THE “GURUS” GIVE UP

“Wall Street guru blows the lid off the game!”

It really is kind of amazing … over the last week or two, I have read more “main line” blue blood Wall Street firms completely throwing their collective hands up and admitting … likely for the first time in a long while, if ever, they know nothing and have no confidence in their forecasts for stock prices going forward. In my entire trading career, I haven’t ever seen this … it’s not that they are in “panic mode”, it’s simply they aren’t believing what they are seeing. They can’t get the square peg in the round hole.

Well, I got news for them all; up and until you face the fact the central banks of the world [G3 + SNB] have taken over trading, nothing is ever going to make sense. Add to this, no matter what gibberish they put out for mass consumption to the Sheeple via CNBC & Bloomberg, they aren’t ever leaving either. As I’ve said before, it’s the last paradigm you will ever see in trading barring a complete revolution in western democracies with blood in the street. Until then, fugetaboutit!

Bank earnings a disappointment today … seems trading revenue from clients is down sharply [“gee, with approximately 50% of the trading days from May 1 showing a VIX below 10, what did analysts expect exactly when there is no trading activity”?] This should [hopefully] produce some “flushing of the toilet” so to speak and at least for the first portion of trading this day see sell stops hit off on weakness in the Dow30. We’ll see; the $64,000 question is, will the first low hold after the open, or give way to lower prices and stops. Given the political news on health care [there isn’t gonna be one], tax cuts [where, when?], and now bank earnings, it will be a stretch to see price hold on the Dow30 and especially the SP500 after the open. I’m expecting somewhat lower price during the day; stops below will be key to take advantage of and exploit.

Well, after about 60-75 minutes, that escalated quickly didn’t it? Talk about “stops” … how about 100 points worth … meanwhile the SP500 finally cracked and started to lurch lower as well, although not nearly as severely as the Dow30 … looking out over the entire trading horizon, the EURUSD is up sharply into the upper 1.15's; territory it hasn’t seen in many, many moons, a DAX30 market that has put in an almost 200 point slide, and it doesn’t look good for stocks … which, naturally led to a good scalp off of that waterfall in the Dow30 for the first trade of the day … I treated it as a scalp given the severity of the decline, and the fact that it’s still a long day ahead … market is likely to remain down here in the upper 21400’s to low 21500’s with shots down … as far as I can tell judging from the news, this isn’t another “Trump Dump” OMG-he’s-gonna-be-impeached-in-5-minutes-BS we’ve seen the last month or two, so the selling pressure should remain in here after bounces up.

Another factor is the fact that both SP500 & Dow30 are so over-extended on the upside, one wave of selling isn’t likely to be the end of the profit-taking [thank you Bob Pisani, CNBC] … we’ll see, but even if it rallies, I’d do the same thing 100 times out of 100 given the severity of the selling pressure today.

And in what I can describe only as being in another trading universe, the outright manipulation of the SP500 in the face of the selling has me very much concerned; cuz as soon as it was over, it started straight up, and again today we see the SP500 rally and the Dow30 sit. Well, what happens when the manipulators back off and let the SP500 go down some; what happens then? It makes me nervous as hell to be long the Dow30 and see the SP500 rally and the Dow30 does nothing but sit; I’ve played at this rodeo before, and I know how fast the Dow30 can drop when the broader market stops dead in its tracks. But the simple fact is, the central bankers aren’t as much concerned with the Dow30 as they are with the SP500, and in this market you’ll find the bulk of their manipulation in the futures market.

In fact, I think the FED manipulators take glee from the fact they are screwing so many short sellers and those either predicting or wishing for a market crash, especially in the SP500 market. Behind this outward glee, though, is the fact that with passive investing bringing in upwards of $10 billion a month to Dow30 & SP500 ETF’s & index funds, along with other institutional factors, JPM estimates it would only take a 4% move off of the record highs to set the “selling tsunami” off and on its way, taking indices prices down 30% - 40%. Perhaps that is why they are so paranoid about even the smallest of corrections; they have painted themselves into a nasty corner from which there is no escape … I know it, the “Street” knows it, and the FED knows it.

Well, nothing like a “Plunge Protection Team” [PPT] effort in the SP500; not so much in the Dow30 really, as TBTF banks in the Dow30 are suffering from reality known as “earnings”, and that is holding prices of those down. Still, another “stick save” to stem the waterfall, and it’s “mission accomplished” in the SP500 as short sellers and those liquidating on the drop get to pay a dear price for their actions minutes later. It’s who they are and what they do.

Here at Noon in NY, equity markets have finally reached “peak lunacy” … seriously, these things belong in a mental institution, especially the SP500, which I’m thinking has gone full retard; given the spread and RT commission, it’s almost untradeable in its manipulative form. In no way, shape, or form do these markets represent anything even close to the trading patterns seen in the past prior to February 2016; they are so “exposed” to bouts of selling from these artificial and elevated levels, that all it takes is for the SP500 to go down a fraction of an index point, and it can trigger a 20-30 point “mad rush” slide in the Dow30, or it can be ignored and the Dow30 actually rallies 10-20 points. Who knows, the correlations are so screwed up.

From this, toss into the mix the scumbag LP’s, who at the very first hint of selling hitting the market, start the downward process in the bid [where you sell], where literally anything goes from an orderly move lower to bat excrement 5-10 point downticks that can end … well, its anybody’s guess really. What that means, of course, is that you have to … you don’t have a choice … you have to sell on the way up, and you can’t wait for the turn cuz if you do it’s a guaranteed crap fill you ain’t gonna like. You live with it, and move on … simple as that. Of course, it works exactly the same on the buy side, only in reverse.

Meanwhile, over in DAX30 land, that index has come alive with the uncertainty of the ECB and future policy regarding their QE, the value of the EURUSD, and their purchases of stock via the PPT; it makes for some volatile DAX30 days. Currently, the DAX30 has a much tighter spread at 0.6 index points, and more importantly the daily ranges [not inflated by BS overnight vapors] are higher than the Dow30 and the Dow30 is almost 100% higher in value. Add to that the price change is in Euro’s, which means 1 point = approximately $1.15. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be up to start again trading the DAX30; by 9:30, I’ll make the switch over to the Dow30 for the remainder of the day.

As we move into the afternoon, the SP500 is so heavily manipulated and bid, there’s virtually no trading, only lurches up to one level and then some minutes later another lurch up as the central banks adjust their bids; truly pathetic. So, what you end up with is the following; lurch down, then lurch up, then die … thanks, come again. And this is supposed to be the world’s largest and most liquid stock index? Directly below, the M1; see for yourself how disjointed, screwed up, manipulated, with a total lack of price discovery in every sense.

