Friday, December 30, 2016

Market update - Last trading day of the year

Last trading day of the year


Without getting into the politics surrounding the fear we've seen in the market this week - we saw the $VIX find it's legs and break above resistance (the previous high) @ 13.42. That now becomes support, but I'm expecting the $VIX to break down, below that level, maybe no sooner than the opening bell. 

The $SPX found support as per my 5 min chart tweeted out, around noon, yesterday, 12/29/16, but there are several possibilities, in this sideways range.
With out getting into advanced Elliott Wave Theory, I think I've narrowed down the possibilities to 2. 

  1. Market trades back to the top of the range - around the 2275 level on the S&P (in wave D). 
  2. We back-test failed support @ 2258, pull back and rally into a bearish wave ii of C (a suckers rally). The Fibonacci target on that trade looks like 2260ish. 
Either way I'm expecting this sideways consolidation to continue, and considering that Money Managers (MM's) should be forced to put money to work at the beginning of the year, I like option 1 the best. This outlook is also bolstered by the tight range the Dow is trading in. 
The 5 min $SPX chart:   

We saw a monster 7.5% rally in gold miners yesterday. That's a 22% move on the 3X leveraged ETF's, and I don't think it's quite over yet.  
This confirms the panic trade into gold, but as powerful, as this move was, I believe this is only a snap-back rally - on the $GDX - in wave iv of 3. Resistance is 22.44 on the chart below. 
The opening bell just range 10 minutes ago, so 
let's refresh the charts, and post them again. 
Little changed on the $SPX 


 $GDX up another 1.22% - with mild resistance at 22.18 

That's about all the time I have for today. 
Happy Happy New Year, Traders. 

Thursday, December 22, 2016

About Holiday Trading

Holiday Trading 

Bah humbug! 


Trading into, and over a long holiday:


Whether it's Christmas, Hanukkah, or the 4th of July, holiday trading typically sucks, especially for the bears. Although there may be exceptions to the rule, this is the case 90% of the time! The Pro's know better than to go short into a long holiday, and the retail bear should follow their lead.


You've probably heard the term, "never sell a dull market"? That means you, retail short seller.

You've probably also heard the term, "thinly traded markets"?  With so many traders on vacation, volume, and volatility typically remain low. Low volatility = no fear.  No fear = no panic *selling. *The exception to the rule would be if the $VIX were to find it's legs. Crazy things can happen in thinly traded markets, but seldom do. 

Holiday trading is notoriously difficult to predict, and I know some traders close down shop early, just to avoid it all together.

What you typically see is short covering going into a holiday. You can think of it as the, "risk off trade", for bears.  You typically don't put on a bunch of bearish bets, before heading to the slopes, unless you're hedging your long positions. If the smart money has already covered their short bets, this leaves the retail short left holding the bag.

This holiday season we saw short covering ahead of Thanksgiving, and more short covering into Christmas, and today thinly traded markets continue to hold up (at or above resistance which for now is *support).
For instance: Brent crude continues to hold above key support. It's not that there is any reason to be bullish on crude oil, it's just that the bears are vastly outnumbered in this market environment. Some of this may also have to do with Crude Oil contract expiration dates, a topic for another time. $USD is also seen holding up above *support.    


The NASDAQ sitting on what looks like *support


[Edit 12/2316: Support on Brent crude - as it turns out - is just above 53.73, looking at yesterday's candlestick chart]



There are a couple additional factors holding markets up into the end of the quarter/year.

  1. December is a big window dressing month, and a lot of money has been reallocated into financial stocks (aka financials), and building a top after a strong rally, is much like building a base after a sharp decline. Both take time - usually several weeks.   
  2. Fund managers don't want to have to pay taxes on massive 2016 gains, so they're waiting for 2017.
When traders return from holiday, the bulls should be forced to continue chasing performance, but if instead we see profit taking, and the $VIX get it's legs, that would be the time to sell. Watch the week of Friday the 13th.
 
Part of market timing is knowing when and when not to trade. If you've found yourself fighting this entire rally, you know exactly what I mean.


*For advanced traders this is no place to become complacent, because this level becomes your stop hunt. Definition of Stop Hunting   

If I've helped you, please help support the cause, by making a generous donation using the PayPal button linked in the left hand menu of this page. A $29.95 donation grants you access to our private twitter feed @3Xtrades. See the "Join @3Xtrades" page tab near the top of this page for more info.



Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Website Maintenance, and Equipment upgrade

Website Maintenance, and Equipment update 



3Xtraders.com get's a face lift  


When you click on this website, you'll notice I updated the background (header) to blue, with (chart) candlesticks. Also changed the text (& links), to red, to match the 3X logo. Looks pretty snazzy, right?


And an Equipment upgrade: 



Computer is running stable, so maybe I don't have to replace the motherboard, after all, but I have one on hand just in case. Picked this up Sunday evening, as planned in the previous blog.



I also picked up a bunch of new high performance case fans. Completed installing these on Monday. Lot's of dust, and managed to cut my finger pretty good. "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it". Spent most of Tuesday afternoon gaming. Computer is running cool and quite.



7 fans in this 70 lb. Super Tower: 



5 fans blow cool filtered in the front, and sides, and 3 exhaust the heat out the top, and the back. 

The Beast

I've also been running some diagnostics: 



I found my on board LAN chip was working yesterday, so I removed the PCI LAN card, and everything thing was working fine.

 This morning wed. I noticed my router acting funny, and when I powered up I found I had no internet. Well, now I know the LAN chip on this board is dead, and what was causing the router resets for what seemed like a year or longer.

Once I reinstall the PCI card, and got everything back together again, I found I had no power, because I had inadvertently unplugged the power switch relay. Doh!    



Of course there's no way to get your fingers underneath the PCI card, even if you could see what you're doing, so that card had to come out again. I also needed the manual to determine which pin was for the power switch. Luckily I didn't have to search vary far for it. 


All that was left to do now was disable the on-board LAN in BIOS, and then put the case all back together for a second time.



Finished up at 7:35 AM, with plenty of time to get settled before the opening bell. 

Case closed - for now anyhow. 





Monday, December 19, 2016

An Important Announcement from the Head of our IT Department - Christmas Hell

As CEO of 3Xtraders.com I where many hats, including being the head of our IT dept, Anthony Allyn 


If you follow me on twitter, you know I've had a lot of computer problems lately, and that causes me a lot of stress, knowing folks are relying on me for accurate charting... so here I am working another weekend, and bitching about it. Think about that the next time you donate to my PayPal (located in the left side menu). Also note that I've updated the menu text on this page to match our logo (red)? Looks much better I think.

According to Murphy's Law, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" (at the worst possible time). These technical issues may at some point, become detrimental to our trade, and I want to avoid this as all costs. 


This weekend the computer seems stable, but last week windows started hanging on the boot screen, on startup, and on shut down. I had a similar problem a couple months ago, and replaced, what I thought was a defective SSD (solid state drive). Turns out the drive wasn't the issue, so I tried plugging into a different SATA port. That solved the problem for a couple weeks. Now I'm thinking bad SATA cable, or bad motherboard. Could be a bad PSU (power supply unit), but I doubt that. Those who are familiar with troubleshooting computer problems understand how frustrating, and time consuming, it can be....  After doing some trouble-shooting after the closing bell, on Friday, I found something called "superfetch", was turned off, but unsure that has anything to do with the problem,  probably not.

Meanwhile, we're still looking for a major market top, up here, somewhere, and believe me, you won't want to miss it! Quoting myself, "The big money is made on major reversals, not while trading confusing (sideways) consolidation patterns". The point is: I don't want to be sitting on a dead computer the next time the market crashes, and miss the entire move!

Considering that the motherboard is probably dying: 


Friday night I was up until 1:30 AM researching (worrying about) whether it would be better to perform a major system upgrade, or just try to maintain the current platform (AMD/AM3 running an Phenom II 955 processor), which isn't half bad, but is about to become obsolete, as AMD launches their new AM4 platform along with the long awaited ZEN (Ryzen) chip.

Some of you may remember me Tweeting about how, "AMD is going to kick Intel's ass"? 

That was back towards the end of 2015. 

$AMD was one of my favorite picks for 2016. 

Phenomenal 900% upside!





While I'm tooting my own horn: 


During Friday's trade, after just re-initiating my buy recommendation, on Evok Pharma, $EVOK was up an astounding 65%! What you do here is take profits, and leave 10% of your position on indefinitely. It's called, "playing with the houses money"! In other words, the shares you're left holding are paid for by your winnings.



We see the market losing momentum, and we also saw a big reversal in the US dollar. That was a good trade, in an otherwise dull market. There's always a trade somewhere, and I recommend selling the $USD, and better yet the USD/Yuan, into any further strength. Gold is also starting to look interesting at these levels.

