The Student Loan Ranger

A little bored this week, so just been scanning some UK charts - something I don't do much these days.

Last week I was talking about LSE, WMH and WSH. WSH jumped out nicely on Friday with 4% gains. LSE did more or less the same thing, and WMH is just consolidating. These aren't big stocks, and I would be hesitant to trade them - but I'm trying to convince myself that there are still profit opportunities in the FTSE.

Anyway, keep an eye on these this week. I haven't done a CB in yonks, but oh well!

LAND (Land Secs)

I'm negative about this stock, don't like the divergence as it reaches a prior support and new resistance for the third time. The 3rd attempt scenario is the only thing really going for it here I think. 1390 is the key value here, and a rejection of this could easily being back 1150.

Long on a break of 1400 though, and anticipate the retest. The 200EMA is not on this chart, and is currently at 1445, so perhaps take profits at this price if it breaks.

YELL (Yell Group)

I like YELL, but only as far as 135 before it re-tests the bottom, or 110 if it clears that first. I like the MA cross and the distance from the 200 (the blue line is the 100). Realistically, the only position I'm looking at with YELL is shorting it as it backs away from 135.


WOLS (Wolseley - not sure if the EPIC is right)

Doesn't get much easier than this. Cup and handle break last week on this one, and I'm looking firstly for a 100EMA break, and then a surge past horizontal resistance at the nice round number of 500 for entry with a tight stop circa 495.


Really need the trendline, 100EMA and resistance break on this one before entry, and I figure they will all come on one rally day this week. If it fails 500, then expect a quite fast pullback. 300 is too obvious there, maybe 400 or 450. This is ripe for both a long and a short really, and the added bonus of the 500 mark will be fuel to our position fire. Tight stops and nice profits please, medium target 575, longer target 650.

The other stock I am tracking is Logica (LOG?), which has broken 130. I expect this to re-test 150 - but beware the retrace to 130 somewhere in the mix. It is nicely above all the moving averages, and a pullback would be an excellent opportunity given the short distance between the 200EMA and the 130 support. I'll shove the chart up a bit later, I've got stuff to do.

I am also watching WMH, LSE and WSH this week too, but very passively.

Check out the CME trade, I mentioned a short at $343 with a target at the breakout price of $335. Perfection trade.


Just got back and had a quick scan. AAPL got shot today, GM dumped off yesterdays highs (and double top) at $10.50 and is current $10.05. This level continues to hold up in spite of the markets volatility.

Having a horror week here. Every position I've had this week has given me a loss, but every position I've been in has ended up going my direction.

My system is so risk averse that it is costing me money.

Charts later. TSO is to the US as RBS is to the UK.

Good GDP numbers today in the US. All of this oil crap about this hurricane is total rubbish, it is just a little storm, and the media is sensationalising it to get the speculators to push the price up so the fat cats at opec make some more money.

Can you tell I'm on tilt again this afternoon?

Update 15:56

Lost on CME, tight stop and bad entry. This area now at $343 looks like the better area, given the divergence on the MACD. I won't trade because I'm on tilt there, but watch this space for an update on CME later.

Update 16:00

Just gotta post this CME chart, it looks absolutely ripe for a short right now. I'm looking for $335.


Midnight update:

I was well off the mark with CME, it only dropped to $338 after, and closed the day at a double top circa $344 after a strong rally into close. But I'm totally cool about that, because I wasn't in it.

Also, the new Batman film is really good. See it if you haven't already.

Learn a lesson from every trade:


I knew I was right about TSO, but my entry was horrible. I even said it was a value entry at $16.40 on yesterdays post, but didn't enter because I was on tilt. Holding my original position would have put me on over $350 at the moment.

Lessons:

• Stick to your gut shot
• Loosen the stops (I have to learn to do this)
• The trade is all about the entry in this market

Really struggling again today with my timing in getting back from college. 15:30 is just too late to catch the good entries. I'm also shifting my focus into sectors and indices as they allow for better risk management and lower commissions.

Not much happening yet, oil is smashing it's clout around. UAUA is dumping, and GM is still holding $10.

I just realised that TSO popped to new highs and is now at $18.35 which would be profit over $450. A lesson learned indeed!

From my swing list this week, AMD is getting close to entry. Nice move in LSE today, waiting for confirmation tomorrow. NVDA struggling to hold and showing some weakness, while the other techs SDK and TXN look Ok. Other UK stocks showing irrelevant movement.

Market looking OK today, shame about some missed trades, the 14:50 to 15:10 window provides the premiums.

Bad TSO trade:

Missed the double top because I was just getting back from college. Blatant sell signal seeing how it was also a touch on the downward trendline. I went long looking for a supportive 200MA (not on chart), but it failed and I bailed out. Good exit because it crashed again. Really should not have entered on the 200MA given the lack of a definitive short term trend.

The ideal technical entry based on this chart, is $16.40 or $16.25 depending on which double bottom you use with stops at $16.325 or $16.20.

Seems I got back at a really bad time as I missed a good support touch and subsequent $4 pop in X.

GM still holding on to the $10 range which is now a value entry price given the workable supportive range from $9.9 to $10.05.

By the time I get back from college on Tue/Wed/Fri I will have missed the most important time for trading (3pm-3:30pm my time) the nice setups. I will just have to be a lot more patient.

Not much else happening, my swing trades from Sunday are still shaping up OK - with none thus far giving a signal either way yet.

Market getting mauled today. Not a single sector even close to being even flat on the day. Lost on 2 positions this morning, small losses in F and TSO. Both were relatively good setups that just ticked at my stop so got out. TSO has dropped another 40 cents from exit so that was nice. I had a very hard stop on F but it just looks way too bearish to be holding just now.

Elsewhere I'm sizing up GM if it drops a little more to $9.92. Also tried to short 350 UAUA at $13.1 but broker said "the share was suspended" so couldn't and it hit $12.2 within the hour. TSO is at a support zone at the moment, but I get burned whenever I enter TSO so I think I will pass that trade up.

CMC complaint part 100:

That's only on 4 S&P contracts, and is only pennies. But that's another lie from CMC. They should really say they are "Nearly commission free, but not quite".

I'm about 3% into scanning the daily charts in the US and UK markets as I shift my focus back to longer term charts in lieu of the new year at college starting next week. It is unbelievabley bearish everywhere. I'm not finding anything worth trading on either side yet, but there are a few interesting little patterns and prices shaping up in a few of the stocks I cover intra-day.

Potential swings in the next 2 weeks so far;

• TSO looks like it is going to re-test the lows of the $14.80 area as it is stuck in a very strong downward trend.
• AAPL on a breakout of $180 will be very interesting given recent resistance
  
• NVDA gap fill recovery after a retracement?
• PAYX showing early signs of descending triangle formation?
• RFMD nice gap support resistance channel
• SNDK beaten down for support at $13.10?
• JNJ to retrace to breakout price at $69?
• Double bottom on TXN around $24

And 3 UK stocks:

• WSH actually looking good for a bounce off 450
• LSE approaching double bottom
• Same setup as LSE on WMH

I'm gonna check these out in more detail just now across a few time frames and I will post anything interesting here later. This could end up as a Crystal Balling thread.#

Monday morning update:
Will post some charts later. I've been thinking about going back to swing trading a lot lately, and for some reason I'm not really looking that forward to it. It will be less stress, but after trading intra-day so much the transition could be difficult! I love 5 min charts so switching to dailies or 60min will be like watching paint dry.

Didn't get behind the desk till after 4pm today. Big $20+ pop in CME this morning, looking good as a medium term hold once it breaks the daily pattern.

GM looking good at support at $9.90, and I'm short TSO at $16.32. Little risk in this short, seems to have fallen off support, and despite the market being up TSO is down at new lows for the day.

Will be spending a lot of time this weekend going over some longer time scale charts. I start back at college next week, and I get Monday and Thursday off for day trading. I will probably trade larger positions through swing setups, as time management will be vital for me this year.

The hourly charts are what I'm going to be looking at. I will still be only trading US stocks and sectors - the only stock I am even considering for the UK is Rio Tinto on size and risk ratios.

Not sure how many charts will be worth posting today, potentially GM but not likely.

19:30 update:
You will not see an easier set up than this. Perfect bounce right up to the profit target without looking back on GM.

I am not waiting for signs of this topping here, as this is actually a triple top not just a double.

Oil soaring pre-open today, Fannie and Freddie in another meltdown. Expecting a big dump in financials and a lot of money moving into materials and oil today. I'm watching RIG, SLB, X and OXY on these plays long. Also watching Nucor and Alcoa.

A nice ascending triangle on MA 5min chart is coming to a head, and support resistance levels on drops over at RIMM, BIDU, GM and TSO could be worth playing later in the day. TSO and GM should really be selling off today if oils momentum continues - however I still view $9.96 as strong support on GM so a break of that could see a sizeable drop.

Today should be a good day to make money, but the market will be moving pretty fast and it will be important to watch oil. I will continue to practice the ultra risk:reward mantra today as it has been successful since I've started to adopt that entry strategy.

15:15 update:
FRE on absolute fire this morning, up 35% from the lows of the day after gapping down 8%. That's an easy $1000 if you had enough plums to get into that this morning. I definately did not!