“Somebody tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do with information like this?”

It’s only better on the M1 in the Dow30 cuz the LP is too busy screwing people with fills, the price range is much bigger, and therefore gives the impression there is at least a market that is being traded. For its part, it is trying to rally, but the Dow30 big banks putting a lid on price cuz of very poor earnings. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the SP500 went to new all-time highs later today on yet more squeezing of shorts and central bank bidding. Regardless, trading conditions are extremely poor, with almost no trading activity except LP dealers filling market orders off the market … you can see the terrible fills on the tick chart. Simply put, after this morning’s waterfall, this has been a cruel joke for making money.

For those of you who are new to the website, as my many readers/clients already know, in the past I traded the DAX30 many times, and earlier versions of the volatility algorithm actually started with the DAX30. Months of very little activity took me away from the index, but with the Greek crisis behind it, more unsettled central bank monetary/fiscal issues facing investors, the intraday volatility has come back and it very much can be traded as well, if not better than, cuz it’s not nearly as manipulated, as the Dow30. There are slightly different rules for each market, but the version 4 algo manual goes over all of these in detail [and yes, I’m working diligently on the manual to get it done and published]. Simply put, right now, the DAX30 is better than the Dow30 and light years better than the SP500 for trading … the only downside is the time of day it trades for U.S. based traders.

Here towards the close today, the action after this morning’s waterfall lower on stops is very disappointing … I’m not happy with the price action I’ve seen, as in my minds eye it looks very much manipulated to get the result they wanted … kill longs first, then kill shorts … end the day almost where we started and let’s do it again tomorrow. I was hoping that the early action would make for a good action day … boy, did I ever get that one wrong; what a mess. And to prove my point, directly below some action from this afternoon in the Dow30; take a look at the gaps in price discovery between the M1’s, particularly between the close of one and the opening of the next; again, gaps everywhere distorting price discovery of where the market is … and just like the SP500 chart earlier, somebody tell me how the hell to read this, cuz I got no clue, and have zero confidence anything means anything other than what the scumbag LP wants you to believe second-to-second … and I’m not going there under any circumstances.

“One hell of a market mess with gaps everywhere!”

Ok, compare all of this to the DAX30 directly below; with a 5 point grid, take a look at the difference in the “trading action” versus the totally 100% manipulated SP500 market and the 99% manipulated Dow30 market. You’d have to be blind not to see the difference.

 “Whaddaya know … a market that actually trades!”

It’s simple, the DAX30 threshold for the European PPT is a lot different than the ones from the FED, who are in the 2 U.S. indices every damn day. Not so with the DAX30 … they are simply there for emergencies [e.g., market down 500 points or something on that order], and you can clearly see the difference in the trading action versus the 3 M1 charts from today; hey, it’s like this every day! Simply put, the DAX30 has a much tighter spread [0.6 index points, $2 RT per 100,000] than the Dow30, and right now, this week, the average 20 day range = approximately 133 index points. How many days over the last 20 has the Dow gone more than 30 or 40 points in the New York trading session; not the “vapors” seen overnight, but during the “main enchilada” during New York? A couple? [Note: the RT commission in the DAX30 = $2 ÷ (100,000 / 12430) = 0.2486 X 1.1550 = approximately $0.29 RT per 1 lot CFD. Therefore, a 10 lot CFD = approximately $2.90 in round turn commissions.] So, the “net” cost to trade is approximately 0.63 index points in a market that currently has an average daily range of about 133 index points … and actually trades!

A disappointing day really in terms of not only the trading activity, but profits should have been higher given a cursory look at the day’s range. However, after the smack down and subsequent rally back up, there wasn’t a damn thing to do the entire rest of the day except to observe the “manipulative drift” higher with literally no trading … and I can tell you straight flat out, I’m not buying the rally in the Dow30 … so, without any breaks to new lows, test of lows, or other waterfall breaks, there isn’t any way I’m buying this stuff cuz I know what that usually means, and it isn’t pretty. In any event, tomorrow sees the DAX30, which should give us better trading opportunities more in line with stock indices trading traditionally … it can’t be any worse than the crap we get subjected to on a daily basis by the manipulators in the Dow30, so in that regard there isn’t any downside for the PAMM or your trading in general if you trade your own account. Onward & Upward!

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Time for the beach … dog and I are outta here … until tomorrow.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX “PAMM/MAM” IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!

WELCOME TO THE “FINANCIAL TWILIGHT ZONE”

“… between the pit of men’s fears & the summit of his knowledge!”

Wherever that “door” was on Friday, we crossed into it early and never came back out; even after the weekend to reflect upon Friday’s action, it is very hard for me to place Friday into any category of trading I have ever seen in my long career. There were things that took place I have never seen before … things I didn’t think possible in trading … and things that had me checking outside my window to see if the “pod people” had invaded and taken over.

I could probably write for the next month about all of the things that made Friday [hopefully] a “one off”, but 2 stick in my mind as most notable; 1) the complete and total lack of a trading environment in the SP500, and 2) the complete and utter breakdown of correlation between the Dow30 versus the SP500.

Unless the CME numbers are a complete fabrication [“don’t get me started on the Criminals Marketplace Exchange], the emini SP500 is the “de facto” leader in stock indices trading; it has the volume & liquidity that make it the leader; and yet, on my trading screen, it climbed and climbed and never for a second backed off for hours. “Unless this market is 100% manipulated with multiple, extremely large bids [e.g., 50,000 contracts] at every minimum tick, somebody explain to me how this market can go straight up with no trading other than the bid/offer I see on my screen, and then instantly the bid/offer goes up 0.5 index points and stays there … rinse & repeat all the way up about 7 or 8 full SP500 index points? How does this happen at “ALL TIME HIGHS” … no profit taking, no short covering … no nothing except the tortoise climb straight up? How can you explain no trading action … only trades at a given bid/offer?

The second is the correlation between the Dow30 and the SP500; usually, the two correlate very strongly. The exception is when a specific Dow30 stock has market moving news that skews the average; however, even when that happens, the adjustment is made quickly and it’s back to a somewhat regular correlation. Not Friday … it correlates, it doesn’t correlate … the SP500 go up 2 or 3 full index points, the Dow30 sits and does nothing … the SP500 breaks 1.5 index points, the Dow30 breaks 35 points … the SP500 sits and does literally zero for 5 minutes [meaning the exact same bid/offer], the Dow30 rallies 20 points … anybody but me see no pattern here? And on Friday, it went back and forth all day long, which I have rarely seen ever over the course of the entire day.

