Market soars on “better than expected” news.
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Surprise surprise. Better than expected news. Market soars 3%. To be honest the news today I don’t think was even that great. It was good news, cause it wasn’t bad news, but I don’t see how it justifies a 3% broad market move. Did everything suddenly look like everything will be better just cause China’s PMI was .5 better?
I feel stupid trying to read the news and understand the market reaction. I’ve fallen into that trap where I think reading the financial news is useful and provides good information.
It doesn’t, and if anything, the only good the news is good at doing, is exploiting it’s ability to manipulate society through media. I had a hunch that the market wasn’t going to get hit today from today’s news. Way too many “analysts” and “economists” have suddenly said bearish things. Too many media people saying market will go down. Sentiment was suddenly unified for the downside which makes it easy pickings for the market. The news today was pretty flat news, it wasn’t outstanding, it didn’t really have that much wow factor, but the market reversed like as if there was news that cancer has been healed.
People argue with me that it was cause “the price was priced in”. No it wasn’t. No news is priced in anymore. No news is remembered more than a week from now.
I need to do myself a favor and remind myself every morning to NOT read any news and articles about the market. It is infectious and alters my ability to trade with my true instincts. Based on how the market has completely disregarded any bad news and the bots go into overdrive buying anything possible when the S&P is near 1040, I doubt we’re going to get much or if any pull back. The rally today was too euphoric, too strong. Maybe the unemployment news will hinder it, but it’s Friday, and the market seems to twist all negative news to “better than expected” outlooks. Maybe we’ll get a dip there, but that will definitely be a “buy the dip” situation as I bet next Monday we’ll be staring at SPY prices over 110.
Renko charts starting to proove handy for me.
I have really reduced the amount of ‘noise’ I read into for when I trade the markets. I try my best to not read the news or make predictions based on my immense knowledge in economics and international markets (sarcasm, I’m an engineer, this isn’t my background). I realized, whatever news there might be, will be reflected by the price action, and if I miss the ‘ideal’ buy in because the fundamentals said so, too bad so sad.
What I’ve noticed is, as long as you know the trend, follow the trend, and understand where support and resistance levels are, you can still profit on the market. What’s tough is, with the volatility and market manipulation today, even regular candlestick charts are getting riddle with shit I don’t want to see.
As you can see, finding support resistance has been quite useful here. Renko charts simplify price action as it’s only based off the ATR and the closing price of the period (depends on what you choose, but this is the default setting I use from stockcharts.com). It creates new blocks as the price action closes over the price levels, but doesn’t show the up and downs that the price actually does in between.
The chart I posted above is the SPY 30min renko I’ve been tracking for about 2 months now. It’s not 100% right all the time (nothing is), however it proved useful in enough paper trades to come out with a fair profits. Obviously the green arrows I show are buy signals, and the red are sell signals. There were a few fake outs here and there, but since you’re buying or selling at points where reward/risk is favorable, losses can be kept minimal. The problem I have with these charts are probably when it comes to trading options, as the renko chart is somewhat time irrelevant. There are time and dates on the x-axis, but only to show when all new blocks were created due to price closing higher. If the market moved really quick, it will actually draw all the blocks, as one date, but each block still remains the standard size. Another aspect to remember is the charts are affected by the ATR, so how the chart looks might slightly change day after day, shorter the ATR you use, the more drastic your charts will adjust.
Try it out, test it out, but don’t depend on it.
How rich must Ben be!
He must have the best performing portfolio out there. Somehow Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke seems to be strutting his stuff up in the clouds, sipping tea with the mighty gods.
I didn’t think this man could say a few words and influence an entire stock market by almost 1.5%. That’s a pretty nice influence he has there. Actions were supposed to mean more than words, but whatever he says seems to mean more than anything else in the entire world.
Don’t know what I’m talking about?
Intraday market action today. Market was getting hit hard with intel revising it’s outlook, then Ben speaks and the S&P moves almost 15 points. Ya, okay.
EDIT: Combined with the “better than expected” attitude, the Ben Bernanke effect managed to close the markets up almost 2% from when he opened his mouth. To make things more frustrating, Monday China will release it’s PMI report but people have been putting in some pretty negative expectations. It’s a little game the analysts like to do called “lower the expectations, so when it beats, everything is gravy”. Monday’s have been golden if you play the upside, combined with buying at anytime the market was in the red today, Monday will likely bring some decent profits.