Gap up in the oil stocks have retraced and are attempting to push higher. Alcoa showing nice strength but still a little too close to the downward trendline.

Not much else showing up this morning yet.

15:30 update:
Really need to start programming an effective alert system. Twice in two days I've missed good moves off prior sup/res areas on UAUA. These types of entries offer very low risk.


19:00 update:
Wow - what a boring day. No real action as most stocks just grind along forming ridiculously elongated patterns (RIG 5 min, pennant all day). Calling it a day, this week has been bad for excitement.

Going to miss the start of the day due to a hospital appointment, and because of that it could be a very interesting day. I'm holding GM into open tomorrow, which is bad enough in itself. However it's made worse by the fact that CMC markets don't allow you to create stop or limit orders when the market is closed - can you believe that? Of course you can.. they're crooks.

My mental stop at $9.9125 has now become a non-existant stop, which even when I can place the order, can only be as tight as $9.82. These are two easy methods that bookies use against you - they say you should not have your stop closer than a few percent away - but that completely eliminates the risk management gospel that they preach in their seminars. Absurd!

Anyway, apart from my GM woes my hitlist is the same as yesterday. I've also found a neat little tool from the NYSE website called MarkeTrac which although delayed, looks quite good.

I won't be back from town probably until 5pm GMT so hopefully the market has stabilised and is showing a few clean entries. Fingers crossed that GM rockets up 4158% too.

15:45 update:
OK GM is moving up so that's all good. My TSO trade from yesterday would have been a nice winner, but I missed the signals there while away. X and RIG showed some strength at open but have tailed off. I'm not seeing much else on the board, waiting mostly to see if GM will get passed $10.11 cleanly with a golden cross and some nice other indicators. Seems to be stalling somewhat at this range today.

15:55 update:
I did not expect this from GM;

I took an early exit from the trade for a confidence boosting profit. I didn't expect that rally at all, and although I believe GM will climb higher, I've got to have a celebration today to get over last week.

17:25 update:
Excellent exit in GM - it's dropped back below my entry price. I'm putting up a chart of GM at the moment because it's interesting. We have a battle between support and indicators. I think every indicator on there says sell, but GM is at the $9.95 support area which has proved to be very strong for the past few days.


Not on the picture but there was just a nice hammer after the selling so that's 1-0 to longs against shorts in this war.

Another tricky day ahead of us here. Lots of selling and some bearish patterns forming in the indices, we will see what happens when this intra-day consolidation is broken. There are a couple of stocks approaching support, but on a day like today this might not hold.

Today I'm watching: GM, CME, BAC, RIMM, TSO and RIG.

BAC has slumped off support and the financials are dragging the rest down. I'm looking for relative strength but I'm not really finding anything.

UAUA from yesterday consolidated out of the flag and has hit $15.50, quite a bit off the target and is currently forming a double top on the 5min. Elsewhere there aren't really and potential trades. Check back later for updates and charts.

16:30 update
Really quiet day today, lots of selling and oil is holding a lot of stocks down. Oil stocks are looking pretty good. I'm really watching GM closely at the moment as it looks like it is showing early signs of a bottom at $10.05. As yet there are no other signals in that besides the consolidation.

CME had an aggresive $5 rally before striking the 100EMA and reclining - however the fastlines have crossed and I'm waiting to see if it holds at $339.

UAUA is about the only representation of decent TA I've seen today;

Nice bounce off previous resistance and moving average for a better than expected rally. Textbook measured move on the failure of support too as it forms a tilting head and shoulders formation.

18:30 update:
I lost a tiny amount on a TSO trade just now, really didn't mind losing that one as the risk reward was essentially 1:20. Only thing annoying about that trade was the amount of time it took my CFD broker to close out, my stop was .69 and my "fill" was .66. CMC markets are a joke when you're trying to close out a trade - they want to extract the maximum amount possible from you, so in a moving market they will just hold back your order. Anyway..

I'm currently waiting for a similar setup to pan out in GM. I took both positions on support and a double bottom. Oil is rising this afternoon so I fear it will be 2-0 for the losses today and 3-0 for the week. Seem to be struggling for follow throughs this week. My trades in GM and TSO are both longs under the MAs so that explains the losses, but with favourable R:R I can deal with the defeats.

Here's the entry/exit on TSO, at the moment at $16.50 so a nice exit


The ratio is effectively 1:30 then in that case, and not 1:20 as I mentioned earlier. If you manage to trade these setups and stick to your targets and stops, in the long run you will be a successful trader.