The only logical explanation is one traders don’t want to hear; markets are heavily manipulated by central banks who haven’t a clue what the hell they are doing and/or the damage they are creating down the road. They move from one crisis to another at the speed of light … one day its gold that gets “monkey hammered” and smashed lower, the next day the “Plunge Protection Team” [PPT] has to put out a fire in the energy complex [crude oil futures], and then they effortlessly move to prop stocks up. At some point, there isn’t a “market” anymore. Welcome to the forever “Central Bank Trading” paradigm; it isn’t ever going to change until there is a revolution and blood flows in the street; these elites will never, ever give up political power and the CNTRL-P machine voluntarily. It’s all you really need to know … everything else is bullshit with cinnamon & spice thrown on it and “marketed” to the masses by the financial MSM and told its really chicken salad … you and I know better.

Up in the header of the website, I’ve changed from NDX100 to DAX30; going forward in the PAMM, there will be times when I will trade the DAX30; therefore, as explained in the version 4 manual [about half way through and making headway], the DAX30 has somewhat different rules for trading simply because it is in that group of stock indices that are closed for 11 hours each day before resuming trading the next day. And while to some this may seem insignificant, believe me, it isn’t … it makes a huge difference.

To that end, I’ll be posting every Sunday night the information traders need going forward into the next week for trading the DAX30; those traders that are interested can tune in Sunday night and get it, and those that don’t care about the DAX30 can ignore the Sunday night post, or read it later by scrolling the webpage. In any event, it’s your call, but the info will be there for you.

Over the weekend, I added a link over in the “Download Links” section of the website in the right hand column; I put the link to “MY ‘SUPER DUPER’ CHESS LIBRARY” for online viewing and/or download [PDF]. It’s my personal 164 book collection of chess books that cover the “A – Z” of chess, with many books very hard to find and a great addition to anybody’s library. I realize some of you aren’t “into” chess … Ok, no problem, simply skip it … but I also know many of you are or at the very least would like to know more, including beginner’s books and various full “chess course” instruction, and it’s all covered in my library. Over a long period of time, I’ve put together this collection, and it’s a fantastic source of 1) new and fresh material, 2) endless entertainment that will take you 20 years to read completely, and 3) a superb resource and research guide hitting practically everything a “Grandmaster to Beginner” could ever want at his/her fingertips. By putting it into the cloud, I make it instantly available at any time, free up disk space on my laptop, and make 100% sure it is always safe from a “hard drive crash” where everything is lost. I can access it with my phone, tablet, or PC, so I can travel and have it available for reading, and it’s in Adobe PDF, which has the free reader for every platform you may have.

In order to make it very easy to navigate, I placed all the books in a directory, with many of these having sub-directories on certain topics; this allows you to easily find what you are looking for without having to scan the entire 164 books to find what you want. You can view any file online, or if you wish, download any/all sub-directories, directories, or the entire file to your hard drive for reading. Cloud storage makes all this possible, of course, with none of the hassles of having it on your PC.

About a year ago, I made the decision to stop watching TV and cable … stop watching mindless sports and other idiotic forms of mass media, and start becoming more productive away from trading. The truth? I’ve never been happier being 99% away from politics, sports [especially the NFL & NBA], and mindless “boob tube” programming, and instead focus most of my time away from trading with reading/studying/learning/playing chess and a more focused intent on studying the Bible. To that end, I want to share my chess library with those who would like to avail themselves of the material and perhaps start their own journey if they haven’t started … or, help those who find it difficult to find material by giving them the fruits of my research. In any event, enjoy, and let me know if you like any of the material. Everything is there from complete beginner to Grand Master [GM].

Turning to today’s market … we’re about 3-4 hours from the open, and here comes the upside “vapors”; first the DAX30, and now the Dow30 & SP500 join the party. EXIT QUESTION: “How long does this circus of upside vapors continue before the entire system of trading collapses”? It’s not a rhetorical or academic question … here, at the NY open, it looks as though the Chipmunks are sitting this open out in terms of paying higher prices for stocks … doesn’t seem to be any buy interest minutes before we open … man-o-man, does this stuff need to go down some, simply to work off some of this “FED euphoria” … especially the SP500, but I don’t think we’ll see much. We’ll see.

Two hours into this freak show, and first trade of the day yields a literal scratch; long the Dow30, the SP500 rallies over 2 full points and the Dow30 simply will not rally. SP500 hits new high for the day, and the best the Dow30 can do is be 25 points away from its overnight high. As I said earlier, the correlations are simply breaking down. Oh, this just in from BofAML; “There are many reasons why we are living in a different world than the one we used to know and we would caution against relying too much on history for forecasting the likely outcome of these risks." Isn’t that special … where have you guys been? … I’ve been saying this for months … congrats on figuring it out eventually. The link to the ZH article directly below in case you missed it today.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-17/we-are-living-different-world-bofa-cant-explain-what-going-volatility

“How bad is it? … This bad!”

What you quickly realize from the table above, is that the rules have been changed; there’s a “new Sherriff” in town, and what the central bank Twits say goes … it’s no more complicated than that.

It goes without saying, that the “quants” and “gurus” at Merrill Lynch are at a loss for explaining or predicting anything anymore, cuz like I have been saying, “Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore, and anything and everything prior to the “crude oil save” in February 2016, is useless and worthless cuz the central bankers say so”! Just now, they’ve joined the club. [And as I write, another blue blood, Morgan Stanley, has entered the mix with its very own special research way of saying, “We don’t have an F-ing clue either”. When it rains “obvious”, it pours.

It’s Noon in New York, and right now, I’m not sure no matter what you did [buy or sell], you could get out of the spread within 10 – 20 minutes. Ranges are so tight today, any movement at all exacerbates the potential for either a melt-up or a waterfall down via stops. Throw scumbag dealer LP’s into the equation to hand out slippage on fills, and it is very difficult [if not impossible] to get a fair fill. From the time I got out of my long position 2 hours ago, the Dow30 hasn’t moved 10 points up/down and we’re 1 point from my liquidation fill … throw in a mixed correlation with the SP500, that does no good, and it’s a 50/50 proposition the market can move 2 points … and no pun intended, what’s the point?