Getting back to the issue at hand: what I finally decided was to not invest too much money in an obsolete AM3 system. Better to wait for prices to come down - on the latest technology - and then perform a major upgrade in a year or 2. I may even switch to Intel next time.


As of this Monday morning (edited):  


The Computer booted up with no problem, and the market seems to be holding up as expected.  I did end up driving to the city for a new motherboard Sunday evening. This is a good solid board, for $90.00 (on sale). I also need to replace all the cooling fans (7 in total)... so make that $160.00 in total. Not bad for peace of mind.
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 Product Overview 
    


I expect stocks to hold up into the end of the year on thin holiday trading; 


I figure that gives me 2 weeks to resolve this issue, and that probably means installing the new motherboard, and the best time to jump into that project is probably over the Christmas holiday.
"Sorry kids, no Christmas this year! Don't bother daddy while he's working." lol

I know it must seem - to Twitter followers - like I'm always complaining about computer problems, but most get solved pretty quickly. Just wanted to set the record strait. 2. Give Traders a heads up. 3. Explain to you, that a lot more goes into providing you up-to-date technical charts, than you might think.  

Here's a short list of computer problems that were solved over the past year:  


Connectivity issues solved! At one point I was sure my connection was being hacked... this issue was ongoing for quite a long time. 3 years...?

a. Rebooting of the modem, would bring the connection back, but only for a short period of time an hour/day/week.

b. Bypassing the on board LAN chip, with a PCIe LAN card seemed to solve the problem, but only for a while.

c. Replaced the old cable modem, with the latest equipment upgrade. This turned out to be a waste of time.

After ruling everything else out, the problem was narrowed down to the wiring. This led me to an already installed signal amplifier, which I had inadvertently bypassed, when I ran the cable. Doh!
Once I figured out how to remove the locked connection caps; I re-routed the cable... and problem solved! Took me all of 15 min.!  

Over the summer a nasty ransom-ware virus called Cryptolocker caused me to lose (though encryption) all my files. At that time, I couldn't find a decent program to decrypt the affected files. Finally after 2 days of headaches, I spent a another entire day reformatting the computer, rather than pay the ransom to get my files back. I don't negotiate with terrorists.


Final note: 


After being trolled 3 times in one week, we're going to a pay service. If the hedge funds want to troll us, they should have to pay like everyone else. I even went so far as to start building a new membership website, but quickly realized that's not the route I want to go. Instead this website will continue to operate on your generous donations. See the updated, "Join @3Xtraders FAQ" - (page tab) linked at the top of this page.
Happy Holidays and Happy Trading in 2017, AA



Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Video Update - Dec. 7, 2016 - Searching for the market top

Starting to work with video (format) again, and planning to revise the YouTube channel.

Here's what I got so far: This is an update to last weeks block where I talk about candle stick analysis, and calling market tops. Sorry, this is all I got time for this morning. Good luck, Traders.



Monday, December 5, 2016

US v China - Currency War?

Not only did the $USD recently take out my target at the top of the broadening triangle pattern seen below...

But I'm talking about the BIG reversal of the USD/YUAN!

For disclosure I have NO position in any currency trades, and don't expect to... for the foreseeable future.  

Are the Chinese going to trash the $USD?

We know China holds a considerable amount of US debt, and we see Trump standing up to China, but to me, it's not so much that Trump took a call from the leader of Taiwan, but the media circus surrounding this whole event. It looks planned. Here's the stock photo of her talking into her speaker phone, courtesy of the dishonest Main Stream Media.


I even saw one of the talking heads on one of the major news networks explaining that we must not offend China, because they hold a large amount of our debt. I call this, "national media hype", and a signal of whatever the globalists are planning. I believe they plan to trash everything Trump says, and does, and use it as an excuse to sabotage the US election, and the global economy. This includes US markets, which I expect will get trashed next year, and beyond, as the powers that be, make a scapegoat out of the Trump presidency, and there's still the possibility that the election is stolen, in a revolt of the Electoral College...

Speaking of the broader market (and oil); both higher on this first Monday of the new month. It was an easy call.

You can follow me @3Xtraders or @3Xtrades (private), depending on the level of service you require.  We may or may not move to a (paid) membership site, in the future, but until then all services are funded by your generous donations.