I wonder how low analysts will keep lowering their expectations and how long the market continues to perceive “better-than-expected” as outstanding news when things are getting “worse than ever before”. Things are lined up pretty good for a nice rally next week.
Day’s like today push me closer and closer to the edge of ditching the stock market once and for all as I lose respect for it’s validity as a open market.
Hah, yet another comical last hour rally.
Someone please try to tell me the market isn’t manipulated.
Do all traders and buyers sit and wait till the last hour? Everyone sits and waits for the clock to change hours?
Ya… right.
Computers and high frequency trading algorithms own the market.
On a side note this market is looking pretty weak going into September, which isn’t good considering September is historically a pretty lousy month. Impossible to predict the future though, just have to follow the trend, and until we' break 105, we’re still range bound and not in a down trend.
SPY going into Monday 8/23/2010
Alright I’m back. This site has been fairly quiet as my internet has been down for almost the whole week, thanks to my crappy service from Telus. It’s okay though, I only have a measily 5 RSS subscribers and only 10 visits over the past week anyways. It’s actually tough generating traffic in this niche, well at least I find it to be pretty tough.
Anyhow, lets take a look to see what might be in store for us this week.
Last week was not a good week for the bullish side of things. If you take a look at the weekly charts, the bulls look like they may be running out of kool-aid to keep this market sugar high.
We closed ever so slightly below the 50EMA and couldn’t break and find support over SPY 110.
The P&F 30 Minute broke that upward trendline I mentioned a few weeks ago. 
Two trend charts have confirmed that 110 has held as resistance last week 
Although thinks are showing pretty bearish images in the last few charts, there isn’t quite enough to really start shorting things. We’re still in the range between 110 and 106.50 ish and until that is broken, it’s hard to make any accurate calls.
So far the ichimoku charts have still held their usefulness for me. I have these charts on probation as I try to confirm that I like what their signals provide for me. Below I have the 30 minute and daily ichimoku charts that both show that there was still no bullish signal on the SPY yet. 
I have had some success so far with the ichimoku, as I used it for a Canadian uranium miner (UUU.TO) and been having some good gains so far. Now to the hardest part is to decide when it is time to take my profits. I saw the volume really coming into the stock as the chart broke out over the cloud, and used that as a reason to buy. It has held so far as a pretty good reason. On the weekly, the chart broke out as well.
Since so far so good, I may plan on shorting the SPY if it breaks below the cloud clean on some volume, and try for a retest of the 102ish lows.
I still think we’re going to see some SPY prices below 100 in the coming months, just a matter of time.
Free ISO Mounting Program
The other day I was looking for an open source free CD/DVD image mounting program that is straight up simple and gets the job done. I ended up just going back to using Alcohol 120%.
But if you want a freeware app to do this, WinCDEmu looks like it gets the job done!
A look into SPY going into Monday 8/16/2010
Volatile markets indeed. Last week we just couldn’t wait until the next Monday would come along so you can make some cash. Last week was a terrible week for the bulls and it was big red flag of possible things to come.
I really couldn’t understand the rally up to the point it got up to in the first place, so I wasn’t particularly surprised at the sudden drop. Chart wise going into this week, things could get a little tricky.
Below you can see that on the 30 min chart and how the bulls haven’t been really able to muster a good bounce yet. The close on Friday wasn’t good, but remember, the odds are around 85% that Monday will gap up, so I wouldn’t expect a big hit Monday morning.
On the daily’s, it’s really in no mans land. It crossed the 50 SMA two days ago and that has held as resistance. Really it could either bounce back up to 110 or come back down to 106ish.
It is option expiration week so that must also be considered as Friday comes near.
On the weekly chart you can see we’re just right back to that 50 EMA. If we crack that again I don’t think we’re going to get a nice 5 week bounce back over it like we did in July. If we crack under 107 I’m likely to load on the puts because I think we’ll be in some nasty business.
Finding spending-saving equilibrium – Part 1
This is the first part continuation from my “Where is the Equilibrium” post. I’ve been really trying to weigh which hobbies and joys have the most/least self gratification, so I can ignore some for now or in the future.
