I promised a post on just one thing that I use in my trading. This is but one very small piece of the "puzzle" but I find it VERY useful and you may as well.
As I am predominately a day trader, this is actually an extension of the daily Opening Range (OR) into longer time frames. If you are not familiar with trading using the OR, feel free to email me at Dutch302 at gmail and I will send you a pdf on the subject, called Trading The 10 O'clock Bulls.
What we use here is the monthly opening ranges and the six month opening ranges. The monthly opening range is defined as the absolute high and low of the first trading day of each month. This is regular session only. No data from pre-market or after hours trading is used. Why should we even look at this? Main reason, it is objective information.
1. It happens twelve times a year, every year!
2. It is a calendar specific defined price area on a chart.
3. Key players tend to respect and react to it, just like they do on the daily opening range.
4. It can be easily identified on all stocks and in all markets.