As I talk GM is trying to break the 50EMA for the second time. I'm riding this one out with a stop at $9.9125 after entry at $10.01 with an initial target around $10.50.

I'm also watching with interest the recovery in the financials post lunchtime. Nice rounding bottom in BAC which I'm looking to get to the opening price before the closing bell.


20:00 update:
GM still stalling around the $10, and it's now a case of evaluating the trade going in to the close as I'm not convinced I should be holding this kind of stock overnight at the moment.

TSO is currently staging a mini-rally, however nothing else oil related is showing up on my other charts so I wonder what's causing the ramp. I am not convinced it will hold given the lack of other rallies in stocks like GM, UAUA, RIG and OXY at the moment.

Elsewhere BAC found resistance at the previous support (green line) and has sold off $0.40. I'm now waiting for a retest of the resistance or a double bottom at around $27.85.

I keep checking back over at UAUA every hour and it is continuing to impress me with the concentration of technical analysis indications in such a short space of time.

Very boring day here, I was watching CME for some action - and entered, closed the trade soon after for a small loss and good thing too because it went into meltdown and has dropped $9 since I sold out.

The only thing decent on my monitor was UAUA, with a textbook rally off the tri-factor of the 200MA, horizontal support and trendline support. Here's a chart that also shows the current bull-flag formation. This move was mainly based on the oil price slumping, and because of that I'm not convinced of it's technical credibility but we'll see what happens.

This chart is UAUA, for some reason I actually wrote on GM.
The numbers I'm looking out for on a bull flag failure are $14.20 on prior resistance support. If the flag holds and there is a nice breakout over $15 then my target is $16.10.

New lines part 3. Was getting bored of the old look and it was getting tired. Still not convinced about the colour scheme so expect that to change soon.

I didn't trade on Thursday and Friday due Wednesdays misfortunes with my hand, but I'm preparing for the week ahead. Haven't spend too long looking at charts, but when I do I'll post up anything interesting up here on Sunday.

Vital lesson here from today:






I experienced the nasty side of trading today - a loss of control and a violent reaction caused by anger. There is a hole in my wall, and I after getting an X-Ray I have suffered a Boxers fracture in my right hand, breaking the bone in the picture.

I lost size on GM after a huge sell-off after a 15-minute 'delayed news /slash/ conveniently timed' downgrade. I lost on X after it moved nicely above the 200EMA, confirmed, and then for absolutely no reason, and I suspect because my broker made it, it gapped down intra-day by $1.50 and stopped me out.

After a bad trade in BARC this morning I'd had enough of this crap and lashed out at my unfortunate wall. I had the foresight to hold a cushion to the wall when I hit it, but I must have been angrier than I thought, as I still punched through the wall and broke a bone.

To rub salt in the wounds... well I bought X at $132.84 and I got stopped out a stick later on a no reason intra-day gap down at $131.5. X closed the day at highs at $138.75 [$236 profit].

Also the trade I didn't enter in RIG closed at $131.5 after highs of $132 after choosing X over RIG when RIG was $126.8 [$188 profit].

The moral of the story:

1. Loosen your stops
2. Stick to your gut feeling
   
3. Do not lose your temper

I gave away over $250 when I should have made near $450.

Charts tomorrow..

It's a real snooze fest this morning, nothing on my radar is even close to an entry point at the moment. I've rotated off BP and EZJ and have drafted in Xstrata this morning. I needed to diversify a little bit off the oil plays today as oil was yo-yo'ing yesterday. Xstrata have good exposure to mining and metals which were buoyant yesterday and it opened up 2.5%. It's the only thing remotely close to an entry as it tails off the early move near resistance with a bull flag at the moment.

Elsewhere, BAY is showing negative divergence on similar lows. It is a long way below even the 20EMA so could be a low risk trade, I'm waiting for a nice candlestick there.

Due to the quiet market I've had an opportunity to scan through some charts in the hopes of finding something decent for a 2-3 day swing trade. I came across Dairy Crest, which I talked about over a 2 week period maybe about 3 months ago. Check out this sensational comeback with a picture perfect cup and handle breakout..

It looks even better on the actual price chart, but the Heikin-Ashi with the great colour scheme is better for the web. Interestingly, the Parabolc SAR more or less called the bottom of the move and gave the 'long for a retest' entry before the engulfing, MA cross or MACD. I just checked the stochastics, they gave an entry the day before the SAR did. I wonder if DCG will struggle at the current price range which has been resistance on the right hand side. This chart is an excellent lesson in technical analysis and pattern spotting.

This move occurred after I changed my trading style from Swing to intra-day. When I start back at college, these are the kind of setups I will be waiting for. The huge sell offs in May and June due to oil have recovered and re-tested. It will be interesting to see if the bottom is re-tested, which could results in some choppy swing trading. I had to change to intra-day from Swing as there was no bottom in place to work off longer term.

