of opportunities they are.

WilyTrader Video Test Run

I wanted to test this video player from YouTube which is supposed to scan my site and offer up relevant videos to this blog’s readers. I’ll give the hampsters behind the scenes a little more time to work their magic because the last time I checked it was showing a video about chess. Not that chess isn’t interesting, just not very topical.

1-17-2008 Good News – Bad News

 

EUR/GBP & IYR up, GLD & USD down

OK, bad news first: I got stopped out on my USD (the ETF not currency) trade yesterday which really didn’t come as that great of a surprise to me given how thoe trade unfolded the past couple of days. The sliver-lining to this trade now is the potential to jump back in it for an even stronger snap back to the gap from 3 weeks ago that appears on all the major indices as well. The record volume on yesterday’s USD drop could indicate that a little bit of accumulation is happening and I’ll be watching carefully this morning to see if I should jump back in with a close stop under yesterday’s low.

There has been some massive unloading of Gold here in the past couple of days on 2x its typical volume. This may very well signal that the great run is coming to an end. Luckily I sold 75% of my holdings last week, but am waiting for a divergence or much clearer signal to unload the remainder.

The EUR/GBP trade is performing very well and has almost reached it’s target. I have taken profit on half the trade and brought my stop to Break-Even. I’ll watch this closely today as well.

One market I’m watching closely today is Mexico. The overseas markets that have been hammered recently are up today in Premarket trading with Asia leadin the way. Then I took at look at this Mexico ETF and had to smile. Look at that tail from yesterday and what has happened each other time over the past year that such a tail was printed. The only possible drawback this time is that teh volume isn’t clearing 10-million like the other times…. should be interesting to watch.

1-15-2008 Market Thoughts

 

Citigroup’s Taken Another Hit, Surprise, Surprise

Hardly a day goes by where we don’t hear about a bank somewhere taking huge write-downs due to their poor business decisions. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to this morning’s news about Citigroup’s $18,100,000,000 wrtite-off. Here’s what I hope will happen: The markets will open up lower as they try to grapple with the meaning of it all. Then, as the jitters calm down and they realize that they’ve already largely discounted such news from Citigroup and thus making it not really that much of a shocker anyway, they’ll rebound and continue on with a short-term bullish correction.

As of right now though, my much anticipated Bullish correction has turned out to be a pretty boring sideways consolidation :-/ Yesterday USD popped up over 7% but that came on the heels of a 5% decline on Friday, So I’m slightly ahead on that trade. Unfortunately, yesterday’s positive day was accompanied by lower volume than what typically accompanies reversals. So if I don’t get stopped out today, and at least one of my targets is not hit, I’ll be taking a really good look at how I will need to adjust my positions heading into tomorrow.

But enough of that, let’s take a look at the FX Markets for a change.

I have been paying close attention to EUR/GBP for a while now and finally entered this Short EUR/GBP trade this morning. What has really been so eye-catching is the steep slope of that trendline, it’s practically a 45-degree angle! You might see this every once in a while on a shorter timeframe chart, or for a few days on a daily; but this has been ongoing for a month now…very impressive little run.

Usually when a pair rises gradually, you can expect it to decline gradually, with many warning signs…sort of like the rumbling earthquakes before a volcano. For EUR/GBP though, I am looking at a more abrupt turnaround than this and thus have entered on a little bit more aggressive line than I usually do. The RSI is way Overbought and has been for some time; this often means that the pair is very likely to continue to rise. It was the couple little things on the other indicators that caused me to enter.

The ADX is starting to roll over, the MACD is sporting a psuedo-divergence, and Price is in the sell zone of a mini-FFF. But what sealed the deal was when I zoomed in on the 60-minute chart and saw a very, very clear MA-crossover, the likes of which haven’t been seen in nearly a week. When the MAs last crossed, the pair saw a 200 pip pop on the heels of an already extended up-trend. I am looking for a minimum of 150 pips on this current trade and am keeping my stop tight above the most recent high.

As for the other pairs, I am really trying to stay away from the US Dollar at the moment as I can’t figure out what it’s doing. GBP/USD is in a pretty strong towntrend. USD/CHF, USD/JPY, & EUR/USD are all in a very ambiguous spot right now that could either see a divergence & reversal occur, or a breakout to new lows (or highs in the case of EUR/USD).

That’s pretty much it at the moment. It looks like the Pre-market & Overseas markets are currently starting the day a little under water. Let’s see what happens.

WilyTrader ETF Watch

 

Introducing the WilyTrader.com ETF Watch

OK, so I have finally taken a few minutes to compile and make pretty the list of Sector/Internation/Market ETFs that I monitor when performing my Top-Down analysis.

In addition to being broken into the three categories, I decided to go ahead and color-code it as well to provide a quick and easy overview of what it is that I am seeing in the markets. The color-coding schedule will have to be a work in progress since this is my first day using it and all, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

Cell Background Color : Is used for assessing my sentiment of the security. (Red = Bearish, Green = Bullish, Yellow = Uncertain/Caution)

Text Color : This is used to denote those securities which I currently hold. (White = I currently own security in at least one account)

I am sure that more customizations will be added to this later, but it’s a start.

As you can see, I am currently trading USD, GLD, & IYR. I’ve been in Gold in one shape or another over the past few years and it has been far and away one of the most profitable trade I’ve ever taken. Now though, I am in the process of reducing my exposure to it somewhat and locking in my profits. Its not that I’m convinced a reversal is imminent, but I do believe that GLD will top out between $95-$100.

I entered USD on Friday and promptly got my teeth kicked in. This will probably stopped out (currently set @ $49.50) but we’ll see. If this does continue to run down I’ll keep a really close eye on it for another potential, and even better, long setup.

IYR has been a good trade so far. I expect it to continue to snap back to towards its SMAs in the ST but a lot just depends on what the markets do today as Friday’s session was very much one of directional uncertainty.

And for those of you who are waiting for an update on the FOREX markets, those will be coming soon…I’ve been away for way too long and am getting caught back up as quick as I can.

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