April 26, 2011

Day Trading Morning Prep Gold, Crude Oil, Dollar Index, Euro, E-mini Russell Futures

‘We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit’ – Aristotle
Let’s begin our morning routine with the economic news for today’s trading session.

FOMC Meeting Begins

8:20 Gold & Currencies OPEN

9:00 Crude Oil OPEN
9:30 US Market OPEN
10:00 Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index
10:00 State Street Investor Confidence
11:00 Transition into Lunch
11:30 European Close / Live Webinar in our Trade Room
Looking at the news this morning we can see the FOMC Meeting begins this morning, but remember that we have the FOMC *New* Meeting Format for this week’s meeting, which we assume has traders looking for clues towards the future.  This new format may result in low volume, but we wont know until we get some time to Read the Tape today and tomorrow.
In addition to FOMC day this week we can see news at 900am and 1000am est today that we will be watching for.
The next 2 days may be a variable with this new FOMC format, so I’m watching the speed or the orders coming into the market along with  average true range (ATR) to find the best times to trade the markets today.
Lets look at the markets we’re trading this morning…

Crude Oil Futures

34Range Crude Oil
Crude Oil made us some great profit on monday, and we look to continue trading this commodity using a price wedge and sideways range that was defined last week.

Open your 34range chart and you can see the following:

  • Major Price wedge in yellow trend lines
  • Minor Price Wedge in Blue trend lines
  • Sideways Range in white box
  • PHOD and PLOD
  • Previous Trading Range below us
  • BMT Below us

The first thing I notice is the Major price wedge in yellow trend lines.  I got this from my 89range chart, and the trend lines are added automatically using Global Drawing Objects for NinjaTrader7

You can easily see we are at the highs of this major price wedge.  I can also see a minor price wedge in blue trend lines, confirming higher lows and lower highs, which shows clues for narrowing price action.

The sideways range(s) are very important as well.  Im going to use the sideways ranges first, so looking to buy the lows and sell the highs of the trading ranges we are currently in first.  If we break out of these sideways ranges THEN i can make decisions to buy pullbacks or sell retracements, but first, we trade the range we are in at the moment.

Next, make sure we remember the PHOD is above us, and the PLOD is below us, making this an

Inside Trading Day.  Trading withing the range from yesturday is another sign of narrowing price action, similar to the wedge in blue trend lines.
Also make note of the large trading range below us.  I always use the range below us as a guide.  If price drops below 110.75 we then trade into the higher end of the range down to 106.00.  If price gets into this range expect the sellers to try and grab hold and pull it down to test the lows.
Finally, cant forget our Big Money Trigger Line (BMT) is below us at 110.75, and we will consider this AREA to be higher risk for traders to take positions, and we will assume it will act like a price magnet, trying to pull price down to this level.  If we break below this level .75 we can assume sellers are in control and to expect lower prices.
With this said, my plan of attack on crude oil is:
  • As prices rise im selling first, then buying pullbacks with new highs
  • selling resistance at the highs of the wedge
  • selling resistance at the highs of the sideways range(s)
  • as prices drop im buying support levels first, then selling retracements with new lows
  • im buying the lows of the wedge
  • im buying the lows of the sideways range we are trading in
  • im selling the highs of the range below us if we can break below .75 and the BMT
  • i will not buy the highs and will not sell the lows

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