Trading the markets with Alan Rich.

[tricks]

He's quoting the S&P 500 futures in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange S&P 500 futures pit.
So right now we're trading 1274.80. Which is 4.80 (four eighty bid trades). That's what he says. He can't say the whole number cuz that takes too long.
So let's say it's: 1275.20 bid x 1275.50 offer. He'll say five twenty bid offered at five half offer. Or five twenty bid at a half. It takes some time before you'll here what he says fluently. But once you get it, you don't wanna trade without anymore.
He'll sometimes says: Paper coming in a buyer or paper a buyer or paper buys the four eighties. That means that there are institutions or banks buying. Paper = institutions or banks.
Or he'll say locals trying to get a bid going. Locals are the marketmakers in the pit. The daytraders. If they think paper or bank buyers will come in near the highs or that there will be stops. They'll try to bid up the market and then when they print a new high (print=trade) paper buyers will come in so they can sell to them.
Right now he's quoting, three seventy bid and now i'm offered at even offer here now. Which means 1273.70 bid x 1274.00 offer.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please ask'em.

-Dave

Once again he's quoting the futures, they trade higher than the cash $SPX because of premium.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that, I was looking at the cash, and I can now see that they are 'talking' about June futures. Thanks for the explanation. I don't know at this stage if I could use it, as I think I would need an awful lot of 'paracetamol'. He he. Anyway, as I said, quite facinating listening to them. Sounds similar to a live cattle market auctioneer!

cheers - Dave,

tricks

 

[dvdh]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that, I was looking at the cash, and I can now see that they are 'talking' about June futures. Thanks for the explanation. I don't know at this stage if I could use it, as I think I would need an awful lot of 'paracetamol'. He he. Anyway, as I said, quite facinating listening to them. Sounds similar to a live cattle market auctioneer!

cheers - Dave,

tricks

I sure believe ya, never heard a live cattle market auctioneer though. But you can also take a trial at the live cattle futures pit squawk on tradersaudio.com.

Good luck with it. Let me know what you think after using it for a while!
In my opinion the squawk gives you a good view on sentiment and the positions in the market. And you'll start seeing patterns. Merrill Lynch has been selling it three days before the sell off started. Not just a couple lots, but a boat load. And today he covered way over 1000 contracts. And that's hell of a lot. 250k a point in the S&P. That means something. Almost a year ago, I heard him buy over 4000 contracts. That's 1 million per point in the S&P, worth a billion dollars. It took him half an hour to accumulate them. The week after we traded about 30 points higher. He bought another 1500+. And another week later we traded 50 points higher. And guess who the seller was, yes Merrill Lynch. You see what I mean?

A couple weeks ago, the pattern was, we went up in the morning. And in the afternoon it was pretty quiet. There are a couple big locals in that pit there, that have a lot of power to move the market. Every afternoon when it was quiet, one or two of those locals came in and started pushing it lower. Selling the bids and coming in offered. The pushed it lower about 3 to 5 points, and the paper buyers from that morning had to take a loss because their stops got hit. This happened several days in a row. And the commentator tells you exactly what they're doing. Cuz he recognizes it too. When they start pushing the index lower you can see this happen in a lot of stocks too. Cuz they follow. Like aapl, goog, sndk and other stocks that have the same pattern as the index. All examples of advantages the squawkbox give me and might give you.

-Dave.

 

[Mr. Charts]

Great stuff, Dave and great explanation !

TrendTracker, a good spot on RMBS
Here's my last trade in RMBS as I grabbed the retracement.
This image was taken when I took the short - bit of a no brainer entry ;-)
Richard

 

[Mr. Charts]

And this is the screen shot at the time I covered for a quick 35c.
The last chart was on 5 min candles; this is on one minute candles.
Again no rocket science, nothing fancy, just real simple technical analysis, not even level 2 needed here !
Richard

PS RMBS setting up again right now, but I'm not totally convinced it's going to pop again yet.

 

[samtron]

No Samtron, only in American. LOL. but for me it's very clear though. I can understand every word he says. but it needs some time. I've been listening to him for about 1,5 years!

-Dave.

Great info, as always, Dave, thanks very much for sharing.

 

[TrendTracker]

Good one Richard! Currently it looks (judging from the volume pattern) that RMBS might take out the daily high once more. What do you think? (now trading at 28.15)

 

[BlackPanther]

Wow, dvdh, listening to the S&P broadcast - fascinating stuff! Think I am beginning to understand after a couple of hours of trying to translate

 

[tricks]

All examples of advantages the squawkbox give me and might give you.

-Dave.

Thanks again Dave, very informative. I'll give it some more attention. I trade the Dow and FTSE mostly, is there a squarkbox that applies to the DOW, do you know? That would be 'very interesting'.

cheers - tricks

 

[rols]

Wow, dvdh, listening to the S&P broadcast - fascinating stuff! Think I am beginning to understand after a couple of hours of trying to translate

Well I had another go and I'm sorry to say it just wound me up. Perhaps I'll stick to my K467.

I pity the poor aliens from outer space.......

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/herman/herman20.html

 

[dvdh]

All examples of advantages the squawkbox give me and might give you.

-Dave.

