Some Honesty from a Pro Trader & #StockMarket Technical Analysis
Hi all. Scroll down for the market analysis & skip all my anecdotal barf if you so choose! :)
I have been trading a handful of years now, really for the last two full-time, and quite frankly, I'm just wondering how everyone is doing right now?
I'm going to tell you how I'm doing, where I'm at for the year, a brief synopsis of how I arrived here, and then most importantly, where I think we're going.
I'll start by saying, I wish everyone would start pointing at the giant elephant in the room.... the CHARTS. The technical charts.
Those of us who trade using technical analysis have seen these markets rolling over for six months+ now... I am so TIRED of hearing economic pundits, Youtube "traders", "Wall Street betters", you name it, calling out everything BUT the charts! The fed hikes, "so and so got rid of 20% of employees", the whatever whatever report... Regular, working-class people with a 401k need to know the TRUTH. The CHARTS have looked dreadful for months, and when I scrolled my 2000+ something symbols saved here on TradingView today, looking for ANY ticker that had a price resting above ALL moving averages on ALL time frames, suffice it to say, I think I found TWO. So tell me "pundits/youtubers/twitter traders", does it get exhausting having to dole out new excuses every week to explain away another 8% drop here and there for all these companies, searching their product launch failures and which CEO is in a lawsuit from a s*x scandal?
Start calling it like it is and give regular people a chance- the charts all look like death & have for a while now!
So that said, here is where I am at, how I am up this year, my struggles, and what I think of the DOW chart (& the S&P & Nasdaq).
I had a brilliant run from Nov 2020 - May of 2021, like a lot of you, I'm sure. As in, a 20000% gain, in that short eight month period. I am not kidding. Crypto was on a helluva run during that time. I failed to correctly identify the impending BTC drop (and everything else drop), and I lost a LOT. Like, almost everything I made, a lot. Not entirely, but real close. I lost the psychological trading game, in my desperation. I must have had 50 "a-ha" moments in the months that followed. Some new technical revelations. Some old, that I learned way back at the beginning but had forgotten about, all the way back from five years ago at the start of my studying. From Oct 2021 - March of this year, I dug in deep and wrote out what I can only describe as my "Trading Guide to the Galaxy"- a checklist of every single thing I'd ever learned regarding technical analysis, from all of my many mistakes. And then, I began to grind my trading account back up, in the riskiest way possible- Options. I do not recommend this, but it paid off. I hit an Options trade on March 29th, for HOOD, which was the start. Since then, a string of Options plays, grinding back up, slowly. COIN was a pretty solid gain. Yet another on HOOD. LMND. PTON. Little weekly pops here and there, grinding up. I'm up for the year, substantially, and I'm proud of that, but I am realistic- I took WAY more losing trades this year than winning ones. Like, it's probably 10 to 1 losers. Those few good ones erased my losses. That is not a thing I'm "proud" of, because it isn't sustainable. But honestly? Those little pops from options plays (and again, the pickins' were SLIM as hell) are the ONLY thing that has me up. I know I am LUCKY that my "skin of my teeth" strategy paid off this year. Again, I DO NOT recommend it. Sit it out completely, unless you're prepared to lose it all. Which I easily could have. I have carpal tunnel and upped my glasses prescription from the amount of time spent staring at these charts in the last six months.
But now it's time to regroup, and start using everything I've learned in a way that is less risky, so that I can sustain and grow moving forward (aka: regular trades, not *just* options) ...which is what led me to scan over 2000 stock symbols today and want to weep. I am extremely frustrated- I do not want to sit in something for six months just to have it trade sideways. For those of us who have bills to pay, we're trying to make money in ANY market, naturally. So while I'm grateful that at least I'm up this year, I don't want to just stop here.. Surely SOMETHING has to be going up, somewhere, right?? And don't tell me "gold" or "bonds"!! Lol.
VERY few stocks look "bottomed out" to me. And those that do are largely (not always) the ones that don't have a lot of volume in the first place. I am essentially trading inverse fibonacci patterns exclusively right now, searching for fib touches that have hit the extensions multiple times, and where I've seen a long term moving average cross as well. Some things that have caught my eye in the last couple months in this type of play: SQSP, AFRM, LMND, PTON, CZOO.. COIN!
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One thing I've paid close attention to are the three month candle charts. In two days, we get a new 3 month candle on everything. It's an important one.
