I will be leaving the office early today, away from my desk most of the afternoon and won’t be able to post any charts or commentary leading up to the close. So far, the US equity markets and to a lesser extent, gold, oil & just about everything else has spiked up following the job data release at 8:30 EST. Here’s a question & my reply to this pre-market spike in the markets:
Q: Looks like the jobs report is going to cause a big gap up into the wedges.any advice?
A: Intraday swings mean very little IMO. I wouldn’t add any short exposure while prices are trading inside the wedges but I wouldn’t cover either. Unfortunately for me, I’ll be away from my desk all afternoon including the close but they’d have to ramp it extremely hard, all the way into the close, before I became even remotely concerned about my short positions. Of course, that’s generally speaking. As far as the index shorts, those stops & targets are based off what the indexes do. Individual stocks are based off the their own technicals so it really doesn’t matter what the broad market is doing as long as their own charts remain bearish. (end reply)
Keep in mind that volatility has ramped up in recent weeks and these intraday rips & dips are becoming the norm lately. To react (buy, sell, short, cover, etc…) every time the market rips up or down sharply might be a profitable & wise strategy if you are an extremely proficient day trader (I believe the last of the successful retail day trader died several years ago as HFT trading came to dominate the markets… man vs. machine). Although I will occasionally post a day trade idea (and actually take quite a bit more that are not posted), such as a pullback trade off resistance or bounce off support that I plan to close by the end of the day, I am primarily a swing trader and as such, I am not overly concerned with all of the intraday zigs & zags in the market as long as the time frame that I am trading off of, which in this case is primarily the 15 minute thru daily charts, confirm my positioning.
This market has also been plagued with numerous whip-saw signals on the intraday & even daily time frames lately. As always, trade according to your own risk tolerance & trading style. While my preference at times like this is to allow somewhat wider than normal stops due to the erratic price action lately, that may or may not be what’s right for others. My plan today is to watch the market up until I leave the office & unless I see something that compels me to change any of my positioning, longs or shorts, I plan to sit tight into next week.