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What do you think 2024 holds for the markets?

Lundy

Web update ...

ES has rallied dramatically for a few weeks. The past few days have shown strong up moves. Our daytrade system came into today (10/28/14) calling it a “sell day” because of the past few days strength. After this strength, a trader must ...

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ES Turn

5 Minute Bars, 24 Hours

12/9/14

The stock market “tanked” overnight. However, the weekly and daily trends are both up. Therefore, you have to look for buys. 

ES gave a great buy signal. Price formed a Head and Shoulders bottom in the first 3 hours of trading. The Head and Shoulders are labelled. The right shoulder is extended into a “handle” formation.

The breakout happens at 12:35 around 2045. 

The distance from the head to the neckline is the target distance for the projected move above the neckline. This is shown as green arrow. Price goes right to this level around 1257. Which is very close to the previous day’s close.

Emotions, Part 5

A trader must handle Complacency. This can occur after a long winning streak. Always maintain proper leverage. This is NOT the time to double or triple up. Or, risk it all on the next trade.  As my father says “your worst drawdown is always ahead of you.”  Plan accordingly.

5 Emotions, Part 4

The next emotional key to successful trading is to be able to handle the Money.
Look at a systems average loss. Can you take that loss? Can you take that loss on roughly half of every trade you make?
One thing to do is to look at the historical performance and fund the account accordingly. A trader might not want to risk more than 1% of a $50,000 per trade. As such, the trader should only trade systems whose average loss is less than $500.

5 Emotions, part 3

Tony’s third emotion to handle is Desperation.
As traders, we are familiar with desperation. It usually shows up after we’ve had four or five losing trades in a row.
A major advantage of mechanical systems is they can be back tested to show most consecutive losers.  If a system shows 10 or 11 losses in a row over back testing and still performs well, you should expect to have 10 or 11 losses in a row in the future. 
Don’t get desperate. The system is acting within it’s parameters at 4 or 5 losses in a row.  Should the system show 13 or 14 losses in a row in this example, that might be a case to step back and evaluate.

5 emotions, part 2

The second key Tony discusses is to learn how to handle frustration. You may get frustrated taking losses. That is part of trading.  Review the systems average loss and percent losers. If you aren’t comfortable with the figures shown, don’t trade the system.
Learn to expect an average trade and an average winning ratio. To expect more is foolish and sets you up for failure.

Emotions of Trading

Five Emotional Keys to Handle to Improve Your Trading

Trading is a mental game. It is you versus yourself. You decide every trade. Your emotions are there at every decision.
I recently listened to an audio by Tony Robbins called “The Five Keys to Wealth and Happiness”. In this audio, Tony goes thru five key emotions we face and must handle in order to reach higher levels of achievement. 
Here, I will give you the emotions we all have as traders and how to deal with them and how Futures Truth magazine can help you handle these emotional hurdles and achieve higher levels of trading success.
The first key is to have a positive attitude. How can we have a positive attitude when even the most successful traders lose on half or more of all their trades? 
Only trade with an edge. An advantage. A systematic approach can give you that edge. You will have winners and losers. But, if the system is robust and logical, it should show positive results over the long-term. Realizing this should help you achieve a  positive outlook.
Tony says a negative attitude prevents us from doing the work necessary to succeed. If you expect to fail, how much research of a trading system to use are you likely to do.
Simona Rich writes that the main cause of negative attitudes is a wrong beliefs about life or certain aspects of it. If you belief your trading should result in 90% winners but are trading a system which shows only 60% winners, you will develop a negative attitude.
Tony further states that having a NEGATIVE attitude destroys discipline.  Discipline is a key foundation to all trading success. So, a positive attitude is key.

"Steady Return"

Reading an article in Wall Street Journal.  It criticizes Gold as an investment because Gold does NOT provide a "STEADY" return.  REALLY?!?.  Name an investment that does!!!  The stock market only recently broke out of a 12 year congestion.  A 12 year, violent congestion.  How about dividend stocks.  Most stocks don't pay divis.  So, stocks are speculation. 
What about housing as an investment?  Houses are an expense.  Try missing a loan payment 3 months in a row.  See who really owns the house - the bank does.  If you are renting it out - does it pay the combined cost of Mortgage, Interest, Taxes and upkeep?
Gold has provided double digit returns for 10+ years in a row.  HOW MUCH MORE STEADY CAN YOU GET!

