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The market is dead. Continuing with last week’s theme – there was no volume, no volatility, and no “action” of any kind. If the market isn’t dead, it sure is in a very deep slumber. The range has been so tight for so long that when it does wake up

Friday’s early trade was higher on general optimism. The early rally ran into resistance and started its normal sideways (lack of) trend. Shortly into this sideways zone the news hit: lawsuits On the face of it you wouldn’t expect the news to drive

Today’s early signs of life in the market were arguably due to the large drop in the Euro. And by “early signs of life” I mean the drop of US equities at the open. We don’t care which way it moves, just as long as “something” is happening. Sadly

I have heard that 95% or more of all traders ultimately fail. Have you ever wondered why? Most traders will tell you it was the system or method they were using. They'll also tell you they had a few bad trades they couldn't recover from. Or their dog

Monday was another Ramp & Camp day: it ramped higher on very low volume and set up a camp site. The volatility was ridiculously low – again. For the vast majority of the session, the ES traded in a scant 3.50 point range despite being up over 35.00

Let me introduce you to one simple technique I've used to pick intraday market direction with 80% accuracy. Would you like to know if a particular trade has an 80% probability of working? Would you like to know exactly where to enter that trade, and

Today’s missive – R&R - is not about rest and relaxation, but “rollover” and “ru Thursday begins the S&P500 futures rollover. This is when traders switch from December (the current contract) to the next contract month, which is March 2012. Stock

The market fell again Tuesday and although three down days in four is nothing for central banksters to truly worry about (and there is plenty of lower support in the S&P) – it nevertheless is not going according to plan. The Fed’s QE1 plan did work –

Candlestick charts have all kinds of potential patterns that technicians are watchful for. One of the easiest to spot is an engulfing pattern. This set-up consists of two candlesticks, one of which is “engulfing” the previous one. That means the body

Before US equities opened Tuesday, markets were roiled by soaring bond yields in Italy, Ireland, Spain, France, and Belgium. What’s this? I thought Ireland was fixed? I thought Spain was no problemo? And France; doesn’t it have an AAA rating

Yesterday I said The reason why I am mentioning this again is that I believe it will become a bigger story this coming week. Oh sure, the European insolvency drama will continue and could still be a market mover, but I think the media will focus a

The topic of trailing stops comes up on occasion in my Virtual Trading Room. They can often cause some confusion, so let’s take a bit of time to clarify what constitutes a trailing stop and how you can use it in futures trading. Trailing stops are

As you know, MF Global has gone bust thanks to outrageous bets on worthless sovereign debt. But as you will read, it wasn’t the sovereign debt alone but how MF Global treated these bets via accounting shenanigans. Accounting gimmicks…it is so often

How often have you looked at a chart and tried to determine whether or not the market is really trending? How many times have you been fooled by your Stochastics or RSI indicators? How many times have you sold because your oscillators were screaming

Last week I gave the outlook for the Non-Farm Payroll data “The consensus for Friday’s NFP is for 90,000 job growth, with an unchanged unemployment rate of 9.1%.” That data is a matter of record now so let’s have a l 1. US Payrolls +80,000 2

In the fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis, there have been moments that have been driven by pure fear. These are the moments when it can be hard to maintain your composure and trade your plan. Unfortunately, these big days are the times

A friend of mine in the pit had been having a rough time lately when he asked me a typical question among us traders - How do I come back from a loss? Since he had been having a "rough patch" and not just one bad trade, I gave him the following

On a candlestick chart, there is a pattern that technicians refer to as a doji. A doji has top and bottom shadows like a regular candlestick, but has practically no real body. This happens when the opening and closing price are the same, or so close

I think it's time for another look at Japanese candlestick analysis. Let's take a closer look at kicking, widely considered a high reliability pattern in candlestick charts. Kicking patterns are another reversal signal. Kicking patterns on a

Stop orders are often used to try to protect profits. Take the stop order to another dimension and use it to reverse your position and open another trading possibility! When you place a stop order, it is only activated if the market trades at or