Another 'rollercoaster' day

Fed was 'active' today and this always brings lots of volatility. At 16:30 there was the interest rate decision and at 18:15 Bernanke spoke (Press conference).
A general summary: Fed lowers growth forecast and raises unemployment projections. The Fed also raises inflation estimates. Ben thinks the US has avoided slipping into a new recession. And of course the interest rates remain unchanged.

The Fed-'stuff' gave us another rollercoaster day: up, down, up.

5m-charts SPY:

Daily charts DIA, QQQ and SMH:

The big losers yesterday (silver and copper), were the big winners today. Oil and gold up less, compared with silver, copper and indices in general. Tech was weaker (or less strong) than big & small caps and S&P500.

Trades
I got stopped out of the EUO-trade in premarket, @17.97. No new trades on this Fed-day, back to 100% cash.

Greece once again spoils the party

Greece's PM George Papandreou decided to call for a referendum on the fresh bailout plans. This led to fury among the European partners and lot's of red on the screens... Huge monster gaps were the result at the session opening.

At that point, lot's of buyers came in, pushing the price back up. The move ended halfway in between yesterday's close and the morning (and pre-market) lows. The reversal that followed, got us back near the morning lows. When price started to base at that level, it felt like trouble (another break lower) was coming. But then news came that the idea for a Greece referendum was dead and price spiked up big time. And so we raced back to the morning high (talking about volatility). That high held, so once again we reversed (sometimes people compare the stockmarket with a rollercoaster, I wonder why?!) And yes, in the last 15 minutes of the session we were back near the low of the day.

Economic data didn't help the bulls this morning (see table below)

5m-chart SPY:

Daily charts DIA, QQQ and SMH:

Gold gapped down huge as well, but rallied nicely during the morning. In the afternoon, gold was back to breakeven. Silver however opened even lower, and just like copper, suffered substantial losses. Same story for oil; a bounce together with stocks, back down and up again.

The euro was down for the second day in a row (third if you would count Sunday evening as well). It bounced on the Greece referendum news, but not that much...

Trades
Although it was just a small positon, I sold half my TZA in pre-market and the other half in the first minutes of the session. I also took profits in EUO.
TZA: long 29.80, out 33.80 and 33.17.
EUO: long 17.89, sold 1/4 @18.28 and 1/4 @18.13. Holding the rest and moved SL to 17.99.

I scaled in TZA again after it sold off in the first hour.
TZA: long 32.50 and 32.18, SL31.00 (2/5 position now, would have scaled in some more at lower prices, but that didn't happen). I sold @32.97 when the market spiked up with the euro (damn, that went up fast!). I wanted to go long SPY, but I didn't fancy the risk/reward when price kept going higher - too fast to execute my order.

With all these news-related spikes and price changes in the market, it's extemely difficult to swingtrade. I prefer daytrading at this level, and often with smaller positions. Patience is needed, but someday all these problems (and crises) will be solved. In the meantime, we'll have to be satisfied with smaller gains...

An interesting read about volatility: All or nothing days.

Is this the (intermediate) top?

We gapped lower at the open, but stayed in a range for most of the day. One failed break lower near lunch time was the first mentionable action we got. After the failed break, the high of the day got retested and held. In the last hour, we went to new lows for the S&P500 and Dow. Later on Nasdaq and Russell2000 followed. The market tanked hard in the last minutes of the session, we're finally seeing some distribution.
5m-chart SPY below in the 'Trades'-section of the post.

Daily charts DIA, QQQ and SMH:

Precious metals performed even worse than indices, oil was down moderately. The euro lost >2% and in the meantime the yen lost big against the dollar when Japan intervened to lower the worth of the yen. The currency is too strong, hurting the Japanese export, hence the intervention.

Trades
I tried two trades in SPY today. The break below the morning low near lunch time (failed) and than the break of the diagonal trendline which stopped at the day's high. So two losers (the second out at adjusted stop-loss), I'll let the chart below do the rest of the talking.

The euro tanked hard today and it broke the trendline of the last 4 weeks. So I went long EUO in the last hour, in with a wide stop here.
Anticipating lower stockprices (due to being oversold and also with the euro tanking), I went long a small position in TZA.

