Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wednesday PM Notes - Time to Stop Thinking

Following up on some of the morning comments, and to satisfy some of my own curiosity, I wanted to review the morning's 1 minute ES and TICK charts. The first charts below show two price vs. TICK divergences, the first of which I nailed and the second of which I missed. In the pre-10am sequence, the divergence appears as an angle difference between the two price lows and the TICK lows. It's subtle, but there and immediately rebounded two points. The second one (the infamous 11:14am fish that got away), was a screaming divergence and immediately dropped a full 2 1/2 points from the price peak. (Click on the chart to enlarge. )




As I've said before, I actually often prefer two minute ES charts which is what I was watching at the time, but am showing the 1-min charts here for clarity. You can also see how sloppy the one minute "turn" off the high was, and even though 3LB did eventually turn back down, I couldn't sense a clean entry.

Good traders know that divergences like these by themselves mean nothing many times and can be totally useless in a trend day. But couple them with the expectation of a wildly fluctuating market after a trend day or two, and they can be a powerful tool.

Looking to Thursday morning, I have absolutely no clue what to expect now that today has played out. It may very well be one of those "see what develops" days.

One final note for the day. I am humbled by the attention this blog (which is really a personal experiment) has gained in a very short period of time. I peeked at recent blog traffic stats tonight, and the trend over the last few weeks is startling. If you're new to this, I encourage you to go back to the early July posts and at least skim the weekend material to gain some perspective of what this is -- and isn't -- about.

As I've said before, I've found this to be a great tool for me to capture my thoughts and "talk to myself" -- because that's how I really view this. It's essentially one man's journey to recognize and overcome his own limitations once and for all, and in doing so, pursue a "Bamboo Tree" paradigm shift in his performance. At the end of the year, I'll open the full book of 2008 performance to myself and those joining me on this odyssey. Yet that's for then, and this is now.

I do know one thing ... we are all capable of doing far more than we think we can. I'm simply trying to stop thinking.

1 comment:

nocved said...

Hi Don

I was long coming into that divergence, even with my finger on the mouse I sold at a discount. That snap back was fast! Great chart and thanks for market lessons.

Best
Tom