Thursday 02/26/09 - Order among chaos

Finally; some order among chaos. It was a trend down day with plenty of opportunity for the counter-trend traders as well. On this side, I started the morning up +3.25, leaving a ton on the table. I was short from 773.75 but covered for +2 pts even though I was expecting a gap-fill and should've just held the trade for more profits. After the gap fill, I took a long around the 761 level expecting the double bottom at 760.25 to hold; which it didn't. I averaged down with 1 additional contract on that trade, so the stop-loss hit brought my P&L down to -1.25 on the day. After that, I still didn't get it ("it" being the down-trend), and made back the loss, and then some playing counter-trend bounces to the Long side. I ended the day up +5 pts. I could've traded much better and am not at all satisfied with today's performance, but again, the actual screen time looking at charts was very low. I would glance at the charts and put on a trade. This is no way to trade, but I really have no other choice.

Regarding tomorrow; be wary of GDP and Consumer Sentiment reports; which should produce some good swings in the market. At this point, we've developed a 30-point range (750-780) and I'm hoping the 750s hold; or I think we could be making fresh lows. Aside from that, we've had same-day gap fills for 7 days now, so a run-away gap day is probably right around the corner. I just have to continue to tell myself to trade in the now moment and disregard any biases.

New people reading the Blog, please introduce yourselves in the ROLL CALL post. Thanks for reading. On to the charts...

Gap filled by 12:15 PM (Central)


ES/TICK (3-min)


ES Market Balance (5-min Day Session)


TF Market Balance (5-min Day Session)


TF/TICK (3-min)