Good Luck, AA


Friday, December 2, 2016

Top 12 Reasons The Trump Rally Isn't a Trump Rally

Top 12 Reasons The Trump Rally Isn't a Trump Rally 



  1. Stocks actually crashed the night of the election. From there what we saw is called a "short squeeze", in the bidness.   
  2. Trump isn't president yet. He's technically not even, "president elect", until the electoral college renders their decision later this month. 
  3. The market was already rallying, before election night. This is just a continuation of the rally, which started when Bush bailed out the Wall st banks, and continues as Obama, and the GOP, spend, spend, spend... Don't let republicans tell you that Obama drove the debt... 
  4. Treasury markets had been selling off long before election night. That money had to go somewhere - equities, gold, bank stocks, etc.
  5. Short-covering into the Thanksgiving holiday (typical).    
  6. Informed investors know the Dow is not representative of broader market. The New York Stock Exchange isn't trading at all time highs.
  7.  Higher Oil prices have helped lift the market, thanks to OPEC. 
  8.  Wall Street bonuses must be paid, so drive stocks into the end of the year. "Greed is good"
  9. The #1 reason stocks rallied is because uncertainty was removed on election night - regardless of who won... 
  10. Dec is a big window dressing month, so we're seeing a re allocation of funds.... 
  11. Stocks typically rally in a election year. You could call this the, "election rally", but it has nothing to do with Trump. If Hillary has won, we probably would've seen a broader  market rally. Wall Street hates Trump, believe me! 
  12. Taxes. Fund managers want to wait until 2017 to take gains. 
Wall Street does not represent Main St., and "New All-time Highs", is where major tops are usually found - not rallies. Don't trust the media hype.
I wish I could credit Donald Trump with the market performance as of late, but nobody had been a greater friend to Wall Street than Barrack Obama, and the republican congress. You already see the MSM setting setting Trump for failure; questioning every move he makes. I expect market turmoil under Trump, not that he can be blamed for the market bubble we find ourselves in. He's spoken openly about this, on more than one occasion. Trump is no more responsible for this rally, than he is for the coming crash.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Gravestone Doji Candle Doesn't Bode Well For This Market

Gravestone Candlestick Spotted on the Dow 

I don't rely heavily on candlestick analysis, yet is is one of the things I watch, and especially when I'm calling tops. Anyone who has been followed me over the years knows this. Gravestone not only sounds ominous, but it's often a an accurate indicator. Here's decent definition of the dreaded grave stone candle from Investopedia (linked).  



There's also something called an, "Bearish Engulfing Pattern", but in this case my definition varies from the norm. There may even be a different name for this pattern..? Please allow me to explain. 

  1. Often you see the price action continue unexpectedly, after what looks like a bearish reversal candle - in this case a bearish hanging man, which we saw last week (on Wed.). Normally we call this "being early", which some consider being wrong, after calling for a reversal. In this case I chalk this anomaly up to notoriously unpredictable holiday trading, as many traders remain on vacation going into the week after Thanksgiving (this week). This goes along with the term, "don't sell a dull market", which I wholeheartedly believe in. 
  2.   The reversal candle in question was from a week ago (wed.). The market held up and went higher within 2 days. This goes along with the theory that you don't always trust a short term breakout. Often times a 1 or 2 day event is a head-fake. I personally never trust a 1 day breakout.
  3. Next we see the market break down, as the price action engulfs the top of the bearish candle. 

See the annotations on the chart for my explanation.       

We can also confirm that gravestone doji on this DOW chart.  

As far as oil we've seen Brent break out to a new recent high, and the target looks like 54.75. Like I said earlier, "never trust a one day breakout". 

That's all I got time for today. You can follow this blog, or on Twitter @3Xtraders or @3Xtrades (private) for serious traders. Please read the FAQ linked at the top for basic rules and regulations. Take Care, AA    




Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Calling a Market Top After a Breakout

There are few things as difficult as calling a market top after a breakout 


Seems like ages since I've blogged, but with the election, and getting used to running 2 twitter feeds.... (traders who follow me @3xtrades get market updates in real time) and what's the point in blogging when the market endlessly consolidates sideways through the summer..? It was horribly choppy, and somewhat unpredictable, but thanks to the $VIX charts we managed to stay on the right side of the trade most of the time. In fact I've remained mostly bullish since the last blog update. We even caught the futures crash on the Trump win, and the bullish reversal, so things could be worse.

Trading has picked up since the Trump win (which removed uncertainty), followed by the typical short covering into the Thanksgiving holiday. Volume remains light this week, and todat we're seeing a short squeeze in Oil, and another new high on the Dow today, as well as the $SPX.  