Most importantly though, we get a new three month candle on the 3 Indices... and here is my analysis on that>
If you look at the chart for the DOW (& Nasdaq & S&P, but really clearly the DOW), you can see how the DOW essentially pulled a move on a 3 month chart like that of one of the crypto charts had pulled on a weekly chart last year- it had a "blow out" move. A fibonacci "blow out". It's absolutely insane though, because unlike the crypto charts, the bottom fibonacci anchor on the DOW is all the way back in the freakin 1980's. So this means, a DECADES long pattern playing out, that just hit the completion (the 2 extension) last January. Then, we had another solid year of "pump pump pump", hovering above the top, making an irrational high, and now we've begun to topple. Given that the 2 is the top fibonacci extension... what happens now? Well of course, the price usually retraces the ENTIRE MOVE.
Say even for the sake of a cleaner chart, we adjust our lower fib anchor to the 2009 low, a 50% retrace still brings the DOW down to $21.6k, 18k for a 618 retracement. I imagine the S&P & Nasdaq would essentially mirror these retracement moves.
All this to say, this would be the absolute largest retracement the stock market has EVER seen. Again, it's wild to me, because it looks like a weekly XRP or DOGE chart or something from over a year ago- but it's been DECADES in the making. I am SO curious to see what happens. I am not even looking at the war, fed action, gov policy, etc. I am PURELY looking at these charts. Why I typed all this up for you all is because I'm not seeing a whole lot of this. I'm seeing a whole lot of "Doomsday" sounding rhetoric, and I get it, because omg these charts, but it's seldom based on technical analysis, and instead, all this other garbage.
So I'm wondering, for the stocks that I do think are bottomed out (because they're literally hovering above $0), do we see those begin to pump, while everything else trickles down? Likewise for the crypto? I think BTC is going to 12k by the way, but that's another story. I am really wondering what my next move here is. What are you all doing? What does everyone think? Where is everyone's head at given this years trading, and are you up this year? And if so, on what? Surely my balls-to-the-wall option strategy is not the only one (which again, I do not recommend).
I will add: I don't think it would be the worst thing (for traders, that is!), for this market to roll over and for this fibonacci pattern to play out- but some other things HAVE to start moving, and it's freaking me out that nothing else really has been, with the exception of these micro-pops that are quickly erased. Also, I am sure many of you have been shorting, and I know that is an option as well (and I have taken a few shorts), but generally, I like longs- no matter what :) So yeah, here's my analysis/my position/my rant/my musings.
Feel free to throw your input into the mix. I think it'd take an earth-shattering amount of volume to overcome the rollover we see right now, especially in the next two days- so we shall see! Technical indicators alone, it does not look like that is what is going to happen. Happy trading!
I have been trading a handful of years now, really for the last two full-time, and quite frankly, I'm just wondering how everyone is doing right now?
I'm going to tell you how I'm doing, where I'm at for the year, a brief synopsis of how I arrived here, and then most importantly, where I think we're going.
I'll start by saying, I wish everyone would start pointing at the giant elephant in the room.... the CHARTS. The technical charts.
Those of us who trade using technical analysis have seen these markets rolling over for six months+ now... I am so TIRED of hearing economic pundits, Youtube "traders", "Wall Street betters", you name it, calling out everything BUT the charts! The fed hikes, "so and so got rid of 20% of employees", the whatever whatever report... Regular, working-class people with a 401k need to know the TRUTH. The CHARTS have looked dreadful for months, and when I scrolled my 2000+ something symbols saved here on TradingView today, looking for ANY ticker that had a price resting above ALL moving averages on ALL time frames, suffice it to say, I think I found TWO. So tell me "pundits/youtubers/twitter traders", does it get exhausting having to dole out new excuses every week to explain away another 8% drop here and there for all these companies, searching their product launch failures and which CEO is in a lawsuit from a s*x scandal?
Start calling it like it is and give regular people a chance- the charts all look like death & have for a while now!
So that said, here is where I am at, how I am up this year, my struggles, and what I think of the DOW chart (& the S&P & Nasdaq).
I had a brilliant run from Nov 2020 - May of 2021, like a lot of you, I'm sure. As in, a 20000% gain, in that short eight month period. I am not kidding. Crypto was on a helluva run during that time. I failed to correctly identify the impending BTC drop (and everything else drop), and I lost a LOT. Like, almost everything I made, a lot. Not entirely, but real close. I lost the psychological trading game, in my desperation. I must have had 50 "a-ha" moments in the months that followed. Some new technical revelations. Some old, that I learned way back at the beginning but had forgotten about, all the way back from five years ago at the start of my studying. From Oct 2021 - March of this year, I dug in deep and wrote out what I can only describe as my "Trading Guide to the Galaxy"- a checklist of every single thing I'd ever learned regarding technical analysis, from all of my many mistakes. And then, I began to grind my trading account back up, in the riskiest way possible- Options. I do not recommend this, but it paid off. I hit an Options trade on March 29th, for HOOD, which was the start. Since then, a string of Options plays, grinding back up, slowly. COIN was a pretty solid gain. Yet another on HOOD. LMND. PTON. Little weekly pops here and there, grinding up. I'm up for the year, substantially, and I'm proud of that, but I am realistic- I took WAY more losing trades this year than winning ones. Like, it's probably 10 to 1 losers. Those few good ones erased my losses. That is not a thing I'm "proud" of, because it isn't sustainable. But honestly? Those little pops from options plays (and again, the pickins' were SLIM as hell) are the ONLY thing that has me up. I know I am LUCKY that my "skin of my teeth" strategy paid off this year. Again, I DO NOT recommend it. Sit it out completely, unless you're prepared to lose it all. Which I easily could have. I have carpal tunnel and upped my glasses prescription from the amount of time spent staring at these charts in the last six months.
