Using Pivots

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Quote from Lefty62151:

I don't use Clayburg's oscillators. I use his DDF line. Also I credit Jon Lukeman as the concept was also mentioned in his book. Whatever you call it, the concept of establishing a "line in the sand" (off the opening bar) where you are long above and short below. It seems to work for me.


Should be Josh Lukeman (The Market Maker's Edge: Day Trading Tactics from a Wall Street Insider). Anyways, tnx for your insight.
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The price later in the day took out the R pivot with a big white candle. So suppose we went long at the close of that candle. Now the natural target would be the next pivot up? But the price never reaches it. How would you manage the exit on that trade?




Quote from Lefty62151:

OK then moving on, I am posting a chart of todays price action in the context of weekly pivots.

In his book titled "A Complete Guide to Technical Trading Tactics, John Person suggests that traders keep track of weekly and monthly pivots. He also suggests that combining them with candlestick formations (reversals like engulfing patterns for instance) can help a trader to avoid buying a reversal or selling the bottom of a weekly move.

John suggests that typically a weekly or monthly high/low is usually achieved on a single day and then price reacts off that push. In my experience it depends on the price level. For instance if the price is an important even number (and you are trading the S&P), it is likely that you will see a pullback before price "takes out" that level. Pit traders used to use the phrase "first through the even" to signify the way price would act when it penetrated an important price level that was represented by an even number. Also as I have suggested before, price needs to develop momentum to take out a pivot. That is why pivots are often taken out by a wide range bar. This is the equivalent of taking a run up to a fence before you try to jump over it.

If you look at the first 8 or ten bars of today's price action, you can see that price could not develop enough momentum to take out the pivot. Look at the widest range bar and you will see that it "ran out of gas" after penetrating the line. Not enough bids to sustain the move. This is typical of a thin summer day in June.

Notice that the weekly pivot puts a nice "floor" in under the open today. Also if you scan left you can see how the weekly pivot biscects the wide range bar down on the previous day's closing range. Again in my experience the midline of a wide range bar will often serve as a "natural" stop for price action.
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Sunnyskies:

A big white candle is an indication of momentum. This is a market that is showing strength. The weekly pivot shows support and resistance that are supposed to be active throughout the week. It is only Tuesday and you are looking at a test of R1 already. To me this all indicates strength. How you manage it depends on your conception of opportunity. Are you a swing trader? Do you hold for days or weeks. If so, this seems to be a signal to hold and perhaps add. If on the other hand you are a short term intraday trader, you may want to take profits, and wait for the inevitable retracement to get on the bus again later. There is no shortage of oppportunity in a market like the S&P, which cycles between price points. Look at the longer term charts using 30 min or 60 min charts and you can see what I mean.

I hope this helps

Lefty
 
I am going to take a little different approach to posting charts.

I took several "snapshots" and will comment here rather then on the chart itself.

I bet that the gap would be closed early. As the market already knows the CPI data, which was good, but does not know the Oil data, which could move the market.

You can see that an early entry short that the gap would close would have got you two or three points.

"early entry" is a big deal in this market. You will see that professionals make their bets and enter "early", while the retail traders wait. This means that retail have to take bigger risk and use bigger stops. In my view, early entry means short at or below 1213. Retail traders would be waiting until about 1211.75. This is one of the reasons retail traders lose or get shaken out.

Again we have a thin summer market, and for that reason I am using 1 point as my stop loss.
 

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Here's another chart right after the Oil Inventory Report. You can see that the result was a little worse than expected. As a result price moved down and the overall market "turned over" from a positive to negative tone.

Light Sweet Crude now up .67 at $55.60.

I can't show the details of my trade here, sorry. I can say that based on my expectation (probability) of a worse than expected report, I was short and again because this is a thin market, I took profit early as I expected the move to be muted.

In this instance, price moved down to test support at S1.
 

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Hello Nonsense:

Fact is, I have very little time on my hands. I welcome questions, they indicate your interest. But I believe a person of your intellect and experience can usually answer them himself and sometimes better than I can. :)

Good luck in today's market
Lefty
 
Quote from Lefty62151:

Hello Nonsense:

Fact is, I have very little time on my hands. I welcome questions, they indicate your interest. But I believe a person of your intellect and experience can usually answer them himself and sometimes better than I can. :)

Good luck in today's market
Lefty
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Hello Lefty,

Good luck to you too! :)
nononsense

PS: don't forget: 'Luck fights at the side of the prudent' [Euripides]
 
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