Day Trade Emini S&P 500 NASDAQ 100

5 minutes candlestick charts

Hi,
Like what I have described in the previous trade shortly after the opening bell today. Consumer confidence is going to be announced at 10:00am. I even made a losing trade, expecting that price will rebound from the moving averages. However, I managed to cut loss at $10 when I sensed that downward pressure is stronger than upward pressures.

My hunch proved correct and market did begin to fall and penetrate the moving averages. I shorted one lot at 1690. When price fell even further with great momentum. I knew that market is reacting to the consumer confidence report and this is going to be a sharp down turn. I shorted another 3 lots straight away. I set my stop loss at 1965 and a price target at 1680. But as the price kept droping, I shifted my price target down to the next support area at 1676. I was pretty confident that this great fall will be able to hit my price target. And BRAVO... it did and $1000 goes into my pocket within 20 minutes. This is one of the best trades I had since the beginning of this year!

Posted by Michael Taylor at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 Minutes Candlestick Chart

Hi,

Consumer confidence will be announced later at 10:00am. This is probably the reason for the uneasy and slow movement in the market. Normally I don't enter the market in the first 15 minutes of the opening bell. Today is different. Notice that price has hit the moving averages and there is a slight rebound, furthermore, stochastics and MACD is moving up from oversold regions. I decided to take a risk and aim for a 7 pt trade ( from 1697 to 1704). However, at the same time, do take note that the mid-term MACD is pending on crossing the zero line. This does not bode well for the trade. One of the advantages of using multiple MACDs is that it allows you to detect trends in different time frames. In this case, our mid-term MACD is in conflict with our short-term MACD. This is the main caveat of the trade. Nevertheless, I was decided to enter the trade and cut loss quickly if things go against me. I placed my cut loss at 1692.

After entering at a slight rebound at 1697, the market moved erratically and unpredictable. I was feeling uneasy when it went down all the way to 1694. This simply means that the market is still not ready to go up. I decided to cut loss and was lucky to get out at 1696.5.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 minutes Candlestick Chart

What do you notice about recent market conditions? Zig Zag up and down? No obvious trend? It is a difficult market. If you have to play in such a market, I'd advice on trading a rebound from the moving averages rather than trading the pullback. This trade which lasted for 20 minutes made $180 in profit.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 minutes Candlestick Chart

What do you notice about recent market conditions? Zig Zag up and down? No obvious trend? It is a difficult market. If you have to play in such a market, I'd advice on trading a rebound from the moving averages rather than trading the pullback. This trade which lasted for 20 minutes made $180 in profit.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 minute Candlestick Chart

Hi,
The market is in an undecisive mood again. Although the moving averages are sloping slightly upwards, there is no real trend. In order to confirm this, look at the 15 minutes chart below. You will notice that price is range-bound in a horizontal channel. It might appear that price might breakout the channel once it hits the boundaries. But, really, it is just moving in an erractic fashion without any clear direction. Another tell-tale sign that price is not trending is to look at the stochastics and MACD. You will realize that they have poor symmetry, reflecting the irratic price movements.

15 minute Candlestick chart

Posted by Michael Taylor at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 Minute Candlestick Chart

Hi,
The market opened today with a 6 point gap down. It hit my longest Moving average ( blue) and bounce up slightly, stochastics and MACD were also showing a slight upturn. I decided to enter 1 contract to test the market. However, I am not really confident of this trade, but I decided to make a bet anyway, since the my risk is minimal as I placed my stop loss at 1681.5. If you look at the 15 minutes chart, Nasdaq 100 is not really trending upwards, the market is almost flat. This is the main reason why I am abit uneasy about this trade.

Well, price moved slowly and the market was ranging, my hunch proved to be right and I shifted my stop loss up to 1684 and cut loss at $30. Well, you have to be able to roughly feel the market, feel how it moves and observe the price action.

15 Minutes Candlestick Chart

Posted by Michael Taylor at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 Minutes NASDAQ 100 EMINI FUTURES

Market is in uptrend now, it makes more sense to long rather than short. However my MACD and stochastic indicators are giving an entry signal. I didn't want to risk it big and decided to be cautious. I shorted 1 contract at 1687 and another 1 at 1684.5. I set my profit limit order at 1681.5. The trade lasted for a mere 15 minutes with $170 in my pockets. Not a bad trade for 15 minutes of work. But I would say, the market is not really moving...

Posted by Michael Taylor at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 minutes chart

The market opened with a gap down. Usually I don't bet on gaps closing. But, this gap happened to be at the lower band of the Bollinger Bands. ( see 15 minutes chart below). I was confident that the gap will not only close but go beyond the gap to reach the top of the band. I entered 1 lot at 1662 and another 2 lots at 16635. I set my stop loss at 1658, a pretty tight stop loss because I was prepared to leave as soon as the trade turn against me. I set a limit order to sell 3 lots at 1674 which is the high of yesterday. The trade was highly successful, although there were minor hiccups along the way. After I took profit at 1674, NQ went further up to 1682.5, there was no way I can predict that. Most traders would kick themselves for not staying longer in the market. But remember, GREED, is one of the biggest money losers you can have.

