S&P 500 weekly competition for 2012

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Congrats to the winners! And thanks for the pic Rob. That was a terrible week by the way. At least for me it was.
 
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* Industrials lag as investors turn to defensive stocks

* U.S. consumer sentiment in May at highest since Oct (KOSDAQ: 039200.KQ - news) . 2007

* Dow (NYSE: DPD - news) off 0.6 pct, S&P down 0.2 pct, Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^NDX - news) off 0.1 pct (Updates to close)

NEW YORK (Frankfurt: A0DKRK - news) , May 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended their first positive week in four with a down day on Friday as investors were reluctant to buy going into a long weekend, with uncertainty still swirling around Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURUSD - news) .

An S&P index of industrial shares ranked among the session's biggest losers while weakness in large-cap tech stocks like Google Inc (NasdaqGS: GOOG - news) kept the Nasdaq in negative territory.

Warnings about Greece kept investors cautious, as did Spain after Standard & Poor's downgraded five banks and a source told Reuters that Bankia asked for $24 billion in state aid. However, a bullish read on U.S. consumer sentiment kept pessimism in check.

Boeing Co (NYSE: BA - news) and Chevron Corp (NYSE: CVX - news) were the Dow's biggest decliners, followed by Caterpillar Inc (NYSE: CAT - news) , with each falling more than 1 percent in the thinly traded session.

Google fell 2 percent to $591.53, pressuring the Nasdaq.

Utilities (Santiago: UTILITIES.SN - news) and telecom were the only S&P sectors in positive territory. Both are deemed defensive plays.

"The market is drifting and cautious ahead of the (Memorial Day) holiday. There's no consistency, though we do seem to be digging in after some bad weeks," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York, which has about $3 billion in assets under management.

"Still we have the overhang of Europe, and just have to hope things don't get worse over there."

Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders issued a warning over Greece, saying it would be a "grave professional error" if central banks and companies were not preparing for a Greek exit from the euro zone.



French banks, which are among the lenders most exposed to Greece, have stepped up their efforts on contingency plans for the debt-laden country leaving the euro zone, sources familiar with the situation said.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 74.92 points, or 0.60 percent, to 12,454.83 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dipped 2.86 points, or 0.22 percent, to 1,317.82. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.85 points, or 0.07 percent, at 2,837.53.

The U.S. stock market will be closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.

For the week, the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC - news) rose 1.7 percent. That advance broke the benchmark index's a three-week string of losses with its best weekly performance since mid-March. The Dow added 0.7 percent for the week, while the Nasdaq climbed 2.1 percent. Trading was choppy all week, with volatility often spiking around the close.

Even with the S&P 500's 5.7 percent drop since the end of April, stocks have held up relatively well as bear markets rage in Brazil, Russia, peripheral Europe, and many core European equity markets have given up all their gains for the year.

For the year to date, the S&P 500 is still up 4.8 percent.

The S&P 500's top gainer in Friday's session was telecom services - a sign that investors were looking for safety in defensive U.S. sectors, possibly as money returns from riskier emerging markets and Europe. The S&P telecoms index rose 0.3 percent.

At the end of last week, the S&P 500 tested support at the 1,290 mark and has inched away from that level during the week. Some analysts are expecting the benchmark index to test its 200-day moving average at 1,281 and possibly fall below that.

Weighing heavily on the Dow in Friday's session, Boeing shares lost 1.9 percent to end at $70. Chevron's stock dropped 1.2 percent to $98.86. Caterpillar shares shed 1.6 percent to close at $89.94.

Chesapeake Energy Corp (NYSE: CHK - news) gained 1.5 percent to $15.81, rising for the second day after the company announced it has put a half-million acres in Wyoming and Colorado up for sale.

Data showed Thomson Reuters (Toronto: TRI.TO - news) /University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers' final May consumer sentiment index jumped to 79.3 from 77.8 in the preliminary May report. It was the highest level since October 2007. Market reaction was muted.

In the aftermath of last Friday's botched initial public offering of Facebook, lead underwriter Morgan Stanley (EUREX: DWDF.EX - news) will adjust thousands of trades to ensure outstanding limit orders to sell will be filled at no more than $42.99 a share, the firm told its brokers on Thursday, according to several who listened to the call.

Facebook's stock lost 3.4 percent to $31.91, close to its all-time intraday low of $30.94 that it hit on Tuesday.

Volume was light, with about 4.78 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, well below last year's daily average of 7.84 billion.

About half of the stocks listed on both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq closed in positive territory. (Editing by Jan Paschal)
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An interesting book has come out recently debunking all the hype of fast trading. As it so correctly points out, it isn't the lightening fast multiple trades that have made the biggest fortunes but the slow old buffers like Buffett.
Maybe I should slow down a bit, well at least to a 10 min time frame ?
 
W/E 25/5/12 - Results

What an interesting week. As consensus polarised towards a short term low being set with high volumes towards the end of last week, the market still struggled to make it materially higher with sellers coming back into the mix mid week on the back of Euro default looming closer for the cradle of modern civilisation. The 1317.82 finish nicely reflects the mixed nature of the bull and bears fighting.

Nevertheless the ups had it this week with our Eurovision Song Contest equivalents of Sweden, Russia & Serbia being:

1) Gaffs1964 - 1315 (-2.82)
2) samspade79 - 1325 (7.18)
3) hwsteele - 1327 (9.18)

Well done to Gaffs for the the win and good call on a tricky week and to our other two trading chanteuses, sam and hwsteele for getting a podium :clap::clap::clap::clover::clover::clover:

Now the serious business of the leaderboard. Atilla is still maintaining his lead despite an off week with the gaggle still within spitting distance of taking the lead off him. If the market continues to range, will Atilla's TA fall over in a heap?

Link to full results
 
An interesting book has come out recently debunking all the hype of fast trading. As it so correctly points out, it isn't the lightening fast multiple trades that have made the biggest fortunes but the slow old buffers like Buffett.
Maybe I should slow down a bit, well at least to a 10 min time frame ?

How frequently do you trade Pat? My personality cannot handle position trading at all. It's a no go option AFAIK.
 
How frequently do you trade Pat? My personality cannot handle position trading at all. It's a no go option AFAIK.

My problem is I have little patience. A 2 minute TF keeps me interested but by the time 10 mins TF is used I am either asleep or wandered off to do that household chore I meant to do last week and likely to miss the reverse. Even at 2 mins I only do about 3/5 trades a day. Gotta wait for a reasonable chance set-up imho.

I guess you are a daily man. Set the parameters and then off ?
 
I guess you are a daily man. Set the parameters and then off ?

Kind of - I take 1 trade per day (to control my quite chronic over-trading capability) but they are off the DOM/T&S/1min chart so are small/quick trades framed by an intraday view.

I suppose it's like doing a medium term weather forecast and then deciding what the likelihood of it raining in the next 5 minutes is.

I would trade more frequently in the same way you do but the quality of trade selection diminishes after the first trade for me.
 
I spy with my little eye a H&S reversal on the 1 hour charts.

I reckon we are heading to a higher low 1350 but may take a week or too.

1332 for me this week please.
 
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