Midday update:
Terrible day today, everything is flat. Lost money on BARC with too tight a stop. Both of these factors have brought me to the final decision to stop trading the UK markets. They are an absolute joke and don't deserve my attention.

I will get a nice lie in at least.

Usual hitlist today, although I'm expecting a sizeable sell off in the US today - which is why the UK market is so nervous today.

I am fast discovering something very very annoying:

• Every stone-wall trade I don't enter ends up being a £400-£800 winner.

• Every trade I do enter reverses instantly and moves to either daily highs or daily lows.

In times like these it seems absolutely impossible to lose money in the stock market. So what just what is wrong with me?

Afternoon Update:
Had a nice trade in GM, textbook breakout that I caught a good portion of. Sold out a bit too early, and then failed to re-enter on the perfect retracement and subsequent move. Also taken a long in NOC, very strong resistance at $70 was broken this morning and I entered shortly after the break. Nice retracement and retest of $70 before a great continuation move. It's currently at $70.79 and I'm looking for $71.25.

Oil looking weak again, and the financials are just trying to break even now. C and BAC hovering at support but under the heavy MAs so not considering a long in those yet.

Post US lunch update:
Checked out my NOC, was struggling at $71 all day so took profits there for a low risk $85. GM has been nice today. Oil has been up and down all day, but most of the market is showing decent relative strength and holding quite well.

Probably calling it a day for today, pleased with how it went except for my BARC trade, I just was not thinking!

Big gap down in BAY today, with EZJ gapping up. Barclays has had a big drop under the 200EMA and BP has rallied to highs today and is currently forming a double top circa 529 and is a potential short to 525 - risk reward is not good enough for me to consider an entry though.

Looking forward to a clean day trading the US markets.

I looked over the past weeks 5 minute chart for Barclays and applied the same entry/exits using the Parabolic SAR and I got the following results:

This indicator is a sensation using the Heikkin-Ashi with a 100EMA.

Check back later in the day for some intra-day charts, I'm just waiting for a nice entry at the moment in the UK sector, but I expect the bread is in America today.

US Mid-market action:
I have learned an important lesson today: Do not have friends over while you trade. I missed sensational entries in TSO, ABK, UAUA and GM because I was playing pro-ev with a mate for a while, and then another came round shortly after for a little bit. These trades would have totalled well over £1200 closing at the current prices (and probably in excess of £1500 closing on first exit signals).

Annoyed, but I forgive them lol. Anyway, 2 trades so far today, one good, one terrible. Here they are:

Alcoa long - this was a total disaster entry, my exit was nice as I limited losses and stuck to my plan. Retrospectively, looking at the chart I must have been thinking about shorting but convinced my brain to go long. The setups on the chart, as explained, were terrible! The short target was hit right on the button.. so what the hell was I doing?

Visa long - happy with this trade, as I was in on a consolidation break at $75.02 (whole number break too) with a price target of $76 (closed at $75.965). Nice quick trade that had very little risk with a stop at $74.9. Chose a good exit price as it has tailed off, but I suspect this will move up again.

These are the sensations from this morning. I am dismayed with UAUA in particular as it was a clear setup. TSO was also very clean. GM.. very clean.. you get the idea! UAUA, TSO, GM and AA were the 4 charts I had up on the second monitor from 2:30 onwards.... :(


GM did a similar thing to UAUA in terms of setup and has moved from $10 to $11 at the moment. The reason for the big run is oil crashing again down to the $113 region.

Not so much a roundup this week, more of an evaluation of the patterns and indicators I've been seeing this week. Had a quick glance at a video of me evaluating a long in TSO at $14.82 earlier this week (it hit $18 on Friday). Anyway, there will be plenty more opportunities so I won't be bitter about it.

For those that regularly check here, you will notice a little difference in my chart setups at the moment. Mainly a second price chart comprised of the Heikin Ashi candlesticks, 100ema and the Parabolic SAR. The Ashi is great for checking removing choppy patches and charts, and it shows consolidation periods better in my opinion. The SAR is a terrific indicator from what I am finding, so I'm doing a test here.

