OPEX Trading Strategies; Stay alive for long term profits

We finished up an incredible week in our live trade room this morning with a challenging OPEX low-volume trading environment.

We certainly had plenty of reasons to be concerned, and it WASNT simply because it was a Friday or OPEX.  As I look back at my long term track record I can easily see some $1,500 trading days on OPEX, so I cant use that as an excuse to shy away from the markets this morning.

Todays Trades Called Live

Today was all about the big red flags we got when we opened our charts.  Do you remember these signs saying BEWARE this morning?  First, the dollar index was trading in a narrow range in the middle of a wedge in the middle of the range from Thursday.  This might be the BIGGEST red flag we can ever see and we knew it right away.  No hindsight used here, we saw this comming a mile away and we prepared emotionally for a sloppy day.

Dollar Index RED FLAG

The next sign we got was on crude oil just after 900am EST when we were looking to buy the lows of the range from Thursday (PLOD) and we saw the momentum indicator on our 13-range chart go from oversold to overbought in less than 2 seconds.  At this point we knew exactly the price action we are getting into so we conditioned ourselves for a sloppy friday.

Lets remember, we had some big reasons to be patient, friday’s almost ALWAYS go right back to where they started, so if the bottom dropped out thats ok we will stay patient, never selling the lows, and simply wait for the sellers to fail and we will make a KILLING on the way back up….so we stayed patient.

Crude Oil Trading Plan at 730am EST

Our patience was tested all morning, anhd after we saw the 1000am news come and go, without any major crude-related news we quickly realized this day me be ALL about simply staying alive to trade again on monday.  We had already locked in over $4,000 in trading profits on the week, so it made no sense to force trades at the lows with the current low volume price action, and when the day finished up at 12pm EST we knew that there was potential for a late morning short-covering rally but we werent in a position to trade it, not when its Friday, who cares about OPEX, the volume wasnt there and we werent going to risk losing the confidence going into Monday.

Crude Oil Lunchtime Set-Up

We ended the day today with the FIRST time this WEEK that our Price Wedge and Double-Top Trading strategy had failed.  Not too shabby for a sloppy week, and we were happy to take some easy money out of the markets earlier in the week.  Job well done everyone!

Im going to post our automated trading systems performance on our blog later this afternoon so check it out and let us know if you have questions.  The Auto-Trader FLEX Strategy had an equally-impressive week to say the least, earning a consistant 50+ ticks per day using an automated entry and manual exit.  Cant beat that with a bat! 🙂

See you on Monday at 730am EST when we do this all over again, earning and learning in a motivational environment with our lifetime members.