The easiest way to really complete this is to fill out a simple table with the activities, and it’s positive and negatives.
| Activity | Positives | Negatives |
| Ball Hockey/Ice Hockey | - Provides fitness and energy - I suck, so whenever I feel like I’m getting better, it’s a sense of accomplishment |
- Chance of injury (I broke my ankle once playing hockey) - Season fees - Equipment costs (once you have everything, they won’t require replacement too often since I’m not that intense) |
| Photography | - Life long skill that can be used forever (even though technology in camera’s will change) - It’s a fantastic feeling when you capture a beautiful photo - If I become good enough I could sell photos as stock photography for residual income - I can decorate my house with my own work |
- Very expensive hobby, my last lens cost me $1300. |
| 3D Modelling | - I have always been fascinated with being able to 3D model things, and make them look like reality. - Really gets the creative juices going - Work that I create could potentially be used as a piece for my architecture portfolio |
- Can get incredibly frustrating - Seems to be a tough learning curve for me - Requires a LOT of time. - When I get away from using the free sketchup, software and computer hardware is very expensive. |
| Graphic Design | - Stimulates the creative side - Can possibly use it to make T-shirts - I’m decent at it already - Take’s less time to complete something than 3D modelling - Can help with architecture portfolio |
- Sometimes can be boring - Not the best at it cause I run out of ideas quick. |
| Model Building | - Relatively inexpensive - Provides a nice piece of displayable work around the house - Hobby that can last forever - Can build cars that I will never possibly own. |
- Very time consuming - I suck at it - Even more time consuming |
| Cars | - Challenging and physically a lot of work. - I love driving and feeling changes in the driving experience is awesome - Can only do this crap when I’m younger, responsibilities as I grow older will not permit this (And the girlfriend will probably not approve =[) - Awesome learning experience, and to learn more about cars and how it all mechanically works (Reading about it isn’t quite the same) |
- Very expensive - Could be time consuming depending on how many seized bolts you find. - Easily become very frustrating - I’m not entirely knowledgeable so any problems require external resources and possibly more money to fix |
| Snow sports | - Physical activity - Exhilarating - Great social activity to hang out with friends. |
- Costs add up - If I buy my own equipment the initial costs suck now but could pay off from not renting depending how often I go. - Full day or full weekend events |
| Web Development | - I like constructing websites and trying to make it grow. - Challenging - An outlet to express random opinions - Potentially can make simple residual income to fund other hobbies - Cheap thing to do because open source is awesome. |
- I’m too inefficient as a programmer - A lot of work to do everything on my own - I have too many different ideas its hard to focus on anything. |
As you can see from this chart I like to do a lot of things. I could easily have listed a good 5 other things that I could or would or want to do. Learning to break dance so my girlfriend doesn’t laugh at me anymore. Go back to kung fu so I can still kick ass. Learn to build furniture and woodworking. Unfortunately there is only so much free time available after the workday to actually accomplish any of these. Even worse is that I’m sitting here trying to decide what else I can cut from the list.
In my next part of this process I will contemplate and try to come up with which activity has a higher priority based on its positive and negatives, but to not sacrifice my financial goals.
When to purchase anything
Lifehacker, one of my favorite sites wrote an interesting article of when the best time do any shopping for particular items would be throughout the year. From Cameras, Electronics, Tools and Appliances, the chart is simple but makes a lot of sense.
It’s always good to know when to buy items for less, it allows you to budget time and money accordingly so that when the sales come you are prepared and ready to jump on the opportunities.
Chart review – APH.V
I thought I’d take a quick look at how APH.V has been doing since it’s last run up. From a quick glance it clearly looks like that Alda is losing its momentum and settling back right now. I had picked up more shares just before the 0.55 resistance was broken on the last run, so I’m just barely over break even with those shares right now. I would like to see Alda to hold and find some support here in the 0.55 range. When I look back the sell signal at the 0.70 range was pretty easy call and I probably should’ve sold to lock in some free shares.
If the 0.55 support can’t hold then I would really like the 0.46-0.48 range to hold. It must in order to maintain my confidence in the near future for this stock. This range is basically where the share price will meet the 50MA and the previous resistance line.
If the 0.55 appears to not have any support I’ll likely have to unload some of my position and lock in some gains and try to rebuy at a lower price. I have been doing this since the 0.20 level and really wish I had on the last two spikes as they were easy to play. From the weekly perspective the uptrend still looks good and nothing too excessive.
The h1n1 scare is tapering out of the news and I won’t be surprised to see the shareprice for Alda dip back and consolidate for awhile, possibly to the end of the year, but ramp up as Olympics near. That will be the big moment for Alda to see if it can really get itself out there and market itself to the world when it is given the opportunity.
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Recent Posts
- Market soars on “better than expected” news.
- Renko charts starting to proove handy for me.
- How rich must Ben be!
- Hah, yet another comical last hour rally.
- SPY going into Monday 8/23/2010
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