And I will say again what I said on Friday … the overt and outright manipulation of these markets is staggering in its scope and intensity … with nary of a whimper from the “street”, with the exception lately of a few voices expressing concern [where in fact, there should be outrage]. What the central bankers have done is criminal … and you can by proxy extend that to every other MT4 market as well … every single one of them is manipulated by the same friendly folks from the “faculty lounge” who have bungled stocks. Here we sit at record ALL-TIME highs and there is no trading at all … nada, zip, zilch, zero; go ahead, tell me this is normal.

Meanwhile, over in DAX30 land, the index puts in its normal daily range of about 130 points. And while I will post starting next Sunday night the important info for the upcoming week in the DAX30, this week the average daily 20 day simple moving “average” = 133.5 index points, and the daily 20 day simple moving “median” = 113.0. Using simply these 2 key metrics, we can easily place the day’s open with a horizontal line, and if the market goes below the line, we only get long “STARTING” when price drops to around the daily average range for the week [from high to low], and attempting to get long on lows from this point … that’s it. When the market is above the open line, any break of 20+ points, and then the “teacup handle” turnaround after about 10-15+ minutes will get me long. More info obviously, will be forthcoming in the manual, but we need the weekly metrics, and that’s why I’ll be posting them on Sunday night for the following week [M-F]. And if the Dow30 doesn’t get its act together here quickly [like 1 day], I’ll start getting up early and trade the DAX30.

With slightly less than an hour to go until the close, today’s action definitely ranks in the top 10 worst trading action days of all time; this was an insult to pathetic. One trade today, a total scratch, and the market is drifting listlessly slightly lower; my hope is tomorrow morning we can get a blast lower with some SP500 lower action that cleans some weak longs out of the market … that could potentially clear the way for higher prices … the worst thing would be upside overnight vapors or a market that opens higher and goes higher; neither setup makes for a good afternoon with rising price. All-in-all, another sick day for equities while the central bankers manipulate the world.

Here at the close, SP500 moving towards its low for the day, and the Dow30 limping along in tandem; still seems to be support down here, but the negative close from an afternoon break is not encouraging for longs overnight or into the morning. However, with central bankers running the show, they don’t know that, so who knows what transpires. We’ll see in the early A.M. tomorrow. Onward & Upward!

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Time for the beach … dog and I are outta here … until tomorrow.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX “PAMM/MAM” IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!

REMAINING VIGILANT … ALWAYS!

“Always check the pool before entering!”

We live in a world where events and circumstances happen and change so quickly, it’s literally impossible to keep up. In financial trading, from the start of the “modern era” in the late 1970’s up to around the turn of the century [1999 – 2001], that pace remained steady; oh sure, there were technological innovations that came about because of the computer revolution, but the “art & science” of trading pretty much remained the same. Starting from just after 2001, came paradigm shifts that started with electronic trading and removal of physical “pits” and the end of an individual trader’s need to use the CME or any of its affiliates [e.g., COMEX, NYMEX, etc.].

From about 2001 to April 2012, as the world came to grips with shocks it never expected from the 2008 housing bubble collapse, traders started to become relatively comfortable with online trading, while the industry as a whole, dealt with scam brokerage houses rushing in to open accounts, taking customer money, and then disappearing. This isn’t much of a problem anymore, thanks to the LP banks making it much tougher, from a due diligence standpoint, for anybody wanting to set up a brokerage house and clear customer trades through the LP bank. In fact, what the record shows is that the U.S. leads the world in scams the last decade; to wit, 1) Stotler, 2) REFCO, 3) MF Global, and 4) just recently FXCM. “I guess all of that wonderful regulation from the porn watching CFTC, NFA, & SEC didn’t do much good did it? Oh, and how about regulation & monitoring by the CME? Nah, too busy taking cash from HFT’s and others for quicker access to its Globex servers to worry about your piddly futures account”.

And then comes April 2012, where the FED & BIS [Bank of International Settlements] come in one day and slam gold lower by about $100 per Oz. in a coordinated manipulative attack on the market that nobody has ever seen. Of course, now it’s commonplace and doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when they slam gold lower, but back then it was news. Enter the BOJ & ECB and the shenanigans they started pulling away from U.S. markets, and in retrospect trader’s should have realized [including me] it was only a matter of time before the FED joined the manipulative party.

That brings us to February 2016, where after a bear market in crude oil sent prices into the 20’s from the 100’s a while earlier, the FED sent in the “Plunge Protection Team” [PPT], heretofore reserved for stock indices, into the oil market to save the energy industry in the U.S. from bankruptcy and oblivion. And from that moment, anything and everything traded is at the “whim” of a central banker; when you have unlimited power and the CNTRL-P machine to print as much money as you need, what’s going to stop you from pricing a market [any market] where you want it priced for policy objectives? Strictly from a stock indices and stock market aspect, I don’t see protesters outside any building anywhere protesting higher stock prices with signs and angry protesters; simply put, who’s gonna protest higher stock prices, and what person who works and has any kind of IRA, or 401(k) doesn’t want to see higher stock prices? So, the FED knows you aren’t gonna care if they manipulate prices higher and give you a “FED put” underneath your portfolio. While it may go down from time to time, there isn’t gonna be anymore 40% declines or anything like that, as long as the CNTRL-P machine is on.

Which brings us to the other side of the equation in financial trading, the brokerage houses. Before I get started, though, let me just say I am totally pleased with Turnkey as my current brokerage house of choice; don’t live under any illusions that there exists a “perfect” brokerage house … there isn’t one and won’t be one anytime soon. And also remember, brokerage houses are simply the “middleman” between us and the scumbag LP’s, who refuse to deal with us cuz they don’t want the scrutiny. In any event, it is what it is, and we live with it, deal with it, or we don’t trade … it’s that simple. From a relative standpoint, Turnkey has excellent customer service [could be better, but I could say that about them all]; their round turn [RT] commission structure for STP/ECN trading is the very best I have seen [meaning the lowest] at $2.00 per RT per 100,000 of notional value; and their spreads are among the lowest and best out there and rival institutional rates not seen at many places. It’s very easy to open and fund an account, and withdrawals are handled quickly and efficiently. So, all in all … yea, I’m glad we are here!

However, I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, for a myriad of critical reasons, you have to be insane to have a trading account in the U.S. That leaves “offshore” brokerage houses [“offshore” defined as simply non U.S. domiciled] as the only option and the dirty little secret is that 90%+ of those don’t or won’t take U.S. citizens or residents as clients, simply because [thanks to Obama and his crew of socialists] they don’t want the “hassles” of U.S. law.