Oil has traded into a bearish Head & Shoulders pattern, and I suggest selling what's being called, "historic OPEX news". $WTI failed to breach the right shoulder, but may touch $50.


The $VIX remains oversold. The Dow looks toppy, and regardless of what the financial networks are telling us, the broader market is not trading at new highs.
At least the $NYSE isn't... markets are disjointed, and I suspect manipulated as always. Traders are still on vacation; volume is light; $VIX easily hammered.

The Dow broke-out, but the dow doesn't represent the broader market. As the title suggests calling the top on a breakout market isn't easy. If this is it, the pattern points to a broadening top, or a megaphone top. The $VIX will decide which pattern is correct.

There are 2 kinds of traders; those who let their emotions dictate their trade, and those who trust the charts. We let the $VIX tell us what market sentiment is and leave our emotions out of it. When the $VIX starts popping you know there's fear in the market. Right now there's too little fear... read my blog entitled, "Trading The VIX". Markets are cyclical. I know of no better way to trade.

My position has not changed sine the August 2015 crash. Higher highs in a broadening top. 13 months later, we see this pattern playing out on the $SPX

The $SPX could touch 2220 in wave "3"

To be honest: Calling the top in US treasuries was a heck of a lot easier.

I could be early on this market top, but I could also provide more evidence that this is the top. See the public charts area.

Dec is a big window dressing month, and we could see a re-balancing going into the end of the year, as we did last year. Emerging markets have lagged, so we could see a sector rotation. We also have the Dec. Fed meeting coming up (Dec. 13 - 14). That's going to bring with it, fear.

Final note: I'm planning to revise the membership website, and purge non paying followers from the private twitter feed. Any thoughts on appropriate pricing appreciated. Chime-in in the comments area, or send me a message @3xtrades.


















Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Market Update - Technical Tuesday - May 17h, 2016


I don't usually have time for a blog update during the week, but I was able to get caught up on all my charting yesterday, as the market rallied...

We saw a semi-powerful rally on Monday, a reversal in AAPL, and Biotech. Oil continued to rally. Gold rallied at the open, only to quickly rolled over, and close about flat. It was a decent broader market rally, but weaker than expected, and followed by a weak close. There's still a lot of nervousness in this market, and that makes me nervous.

Yesterday I predicted that Oil may decouple from the market but that's a pretty bold call. We'll have to see what happens when energy rolls over, and play it safe.

I think we're close to a big reversal in Oil; this upturned wedge is short term bearish in my book.

If we see the false breakout (throw over) in oil as depicted above and Energy rally back to 564 on the $DJUSEN (dow energy) chart, that looks like perfect re-entry for short sellers.   



Financials were only up .64%. Doesn't point to a major reversal. Maybe we retest support one more time.

As far as the S&P 500 The bears came in an sold the 200 day, yesterday, but I have a 2088 target on the S&P - a powerful - yet minuette - wave "C". If this is correct than last weeks sell-off was only the first leg down in a bigger correction.


On the other hand if this rally can find legs, and the $VIX comes down, we'll start looking for the next bullish channel.

Resistance on the $GLD looks like 122. I'll be providing that chart, and many others throughout the day, as usual at the opening bell in 15 min, at @3xtrades
Good luck Traders, AA

Monday, May 16, 2016

Technical market update for the week of May 15th, 2016

"When others get scared I get greedy" Warren Buffet 

Market update for the week of May 15th, 2016
 
 
I updated the subtitle of this update when I heard Warren Buffet invested in AAPL, which I still like in this 90.50 range - as I tweeted last week.

 Last update as the market stalled, I suggested buying the dips and selling the rips. Now that we've seen the market walked down over the past few weeks, we're bottom picking again, and especially considering this week is Options Expiration (OPEX), and with the Memorial Day holiday just around the corner - that should bring short covering. We may see energy, and gold, decouple from the rest of the market, going into the start of the summer.  
 
GOLD - I have 2 outlooks for gold: 1. Bearish. 2. Extremely bearish. Gold got ahead of itself back in March, and instead of consolidating sideways, to lower, it's traded higher into a bearish wave b (head-fake rally). Now I think we're bound to see a nasty correction as plotted on the chart below. A shakeout in a powerful minor wave c of B.
 
The extremely bearish outlook for gold looks like new lows in a panic wave E  
 
 
 
I'm expecting the $SPX to bounce out of the hole first thing Monday morning. I think there's a good possibility we'll see mixed markets, with tech & financials leading again.
 
