Play for Friday, July 17th (the last play of the day!)

Good morning everyone!

I am a tad late this morning but I was off the desk from yesterday evening. This is the last play of the day entry: this blog is shutting down. I will be leaving for graduate school at the end of August and from next week onwards I am simply taking time off to get some rest and get things ready for my departure. No more trading for me.

Now, since I am short at 4352, I am going to pull and xTrends kind of chart (aka "Pulling an Atilla"): that is, I am going to post the only chart that support my position :-) and disregard everything else.

See the divergence on the hourly below, as we made higher highs on prices the RSI, ROC and Linear Regression Slope all posted negative divergences. I am sitting here hoping this works...

If it doesn't work, well I'll take the loss and be done with it and realise I was wrong...some pseudo traders that run a popular blog could learn from this.

Short at 4352

This trade has a very wide stop, so be aware of the risk.

I am short at 4352 for a 30% fill, stop at 4430. I am short because we hit this retrace area and my stop is at the 78.6% line.

Be aware though....

That yesterday's run took us in the 50% to 61.8% retrace from the May highs to Monday's lows, an ambush short area. This has occured on more than one index.

Play for Thursday, July 16th

See retrace areas on the chart below, there are two areas into which to look for strength and go long:

• 4260s to 4280s: this is the preferred area, we also have the 7 day weighted moving average in the 4270s.
• A larger retrace could takes to the 4200s - 4230s, an area that has provided resistance recently.
  

In either case, a small countertrend on the short side could be taken, but I would wait for a confirmation on intraday charts: yesterday's strength was impressive and retraces did not occur even on the smallest timeframes.

Short at 4346

For a 10% fill only. Stop at 4375.

I am taking this just out of curiosity and for entertainment purposes. Last night, after ES re-opened higher, the FTSE was quoted exactly at 4346, then it stalled, and after four minutes went back into the 4260 (on my broker at least). Probably a system error...but still I am just too curious not to try on on a small position :-P

Update: well got stopped out of this entertainment trade. Damn....no magic number from yesterday's freak episode. Now flat and out and watching, recommend the same.

Staying flat

We are barely making 50% retraces on the 1 minute chart to jump on the long bandwagon for scalps.

I am sure plenty of permabears will seek shorts at these levels: let's if the 4300 line holds at all, remember the triple top calls I was making back in May? In theory, the 4300 line should now act as resistance, but we have seen this penetrated to the upside already.

Best chances are to look for weakness close to 4300 for a quick short and/or be on the lookout for strength IF (big if) we retrace down.

I am staying flat for now.

Play for Wednesday, July 15th

Given last night's jiggles, I will remain cautious today.

Daily momentum is looking north, while weekly momentum is looking south. We could range, we could trend, we could do a number of things: however, given daily momentum the bias is to look for a long entry.

However, given that we did not really break the 4290s (my broker went mad for 4 minutes last night), we could still seek weakness and retrace down to the 4180s to 4160s (a good spot to find strength). Otherwise, let's see if something can be scalped: again, I'd remain cautious on size until a proper trend or range has been re-established.