Still, no matter where you park your funds and do business, you have to constantly monitor your brokerage house for any “hints” that there might be problems on the horizon; I can’t stress this enough, cuz over the years and years I have traded, I have seen plenty of good brokerage houses, who for years had good, solid reputations, go down the “rabbit hole” into oblivion very quickly, all the while giving hints months before that there were problems. Just as one example, I got my funds out of Forex-Metal before they went rogue and were labeled a “scam brokerage house” by Forex Peace Army because of problems that started with spreads ballooning, customer service going downhill, and a problem I had with a small withdrawal weeks before I moved my entire trading account.

What usually happens is it starts with a severe drop in the quality of customer service; your statements via email become erratic, emails don’t get answered, live chat is unresponsive and never available, and their phones go “dead”. You get this, and it’s time to leave … like right now, and there’s a chance it may be too late anyway. My point, though, is to remain vigilant … keep your eyes and ears open, and always stay on top of things.

To this end, I’m sad to report that LMFX has dropped to the point where I would not feel comfortable keeping my funds there in an account. As many of you know, last year I not only had my account there, but I also was an affiliate IB, where I was told we could start our PAMM very shortly … that was over a year ago … fact is they lied, and I found out why they lied at the end of last year … they were selling the brokerage house to another group [unknown and wouldn’t say who] and didn’t want to start or do anything to upset things … Ok, well I don’t like getting lied to no matter the circumstances, so I left cuz I know what their actions mean.

That ushers in a new group who doesn’t want to be known, who change banks to somewhere in Eastern Europe, and from what I gather from some clients who still had accounts there … even though I told them to get the hell  out and leave way back in December … nope, they stayed until recently. Long story short, one guy started his withdrawal process at the end of April of this year … it’s now mid-July … he just got his money yesterday … it took him just over 10 weeks of screaming, yelling, threatening, a zillion emails wanting his money … what he got back from them that he showed me was every excuse in the book for why they couldn’t send the money right now, but in a couple of days it will be sent … we promise … only, more time elapsed, the excuses got more bizarre … until yesterday, when the money finally showed up and he got charged by LMFX $60 for the wire. EXIT QUESTION: “Would any of you find this acceptable behavior on the part of the brokerage house, and would any of you keep funds there”? If any of you reading this had an answer other than “hell NO”, trust me, LMFX would love for you to open an account and fund it … happy trading.

So, what once was good and OK, has turned into bat guano within a year; nothing is ever “written in stone”, cuz things change for various reasons. I’m glad he got his money, but my lecture to him still stands; “you have to heed the warning signs, and when you ignore them, bad shit happens. Learn from this”! Now, just to be clear, I’m not saying LMFX is a “scam brokerage house”; what I am saying is that I definitely disapprove of the way they handled this gentlemen and the process he had to go through to get his funds … it’s disgraceful and LMFX should be ashamed of itself … of course, they won’t be, and it’s business as usual … that isn’t good enough for me and it shouldn’t be good enough for anybody else either, and it’s why I wouldn’t keep a nickel there going forward.

Turning to today’s market … ZZZZZZZZZ … ok wait, let’s give it a chance shall we? … why I don’t know, cuz it very much looks and feels like another “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD] kind of day with an upside bias … but who knows, we’ll find out via the ‘setup” shortly.

It’s Friday, and I’m gonna just recap the day … I’ve been in this biz a very long time, trading stock indices since the beginning … this is the weirdest day I have ever seen … I have never seen the SP500 so manipulated on the buy side ever … by the same token, the Dow30 is all over the place with a correlation matrix that has lost all meaning … I’ve mentioned it before, but today is the worst I have ever seen, and that’s saying something since I’ve seen more trading days than most … add to that, today was the worst day I have seen with “speed of light … crickets” trading conditions since the central bankers decided to make the stock indices their playground … the gaps in price discovery, the speed at which it goes up/down from nothing, and the endless M1’s where the ranges are 1 or 2 points and literally goes nowhere for hours is really baffling and strange … it’s a manipulated market; in no way, shape, or form does this market resemble anything it did prior to 2016. Did you know the CME now offers discounts in clearing fees and commissions to central banks that trade Dow30 & SP500 futures? Could there possibly be any greater admission than this? Since the inception of central banks into the stock indices in February 2016, this is the biggest intervention, manipulative jack higher I have ever seen. It’s only been about a year and a half … I’m sure in the future there will be more with more gusto to come. Seriously … God help this country with all of this, cuz when it blows up [which someday it will], the mess will be unbelievable.

Of course, throw in slippage into this mess, and the scumbag LP [if this was a just world] would simply be hung … what they do to orders that I can see from the quotes is literally criminal, but there isn’t anything anybody can do about it cuz it’s the only way you can trade … you can bitch and scream at them all day and night, turn blue in the face, and it won’t raise an eyebrow over at the bank … deal with it.

Today was one of those days where I walk away happy I only lost a couple hundred bucks … trust me, it could have been far worse … it wasn’t, cuz I know what I’m doing, but the speed at which the stock indices mete out punishment is staggering … throw in slippage, and it’s a very bitter pill. So, I’ll take the splinter out of my finger, and look forward to next week. Look for some DAX30 trades next week, as I throw in some “Dow30 from Germany” into the mix; lately, this market has picked up and the version 4 algo is doing very well there. No reason not to trade it in the early hours. Onward & Upward!

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Time for the beach … dog and I are outta here … until Monday.

Have a great weekend everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX “PAMM/MAM” IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!

IS FINANCIAL NEWS JUST ONE BIG LIE?

“Ahhhh, the wisdom of George Costanza!”

It won’t come as a big shock to anybody, people worldwide desperately want to believe their stocks are a bargain and deserve to go higher … much higher; if not, why hold them at all? To this end, the entire global financial apparatus is instrumental in perpetuating whatever they have to, so that people continue to believe. When both institutional & retail investors and traders “get wind” that there is some kind of breakdown in either the structural nature of finance or there are psychological political reasons to be worried, then and only then will you see a sustained bear market over any extended period of time. EXIT QUESTION: “Will CNBC or Bloomberg ever report and cover these types of conditions and “pass it on” to you via their biased reporting”? I’m not at all convinced they ever will; after all, they are owned by giant corporate conglomerates with deep ties to government and various special interests. Why would the powerful, rich elite of the world want to see their wealth dissipated through their very own media?

Finance never stands alone, like some island that is unaffected by the political environment it finds itself in; it is very much affected by the whims and desires of the ruling elite. I’ll simply offer as proof the unwritten rule of CNBC for any guest, which is “do NOT ever bring up the “Plunge Protection Team” or its various maneuvers in the market to prop prices, or you won’t ever get invited back”! Anybody that has ever been invited has been told this in no uncertain terms.

