Friday, August 28, 2009

Friday Notes - 30 Years

No, I'm not talking about the 30-Year Bond or Yield, rather I'll be heading to my old hometown later today to attend my 30th High School Reunion ... thus the early post.

Highlights from yesterday and today in the tank include:

- Needing to immediately shift gears this morning prior to the general U.S. Session open -- due to Intel's supposed "what else is new" increased revenue guidance -- which caused us to forgo the early plan to buy approaches toward 1030 for a retest of overnight highs and replace the plan with short the gap and scalp bounces (since the expected follow-through of yesterday's trend had already occurred). Overall, I thought we adjusted well, but we definitely had to do a quick re-group after the news hit the wires at 9am.

- Recognizing yesterday afternoon's short squeeze was the effect of "stuck" shorts that didn't respect the early morning drop and lame late morning attempted trend follow through who had to scamper for cover. In doing so, I put out a rare "do not short" ban to the team until ES traded to the 1032s. I say rare because all traders trade uniquely, even if sharing the same bias -- which is the Jellie's mission -- yet it was clear based on experience that a squeeze was in the making, despite what I call "sucker" technical signals that feigned weakness on climbs.

- And feeling something "click" inside my head yesterday afternoon as we seemed to get a glimpse of fall market rhythms with strong pace that allowed me to enter longs and add at each tick increment ... in multiple trade sequences as the market moved in very nice rhythm that provided for low-risk additions ... something that's been markedly absent in this one-shot market where most moves are brief, if existent at all. So "buy, buy, buy, sell, sell" was the name of the game yesterday PM which started a cheek-to-cheek market dance that lasted from midday yesterday to noon today and included this morning's textbook DAX 2nd hour morning breakout to new highs. We'll review the DAX sequence in Monday's upcoming Webinar and yes, I was up at 3AM trading Europe as I'm beginning to recommit myself to the discipline and lack of sleep of 2008-Early 2009 as I gear up for the next run. More on that later.

Yet for now, it's off to see buddies I haven't seen for 30 Years. I wonder if any of them trade ... and if they do, I wonder if they're on the other side of my trades.

Depending if I was on my game at the time, that might not be a good thing ... for me or for them.