But now it's time to regroup, and start using everything I've learned in a way that is less risky, so that I can sustain and grow moving forward (aka: regular trades, not *just* options) ...which is what led me to scan over 2000 stock symbols today and want to weep. I am extremely frustrated- I do not want to sit in something for six months just to have it trade sideways. For those of us who have bills to pay, we're trying to make money in ANY market, naturally. So while I'm grateful that at least I'm up this year, I don't want to just stop here.. Surely SOMETHING has to be going up, somewhere, right?? And don't tell me "gold" or "bonds"!! Lol.
VERY few stocks look "bottomed out" to me. And those that do are largely (not always) the ones that don't have a lot of volume in the first place. I am essentially trading inverse fibonacci patterns exclusively right now, searching for fib touches that have hit the extensions multiple times, and where I've seen a long term moving average cross as well. Some things that have caught my eye in the last couple months in this type of play: SQSP, AFRM, LMND, PTON, CZOO.. COIN!
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
One thing I've paid close attention to are the three month candle charts. In two days, we get a new 3 month candle on everything. It's an important one.
Most importantly though, we get a new three month candle on the 3 Indices... and here is my analysis on that>
If you look at the chart for the DOW (& Nasdaq & S&P, but really clearly the DOW), you can see how the DOW essentially pulled a move on a 3 month chart like that of one of the crypto charts had pulled on a weekly chart last year- it had a "blow out" move. A fibonacci "blow out". It's absolutely insane though, because unlike the crypto charts, the bottom fibonacci anchor on the DOW is all the way back in the freakin 1980's. So this means, a DECADES long pattern playing out, that just hit the completion (the 2 extension) last January. Then, we had another solid year of "pump pump pump", hovering above the top, making an irrational high, and now we've begun to topple. Given that the 2 is the top fibonacci extension... what happens now? Well of course, the price usually retraces the ENTIRE MOVE.
Say even for the sake of a cleaner chart, we adjust our lower fib anchor to the 2009 low, a 50% retrace still brings the DOW down to $21.6k, 18k for a 618 retracement. I imagine the S&P & Nasdaq would essentially mirror these retracement moves.
All this to say, this would be the absolute largest retracement the stock market has EVER seen. Again, it's wild to me, because it looks like a weekly XRP or DOGE chart or something from over a year ago- but it's been DECADES in the making. I am SO curious to see what happens. I am not even looking at the war, fed action, gov policy, etc. I am PURELY looking at these charts. Why I typed all this up for you all is because I'm not seeing a whole lot of this. I'm seeing a whole lot of "Doomsday" sounding rhetoric, and I get it, because omg these charts, but it's seldom based on technical analysis, and instead, all this other garbage.
So I'm wondering, for the stocks that I do think are bottomed out (because they're literally hovering above $0), do we see those begin to pump, while everything else trickles down? Likewise for the crypto? I think BTC is going to 12k by the way, but that's another story. I am really wondering what my next move here is. What are you all doing? What does everyone think? Where is everyone's head at given this years trading, and are you up this year? And if so, on what? Surely my balls-to-the-wall option strategy is not the only one (which again, I do not recommend).
I will add: I don't think it would be the worst thing (for traders, that is!), for this market to roll over and for this fibonacci pattern to play out- but some other things HAVE to start moving, and it's freaking me out that nothing else really has been, with the exception of these micro-pops that are quickly erased. Also, I am sure many of you have been shorting, and I know that is an option as well (and I have taken a few shorts), but generally, I like longs- no matter what :) So yeah, here's my analysis/my position/my rant/my musings.
Feel free to throw your input into the mix. I think it'd take an earth-shattering amount of volume to overcome the rollover we see right now, especially in the next two days- so we shall see! Technical indicators alone, it does not look like that is what is going to happen. Happy trading!