Just an observation

Every continuation sell on the hourly since last July have come on monster gap-downs of about 15-20 ES points. So an hourly swing trader gets shut out effectively, since the bulk of the move happens overnight. To capture the rest 10 points for the entire day session (excluding the 20 point gap-down) one would have to use a 20 point stop. The only way to swing trade this has been to short strength without confirmation. Otherwise, one is forced to scalp the rest of the day. Not my style of market. Lol, i would never trade anything less than 30-min and here i am sitting in front of 1-min/233 tick charts and scalping. Not to say the scalping is bad, but boy it's intense work. I distinctly remember during the 2001-2002 bear, we use to get monster gap-ups which were sold. This market is different. We get monster gap-downs which get further sold !

I think the idea is to identify one of the long term trends...let's say daily. Then sell the rallies. One way to do that would be to sell when a shorter term time frame starts to fail. I thought in this latest move that took place last Thursday. Yesterday in my opinion was kind of an anomaly because of the IBM news. Today in fact puzzles me fundamentally. The C news was widely anticipated, in fact, their announcement actually was better than expected. Likewise, the inflation news. So why this big gap? Maybe it just shows that good news (like last Thursday) fails to rally the market, whereas poor news like today takes it down. IT

IT, I think it could be options play. Pick up cheap call options then push the market up. Could be to get all those longs out. After all, the "real fear" isn't there. Fear wasn't happening on Friday on a move down. So, they keep whipsawing small money here and there until they can get what they desire. IMHO. I see them manupulating on the charts. Gotta play the game.

After scalping the short side this morning, i am now in long at YM 12598 for another scalp trade. If 12637 is taken out on an hourly closing basis, i will hold it longer.

I think the idea is to identify one of the long term trends...let's say daily. Then sell the rallies. One way to do that would be to sell when a shorter term time frame starts to fail. I thought in this latest move that took place last Thursday. Yesterday in my opinion was kind of an anomaly because of the IBM news.

Today in fact puzzles me fundamentally. The C news was widely anticipated, in fact, their announcement actually was better than expected. Likewise, the inflation news. So why this big gap? Maybe it just shows that good news (like last Thursday) fails to rally the market, whereas poor news like today takes it down.

IT

Subprime writedowns were anticipated, yes. But looks like they didn't write off everything.

Also they lost 1 bil in credit card debt. Credit card defaults have reached 5% of their total portfolio, as I understand. I guess market could've gotten a clue from AXP and COF, but they apparently didn't.
Pretty much the credit of all kinds is hitting the fan.

There was a lot of hope that C will provide some certainty. And they didn't So the HOPE is being sold.

I think that about describes it.

After scalping the short side this morning, i am now in long at YM 12598 for another scalp trade. If 12637 is taken out on an hourly closing basis, i will hold it longer.

Stopped out for 10 ticks profit.

Edited by NAV, 15 January 2008 - 01:37 PM.

I recall Robert Rubin, during his brief place sitting moment at C, say at the news conference regarding the 7B Abu Dhabi deal that shareholders should not worry about the dividend. C was not going to cut it. I knew then that was going to turn out to be a lie. You mentioned I believe in the same thread I posted, in that the Abu Dhabi money only covered three-quarters of their yearly div. ogm.

Edited by milbank, 15 January 2008 - 01:39 PM.