I'm going to go through the chart of Alcoa and using the corresponding mid-candle price on the actual price chart, in the lead up to this week we can use the following in terms of support and resistance levels:



We get the following entries using solely the parabolic SAR:
[NOTE: Consider each position size 200 shares]

Parabolic Entry/Exit P/L results:

Now on a technical level, trading using support resistance, candlesticks and moving averages, we get the following trades:

With the following results:

[NOTE: These values should be in $ not £]
[Subtract 20% to account for hesistancy/late entries etc: $880]

Quick statistics:

• We made 53% more trades using the Parabolic SAR indicator.
• The Parabolic SAR gave 2 more losers than winners, however profits nearly double losses.
• Losses only accounted for roughly 10% of the total trade returns using traditional methods.
• At no point using traditional methods would we have been at a loss.
• Despite half the trades, the second method gave over double the profits.
  
• The Parabolic SAR gave the largest profit return at $254.
• Sup/Res methods gave us the largest loss, albeit the only one on that system, at $110.

Very interesting I think. I was going to do the same for other stocks, but that just took me 1.5hrs to compile so might not be worth it. Ideally, we would use a combination of both, interestingly, the SAR seems to prevent losses very consistently. Although winners might not run as long, the SAR is a good early indicator to close or enter a trade, which must be used alongside the other methods and practices of technical analysis.

If commissions are a big thing for you, then trading the SAR method is probably not a great idea. I factored in $8 as commissions for each entry and exit during this experiment. The most blatant thing about these results, well, from the physical "hit the button" point of view, is that I factored in a 20% loss to the results. I did this for the following:

• You will never exactly hit the bottom and you will never hit the top
• Most traders will wait another 2-3 sticks for confirmation
• If a trade instantly goes against you and you see a loss on the blotter, you might close out
• Technical difficulties
• Distractions

This equates to missing 1 trade from 5, which I think is a realistic ratio.

In terms of the solid patterns I saw in this chart, the wedge formation beginning at open on the 5th, that lasted until 14:30 on the 7th was the most powerful indicator. Also the prevailing resistance level displayed in the 'lead-up' chart was the most influential horizontal price, slightly outpowering the initial support line. The overall large downward trend line was struck twice with good drops following it.

The double bottom from 5th open to 8th open was also a great indicator. There were a few double bottoms and double tops near the faster lined MAs, especially on the 6th and 7th, in the scheme of things these are better ignored, but both would have given over $45 in profits, thus are profitable, but risk reward wasn't that great in each occasion.

Pretty quiet morning so far, Barclays is the most outstanding member of my watchlist as it soared to just shy of £4 earlier. I have got into the routine of a 10am wake-up, because with the UK markets, the moves are made too early and too quick to capitalize on until you wait for a retracement.

BARC however didn't, and it dropped to support this morning on my chart before going NASA on me and exploding.

Anyway, here is my Alcoa entry/exit dissection from yesterday, I'm pleased with both so it's a great trade. I really had to close the trade before I went out at 7:30pm, and I got a decent entry signal in terms of risk:reward. I continue to be bullish here, but I felt any opening gap might have stopped me out for a loss.

Agrium was very nice yesterday with its movements, and I think I'll add this to the watchlist on a full-time basis.

I've just missed a good entry on a BARC short because I've been writing here, oh well. I'm currently waiting for EZJ to break or reject 347.. (oh wait a sec it just did and is now at 341!). BAY is really choppy this morning and it looks like it fancies a drop to the 250 range.

US hitlist remains the same as yesterday, but with Agrium and Ambac in the mix.

Note:
This is the 100th post on this blog, and is somewhat of a milestone for me. It's been a very tough year so far, but I've learned a lot and I feel that I'm getting to the stage where I am comfortable with my abilities as a swing trader. I also believe that once I can learn to pull the trigger without a second thought, I will be a solid intra-day trader.

Hopefully by new year I will be hovering around the 200 mark for posts, will less "rag loss" postings about things going wrong.

Fear is the number one enemy for anyone that wants to day trade. Fear makes you miss opportunities like nothing else does. I seem to be low in confidence at the moment, for whatever reason - probably because I hate CMC and don't want to give them any more money in commissions.

Check out this EasyJet chart from this morning.. I sat and watched this all day as 5 indicators to short the stock came and went. The first indicator was the most blatant sell signal you will ever see in your life as a trader. For whatever reason, I just could not bring myself to move my cursor over the sell button and press it.

The unfortunate thing is, the more of these plays I pass up, the less confident I become. It's a perpetuating cycle of fear that I must learn to break quickly.

Lunchtime update:
I've started to only watch Barclays (BARC), EasyJet (EZJ), British Airways (BAY) and BP (BP.) in Europe for the past few days. I should really phase out one from the airlines and perhaps introduce something from tech, mining or something consumer related. Oil is such a big factor at the moment, and as I familiarise myself with the airline movements I'm still happy to keep 2 on the books.

Elsewhere my US setup for today is:

• Potash - agricultural
• Alcoa - metals
  
• General Motors - vehicles
  
• Tesoro - oil refiner
  
• United Airlines -airline
  
• Bank of America and Citigroup - the financial spine of my US operations.

Another heavy oil influence in the mix today. Depending on commodities I might also trade US Steel. There are a lot of financials reporting today, Freddie Mac and Ambac the big ones. These losses could pull down the market quite a lot so I'm ready for that. Mastercard and Visa are also potential trades on large positions too.

Evening update:
Financials have actually been pretty good, oil is kind of holding around $118-119 and there has been some nice trading today. EZJ is a gem for signals, but I was busy waiting for entries in GM and AA to notice another double bottom into close.

Pretty annoyed with another stock I noticed pre-market - Agrium. It's some kind of agricultural stock that trades in Canada, I saw a big gap down and an ascending triangle had formed (I checked after I saw news about earnings) and was getting ready to play this on the open. But it gapped up and didn't give an entry.

Couple of charts here from so far today, including a follow on from TSO yesterday..

Decided to have a long lie, as I knew EZJ and BAY would gap up strongly and not really allow a good entry. I was right.

However this morning I am being confronted with a raft of computer problems, network down, internet choppy, broker platform crashing or not loading, ADVFN L2 service not working.. the list just goes on and on.

There are sometimes too many battles to fight in trading and it feels that it's not even worth donning the gloves to take them on this morning!

But I'm not a quitter so I'm waiting for a nice retracement in some stocks - because they are ALL up this morning.

Afternoon update:
Today has been a sensation for airlines and financials.. and pretty much everything else. There are 6 minutes until the opening bell in New York, and today I will be looking to trade from the following stocks:

• UAUA - Airline
• TSO - Oil refiner
• General Motors - Vehicles/Transport/Industrial
• Bank of America - Financial
• Citigroup - Financial
• Home Depot - Consumer retail

Quite a lot of good looking setups (descending triangle in GM and TSO for example). However I am anticipating a gianp gap up across the board, so I will look for early signs that this momentum will stick - or wait for a retracement.

There is a feed meeting today which will impact heavily on the markets so trading while trying to guess the outcome is extreme risk.

Some decent technical action this morning in EasyJet and Siemens. Haven't got my clout back from CMC yet so missed both.

Quite annoyed about that because they were probably the simplest trades you'll ever see..

EZJ setup was a simple drop from a double top, which hit support this morning - I was initially looking for a gap-fill, but this became unlikely with a series of spinning candlesticks, which hit off not only the prior support/new resistance line, but also the strong 200EMA. My target was the support in the 315 range - which it hit nicely, consolidated and gave a nice long entry at 215.5. This would have been a short and high risk trade given the proximity to the 200EMA.

EZJ dropped off early, as oil.. now this is just ridiculous.. oil rose 80 cents... can you believe that.. 80 cents and airlines drop 3% at open!? Anyway, oil news as ever is the catalyst for the opening price and the late afternoon rallies in the airlines, everything in between is TA-able.

SIE was even simpler, a nice drop off in the morning and a consolidating range at €76 which was also where the 200EMA was providing support. This is close to a nice golden cross on the MAs, but is also looking to establish some kind of short term down trend from what I can see. My target would have been the 50SMA at €77. SIE is a very nice chart to get technical on, particularly the 15min timeframe.

At the moment I'm waiting for the US to open in 40 minutes. I'm going to be tracking BAC, C and TSO only today.

In other news I have began recording my screen as I evauluate trades. 3 videos with one as an evauluation, the second records the entry point and targets, and the third records price action in accordance with targets. I'm hoping this will let me see a lot clearer where I'm making mistakes.

It's working already, I watched back my original entry in BAY this morning. 3 words.. What, the, f***.

US Midday update:
Big big drop in oil, down to $120pb. I think this drop is overdone, even though there is no reason for it to move up or down at the moment. Iran nuclear program? Who cares?

Great technical action on BAC, as well as UAUA with the latter up 10% within 30mins as a reaction to oil drop. Nice move. On the back of this I expect some strong moves in BAY and EZJ tomorrow - but we will see where we close with oil tonight. Still in oil news, Tesoro is in a perfect descending triangle at the moment (look at the 1hr chart), and I am becoming bearish on this. $14.5 is a very key price here, and I'm looking for a drop and a re-test. Of course, we will see what happens with the crude price.

Bank of America chart so far today...


You can see a nice drop, and the chart writing explains it. Notice the fantastic divergence on the MACD and the picture perfect bear flag setup. It doens't get much cleaner than that for a long setup.

I've cut out using the stochastics indicator, it doesn't really work well in shorter timeframes. I've started using a side-by-side Heikin Ashi chart with a 100EMA featuring the Parabolic SAR indicator. The HA cuts out a lot of noise and gives you a better clue to where things are going.

