June 3rd, levels and whatnot

I see others setting out price levels for the S&P 500 ETF SPY, the futures and other market indicators for public consumption. I have seen them and usually don't use them as they are not mine. Some of the pivots and various levels are from "proprietary" algorithms and methods...whatever works for me is what I go by and I need to know that I do not have to rely on someone else to supply my information...who knows when they may stop putting it out there?
Yesterday I placed important price points in SSO in my journal to see what stuck. I use simple Previous Day high and low, pre and post market ranges and perhaps some important and plainly obvious resistance or support levels from the previous day. Occasionally I will go back and see what might be important from a month or even a year ago but I have not really set those in writing for easy reference so far.

So, for yesterday's "trading" I had PD high of $27.81 and low of $26.80 and the pre and post range was $27.20 to $27.55.

Interestingly my SSO entries were from $27.52 to $27.65 and the exits were all $27.80 or $27.70. So the range that I was able to trade was the pre and post market high to the PD high.

I did not write down SDS levels but the ranging was inversely similar.

Today I only managed to squeeze in two trades. I planned on no SSO trades (long the S&P) as I expected a down day overall and perhaps even a trend.

SDS levels were marked but the only important ones were the premarket range, $53.47 to $54.00. Trading started in this range and passed the $54 early and never looked back...yet. I entered a trade at $54.11 but was stopped out early with very small profit as I was too anxious for a profit and not 100% sure of the coming move.

Second trade was just after 1000h at $54.45, I missed the pullback by keeping my stop at $54.30 then ratcheted it up to $54.67 before getting stopped out...impatience again.

Then lunch hit...or at least the pre-lunch hanging about that often happens which basically keeps me from actually placing trades. I did not get to look at the market again until about 1400h, the trend had trended and looked to be whipped as the days volume was petering off a bit. I did mark the entries at the beginning...the setup was at 1143h and the first of four primary triggers were from 1146h to 1206h. Given that I had already tried two trades in SDS it is more than fair to say that I would have placed more trades along the same plan.

Here is the SDS chart for the morning activity leading into the afternoon:



Assuming an entry on the high side of those red arrows...when I may have over ridden my plan and gone back to the PP200 style entry given the establishing trend and entered even better...there was a decent 60 cent climb using the 50sma (less 5 - 10 cents) as a stop and the R3 as the final resting place.

I am still ahead today regardless, though not a whole lot.

Jeff.