Wednesday Morning Briefing

Welcome to our morning briefing. Here we are reviewing short term setups ahead of the NYSE opening bell. If you are a scalper or swing trader then these setups may be of interest to you. As usual keep in mind that these are short term setups although they could be used as early entries for more longer term positions.

Pretty quiet on all fronts this morning but what stands out on the hourly panel is a pretty pronounced Bollinger compression courtesy of the 25-hour SMA. So I expect some fireworks here before the weekend – stay nimble and watch the E-Mini for any signs that the 25-hour may be abandoned. I know easier said than done – but technically speaking we have not much to hold on to right now.

ZB futures kissing a diagonal resistance line which has formed a bagel throw away from its 100-hour SMA. I’d say 129’06 is where we say uncle and go long. Until that happens keep wearing your summer shorts and don’t waste too much time over thinking this setup.

Public Service Announcement 1:

While we are on topic – I have perused the prior discussion thread and had the displeasure to come across much mental masturbation by certain participants who quite obviously did not take the time to get up to speed on the plethora of CrazyIvan related information we have published over the past few months. My message to you – please take the time to learn more about what we are actually doing before you start criticizing either us, the process, the rules, or why we haven’t decided to completely automate CrazyIvan. Until you do I cannot possibly take you seriously and thus will refrain from engaging in intelligent discourse.

FWIW and if anyone else is curious – there are various reasons as to why we didn’t decide to go the C2 route or any other competing avenue for generating automated trades. The most salient was an epiphany when I realized that CrazyIvan could become much more than just another black box and that by openly publishing the rules and engaging in complete transparency we had an opportunity to do something very unique and perhaps unprecedented in an industry rife with hucksters, shysters, and shovel salesmen (by the way, there’s a special on cartwheels this week). Heck, it worked for the Internet and OS software – it may just work for us.

CrazyIvan is different in that it allows participants to practice and embrace well established trading rules (courtesy of the much revered Sir Ivan Krastins) in a constructive and efficient manner. By automating many of Ivan’s trading and money management rules but allowing timely entries without slippage it implicitly teaches you to be a better trader. Over the long term it instills habits by osmosis that will have a major positive impact on your discretionary trading and how you approach the market in the first place. Most of all it will teach you that losing is part of the game and that discipline and perseverance will be rewarded over the long term. That in itself is an education money cannot buy (however feel free to send me money).

Of course you are welcome to head over to C2 and sign up for one of their ‘strategies of the week’ but would actually learn something? As Ivan insinuated in that same discussion thread – there is more to trading than just the pursuit of profits (and of course we couldn’t be successful without them) – which is something very few will be able to wrap their minds around. Let’s just say that long term profitably requires certain skills and a mental shaping that is out of reach for most human beings. Some manage to learn them the hard way or you could just trade CrazyIvan and learn it as you go by following a structured approach via precise instructions. If you want to do it your own way, that’s fine by and all the power to you guys. But please don’t come over here and urinate all over my house implying ulterior motives. I do not respond well to that and – trust me – neither would you want to.

Public Service Announcement 2:

As it happens Scott the Convict is coming into town today as we coincidentally both signed up for the same wet t-shirt contest. Suffice to say that he doesn’t stand a chance as I have been working myself up to a solid C-cup over the past few months. Anyway, given his notoriety I’ll have to get the lair ready for his arrival – which means hiding the silverware, double testing all the traps, nailing down anything of value, and of course breaking out the rubber sheets. Sorry to disappoint but there won’t be any pictures – no camera lens would be able to withstand such a concentration of rugged beauty. Anyway, I’ll try to put up a post late in the session but I cannot promise it as we have much to catch up on in the little time he’ll spent here.