188 Ticks Day Trading Gold/Crude/Russell Futures SchoolOfTrade.com

During these times we see slower speed of the tape, less volume, and certainly fewer opportunities to trade with.

That didn’t slow us down at ALL today, we spotted a great breakout pattern on Crude Oil and we got long for an amazing 143 tick winner today, and to make it even more impressive, it was after our first trade was a LOSS!

If you’re looking for easy ways to profit from the summertime trading months look no further than today’s video, and watch as we get prepared for the day ahead of us, and that is what made us money today.

800am EST

– Summertime Monday in the month of august, so we expect a little bit slower than other times of the year

– We notice we have Bernanke speaking at 1015am EST, and then at 4pm EST today Tim Geithner speaks

– This tells us today may be a very slow and sluggish day as people wait to hear what these two people have to say.

– When combined with the summertime trading, this becomes a day we need to be careful with.

Crude Oil Futures

– Slow timeframe shows us trading at the highs of the sideways range

o What does this mean? Looking for the short side as the highest percentage opportunity at this time.

 We can try and buy the highs, or buy the breakout, but the past history has not succeeded, so lets stick to the short side.

– We also notice we are trading at the highs of the wedge pattern on the slow timeframe, so this gives us a very familiar look at this market which we saw very similar last week

o We look to sell the highs of the wedge, and buy the lows, so this goes right along with our plan of attack.

– Fast timeframe shows a trend line that is acting like a magnet

o We broke the trend line earlier this morning and tried to head to the downside, but this trend line is clearly holding us up

 Great example of low volume, summertime trading.

– We entered our first trade of the day on a 13-range chart of the crude oil futures

o This was considered a fast track trade as well, and everyone made money on tis one!

o We knew our 2nd profit target would be the double-top at 80.81, so we have our first two targets filled, and now we need to find our 3rd target

 Use my slower timeframe chart to zoom out and look for the next level of overhead resistance that we can use as our final target, but there’s nothing overhead, so I need to use something to find that final target

 I use the AB=CD pattern to determine the length of trading range of previous moves to determine the most likely final target

• We see our final profit target at 81.50, so I will take profit at 81.45

945am EST

– we are still in the long trade on the Crude Oil futures, and we made an excellent decision to move our stop loss back by 5 more ticks when we noticed that the buys and sellers were starting to compete over control around our stop loss area.

o We already knew the area 65 would be an important transitional area, so when the price began to enter this area, we looked at the tape and we read the tape.

o We move our stop back to 60, let the trade work itself out, and that was a smart decision because price is now trading at 85, so we’re still in the trade and making more money because of our trade management strategy.

Russell Futures:

– Slower timeframe shows us just below the highs of the trading range (not high enough to short the highs yet though) and at the highs of the wedge pattern

– The fast timeframe shows a wedge pattern and we are trading in the middle of the wedge.

o What does this tell us?

 We’re too far from the highs to be looking short
 Too far from the middle to be too much concerned, so we wait.

1030am EST

– We watch as the crude oil futures took our final profit target at 81.50 exactly as planned, and now the market slows down and begins to decide where to go next.

o We knew this area around 81.50 would be a transitional area, which is why we use that level as our final target, so now we have to wait.

– No trades setting up on the 13-range or the 21-range charts to continue buying these highs. I will now look for more patterns.

– Gold Futures are a waste of time today because of this volume issue

o We skipped over the next front month