As mass media in the modern age has developed from the early 50’s to present, one truth [oddly enough] has held firm and proven correct more than anybody wants to admit; Uncle Adolph below explains.

“Every rat in government knows it to be true!”

And while everybody in the world heaps scorn on “The Third Reich”, and rightfully so, in at least one respect every government since then [that would be the 1930’s for you Obama voters who think history started in 2008] has learned a valuable lesson. That lesson is simply this: a media darling [Hitler at the time] was sufficiently able to convince the stalwart, upstanding, strong & independent German people to make him dictator for life. “In essence, every politician’s dream since then from DEMS, REPUBS, and thug dictators everywhere”. Hitler’s chief propagandist was simply an evil genius; Joseph Goebbels had 2 Ph.D.’s from prestigious universities, and deeply understood human psychology and the need for “people to believe”; and boy, did he ever get them to believe. They believed so much, that even after the Nazi’s were defeated, General Eisenhower had videos of the concentration camps made and also required the local citizenry to visit the death camps at Buchenwald & Ohrdruf to see with their own eyes the evil of their deception. “You gonna believe me, or your lyin’ eyes”?

Well, minus the death camps, what has the FED force fed the financial community with since 1913? In 104 years, the U.S. Dollar has depreciated over 98%; IMHO, the only thing that has saved the U.S. from being Venezuela is the rise of the “petrodollar” in the Nixon years, thanks to Henry Kissinger. If that ever changes, the U.S. is over in about 15 minutes.

The sad fact is, there isn’t a one of us that can truly escape the clutches of the FED; we all have bank accounts, brokerage house accounts, mortgages, credit & debit cards, etc., and the pablum of “Everything Is F-ing Awesome Baby!” constantly and consistently beat into our heads by the MSM financial press is both sickening to me, and a constant reminder of how truly corrupt our government and press are in the art of propaganda. “Gosh, I wonder where they got all these ideas”? Is it any wonder then, that eventually somebody would come up with QE and the need for “The Plunge Protection Team” [PPT]? Of course, it’s for your own good don’tchaknow?

Turning to today’s market … not much overnight with the Dow30 in a very tight range … the very early DAX30 selloff had zero affect on U.S. indices, and volume has been very light … at least for now, this has the look and feel of a “Flying Wedge of Death” [FWD] kind of day; I’d like to see some kind of “profit taking” [thank you Bob Pisani, CNBC] to start the day, and then the rally can come. We’ll see.

Grandma Yellen at the Senate today; picture below captures the action.

“This Senate committee is now in session!”

And from the group photo, it rubbed off on the Dow30, cuz what we got so far today after 2 hours is a joke; “Flying Wedge of Death” seemingly making yet another appearance in today’s trade. And once again, the correlations between the SP500 and the Dow30 completely breaking down; they go in different directions, they go in the same direction, they move the same. Go ahead and flip the coin.

It’s 2 hours later in early afternoon trade, and whadda we got from earlier? Try zero … literally … no, I’m serious … maybe 7 – 8 points if you caught it perfect in the last couple of hours … yea, it’s summer and the markets act like the beer is hot and the women cold … but geesh, this is pathetic. The one move of the day in the Dow30 worth capturing happened so fast off the low, and of course in seconds it rocketed while the SP500 did zip … by the time the SP500 moved up at all, we were already 20 off the low.

In the larger scheme of things, the news from the “Faculty Lounge” crew yesterday on interest rates makes getting [outside of bombshell political news, where Trump is to be impeached in 5 minutes] some serious technical breaks tougher … ones not associated with politics, probably at least until the fall. At this point in the Calendar, usually late summer does not produce downside fireworks. In 2015 we got the China devaluation that caused a flash crash the following morning, but outside of that, nothing much historically.

The key, as always, going forward is not news, lack of news, more news, or anything outside of the “setup” … meaning, how markets are positioning players [institutional & retail spec] and their positions, where the key stop levels are at [both buy and sell], how the day starts in Asia and the market is treated overnight [“upside vapors” anyone?], how we open in New York @ 9:30, and the importance of the opening aqua horizontal line … “THIS IS WHAT MATTERS”! All the rest put to you by the financial MSM is nothing but one big lie after another.

We find ourselves in the “Central Bank Paradigm” of trading; I don’t know if anybody else saw it the other day over on ZH, but the CTA [Commodity Trading Advisor] & traditional hedge fund industry are having their worst year since 1987 … yup, 30 years; they called it the “Quant Quake”, and for those who want more in depth analysis, the link is directly below.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-11/quant-quake-what-was-behind-last-weeks-historic-cta-crash-and-another-one-imminent

Basically, the premise is that everybody is getting caught in 3 “sigma” to 6 “sigma” moves that happen like lightening, and then everything dies and there is no way to recoup the losses from the trade, and then it’s on to the next disaster; “gee, anybody I know who’s been saying this for months”? And, it is leading to horrendous losses, and the closing of funds and/or retirements of key industry players that have been around a while. “Again, where have I heard this before”? I shouldn’t have to remind them, cuz they should know this, but patience and discipline are key … and many of them got neither.

And while Grandma Yellen giveth, another FED Pie Hole today taketh away … Brainard says “Asset Values” [a/k/a “stocks” … duh] look “a bit stretched”. Seriously, WTF … and sitting in the faculty lounge with the other clueless Twits, how does she arrive at this? Women’s intuition? Ouji board? Cab driver in Las Vegas? Now, you got to ask yourself, “why the hell do they send out some Fed Pie Hole to say this the day after Yellen drops the “MOAB” interest rate news”? IT’S CALLED CENTRAL PLANNING … IT’S THE PARADIGM WE WILL BE IN UNTIL THE REVOLUTION COMES TO TAKE THEM AWAY. And that my dear friends, isn’t gonna happen anytime soon … you simply have to understand the “rules of the game”, and everybody here knows the rules … “IT’S THE SETUP STUPID”!

Thank God, they mercifully close this stuff in an hour; good luck with any trade getting outside the spread! Just another “Doji”, “Flying Wedge of Death” 59 total point range day … ho hum. Of the last 9 trading days in the Dow30, 4 of them have been “doji” on the daily candlestick chart. Just another day of going nowhere fast.

