Trading For 24th July

Here is the journal from the 24th July:

We have important news! Today is the first day this week where we have important news during the trading day. We have the Existing Home Sales at 10am so I will be cautious around that period.

Right now we are at the 1281.50 area and I didn't put in an option for that. Reason being that I don't particularly want to trade inbetween the 1286 resistance and the 1278 support. It is messy up there with the EMA's and such. Therefore I will wait for a break of those areas before I attempt a trade today.

9:50 We have broken out of the range we held yesterday which is good. The Tick had been relatively neutral until we just broke, now it's beneath the zero area. Volume has been picking up as we decline so it will be interesting to see how the day pans out. For the moment I'll just stick on the sidelines waiting for the right time.

10:16 We came down to the 1270 area support but we didn't make a large tick extreme nor a big volume extreme. It had me cautious of entering on the long side so I have left the trade alone at this point and will wait a bit longer for something else. The Tick has moved into the positive but not by much at this point. Volume is declining on this leg up which is also concerning for the buying side.

11:09 My Tick data is currently missing from my charts as I needed to upgrade my platform. So for now I am on the sidelines trying to get it back. We bounced at the 1270 area and reached 1275 before turning back down. We broke the 1270 area and are now beneath it. Volume increased on the move lower. At this point I am waiting for a possible move to 1262 where we may see some bigger buying come in. That is if the Tick is back in action by then.

11:29 Tick still not working. Not happy Jan! If I can't get it back soon there is no point in me staying up to trade.

11:58 Tick has remained shafted. We appear to be having a meager bounce here but it is hardly inspiring. Volume has declined as we moved higher so I don't suspect we have see the days low just yet. For me its time to call it a night. The only opportunity I had to trade was the long down at 1270 but I wasn't confident in the long trade there. It turned out it was simply a small bounce in a bigger decline.

We didn't get a retrace to the 1278 area that would have triggered a short so I didn't get a chance on the short side. Ah well, at least it shows I can stay out when things aren't ideal.

Daily Wrap Up

There really isn't much I can say about today. It was trend down for the whole day pretty much, these are usually the days that catch me out if I'm not in from the beginning.

I did in fact find it good that I recognized a sellers market early on and didn't try to force a long trade at the 1270 support. We did get a decent sized bounce but on days like today it is best to stay on the right side of the market.

It was disappointing that my Tick data wasn't updating during the day. Of course it is restored with the end of day update, that doesn't help me during the day though. I have just downloaded the latest upgrade for the system so hopefully most of the quirks have been ironed out. If not it will be time to look for a new platform.