Thanks again Dave, very informative. I'll give it some more attention. I trade the Dow and FTSE mostly, is there a squarkbox that applies to the DOW, do you know? That would be 'very interesting'.

cheers - tricks

No there's no DOW squawk. Although there's a dow pit in the chicago board of trade (CBOT), but they only have commentators in the bond pit there. The rest of the action is on the CME and oil and gas on the NYMEX.
But a DOW squawk would be an edge, cuz it hardly has volume compared to the S&P and all the big players are in the S&P pit and futures not in the DOW or the NASDAQ futures. But there's a NASDAQ futures pit squawk though. But it's not as high energy action as the S&P pit.

I used to arb the DAX listening to the S&P squawk back when there's was still correlation between the two. It worked very well. Since the DAX and the FTSE are fully electronic, you didn't hear what the players were doing. So you heard in the S&P. The guy from the squawkbox told me there was a lot of spreading and trading in the DAX from the S&P traders. So that's why I used it and it worked for a while, until the correlation was gone. But it might work again. Anyways trading nasdaq stocks is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY more profitable than trading futures for me. But i do keep a close eye on'em.

-Dave.

 

[Mr. Charts]

Hi TT,
Re-RMBS
As I said in post #286 at 6.42pm, it was setting up on the chart but I wasn't convinced. Of course, the reason was micro-analysis which wasn't confirming the chart at all. In fact, the stock never went any higher from the moment I posted for the rest of the evening.
I rather feel sorry for all those who were suckered in on the 6.27pm breakout as they believed the old myth that a breakout on heavy volume means the breakout will succeed and run. They just cannot grasp that that ain't necessarily so........it's so ingrained in them because of all the nonsense on web sites and books; nonsense which seems so logical......and really isn't.
That comment refers to US stocks, not index futures, BTW.
Sorry not to reply earlier, but I was busy shorting the hell out of four stocks as they rolled over belly up - another excellent evening's work ))
Years ago when I did a day job I used to trade these evening moves when I got home from work and it gradually dawned on me that I would do much better trading full time than going off to deal with all the problems of the day job. And wow, the freedom still elates and enthuses me and nearly seven years later I am still smiling and feeling good.
I just love the US stock market.
Richard

 

[tricks]

No there's no DOW squawk. Although there's a dow pit in the chicago board of trade (CBOT), but they only have commentators in the bond pit there. The rest of the action is on the CME and oil and gas on the NYMEX.
But a DOW squawk would be an edge, cuz it hardly has volume compared to the S&P and all the big players are in the S&P pit and futures not in the DOW or the NASDAQ futures. But there's a NASDAQ futures pit squawk though. But it's not as high energy action as the S&P pit.

I used to arb the DAX listening to the S&P squawk back when there's was still correlation between the two. It worked very well. Since the DAX and the FTSE are fully electronic, you didn't hear what the players were doing. So you heard in the S&P. The guy from the squawkbox told me there was a lot of spreading and trading in the DAX from the S&P traders. So that's why I used it and it worked for a while, until the correlation was gone. But it might work again. Anyways trading nasdaq stocks is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY more profitable than trading futures for me. But i do keep a close eye on'em.

-Dave.

Thanks again Dave,

Maybe I ought to start looking at nasdaq myself. Out of interest, are you registered with SKYPE on the internet? If you are, then maybe we could have a chat sometime?

cheers - tricks

 

[dvdh]

Thanks again Dave,

Maybe I ought to start looking at nasdaq myself. Out of interest, are you registered with SKYPE on the internet? If you are, then maybe we could have a chat sometime?

cheers - tricks

I just send you a PM!!!

-Dave.

 

[tricks]

I just send you a PM!!!

-Dave.

Thanks Dave, got it. I'll be in touch soon. Thanks again.

cheers - tricks

 

[timaru69]

Hi all

Probably old news but Bird flu stocks may be worth watching today as suspected human to human transmission reported in Indonesia.

NVAX (sub $5?) , BCRX, GILD and maybe CRXL

Just my 2c worth

Regards

 

[candles]

since iv'e been away from the markets for a while, i am wondering if there have been any progression in ways around the pdt rule? Any companies who will let you DAYTRADE with less than 25k without charging stupid commisions charges etc...

cheers

 

[TrendTracker]

Sorry Candles, I can't help you with that...

but here's a stock that seems worth keeping an eye on. NSTR has jumped BIG time (from below $2 to $16!) some time ago and has now started to break down from the highs. I'm not at my desk tomorrow but if you guys think this is worth adding to your watchlist, then please do so. Here's a link to the chart: http://www.cfdfocus.com/NSTR.png

 

[eurotrader52]

"hot" stocks for May 26 potential for SWING TRADES

ANDE, CENX, BJS, FLS, HHGP, XMSR, NTAP Picked up a position in SLB for a upside target of 70. Hot stocks look like have more potential for MULTI-POINT gains. Swing Trade or Day Trade Strategies. A number of sectors experienced small bubbles..."BUBBLETS" especially oils and metals offering up fantastic shorting opportunities and perhaps after a "pause that refreshes" further upside.

 

[eurotrader52]

Added SEPR @ 52.51 for representation in Biotech sector (swing play target 54)

SEPR 52.51 with stop at 52.25

 

[eurotrader52]

Good BRCM reversal see chart (trade your own winners)

BRCM reversal Trade above 10:00 high on 5 minute chart