One trade today off of the low, didn’t get the greatest fill getting in, but everybody here knows the drill with the scumbag LP’s, so no need to be redundant with a slippage tutorial … it wasn’t that bad, but still … anyway, once I got in of course comes the Brainard headline, and when it won’t move … well, time to liquidate cuz this isn’t something I want to fight the rest of the day, unless I get lower price from my liquidation point. So, another profit scalp on a day that’s turned into a complete “nothing burger”.

But of course, literally minutes to the close, and time to blow the shorts a “new one” … couldn’t move a nickel to save its life for 4 hours and now in 3 minutes 15 points to the upside on vapors; oh yes, tell me again how the market isn’t manipulated. Hahahahaha. Onward & Upward!

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Time for the beach … dog and I are outta here … until tomorrow mi amigos.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX “PAMM/MAM” IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!

SEE MY SHOCKED FACE!!

“Gambling here? … Overnight upside vapors? … I’m simply shocked!”

In what must come as a complete shock to the outside world … wait for it … OMG, Trump’s kid had a meeting set up by a Cankles Clinton front group [Fusion GPS; an oppo research outfit for Libtards] and spent 20 minutes talking to a Russian lawyer before the meeting concluded because it was discovered they set the meeting up under false pretenses [“Rick, here are your winnings sir”. … “I’m shocked to find gambling in my establishment”!] And oh my, they promised to have “dirt” on Cankles, and Trump Jr. fell for it … it didn’t take long to figure out it was a ruse and the meeting ended. “Can you imagine that? A political campaign that was actually interested in finding out “dirty laundry” on an opponent? And to top it off, it’s a … wait for it … a Republican, so it’s extra, “double secret probation” bad”!

Never mind the complete hypocrisy & double standards from the likes of Obama & Cankles; 2 Pols who dig and spread “dirt” better than most … remember Obama’s run for the Senate, when he had court sealed divorce papers of his opponent revealed? Anybody remember Cankles in ’08 with the “birther story” on Obama’s phony baloney birth certificate? Oh well, that’s just innocent politics. And still, in what makes them look like the fools that they are, and that the majority of Americans know to be true, Libtards run around like chickens with their collective heads cut off crying treason, sedition, racism, sexism, homophobia, [am I missing anything?], and anything else that they can think of to further their idiotic agenda, and to throw it up against the wall and see if any of it sticks … first it’s “Russian meddling”, then came the “Russians stole the election”, then came the “Comey non-starter”, then “collusion with the Russians”, and now it’s “conspiracy to commit collusion” [whatever the hell that means]. “Anybody but me here see a pattern of moving goalposts? McCarthyism much”?

Meanwhile, Libtards favorite matriarch of “sleaze, corruption, bribery, & influence peddling”, has 2 foundations whose only job is/was to rake in the cash for future political favors; and in what I can only describe as “see my shocked face again”, now that she’s lost, those 2 supposed “charitable” foundations have been forced to close because … wait for it … they aren’t getting any more donations. Oh, and remember way back in the “good old days” when Cankles lived in “Libtard hell” [a/k/a Arkansas] and her and her serial rapist husband ran that scam on old people with the land deal? … You know, where they got ordinary “Sheeple folk” with rotten credit and loaned them the money via a “Savings & Loan” with zero down and an 18% interest loan on the land, and if they missed a payment by as much as one day, the “Sheeple folk” lost the property back to guess who? … well, if you said the Clintons via a shady LLC set up by Cankles named “Whitewater Development”, you win a cookie. And then of course, they resell the land to the next sucker … what’s not to like? Or, if that’s not enough, how about “ancient history” when Cankles first got her start as a lunatic Libtard, when she got kicked off the Watergate investigation [by other Dems] for unethical & sleazy behavior in going after Nixon. And Obama? Well, if he were white and had an “R” after his name, he’d be in prison.

Where we find ourselves, of course, is at a point in time where everybody is Hitler when you disagree with Libtards and/or Libtard Nation over anything; their religion is big government; their alter is climate change; their “wacos” are hellbent on destroying the traditions & greatness that once was the United States. So, the obvious conclusion to be made in this logical “down the rabbit hole” into the Red Queen’s kangaroo court of justice, is that Trump Jr. should be publicly hanged tomorrow, after the judges Barbara “WaWa” Striesand, Rosie O’Donnell, Lena “I sexually abused my younger sister but it’s OK cuz I’m a Libtard” Dunham, and of course Cher, pronounce judgement and sentence on “The View”.

Apparently now, nobody can talk to nobody without a Libtard’s permission, and what we really need is some kind of “Robspierre’s Court” [which of course can change its mind later and find you violated something and you can still be hung] at the national level; moderated of course by the fair and balanced CNN, NYT, & WaPo scumbag types cuz they have the proper credentials in eliteness and know better than you ever could what’s good for you.

The fact that nobody on the Left can see the color of their own shirts [hence, I think they are brown and/or red], or care that they are a total caricature of themselves, morphing into the “thought police”, or in some cases the “Gestapo”, simply amazes me. Libtards occupy one of 2 mental states; they are either dumber than a bag of radishes, or simply don’t mind picking up the mantle of the “Hitler Youth”; neither is particularly complimentary. When some doofus tells me I shouldn’t eat a steak cuz I’m ruining the planet, I tend to think of the former, and when I see feminazis and other assorted oddballs defend Islamists & Sharia law, I tend to think of both at once.

But OMG, talk to a Russian? Now that’s hangable … no matter it was all set up by Cankles “oppo research hit squad”; no matter the parties misrepresented the nature of the requested meeting; nope, all that matter is that Trump Jr. talked to them for 20 minutes and then said “goodbye”. This is what passes as “intelligence” these days; why be surprised, as educational standards the last 40 years have been “dumbed down” by the elitist progressives of the 60’s to a point where Chimps are smarter and have greater “critical thinking” ability than most Libtard college graduates, and especially Pols. 

“Apparently, buses run on Libtard bullshit or something.”

And of course, the shifting goalpost theme will not end this week or next; rest assured CNN, MSNBC, NYT, & WaPo will come up with some “crime against God & his emissaries on earth” meme in the days ahead against the evil empire of President Trump. And simply to put a cherry on top of this clusterfark cupcake today, I see in the news where “Jomika”, the 10% of the dynamic duo of Joe Scarborough & Mika B., has decided to leave the Republican party … you know, cuz of “principles” … more like cuz his beta male “pajama boy” testicles are in her Libtard lockbox. Seriously Joe, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Ok?

