Good evening StockBandits!
The major averages retreated in minor fashion today, backing off slightly from Friday’s strong closes. That creates some short-term pivots to watch in last week’s highs to keep an eye on in the days ahead. A little rest here wouldn’t be a bad thing, but the bulls wouldn’t want to see the entire rally from last week evaporate. Today’s selling was mild on the surface, so no indication is present at this time to suggest that the dip-buyers will stay away. After all, the bulls still see that we aren’t far from 52-week highs.
With the indexes sitting within the trading ranges of the past couple months, there’s little to get overly excited about here. The range game can still offer some nice opportunities, so selectivity is the key alongside being patient for new setups and entries to come along. It’s easy to churn an account when inside a range like this and momentum is absent.
I had a commitment this afternoon which prevented me from doing tonight’s work at the usual time, so since I’m getting this out later than usual I’ll cut right to the charts.
Given that the same index levels apply from last night, I’ll post those levels here rather than charts this evening. For a visual, simply refer back to last night’s Broadcast as they charts themselves essentially look the same.
NAZ – 3045 held today on a test, but the bulls don’t want to see last week’s low tested just yet at 2946. 3076 followed by 3134 are upside resistance zones.
S&P 500 – 1388 held today on a minor dip, so we’ll watch Friday’s high at 1406, 1414, and 1422.
RUT – 815 was tested today and held, although the big support to watch is at 784. Resistance zones are 833 and 847.
DJIA – 13300 remains the big level to watch for this index, and we’re within 87 points of it tonight after a small retreat today. Below here would be 13055 as next support.
Below are the trades I’m looking to take as we head into tomorrow. Please leave your comments and/or questions below if you have any, I always enjoy the interaction.
Day Trade Setups:
These are the stocks on my radar for day trades in tomorrow’s session. For those of you who are new here, please see the Day Trading Strategy for more details on how I manage the day trades.
Swing Trade Setups:
NONE TONIGHT
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The Hit List contains stop and target levels for my swing trades.
Hi Jeff,
You know how I love fishing analogies. Well today I sure should have stayed off the lake, but I came in too greedy. Been a long time since we had a day without a gap draining all the energy out before the trading even started. Today looked perfect and I was so pumped. Just like a day with a high pressure front coming in before a warm rain.
Then things unravelled. I could not connect to my Wordens TC2000 charting program. If it had looked like a so so day, I would have just walked away, but it felt so perfect, so I decided to tough it out with the charts in my broker’s program.
Now when I see trouble like lightening on the lake I get the heck off, but I was just too pumped and figured I could ignore having things not working right.
Big mistake, early on I got rattled. Then when it came time to exit a position, instead of doing a “buy to cover” I left in “sell short” in the order action. I caught it, but still, it was not a fun day.
I stayed within my loss parameters (at the time I thought it was worse than it was), yet after all this time I should know better. When things are not working right, you have no valid risk to reward ratio. For all intents and purposes, I was blind as a bat and out of control.
The brokers charts are fine once you are in a trade and something happens, but I should have never gone in without having things in order.
I bet all the TC2000 users appreciate it today if they made the mistake of trying to function without it.
Best regards,
John
Hi John,
Glad you survived the day and stayed within your loss parameters despite the difficulties. Routine is so important, and it’s critical that we stay aware of what keeps us in our comfort zones (for the better) so that we can focus on doing what we do best. You already know this of course, I’m just stating agreement with you and this was a very good analogy. Thanks for sharing and hang in there!