And, again.

"A Long December"
- Counting Crows

A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last.
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving,
But now the days go by so fast.

And it's one more day up in the canyons,
And it's one more night in Hollywood.
If you think that I could be forgiven...I wish you would.

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls.
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl.

And it's one more day up in the canyons,
And it's one more night in Hollywood.
If you think you might come to California...I think you should.

Drove up to the Hillside Manor sometime after 2AM
And talked a little while about the year.
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her.

And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last.
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass.

And it’s one more day up in the canyon,
And it’s one more night in Hollywood.
Man it’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean.....well I guess I should.

All the best in 2011.




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Happy New Year!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I didn't plan to do much (if any) trading before the end of the year. For those of you who did, I hope you had a profitable end to 2010.

Posting will resume late next week, and I look forward to posting charts that the readers submit as well as my own charts. The reader charts seem to get a lot of positive feedback and stimulate a lot of conversation in the "comments" section, so I encourage you guys to submit your trades and analysis and I will pick a few every week to post. And, they don't have to be profitable trades - submit your losing trades for feedback and analysis.

Regarding how to submit trades - email is not a good idea. I have yet to dig myself out of the email "black hole", so chances are high (95%+) that I won't read or respond to your emails. Instead, just submit them as a comment. If I don't make a post of it, I will leave it as a comment so people can still give feedback. Make sure you tell me the timeframe, how you are plotting your Fibonacci lines, what MAs you are using, and your entry and exit.

Finally, I want to thank everyone for the kind words they have said about me and this blog. I really appreciate it, and I am extremely happy if somewhere in the five plus years worth of posts you might have found something helpful. Remember, don't try to copy anyone else - that is a recipe for disaster. Instead, take what others do and incorporate it into your own style and strategy.

I'll see you guys on the other side. Be safe as 2010 comes to a finish!

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Holiday special

Someone asked in comments if TRADEthemove.com would honor the holiday special they offered in the past. Kernan confirmed he would - for all purchases made now through the end of 2010, TRADEthemove.com will give you a $15 Amazon.com gift certificate. Once you receive the material, respond back to the email with "referred by Trader-X" and they will forward your gift certificate to you via email.

If you want to know my thoughts on TRADEthemove.com, click the link at the top of the page.

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Promoted from comments...

"Hi X, I would like to nominate myself for your promoted from comments feature. I took two trades on Tuesday. Here are the details, and I tried to match your terms as close as possible:

MCP, 5-minute chart, Fibonacci from previous day close to current day open. Price rallied, fell back to the retracement zone, stabilized, and rallied again. It broke through the Fibonacci extension once then formed a tight range. I entered on a break of the 11:05 bar (20th bar), when the 8EMA provided support and pushed price up. Price exploded and I booked a $4 gain. My best trade of the year!




JBL, 5-minute chart, Fibonacci from previous day close to current day open. Price bounced around the opening price for the first 45-minutes and I entered on a break of 10:10 bar (9th bar) when it formed offsetting bars and closed above the opening price. It also had good support from a rising 8EMA. I booked profits at the Fibonacci extension. Not as impressive as MCP, but still a 2% gain.




You are the bomb. Thanks for everything you do here. Karma will follow you everywhere! Happy Holidays to you and your family!

Sam H."

Nice trades Sam; I think this is the first time I have ever been called "the bomb"! Here are the charts with your trigger bar marked (Sam entered on a break of the trigger bar's high).

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Five Rules For Life

I've mentioned it in the past...this is a great site. If you haven't looked at it, you owe it to yourself to do so because there is a lot of insight from people on what it takes to live a happy, successful life. Three things of note:

They are going to be on Twitter in 2011 publishing some of the most popular rules. Follow them here.

They just put up their third "compilation post" - read it here.

I contributed my Five Rules a few years ago - read them here (I was talking about the benefits of meditating back in 2008)!

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Promoted from comments...