I am absolutely livid with CMC Markets at the moment.

Unbeknown to me, they have started charging commissions.

They didn't tell me about this.

I spent £170 on commissions on Friday.

So not only do I have to deal with a spread I have to deal with a commission that they didn't even warn me about.

Morning update:
I am back in the game - CMC have said that fixed risk accounts are not subject to commissions and therefore I will be issued a refund.

However that did not stop me from making a horror show in BAY this morning :(

Afternoon update:
These guys are unbelievable. It now seems I will in fact be charged commissions for trading through CMC.

According to the nervous posh guy on the phone, there was a technical error with my account and it wasn't put onto the automated commission system. I mean come on, have you ever heard of such a thing? These accounts are all automated, there isn't a human sitting at a desk going "Oh yeah, wait a minute I haven't put him on the 'let's lose his money' list yet". Unreal.

My initial question was this: If the system is automated, then why am I paying commissions? Why does anyone pay a commission for a CFD - there aren't any brokers going out to the floor to get you the ticket at the best price are there? CMC Markets is really just a bookies at the end of the day.

The longer you trade, the more you realise that honesty, fair execution and reliability do not exist in any way on the contractor or brokerage side.

CMC Markets are looking set to join III in the shallow grave. I can't keep giving these crooks my business.

Couple of interesting setups amongst the candidates this week. A lot of weighting towards US stocks this week in terms of the better opportunities.

Starting with some financials, Citigroup and Bank of America look ok. I'm bearish on both in the immediate short term, particularly C. BAC looks really stretched at the $34 mark, and I think it is trying to establish some range trading potential between that and $28 in the short term. However, depending on oil news etc leading into Monday, it could easily rally past this, and if it does it should be quick and relatively sizable.

Bank of America (BAC) 15 min chart:

I'd like to see a pull back from this, that's what I expect. It will be interesting to see if it pulls back to the support at $28, or if it hits this trend line it could be trying to form. I would be bullish on the trend line as it would form an ascending wedge, which is a slightly better indicator for me. The $6 channel is very exploitable for profits, however we could see some big gapping this week.

Citigroup timeframes on the 5min and 15min both indicate a drop on Mondays bell. 5min chart is consolidating in a clear range as shown by the first chart. Looks stretched here after a nice explosion, good shorting opportunity but be wary of a sharp move off the MAs and over the $19 mark.
The 15min chart is probably a little better to look at in terms of support resistance ambiguous line at $19 (prior support new resistance). These are why I think C will drop off on Monday morning and then perhaps rally later in the day depending on news. C is forming a wedge on the 15min chart which is something to look out for, as it is fast approaching decision time.

Tesoro is a chart I haven't analysed for a little while, so I've just drawn in a quick few lines. I really rate TSO as a tradable stock as the movements and patterns are really crisp across most timeframes. Here's the 5min chart first, similar to C's 15min chart, where $15.4 is a key level at the moment. Nice wedge forming here and we could see some nice action in this on Monday, depending again on oil and gas geopolitical events etc.

Clear as day descending wedge on the 15min chart here back a few days now. Strong support in the $15 area, but it has wicked down once to $14.80 so watch out for traps. I'm looking to trade this through the week as these patterns are very good for either-way trades therefore I will react to the events as they happen instead of declaring myself bullish or bearish here.

Elsewhere it is a huge week for RBS as they report earnings on Friday. It should be a horror show if anyone else is to go by (HBOS, Alliance Leicester..), however the market will no doubt do the opposite we expect with RBS. Should provide some nice scalping in the lead up to Friday, but could be a very very risky play holding into earnings on either side.

Volkswagen looks nice off the €194-6 area for a long. British Airways jumped the to I think a 4 month high briefly on Friday on acquisition news, I traded the jump but didn't short it back down. the 196-260 channel is a slight more expanded now to about 275 - but I will wait for some re-testing action there.

Otherwise it should be a fairly straight forward week.

Evening update:
I have started coverage of EasyJet (EZJ) on the basis of an excellent 10 minute chart. Also adding Wachovia (WB) and Alcoa (AA) to the list. I have removed Transocean, Time Warner and Microsoft on the grounds I never trade them and hardly even check their charts.

Back from my holiday this morning after a week away. Looks like I missed some good trading, particularly in airlines and retail which would have been nice.

Not really prepared for today (even the US markets later), and because I'm not too hot on sentiment at the moment I won't trade until Monday morning.

I will be scanning through my watchlist this weekend looking for potential trades and I will include anything interesting on a post on Sunday night.