Recap:
SPY (daytrade): short 126.55, out 126.82.
SPY (daytrade): long 127.00, out 126.86.
EUO (swing): long 17.89, SL17.50.
TZA (swing): long 29.80, SL28.50.

A nice follow-through day

Friday was a nice breakout for S&P and Dow, while Nasdaq broke out today. The Russell2000 on the other hand is still staying under it's 08/31 high. Anyway, today was a nice follow-through day, but with big divergences between the major indices. Tech ran much more than S&P500 and Dow, but small caps were outperforming the most.

5m-chart for SPY:

Daily charts for DIA, QQQ and SMH:

Gold and silver weren't moving much, but oil (+4.7%) and copper (+7.2%) were big movers!

Trades
I wasn't able to trade or watch my positions on Friday. Both EUO and EDZ got stopped out, EUO near breakeven, EDZ for a loss (after stop-loss was increased).

No new trades, 100% cash at the moment.

Support holding

We opened flat and about an hour and a half into the session, market started to drop. But after another two hours, we broke back higher untill the morning highs acted as resistance.
Still, just like yesterday, tech was lagging other indices. Let's see how that works out.
Back to SPY. 122 was support/resistance a few times the last couple of days. And today was no different, it acted as resistance after the midday turnaround rally.

SPY 5m-chart:

Daily charts for DIA, QQQ and SMH:

Precious metals had another bad day, but gold and silver only suffered minor losses compared with copper (-4 to -5%).

Trades
I was still long EUO and took 1/3 profits @18.40. Holding the rest as long as no higher highs are made (on the daily chart that is).

I went long EDZ and TZA when they broke the trendline formed on the hourly charts. EDZ long 25.23 with SL24.00 and TZA long 40.71 with SL38.72. EDZ seemed stronger and that proved to be right when I got stopped out of TZA and EDZ was still way above my stop. They were both ment as swingtrades.

When the market turned, I went long SPY as a daytrade (see first chart of today), which could also be interpreted as a hedge against the other positions. However, I saw strength; good price-behaviour and volume, so that was the main reason for going long SPY.
Long SPY 120.68, out 1/3 @121.10, 1/4 @121.70 and the rest @120.92 (once again I raised my stop too aggressively). The SPY-gains almost made up for the TZA-loss.

Tomorrow I will be away for a 3-day weekend in the Belgian Ardennes. That means no blog post tomorrow, the next post will probably be Monday.

Resistance holds, but minor support doesn't

In my previous post I already said that morning trading was stuck in a trading range, created by yesterday's strong close. Price formed a wedge (see SPY-chart below) which broke after lunch. The 122-level (the minor support level from the title) first held (it was also the overnight and morning low) but broke about 20 minutes later on big volume. The drop brought us to the 121-level where we closed. Although a nice drop, still no reason to get overly bearish, only a close under 119-119.20 could bring lower prices.

SPY 5m-chart:

Daily charts for DIA, QQQ and SMH:

Precious metals got another beating today; copper and silver were the big losers, gold kept losses small.
Oil also down bigger than indices.

Trades
I already posted that I'm long EUO and keeping this position as long as the euro doesn't make no new highs.

When SPY broke the wedge (see chart above), financials broke lower. So I went long FAZ (see chart below), another inverse ETF. It formed a nice intraday base which broke on ok volume. Long 49.26 and took 1/3 profits per 49.96 and 1/3 per 50.95. Got out the last part near the close per 50.92.
The chart shows that price only retreated about 50% from the lows. Financials (XLF for example as general fin. ETF) still look bullish, so not taking any overnight risk. I don't want no big overnight gap against my position, so all out.

Intraday update - not much going on (yet)

We're still stuck in the trading range created yesterday in the last hour of the session. Until we break out of this range, there is no real edge. One thing noteworthy, tech is lagging while big caps are actually leading today. Small caps and S&P are somewhere in between.

Trades
I noticed how the EUR/USD backtested the trendline (see below in red) and the trendline held. So I went long EUO, the inverse ETF on the euro/dollar pair. Entry per $18.11.