Which brings me to “my shocked face” regarding the stock indices market, and the Dow30 in particular; the “stop hunt” run yesterday was just short of criminal; the 4 “Plunge Protection Team” [PPT] ramps following the “Trump Dump, Part Duex” was obscene [when government does it, it can’t be criminal]. And of course, we’re slightly higher going into Grandma Yellen’s trip to Capitol Hill to face the “Grandstander’s”; so what else is new? You thought maybe they were gonna let this crap sink lower overnight?

Turning to today’s market … 8:30 Yellen’s prepared remarks … immediately following the perfunctory and wholly expected PPT ramp above 21500 [now at 60 Dow30 points and climbing to new all-time highs] I predicted yesterday via the “set up”, and everybody who sold in the 21300’s gets to buy 21500’s, and you won’t even get a “log roll basket” or a Christmas card from the friendly LP come the Holiday’s. And, don’tchaknow, “Everything Is F-ing Awesome Baby!” from Yellen’s prepared remarks … won’t be able to listen to the complete bullshit live, as it might explode my head … but the damage is done; chipmunks get to “buy the high” at the open, retail specs who were long get to scratch their collective heads and wonder how they got completely “F-ed” by the Street yesterday and the dealer community. All I can really say to those traders is that you should be reading my posts and educate yourself in the paradigm of “Central Bank Trading”. Anybody else mention the “setup” going into today as important? Go ahead, scour the internet and let me know.

Right before the open, and it’s “Squeeze The Chipmunks” to see how high the Dow30 can go to fill their institutional orders to buy in the first 5 minutes; can anybody say 21600+, like real soon?

Well, that escalated quickly didn’t it? Chipmunks weren’t the only ones to panic; almost hit 21600 on buy stops … wondering if these were the same folks who had sell stops underneath 21390 yesterday? All cuz interest rates, according to the head Oracle at the Eccles building and keeper of the Faculty Lounge keys, says maybe … maybe … rates have topped out for now. Quite a stark difference from a couple of weeks ago at the June FED meeting where it was “full speed ahead” with rate normalization … what changed?

Here we are 2 hours into “Yellen Wednesday”, where it’s literally been “speed of light trading … crickets”; after you blow the hell out of the order book, first on the long side with sell stops, then turn around and blow the hell out of the short side with buy stops 300 points higher … all in a span of a few market hours of trading within 24 hours, why should it be a surprise we now grind painfully lower to skewer the “Johnny come lately” longs once again? Hell, we’re probably the only ones with any money left after the carnage. Welcome to “central banker heaven”. I’ve seen this rodeo before, and once the orgasmic buying is over from the open, you got a couple of trips back up to test, and once those fail, the only ones who don’t see it are those long looking for more, but not getting it and eventually are forced out. A staggering transfer of money within 24 hours … guess who got the short end of the stick?

And apparently, it’s not over yet is it, cuz the Dow30 is back to where it opened, about 80 points off the high? Even though we got the skyrocket to go off this morning, once again, the “setup” is all wrong … it’s the reason I treated the first trade as a profitable scalp … since then, it’s been nothing but a grind lower to the open, and if this stuff doesn’t stabilize here, we could have a real disaster on our hands by late afternoon. Also, notice the changing dynamic of the market after the opening blitzkrieg to new all-time highs in the Dow30; once we hit the high and had a retest and it failed, almost every single spike since then has been down … did the up spikes decide to go to the beach? How about there isn’t anybody who wants to buy it at these levels, at least for today, and a whole host of people are now looking for chairs cuz the music stopped … should have thought of that before the music ended, but most traders never listen.

Here in the early afternoon, the Dow30 finds itself in “ghost city”; a meandering nothing burger of mindless chop from the LP, where it can’t get below 21525 or above 21540 and stay there. So, the only thing to do is hand out slippage and bat guano fills. For its part, the SP500 is dead right now, not doing anything. And, as always happens, as soon as I write it, some shorts get squeezed and we romp up a quick 20 points on pure short covering. Question going forward today is, can they keep the upward momentum going into the close, or do we drift lower and punish longs once again?

Meanwhile, as has been the case lately, there is no rhyme or reason to the correlations between the Dow30 and the SP500; it’s been going back and forth like a yo-yo, with one leading strongly and then getting very weak versus the other … back and forth, making it literally impossible to read the broader market for trade clues and relative strength. Simply put, your guess is as good as mine which market is telling the truth and which is lying; I’m sure, this is exactly how the central planners like it.

One trade today off the correction from the high … glad I treated it as a scalp, cuz the action since then has not been conducive to trading … nothing but 1 & 2 point range M1’s and then spikes up/down that either catch you or reward you instantly … that isn’t trading, In any event a profitable scalp, as yet again all of the action in terms of trend takes place outside the New York session. On the bright side, volatility has picked up and would be considered low by historical standards, instead of multi-decade lows we’ve experienced lately. Again today, we open and within about 20-30 minutes of the start, you look up and see for the day a 170+ point range … and I’m thinking to myself, “Ok, but what’s left? How are we going to expand this to 200 or 220? Probability says the odds are very low … sure it happens, but you want to take a 5% probability event and trade on it? [I don’t] … that leaves chop and down moves, and if this stuff goes back and breaks the open all hell is going to break loose given what we’ve seen the last 24 hours … and it almost did”!

When you consider the news, and take into account the sudden change of heart with the “faculty lounge” Twits, today’s action is disappointing. Very near the open you had the stops run on the upside, and that robbed the market of buying power later … most of the day enjoyed going lower from those highs, and then the steady climb back that is as enjoyable as watching paint dry … we’re very near the level I liquidated, and here it is 6 hours later … a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants … please come again! Wait … what? There you go, that’s the day in a nutshell.

Here near the close, there doesn’t appear to be much interest … that could change quickly, but right now with about 30 minutes to go, it’s a “yawner” 10 points under where I liquidated earlier. If the market can avoid 1) doing stupid shit like closing over 21600 today, 2) no overnight “vapors” to the upside, and 3) give us a lower open tomorrow morning, the “setup” will be as good as it was today for more strength in the market. In any event, Onward & Upward!

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Time for the beach … dog and I are outta here … until tomorrow mi amigos.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

OUR TURNKEY FOREX  “PAMM/MAM”  IS NOW OPEN AND OPERATIONAL; SEE “PAMM/MAM MANAGED MONEY PROGRAM” IN “DOWNLOAD LINKS” SECTION IN RIGHT HAND COLUMN FOR DETAILS [VIEW ONLINE AND/OR DOWNLOAD] AND START YOUR JOURNEY FROM WHERE YOU ARE AT TO “ESCAPE TO SUCCESS”!