May 15th, Getting more acquainted with the TICK

I certainly wish this was as easy live as it is after the fact, but then everyone would be doing it and none of this would work.

Here is the TICK chart partitioned without regard to the actual SPY chart.

I should point out, the actual tick is not on this chart, I have the Bollinger Bands and a few moving averages. Almost those are enough to use... I am considering simplifying this chart for live use somehow. I think getting an overall feel for the movement may be more important than the absolute numbers represented here. I set up an alert that alerts me any time a TICK value hits + or - 800. Depending on the price setup these are great entry or exit points for trades.

Here is the SPY chart with the same partitions overlayed. Pretty close once again.

The ranging off the start uses the 200SMA as a support and tests it a few times before heading up to the upper range. The black horizontals are the high and low from yesterday so the whole day is really sort of a range day in that sense.

The TICK moving averages spent most of the day in the negative area once SPY came close to the upper range.

The key, obviously, is to be able to anticipate the change in the trend and place the trade accordingly. I missed playing the drop after 1100h due to just not paying attention. I placed a trade on SSO,was stopped out quickly and did not get the SDS trade in quick enough to catch the move... back to my market orders as they take no adjustment to setup before placing the order.

I entered a trade after 1330h anticipating an EOD rally off of the low from yesterday. I should have closed the trade in the green as it just wallowed around for almost an hour but I let my stop close me out...of course the higher volume activity at that point lost me a few more cents per share on my stop loss. Options expiration was somewhat a factor here so I should have been out of all trades earlier today than most other days.

Jeff.