The chart below is from my public charts area, linked in the (left) side menu.
 
Here's the Dow chart - also in a parallel channel:
 
 
If you're a serious retail investor/trader you can request to follow our private twitter feed, @3xtrades. You can learn more about that in the FAQ above. Donations are always appreciated as this is my day job. If these charts are helpful to you then help me continue bringing them to you. AA
 
 
 
 


Saturday, April 9, 2016

Market update week of April 9th 2016

Market update week of April 9th 2016

I'd like to get in the habit of providing weekly updates, and that starts today, Saturday April 9th, 2016, but more importantly I'd like to get new followers @3xtrades (our new trading platform) up to speed and on the same page. I'm also going to give you some tips on how best to use the information I provide. 
1. As most of you probably already know the $VIX is our most important indicator, as laid out in a previous blog entitled "Trading the $VIX". If you missed that, you're missing a lot, so be sure to check that out, and if you've already read it, read it again. Always watch the $VIX!

2. Watch the public charts area, because I can't watch everything all the time. Using the legend in the PC area, you can look at - for example - the current 2h DOW chart trading in a bullish channel (in blue), and recognize a bullish pullback when you see one. Friday's close. 

Here's the same thing on a daily candlestick chart on $NDX

Anyone claiming the trend has reversed is peddling fiction, and if the $VIX gaps down below 14.50 on Monday, we're going to see the shorts get squeezed again this week. 

3. For all the reasons mentioned in the previous blog, I like to do market update's on the fly, prior to the opening bell, and into the first hour of trading, as I'm reviewing, & updating the charts, with a fresh eye. If my updates are too distracting, you can always mute me at any time, and then un-mute after the open, and review my work after the opening bell. I plan to provide more tips, and guidelines in a future blog.

Getting back to the trade: Wednesday we killed it! Thursday we got our pullback, but it was like pulling teeth. Finally in the afternoon - we saw the $VIX break out above resistance (16), as the 15 min $SPX chart broke, but still no panic selling. I suspected that $VIX breakout was a head fake - heading into Friday - and sure enough the market rallied the next morning, as the $VIX fell back below 16. 
Friday, the market "behaved itself" - as I put it - while I took care of some administrative duties. We faded the rally at the open, and the market pulled back into the close. Oil rallied to the target. Gold and gold miners are a different story, and something we're watching closely. The divergence between gold and the miners is obscene! I'll have more to say on that in the next blog, as OPEX approaches.


So let's say, even if I was 90% right over the past 3 trading days, which is incredible; you still had to be a very nimble trader in order to make any money trading this choppy market. If you had your heart set on trading gold you probably made nothing. There are a lot of variables to contend with.  

As far as my broader market outlook goes; I remain short term bullish, and long term bearish. Intermediate term (next 3 months) is still unclear. I could post a lot of conflicting charts here, but I don't want to confuse folks... and to clarify any conflicting tweets; when I say "bullish", and throw a 15 minute chart out there, I'm talking about the next day, or 3, not the next few weeks/months.  
Keep your power dry, because markets remain choppy, and pivotal. Buy the dips, and sell the rips. This is far safer than waiting for me to call the absolute top. Picking tops is far more difficult than picking bottoms.  The big risk is to the downside, but as long as the $VIX (our fear gauge) remains contained - no fear (intraday). If you're nimble trade it, if not sit on the sidelines this week. 





*

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Stock Market update - Yuge Announcement

Launch of @3Xtrades



First: Wednesday's trade 4/6/18 was incredible. Called for a rally in oil and biotech (a double) the night before, and the rest is history, but that's not the big news!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Prelude

Traders, as most you already know there's a hotly contested election going on, and I'm a self proclaimed "political junkie", but at this point the ol' twitter feed has become more of a platform for Trump supporters, and conspiracy theorists, than for Traders. I mean, I've always had a mix of folks following me - on Twitter - for one reason or another, but it was getting to the point where I was afraid to post too many alerts, and charts, fearing I'd lose followers - 90% of whom don't even trade!

After you've been on twitter for a while, a funny thing begins to happen; you can end up with lots of followers, only to be left asking yourself, "who are these people and why are they following me?" There's also the issue of trolls (haters), and plagiarizers', not to mention the sharks (shady hedge funds), who would like to play us (retail investor/traders) for fools, and use us as contrarian indicators. Twitter is awesome for sharing information, but at some point you want a little privacy, and volume control. At least I do.

