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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets
There were a lot of great things said by other traders about scalping. I am looking forward to the market closing to go over them with greater depth of thought. Almost find myself in anticipation today, as it has been a heavy topic for me.
Since you trade CL a lot I was wondering if you can shed some light on what is taking place on a bar like the one I've pointed out? It has high volume and looks very negative, but then price retraces 100% of the down move.
I started to answer that, but it is a long story. Let me think about it and see if I can summarize so it makes some sense, and not some answer that leadss to trouble.
CL is a wild beast, but it has it's typical behaviors. The short answer, that is how crude moves. The long answer will be later, but will take awhile.
OK, get ready to see inside the mind of a trader who watches crude like a stalker... First, I cannot promise you it will continue to do what it has been doing, there are no guarantees of anything, and crude will take all your money fast if you allow it.
TYPICAL MOTION
The image below is a 30m chart, no colors to the bars, it does not matter for waht I am showing you. I have shown the area you asked about on the far right. I took a 100% fib and measured the move, and then copied and pasted all over the place. Notice that size reversal happens a lot. This chart only goes back a month, and I did not even highlight all of them. These explosive moves in one direction, and then crude puts it in reverse just as hard... welcome to crude oil.
TODAY'S SETUP
Now, let's look at where we were this morning, when all the US traders come out to play. Crude came down hard the day before. That means downtrend. It pulled back up to the same area twice, labeled "resistance". The 9:30am open gives us a clue of a bearish engulfing candle. "Everybody on the short side!" And the push is on. As it starts, it could be just a pullback , but with each layer of stops it blows it gains more momentum.
1 MINUTE VOLUME
This view shows the 1 minute chart, and I have labeled where buyers came in yesterday, with a minor DB. That is where a lot of people came in, or covered, but for whatever reason a possible bottom is in place. I will show why further down. Look at the size of that 1 minute volume bar down today. That is stops blowing and traders jumping on board for the ride. HUGE volume. That can also mean... Exhaustion.
LSPs
Crude oil loves LSPs. I don't ask why, and it does not tell me. But regular or inverted, they are a point of "structure" that crude seems particularly responsive to. Notice it nearly stopped the down move dead.
HIGHER TIMEFRAME
And why that LSP, but not others? Well, let's forget the local news events, the EU could provide a game changer in the next 24 hours and some people do not want to be caught off guard, so there is position shuffling.
On the higher timeframe, the 120m is below, there is what I have been taught to call a "local" double bottom. And using that as a starting point, CL seemes like it is attempting to put in a new 5WM up. The area I have had colored blue for several days now is a possible range for W4 to stop, AND, it has provided a place for the market to turn 2x before today, showing "confirmation" of a valid support area. Buyers of crude are suggesting they think that price is low enough, for now.
So, let's say you were short this morning, the market stalls at the LSP, you see that is a major support zone. What are you going to do now? Maybe you tighten your stop loss. Then you see a higher low put in. OK, now things are looking like I should consider myself lucky and close, and as they do, and more traders try to hit that move up. thinking this is the "big one"...
The next thing you know, all that short side profit is disappearing, and the guys going in with a small stop hoping for continuation are getting slaughtered. Do not short that market. Buy, or get out of the way.
Now, most important. Remember, I said this is a peek inside the mind of a trader. It has nothing to do with a trading system, or trading rules, or being profitable. It does not suggest I have my story right even. What if everything I just pointed out above is completely wrong? It very well could be.
But, for me, it is what is going on, it is the storyline that runs inside my head as the market moves. I do not ask "WTF?" very often, not near as much as I say something along the lines of what I just described to you above. There is this narration going on inside my head the entire time. Forget the indicators, they are only a point of reference. You have to ask "what is happening, now?"
Over time I start to build a virtual library, memories of all the stories I have read myself as I pretend I know what crude is doing, and sometimes I hear the same ones over and over. The endings are never quite the same, the characters change. There are so many books or movies that could be said to have a similar structure, but that does not mean you do not keep going to the end to find out what happens this time. You never know.
When my story aligns with reality, I do pretty well. When my story is pure nonsense, I can get nailed.
What is that all about?
