2008 is finally behind us and the year ended on a positive note - a nice, solid trend day to the upside.  Let’s look at the DIA intraday structure to reflect on this pleasant picture.
DIA 5-min chart Dec 31, 2008:

This is what a trend day should be - except for the close, that is.

We had […]

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Courtesy BarChart.com, here are the year-to-date performances of a broad assortment of major market Indexes, including the US Equities, CRB Commodity Index, and Dollar Index.

You can view the chart yourself at BarCharts.com or use your own program to display other index and stock returns for 2008.  Just be sensitive to seeing lots of red and […]

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I was scanning some different periods for interesting chart patterns and wanted to share some insights on the structure of the 1987 stock market ‘crash’ in the S&P 500 Index.  Let’s look at the chart of 1987 and then see the few years preceding this move with an Elliott Wave count overlaid on price.
1987 Daily […]

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John Forman at the Essentials of Trading website posted his selected “Top Posts of 2008” list which I recommend visiting.
John also lists his “Top 5 Trading Books” for newer traders to which I concur.
I also loved his introduction which warns “Be careful what you wish for in 2009:”
It’s the end of 2008 and many traders […]

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To follow up on a reader’s request to analyze the Euro Index, I present the monthly and weekly ‘fly-by analysis’ of the Euro Index to see where we’ve come and where we might be headed.
Euro Index Monthly:

The general relationship of the Euro Index to that of the US Dollar Index is inverse - in that […]

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Tuesday’s action provided yet another fascinating example of classic trade set-ups and low-risk, high probability opportunities in the intraday DIA chart.  Let’s see this “Trend day that almost wasn’t” and also look at a bull flag, Bollinger Band Squeeze-Play, and a successfully filled morning gap (I should have titled this post, “The Day that Had […]

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The market appears to be coming back into ‘payout’ mode, as classic patterns and set-ups are working like clockwork.  It’s noon EST and we just witnessed a successful filled gap, support bounce as expected, and a complete bull flag.  Let’s see these all.
DIA 5-min Chart:

Normally I wait until the end of the day to post […]

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I’ve rarely seen volume flows shift so dramatically as I’ve seen in some of the crude oil related ETFs.  Volume has surged to almost 50 million shares transacting per day in two particular funds:  The US Oil Fund (USO) and the Double-Long Crude Oil (DXO) Fund.  Let’s look at these for what this might mean.
USO […]

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I just received word of my successful passing/completion of the Chartered Market Technician program’s Level III final (written essay) examination and wanted to announce that to readers and summarize the CMT.
The CMT is a designation awared by the Market Technicians Association (www.mta.org) which is a program that takes you through a wide variety of methods […]

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Per reader request, I was encouraged to provide a “Long Term Structure” post on the British Pound Index, which is presented in this post.  Let’s compare the monthly chart from 1986 to present, and then zoom in on the weekly chart from 2000 to present for possible insights, both from an analytical standpoint and FOREX […]

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