My trading is still sporadic and will be through the rest of the year. I am unofficially on vacation - I say unofficial because I still look at charts every day and make a handful of trades during the week. But I won't be fully back "into it" until 2011, and hopefully my family situation will have improved by then (by the way, thank you to everyone for all of the well wishes).

I am pleased - and extremely fortunate - to say that 2010 was my best year ever trading. I will post more about it in the coming weeks, and also take some time to post about other things we discussed in comments (meditation, for example).

In the meantime, here is a chart from Ed K...Ed writes:

"X, I trade the five minute charts and have found a lot of the beyond the Fibonacci extension setups. I don't find them every day, but I find at least 3-4 a week and have been very profitable. Today was NYMX. I entered on a break of the 2nd bar high (it was red, but didn't break back below the FE line). After an initial pop, price formed a tight flag and when the 8EMA caught up it exploded. I booked a dollar profit which was almost a 20% gain. I am off to celebrate. Thanks for the great content and the free education. I hope your family member makes a full recovery."

"PS, my Fibonacci lines are from the previous day's close to the current day's open."

Here is my rendition of his chart*, and I marked Ed's trigger bar (he entered on a break of this bar's high):



I had pivot lines (the yellow, blue, red, and green lines) turned on when I printed this chart, but they didn't play into Ed's trade so please ignore them. I am too lazy to reprint the chart! The Fibonacci lines are white, so just focus on those.

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Is blogging dying?

Interesting stats from the latest Pew study:

"Compared to last year’s report, most of the activities Pew Internet has covered in its report have increased in popularity in all age groups, especially social networking, which is hardly surprising given Facebook’s stellar growth to 500 million users and beyond. Interestingly enough, blogging is not one of them, as only half as many online teens blog compared to 2006, while users aged 18-33 also blog less than before.

Overall, virtual worlds and blogging aren’t very popular in any age group, which probably indicates that tools such as Facebook and Twitter – which also enables users to express themselves online – have substituted blogging for many users. E-mail, on the other hand, has become nearly ubiquitous, even among adults aged 74 or over."

Source

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1/12 of the world is on Facebook

And last month, 25% of America's Internet page views were on Facebook. Amazing, and staggering. This is a good article to read.

Mark Zuckerberg: Person of the Year 2010



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Promoted from comments...

From David R., with my charts marking the trigger bar (his entry was a break of that bar's high):

"X, I am having a lot of success with your methods. Thank you for all that you share. I don't trade 2-minute charts, the 5-minute charts work better for me. But everything else is the same. Today was a stellar day with SFD which was a semi U-turn setup that I entered when it found support at the current day's opening line...I entered on a break of the 17th bar's high. And I had a beyond the fibonacci extension setup with ARB, where I entered on a break of the 11th bar's high. I made nice profits on both. Thank you again and I hope your family is well."





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There's nothing you can do that can't be done...

I hope everyone is having a good week. I traded Monday, but have been out for the past two days due to an illness in the family. I will be out tomorrow as well, and hopefully will be back at it Friday and have a chart or two to post. I know there are some unanswered questions in the comments, and I will try to get to those as well.

And, R.I.P. John Lennon. This is a nice quote/statement that puts things into perspective, as Mr. Lennon could often do.



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A few charts...

Here are two trades from yesterday. Both are "beyond the FE" setups, and both pulled back to test the FE as support after breaking through that level a few bars earlier. PAY was more obvious as it had support from a rising MA and formed a "hammer-type" candle (the sixth bar; I entered on a break of its high). ABX required a little more thought as it bounced perfectly off the FE, but had resistance overhead from the 8EMA. It formed a nice "cup and handle" formation and the most conservative approach was to enter when it broke out of that pattern (somewhere between bars 23 and 27). I chose a riskier entry with a break of the 15th bar's high.

I closed PAY at $39.50 and ABX at $55.00. I watched ABX closely as it formed the "cup and handle" - I would have [probably] closed it sooner if price had broke below the 8EMA.




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