15 minutes chart

Posted by Michael Taylor at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, the market has not be performing very well lately. I did not even trade today. Staying out of the market when there is no trade is as important as knowing when to enter the market. A non-trending market can cause you to lose big time, cancelling whatever profits you might have from previous trades.

Today's market opened with a gap down. Remember what I told you about gaps? there is no guarantee that the gap will close within the day and this is a typical example of what happened. During the later part of the market at around 1500, you can see a double bottom forming, However, I did not enter as the market still appeared to be in a trendless mode and I wasn't willing to risk my money for that little profit possible.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Types of Orders
Placing orders is an art in itself. Beginners often do not know when to use market orders and limit orders. Different orders are used in different market conditions. But the limit order is the one that is most versatile. Understanding a limit order is essential to your trading success. I will only discuss the case for buying, the reasoning and mechanism is the same for shorting.

Market Order
In a market order, you are basically giving instructions to your broker to buy at the prevailing price. You cannot set what price you want to buy. Market orders might be prone to slippage in fast moving markets. For example, if you give a market order to buy 10 lots, 3 lots might be filled at $10, another 3 lots at $10.50 and the remaining 4 lots at $11.00. We usually use a market order when we need to get in or out of a market fast, such as when the market suddenly moves against you drastically.

Limit Order
A limit order is different from a market order in that you can specify the price at which you want to buy. For example, if you specify you want to buy 2 lots at $10, you will not get a fill at prices above $10. Hence a possible scenario is you get both 2 lots at $10, or 1 lot each at $10 and $9.50. The beauty for the limit order is that you will not get a fill unless the price is better than what you specified.

Stop Order
A stop order is better known as a stop loss order . In day trading stop loss is essential to your survivor. Some traders do not set a stop loss because they are monitoring their trades real-time. They feel that they can step in fast enough to close the position when the situation goes against them. However, in fast moving markets, you can very well lose $200 or more on a single contract in a matter of minutes. Setting a stop loss order removes the psychological hesitation to exit a position. From my experience, this is an absolute requirement, please master it and use it to your advantage.

Assume you are currently long at $10 and you set the stop loss at $8, you are giving instructions to your broker to sell at market price when the price falls down to $8. When the price is above $8, the stop loss order lays dormant, it will turn into a market order only when the price hits $8 to save you from further losses. Note that a stop loss order is always used to exit a position. Hence if you are long, the stop loss order will give instructions to sell. If you are short, the stop loss order will give instructions to buy.

Stop Limit Order
A stop limit order is similar to a stop loss order, except that it will turn into a limit order at the predetermined price. For example, assume you are long at $10 and you set a stop limit order to sell at $8, when price falls to $8, the order will become a limit order at $8. Recall that limit order will assure you of a fill better than the price you specified. Hence, a limit order at $8 means that you get a fill at $8 and above.

Michael Taylor is a professional trader and webmaster of www.daytradeemini.com He regular updates his trading blog at www.daytradeemini.com/blog with educational articles and trading records.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 Minute Chart

Market opened with a 8 point gap up. I missed trading the gap and wasn't willing to enter half way since I was not confident that the gap will close. BAD NEWS is --> the GAP CLOSED, and even overshoot the gap by almost 2 points. There was a strong rebound after the gap closure and I shorted at 1667.5, and a second lot at 1665 with my stop loss at 1672. I automatically enter into a limit order to buy it at 1671. The position was automatically closed with $210 of profits. NO SWEAT!

PROOF --- TRADING CONFIRMATION STATEMENTS. Click to enlarge the image below.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 Minutes Chart

Are you thinking of going long? DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! As I have said time and again, the market is in a downward bias. it only makes sense for you to short the market. In this trade which lasted for around 40 minutes, I demonstrate how you can use the Multiple MACD and Stochastics method for an accurate entry and exit signals. When used together with the candlestick movements, this method is almost IDIOT PROOF. However, you have to experiment with the parameters of the stochastic and MACD indicators. I have fine tuned and perfected the paramerters after years of trading. For a full discussion, please refer to Day Trade Emini for Regular Profits.. You might ask why is it IDIOT PROOF?
Well, see for yourself the areas I have circled in blue. Do they look like OBVIOUS turning points? YES? and if this is coupled with a strong downward candlestick, chances are price is moving down.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The market has been very flat recently, if you are not careful, you might just lose it big. Although the market is generally ranging, there is still a slight downward bias and it only make sense if you go short instead of long. Going long is much too risky for the reward that you can get.

This trade starts are around 1340 to 1420, a full 40 minutes trade. Basically, I had the benefit of hindsight from the movement in the morning markets. If you study the charts carefully, you will realize that NQ is moving up and down in a zig-zag manner but moving slightly lower each time. This is what I mean by downward bias. The decision to enter the trade came at 1340 when there was a huge red candle downwards. From experience, price usually have big movements at around 1400, I decided to take the risk. stop loss was set at 1671. Quite a tight stop loss as I was not prepared to lose big on this trade.

Posted by Michael Taylor at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)