So, I've been kicking around the idea of building a website, like the one we used to have, for a while now, but running a website is a full time job, and somebody has to do the charting right? I even started playing around with some web templates, but it's just too much work for any one person - to be the technician and the web builder - as I learned a few years ago. Every minute wasted, blogging, website building, and managing members, is time that should be spent charting and focused on the technicals, and there's enough stress that comes along with this business as it is.   

The Announcement

New Game Plan: New private Twitter feed @3xtrades, not to be confused with the old one @3Xtraders. It's already up and running and a few old friends, and a few new ones, are already on board.

Better than a website:
1. Zero build time and zero frustration.  It took me a day to set it up;
2. Doesn't cost me anything out of pocket;
3. Market updates (especially in the morning) can be done on the fly, in real time. I used to spend two hours doing an extensive market update before each market open, and looking back on it now, I can tell you, "it was a big waste of time";
4. Allows me more time to focus on what I'm best at, charting;
5 Twitter loads quickly, and refreshes itself in real time.
6. It's very mobile friendly;
7. No lengthy and intrusive signup required to join. No 30 day free trial BS.

I guess the only downside might be that it's one more place folks have to go in order to follow me, and @3xtrades may not turn up in, "3Xtraders", search results.

To get in just: Updated 12/13/2016 - starting January 1, 2017, new followers must make a donation to follow @3Xtrades), click on the "follow button", and once I receive payment, and get the request I'll buzz you in. See the FAQ page in the top tabs menu.

Trading has somehow become my life's work, so naturally I want to protect it to some extent, and hope to one day be financially successful doing this. If that means I gain 200 loyal followers, and they each throw me a bone each month? Who knows, but if I give it all away for free, that's exactly the value people are going to put on it. 

Buy offering a private site, to serious traders, I hope to be able to provide membership quality service. If you're not happy with it, then nothing lost. I don't like being pressured into signing up for anything, as much for the next guy/gal. If you don't want to, or can't afford to support the cause that's fine too. I already have a few folks who send me recurring donations, so the new plan, is also a "thank you" to them.

If you still want to follow me on the old twitter feed, you are more than welcome, and if we share common interests that's great. For the folks who can't stand by views, then you're going to like @3xtrades for the simple fact that it's just charts, and technical analysis; no politicking, no conspiracy, no nonsense.  I'll still post a few charts to @3Xtraders once in a while, and talk about markets, but serious traders should follow me
@3xtrades








Friday, February 12, 2016

Stock Market technical update week ending 2/13/2016 - Bear trap Bull trap


Bear trap Bull trap

 
Stock Market technical update 2/12/2016 - major reversal
 
The public charts are a bit of a mess, but I figure I have all weekend to clean up that area. It's better to review the recent market action of the past few weeks with a thorough blog update. Thanks in advance for following along, and I'll be updating the public charts area as time permits. If you follow me on twitter you've seen the longer term charts, which all point to a major reverse, as we seem to be trading within patterns which may not be evident on a 15 min chart.
For example the NASDAQ seems to be trading in a contracting triangle pattern.   
 
 
Touching on a few points I made in the previous blog: Experienced market technicians, have always used the main stream media as a reliable contrarian indicator. Once it's widely reported that "gold is rallying" (for instance), the smart money is most likely already selling. This made a lot of sense when investors had to rely on what newspapers for their reporting, but once the news hit Main St., it was already old news on Wall Street. We'll it didn't take long for Wall Street to figure this out, so they bought all the networks, and now they use the financial networks to directly manipulate markets.
 
I watch nearly every sector and overseas, so it quickly became obvious to me Greece, and Italy, and the Euro banking sector were in free-fall, and talk of the London Bank abandoning the EU wasn't helping to calm markets, but was any of that reported? No. Oil was blamed.... Most of what was going on in Europe was never reported. That is, until the end of the, "global market sell-off", as it was being called.
 
Yesterday on World Wide Exchange (at 5:00 AM EST), none other than Dennis Gartman was once again seen spreading fear of a "global market sell-off", and talk of the Euro-banks in free-fall reached a fever pitch in the media. We'll guess what? This wasn't news to anyone who has been paying attention to the situation, and reporting it honestly. The same could be said for the recent rally in gold, which wasn't reported until very late in the game, and now the poor retail investor is likely to be caught in a bull trap.   
 
Today what is being reported - from CNBC to Bloomberg - is a parade of financial bulls, and the icing on the cake? Jamie Dimon's - $JPM - stock purchase. Bear trap set.
 
