Sunday, September 29, 2013

Update for the week of September 27th, 2013

Welcome back to CRI's ongoing Crude Oil Day Trading Blog.

The first picture is the daily, weekly and 120 minute charts with Crude Oil's term structure and CoT summary for the week of Sept. 27th, 2013. Each trading day (time permitting) a 15 minute chart is added and trades for that day are reviewed:




Market Overview: In a stunning reversal, the US Dollar index has registered a violent bear ab=cd breakdown over the past two weeks. In recent comments, US Fed. officials have been far less hawkish on 'tapering' and as a result almost every world currency pair has benefited. Indeed, our two commodity proxies (the Cdn. and Aussie dollars) have shown particular strength suggesting international commodity demand is still quite robust. Additionally, European currencies look quite attractive after their long slide too. While many commodity sectors look a lot healthier, energy and grain prices continue to lag. In the former, Rbob continues to pressure that sector as we exit the summer driving season. In the later, historic US harvest numbers are understandably weighing on prices. Interestingly though, Cattle prices have hit their anticipated upside objectives and there are early signs of bottoming action in Wheat; both suggesting their respective sector trends may be soon drawing to an end.

Weekly highlight: With the market's focus back on the pending US debt ceiling vote, prices quickly retreated from their exaggerated levels coming out of the summer and through what I consider to be a complete distraction - Syria. Indeed, we now have a confirmed double top working on the daily charts (with the move through the significant lows of 103.74) and the breakdown also tripped up the weekly stop level (102.22). If not overtly bearish, recent weakness does suggesting internal weakness to the up trend. Considering the 2hr double bottom at the 102.20 level, my expectations are for a little bit of 'cleaning up' over the coming sessions. While I could see a further short term push down to test those lows, current resistance appears to be in and around the 105 to 106 level and I for one shall be watching the market's reaction once we reach that level for shorting ideas.

Personal journal: I have been trading my live/practice account like it is 'real' money for the past month and a half as I make my way through the transition from Combine trading to actually trading other peoples money in earnest. I wanted to get back into a 'groove' and over the past couple of weeks I have had steadily worked towards putting together weekly net gains. I am only now starting to feel comfortable considering trades on a real basis. As long as I keep to my rigid model/trading plan setups, I have relatively low anxiety and am comfortable living with the results. I am especially pleased at the addition of 'HVT setups' to my daily trading plan. These enable me to participate in 'range' days and seem to have a very high probability of success.

Trading Plan: For the week, my plan is to follow my daily trading plan and only take legitimate setups. Since my account is so small, I can only realistically risk 7.5 ticks on any one trade. So I must from now on, identify the setups (and their appropriate stop levels) and only put the trade on where I can risk 7 ticks (plus a half tick for commissions). This will greatly reduce my trading but because I have a maximum risk of $1500 and Rule #2 of investing says never risk more than 5% of your trading stake on any one single idea, $75 is the number I have to work with. I can be wrong 2 times in a row in any one given day and must shut down if I exceed $150 in losses.


That's all for this post, 
Brian Beamish FCSI
The Canadian Rational Investor
the_rational_investor@yahoo.com
http://www.therationalinvestor.ca
http://crisdaytrading.blogspot.ca/

Screenshot of current '$30k' trading plan:


Monday, September 16, 2013

Update for the week of September 13th, 2013

Welcome back to CRI's ongoing Crude Oil Day Trading Blog.

The first picture is the daily, weekly and 120 minute charts with Crude Oil's term structure and CoT summary for the week of Sept. 13th, 2013. Each trading day (time permitting) a 15 minute chart is added and trades for that day are reviewed:

 

Market Overview: In a potentially bullish turn for commodity prices in general, both the Cdn. $ and the Aussie $ staged nice rallies through the past week. At the same time many stock indices pressed higher too. Indeed, some have \'blow-off-top\' written all over them. While longer dated maturities have yet to turn, short term paper strength (falling yields) suggest a soft landing through this Fed. hawkish cycle. Market corrections feel like buying opportunities and considering the seasonal window we are in, we may get a juicy one over the coming weeks.

Weekly highlight: As talk quickly turned to plans for a 'disarmament' of Syrian chemical weapons, prices retreated from the lofty levels seen late last week, Indeed, it would seem the war premium has been taken out of Crude as they brought her back down to within a whisker of the OTE long sweet spot. After some rather dramatic tails on the 2hr chart price stabilized with the 50% level turning into an interesting pivot. We finished the week sideways and rather well contained within a price channel.

Personal journal: I have been trying to 'get back in the grove' for the past 5 weeks and have not been able to. I am getting concerned but will patiently wait for a positive feeling to come back to my trading before I start placing any 'real' trades.

Trading Plan: I must be a bit more selective in my trade decisions. With this in mind, I must have a working 'BoT' trade on both the 2hr and the 15m charts before I can consider even looking for 3minute setups. This will mean I man not trade that much over the coming week but will fill the time practicing Hoag's value trade idea/model.


That's all for this post, 
Brian Beamish FCSI
The Canadian Rational Investor
the_rational_investor@yahoo.com
http://www.therationalinvestor.ca
http://crisdaytrading.blogspot.ca/

August, 2013 $30k 'live' trading plan:

Monday, September 2, 2013

Update for the week of August 30th, 2013

Welcome back to CRI's ongoing Crude Oil Day Trading Blog.

The first picture is the daily, weekly and 120 minute charts with Crude Oil's term structure and CoT summary for the week of August 30th, 2013. Each trading day (time permitting) a 15 minute chart is added and trades for that day are reviewed:



Market Overview: Labour Day weekend 2013 is finally here and with it comes a nice break and hopefully a resumption of relatively \'normal\' trading environments once on the other side. The summer session itself was rather lack-luster and produced few new trends in what felt like a counter trend trade environment. Should the pre-May prevailing trends resume, September and October may be tough months for commodity bulls. Once on the other side of the pending seasonally weak period, prices may look attractive heading into 2014. That is a long way away from now and my number one short term goal will be to have conservative expectations until we are well into November.

Weekly highlight: The last week of August, 2013 was witness to an almost parabolic move higher to begin with and then just as violent of a move back down to end. Political rhetoric put in a short term bottom through Friday's session but unless there is some serious military action, prices may continue to give back ground as we finished the week still above the 2 hour OTE long sweet spot. Once into that zone, I for one shall be looking for some sort of counter trend (dead-cat-bounce) rally.

Personal journal: I have spent the past year and a half interviewing for this position. I have now been hired - I just have to go out and do what I am good at and enjoy the experience.

Trading Plan: Since I am now 'live', trader discipline has been slowly coming back. I have a reliable model to work with and am comfortable hunting those setups. Since there are no longer any combine objectives to cloud my investment decisions, my only goal is to slowly build both my capital base and mental capital through September by taking valid trade setups and following my model's strict trade management rules. Max risk on any given day is $300 and my goal is to take 3 to 4 valid trade setups through any given day. My weekly goal is to take 50 ticks in net profit.


That's all for this post, 
Brian Beamish FCSI
The Canadian Rational Investor
the_rational_investor@yahoo.com
http://www.therationalinvestor.ca
http://crisdaytrading.blogspot.ca/

August, 2013 $30k 'live' trading plan: