Recent market action has been a study in failures: upside failures, downside failures, failures to follow through, and minor failures of S/R. All of this is normal in consolidation, and a good reminder that there's a lot we don't and can't know.

This is a trade I will take every time: A simple bull flag following sharp upside momentum.

Lather, rinse, repeat

I will be writing more about music, composition, and creativity (in addition to a few other topics) on my blog. These are ideas that are very important to me. Check out today's new blog post. (Link in comments)

One of the key questions traders have to answer is how much "giveback" you will tolerate. There's a tradeoff between a few elements: * win:reward ratio * win% * volatility of your equity curve Critically, you can't have big, outsized wins (relative to your initial risk) without

Was that a buyable failure test at the bottom of the 4 hour bull flag? (Test visible on the hourly?) These are the kinds of questions you ask when you trade... in fact, a trade IS that question. I'll let you know the answer in a few hours. ;)

First target achieved on our long swing trades in stock indexes for MarketLife members. It's important to understand why this move was probable. (I use that last word deliberately, rather than "predictable".)

Here's something different: I am looking for a bladesmith to do a custom bronze blade knife. (I'm assuming this would be cast, not forged.) Anyone in my network do this or have a friend who is a bladesmith?

Would you buy with the S&P already up 2X an average days' move, 90 handles?

Many multiple timeframe influences at play here. Clear weekly bear flag, but a small daily bull flag set up against the top of that flag. This kind of pressure (counter to the HTF bias) is a good indication that the HFT pattern might fail. Unusually good and clear outcome here,

Looking forward to a great concert: Sir Andras Schiff at Carnegie Hall!

This is likely market cap rotation--smaller caps much stronger than mega caps today. What does this mean? First, it's normal and doesn't say anything (in either way) about the move on the daily chart--I don't think there's any predictive value. Second, in the very short term

And in the very short term you start watching structures like bear flags on lower timeframes--note the spikes (= buying pressure) on attempted breakdowns. Those spikes "losing" would be a strong change of character:

Question for those who have the CMT certification: does the program now discuss why standard deviation of price (as opposed to stdev(returns) or (changes)) is a meaningless measure? If so, are the mathematical issues behind Bollinger Band math considered?

The buyers are NOT giving up easily here... that's a lot of buying pressure hidden in those wicks:

New blog post outlining a SIGNIFICANT change we've made to the use of Sigma Spikes. Here's a simpler tool that does the same job a little bit better--and that's a big improvement! (see first comment)

adamhgrimes.com/introducing-ma…