May 13th

Nice trade setups today as TICK remained mostly below zero until late in the day.

I wasn't able to do any of the trades today but I did jot down some of the entries based on the live activity. I am reconsidering my decision to use limit orders to get into trades. The spread on the ETFs is almost always a penny. The trouble I am finding is that I decide where to place my limit based on terribly conservative loss allowances and I often miss the price for the sake of pennies. The only down fall in using market orders is sometimes I will not necessarily get the fill that I want. I don't mind paying an extra penny or two to get into the moves that I select, it is better than chasing a price after having taken the time to modify the limit order. Often this seems to be moments too late and the good moves missed outweigh the good entries.

Here is the TICK chart for the day:
SDS first as the day was a down day for the market, so an up day for the leveraged bear fund:

What I found interesting on this day was that the best entries occurred on, or very near, the 200 SMA line. I am using a 185 and 215 as alerts to notify me when the price gets close tot he 200SMA, it not ideal but is easier than trying to program a band on either side of the SMA.

Trade 1, SSO on the chart below, was not on the 200SMA entry criteria. The TICK made a low that matched the previous low shortly after 0930h but the price made aslightly higher low than the previous low...possible sign of an uptrend move, or at least a target trade to the 200SMA

Trades 2, 3, 5, 7 & 8 were easy as the price not only got very close to the 200SMA, which could still be a sole entry criteria, but the TICK also peaked near the upper range for the day at each point. TICK making equal highs and price making new higher lows at the same time on a classic resistance line, nice. I did try for a couple of these trades and missed due to limit orders with too low a price.

Trade 4 was the only one that I did enter, trying out the idea of the TICK with higher lows even without the 200SMA line as I try to get over not getting into moves even when they look over extended. I made a few dollars on that one, so it worked.

SSO:



Trade 6 was sort of flukie, 30/50 crossover. I was looking toward playing counter trend as the bottom looked to be there as there was a low, slightly lower low then a higher low, sort of an inverse head and shoulders pattern. With such a strong downtrend on the day up to that point I doubt that I would have made the trade unless I had already beat my daily goal and had some spare profits to kick around... although that is a good way to end up with a down day if not careful.

Jeff.