Friday, September 17, 2004
Issue Contents:
| 09:04 | The Day Ahead Economic releases and news. |
| 09:29 | Swing Trade Setups Featured charts from Thursday's scan. |
| 16:15 | TrendVue Trader Talk Today's transcript. |
| 17:06 | Stock Scanner Results Friday September 17 - TrendVue Swing Ratio 1.86 : 1 |
| 17:09 | Kudos TickQuest delivers, again. |
Good morning, its the 261st day of 2004 and its “Quadruple Witching” day as the September index and single stop futures exptire, as well as options for equities and indexes.
Companies are still assessing the impact of Ivan—it does appear that some production capacity has been affected and a number of exploration companies are on the hunt for oil rigs and drilling platforms gone missing in the storm.1
With so little economic news today and Monday to drive traders today, the market is left with self-contemplation and reflection. Its very possible today will be a game of follow-the-leader and move for movement’s sake.
US Market Calendar
- 9:45 am: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
Canadian Market Calendar
- 7:00 am: Consumer Price Index – August
- 8:30 am: Leading Indicators – August
Earnings and the Federal Reserve
For earnings highlights, please see today's WSJ Earnings Calendar.
For a list of upcoming speeches, congressional testimony, Federal Open Market Committee material, and statistical releases, please visit the What's Next page of The Federal Reserve Board website. Recently released Federal Reserve Board material, including market moving FOMC decisions and speeches by members, will be found on their What's New page.
1 Hurricane Ivan Uproots Oil Rigs
Featured setups from Thursday’s closing data symbol scan
Jump to: Long Setups | Short Setups
Notes for the Day
Follow the leader – a likely mode of operation today, with so little economic news to push markets around both today and Monday, there is only the now-normal concern about geopolitical news over the weekend affecting the market.
As we’ve been saying this week, while the index charts stall and retreat, stock charts are building day by day minor retracements. Since dominant trend from the weekly remains up, and there is no significant failed test of top overhead, our bias must remain up.
This could change very rapidly if a failed test of top paints itself over the next day or so – and knowing that, we’ll want to be sure we have well protected our existing and new positions with stops. We can’t sit out valid long-side trade opportunities because a test may fail, because it may not.
Please visit TrendVue Trader Talk or join us in the chat room for more picks, coming up in the first hour of trade.
Long Setups
General common strategy: Unless noted otherwise, buy stop just above the “high” value, with an initial protective stop at the low value of the bar, not below the bar.
Test of Bottom – Reversal
Retracement or Pause in Up Swing / Up Trend
GTW pause at a test of an important swing high, buy stop 4.76 (or *4.80), protective stop if filled 4.62. Suggest only intraday-capable traders attempt since you’ll want to monitor closely and ensure price moves above Wednesdays high of *4.79 and holds above those levels.
TWX, bull flag in a developing new up trend. Caution warranted due to the rising wedge and odd volume pattern the past few days, but it does appear that buying support has been here for TWX as of late. Buy stop 16.88, protective stop if filled 16.64.
Test of Top – Continuation
GE – carrying forward GE to these pages, again, in order to demonstrate to clients what should be done once we detect a pause in a trend. GE has now a well-defined bull flag. Following it down the past two days with a buy stop above cost nothing – both trades expired without triggering. In general a bull flag is most interesting to us when its still relatively young – by bar 4 we start to lose interest; after bar 6 we ignore them. Buy stop 33.77 above yesterday’s inside day (bar 3), protective stop if filled: 33.50.
Short Setups
General common strategy: Unless noted otherwise, place a sell alert at or just below the low of the setup bar, and look for the first failed intraday bounce after the low has been broken. What we are looking for is price to push down, bounce a little, and fail again – this is where we want to get short.
Retracement or Pause in Down Swing / Down Trend
MHS – “stealth” bear flag within the range, trigger at 30.91 and look for entry intraday.
Today's transcript.
Click on the title above to expand this document.
Friday September 17 - TrendVue Swing Ratio 1.86 : 1
Click on the title above to expand this document.
Once in a while a person or team does something that makes me stand back and want to applaud. The folks at TickQuest have made me jump and shout right on a few times this year.
Long time readers will remember that I’ve been working with the excellent DTN RealTime satellite delivered data feed product for a while now, in addition to IQFeed and TickQuest’s advanced NeoTicker charting tool.
Based on my own experience to date, and observations of TickQuest and its user community, I can highly recommend TickQuest’s charting products and DTN’s data feeds, either as a complement or alternative to Tradestation. All charting tools have their strengths, so do check them all out.
For longer term traders who don’t need or want the expense of realtime data, NeoTicker End of Day is a real steal for its $40 one time cost. Get your data for free from Yahoo! (the functionality is all built into NeoTicker EOD) and enjoy an advanced and productive platform for analysis.
While I’ve been a Tradestation user for many years, there are some things the recent generation of Tradestation products just can’t do, with the most important deficiency being a complete inability to access market data other than what they provide. Since I trade both US and Canadian markets, this has been a long-time thorn in my side.
The solution? I use NeoTicker Realtime and Instant Data Server, fed by DTN Realtime satellite data, and/or IQFeed internet data feed (primarily as a backup).
Satellite data offers real benefits to active traders as only satellite data provides the ability to track the entire market—currently I capture stock and futures data, in real time, for over 22,000 symbols. In addition, satellite delivery offers redundancy in case of Internet outages, and, because the data resides locally, the solution offers a real productivity boost to those who have to pore over hundreds or thousands of charts a week.
Until now, a missing piece of the satellite data puzzle has been obtaining historical data. For those unfamiliar with satellite delivered data, when you first go live with the system, you have no history available – only that which you collect and store from that point forward.
Solving this problem, TickQuest delivers, again. Available now in beta for current customers is TickQuest Instant Data Server beta 4, which now seamlessly integrates data backfill capability (using IQFeed) with their superb interface to DTN Realtime satellite data.
TickQuest Instant Data Server – Backfilling using IQFeed
And, it just works! Woo hoo! Yes, I can just picture readers all jumping along with me ;-) so I’ll explain why this is a big deal—all of a sudden we now have the capability to scan and review the entire North American market, and access any data desired, in real time.
In the near term this will have a positive impact on our stock scanning ability and we’ll also be covering more markets. In addition to our long-term primary focus on US equity and futures markets, we will almost immediately expand our coverage to include all dual (US and Canadian) listed stocks, and all important and most-traded names on NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, and TSX
What’s even more amazing (to me) than the new capability is that TickQuest said they would deliver it, indicated they would make it a priority, and they delivered what they said they would, when they said they would. I realize that this article sounds a bit like an advertisement, and to the extent that I like to share positive experiences with readers, it is. But the sad reality is that quality vendors are hard to come by and I can’t offer enough praise to those that meet and exceed expectations.