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Long Seagate Technology Holdings (STX)
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Topping Is A Process
I was saying on Thursday morning that predicting the direction on a cycle trend day was a very chancy business and so it was on Thursday. Despite tiny up volume at the open on Thursday the low of the day was in the first few minutes, and while it wasn’t a trend up day, buyers dominated the tape until the close. Thursday was an excellent example of a cycle trend day that wasn’t a full trend day in all respects, very much including the unexpected direction.
Moving onto today, the first thing that I would note from the SPX 60min chart is that the very important 50 hour MA was gapped through on Friday and was retested as resistance at the open today. That’s in the 2040 area now and a decent break back over that would open a retest of the current rally high at 2056.60. That would most likely make the second high of a double top though it might go a little higher in that event of course. If the 50 hour MA holds as resistance today, then on a break below Thursday’s low I would have an H&S target in the 1990 area, and would be watching the possible larger H&S necklines in the 2005 and 1970 areas. SPX 60min chart: (more…)
Final Week of Q1
Good morning, everyone. I hope you had a pleasant long weekend.
There’s absolutely nothing on the calendar today, although there are a few morsels in this, the final week of the very weird Q1 2016. Yellen is speaking tomorrow (always a dicey prospect), and there are a couple of big Chinese data points on Thursday. The “biggie”, of course, is the monthly jobs report, which will probably show the nation marching toward 0% unemployment as the formerly idle hands of the country find themselves cheerfully flipping burgers or serving low-grade semi-digestibles at the likes of the Golden Corral. Good luck out there, Slopers.
Feel the Bird
This is my beloved candidate, with whom I am well-pleased.
A Trader’s Journal (by Davis Ramsey)
In my travels to Slopefests and Expo’s over the last year I’ve had the pleasure of talking to many traders – some are profitable, some are not. My first question when someone is revealed to be in the latter camp is do you keep a journal. The answer is almost always no. I can’t say that a journal is absolutely required for long term success, but most successful traders I know keep one.
There is a difference between an effective journal and a useless one. I had never kept a journal until I started trading full time in June 2013 but I can say without hesitation I wouldn’t have made it this far without it. I didn’t have any hard plan or strategy – initially I was simply doing whatever I thought looked worth doing. I kept track of every trade I took and organized the data by strategy, instrument, chart pattern, even by time of day. It didn’t take long to hone in on what the most profitable categories were – then it becomes a matter of doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t – recognizing of course that this can and will change over time. (Clicking on any of these images will yield a larger, more readable version in a new tab). (more…)