Short Google

Wow, a simple first 30 minute breakout would have gotten you short GOOG way up at 754.  now trading at 695.  Plus 59 dollars per share.

Gold Highs

New afternoon highs in gold on a $10 plus move in closing minutes.  Usually a bullish sign. 

Silver to $26?

“Never to get married to a position.” That is tough advice for a gold and silver bug who has had a profitable 10 year run. 
Silver’s first Head and Shoulders Top in the summer proved this point.  A price target of $36 was forecast by the September 12 breakdown.  This was hit, and then some.
Another, longer Head and Shoulders top broke the Neck line on December 12.  This forecast a price target of $26.  Right at the September low.  This is right around the 50 percent level of the high reached in late April, 2011
After the last leg down, price retraced to the 50 percent level.  This forecast a 50 percent likelihood of the old low being broken.
Bottom Line, it is too early to get long Silver here.

Silver went to $26.14 by the end of December.  I'll call that a WIN!

The “key” to this chart is that the previous action in the market was strongly up.  Three strong days up followed by a NR day.  Yesterday was a Narrow Range(NR) / Congestion bar.  Which way will the market go out of the NR day?

A huge gap up open tells us - UP!  This gap had IMMEDIATE follow thru.  Look to get long.  We don’t recommend trading for the first 30 to 60 minutes of the trading day.  At 10:00, price had a 30 minute breakout up.  Stafford Daytrade got long on the confirmation of this 30 minute breakout shortly thereafter at a price of 1179.80. A new high above the 30 minute breakout bar ensues.

After some positive follow through, price congest.  Expect a long congestion and potential deep reaction based on the big move thus far.  Traders needs to “digest” such a big move.  Sure enough, price goes sideways from 10:45 to 2:30.  Then the afternoon Counter-Trend move happens.  This carries exactly to the 68% retracement level of the move from the open of the day.  Stafford Daytrade’s stop loss was loose enough to NOT get hit.  After the afternoon Counter-Trend move, our unique trailing stop feature will “kick in” and hopefully protect profits.

The “big boys” come in and drive the market much higher in last half hour of the day.  How could they NOT?  If the “big boys” weren’t long coming into today, they have to make darn sure they are long going out of the day.  Stafford Daytrade exited it’s long trade at the close of 1190.90.  A profit of 11.10 on this trade.  OVER $2500 on one big SP or about $500 per e-mini. PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.  ALL RESULTS ARE HYPOTHETICAL. 

Golfer Rory

Reading about Rory McIlroy's amazing US Open when reminded me of trading. Over 4 rounds of golf he shot 16 under par. That's 4 birdies per 18 holes with no boggies or above. Just 1 birdie per every 4 1/2 holes of golf. Very similar to trading. If you have 18 trades in a day, a week or a month and can come out even on 14 of those trades and win on just 4, you should do very well. Take our Stafford Daytrade system. It trades about 14 times per month. And over hypothetical testing, it "makes" it's month on just 2 or 3 trades.

US is broke

“The US is the largest indebted nation in the history of the world and the debt is going higher and higher," Rogers added.

A new report from Deutsche Bank ranks the US government as the world's fourth riskiest sovereign borrower, behind Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and just ahead of Italy.

Coffee

Coffee at multi decade highs and maker higher highs as we speak. I expect starbucks to raise prices soon. Stock up now.

Hilarious

The Dems and Republicans are arguing over a $30 billion difference in budget cuts. My ROUGH estimate is that the US government spends $3 trillion a year. Arguing over that $30 billion is like arguing over the ONE PENNY change when you buy a 99 cent diet coke for a buck. Not only that but taking a week arguing over that penny. At the sake of not getting back to work (read government shutdown). This would be funny in a movie. SAD in real life. Amerika is broke and screwed.

Corn

With Crude oil over $110 a barrel, this article on Corn shortage is apt.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-corn-reserves-expected-to-apf-3038968207.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

I'm long a may corn 700 call

Deficits

The U.S. just reported a record budget deficit last month of $222.5 billion, a bigger deficit than the entire year of 2007.

Ring of Fire

Google "Ring of Fire". We've had 3 of the 4 corners
have a major earthquake. Is California next?