We're seeing futures up handily and as I said on earlier in the week, "it's better to miss the final leg down, than to be caught short here".
 
The sell-off was rather shallow with the NASDAQ, Biotech, the Russell 2000, and of course financials, suffering the worst declines. The good news is all these sectors have corresponding 3X ETF Bull funds. I'll be updating all these sectors in my public charts over the weekend, but in the meantime, I wouldn't waste any time pulling the trigger on any, or all, of these.
 
Biotech looks like a normal 3-3-5 zigzag correction - in a parallel channel - and the corresponding 3X ETF's are some of the best performing of all.
Very volatile, but not for the weak of heart.
  
 
As far as Gold and gold miners.
Looks like an irrational wave E/4 on the gold bug index. Watch for a violent reversal into an extended wave 5 (new lows). The reversal maybe not come until after OPEX, but you never know. Money has already been coming out of this fund, regardless of yesterday's blow-off top.
The stop hunt on the $HUI looks like the top of the triangle @ 154. Again the 3X gold miner funds are as volatile as they come, so use some extra caution. I shorted miners 3 days too early, and got my fingers burned!
 
You can follow me on Twitter, and my public charts are available using the link in the left hand menu on this page.
Have a great weekend,
AA
 
 

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Technical Update 01/14/2016 - what's really moving this market

Picking up where we left off

 
We did get a bounce off our Fibonacci target (s) earlier in the week, but those levels have long since broken down. So much for Math
 
 
The $VIX continues to work, and this still looks like a pullback in wave B (on most charts), but there are a couple things to watch. The Transportation index for one.
 
 
$TRAN - in a panic wave "E". This is the cause of market angst, and when commodities rebound this one is coming along for the ride. Add it to your tickers because I'm expecting a violent reversal shortly.
 
 
 
You've probably heard it reported that Oil is moving the market, but Oil and China are NOT moving the market. Oil was up yesterday, and did the market care? No. Another false narrative, being spun by the powers that be... speaking of which an update I saw on CNBC this morning entitled "Ouch!....". More proof that the Networks who are owned by the banks, are the enemy of your trade.
 
All that matters is fear & greed (market sentiment) and money being put to work or not. A buyers strike is one of the scenarios - for Jan., 2016 - I put out there over the holidays - and that's exactly what we're seeing. Eventually money must be put to work, and what better time to squeeze the shorts than heading into earnings season.     
 
Back to the $VIX: Earlier in the week, when I saw the rally fading I said, "we could see a lower market low on a lower $VIX, and that's exactly what we saw yesterday. I'm not pointing this out to toot my own horn, it's just something I'm seen many times before. Same goes for the larger sell-off in Oil, on a lower $UVX. And if it's not fear selling the market off, it's a good old fashioned shakeout.
 
If the $VIX is being manipulated we could even see a false breakout followed by a quick reversal. I don't really see that happening, but if we do... the VIX 26.81 area seems to be the swing point. If the $VIX continues to break out, and the market continues to break down, watch for a sentiment change at the 35 level.  Key $VIX support 20 with no fear below that level. Buy below 26.81. Sell above yesterday's high.  
  

Not all indices are equal

 
We got the NADSDAQ holding up in a range, while the broader market (as measured by the $NYSE) is taking out the August lows.  And the DOW may have traded down 300+ points yesterday, but it's still trading well above the August lows. That points to this NOT being a broad market sell-off.
 
There just isn't much panic associated with the recent selling, and repeated selling into the market close proves the pro shorts (the crooks) are behind it. Conversely when you see rallying into the close you know it's retail shorts covering.
 
Another thing to watch is a break-out of this bearish channel in wave "C" on the 30 minute chart provided in my public charts area [linked] (which should mark the end of this pullback). We're very close to a sharp reversal.
 

 
We're also very close to a reversal in energy, and that's where I want to be when Oil reverses.
Here's a view of a double zigzag pattern - in energy - not offered in my public charts. Again very close.
 
 
When I hear Jim Cramer telling folks to stay away from Schlumberger $SLB, I gotta wonder where his allegiance really lies. Seems to me his job is to keep people in the game while at the same time steering than in the wrong direction.  Take a look at the completed bearish leading diagonal triangle pattern below, and what comes next!  
 
With OPEX just around the corner maybe we see another washout - slightly lower - as soon as today, but timelines are difficult to predict.
 
Thanks for watching and I'll see you on Twitter, AA.