How a Simple Line Can Improve Your Trading Success
by ilene - January 20th, 2011 1:14 pm
Elliott Wave International’s Jeffrey Kennedy explains How a Simple Line Can Improve Your Trading Success.
The following trading lesson has been adapted from Jeffrey Kennedy’s eBook, Trading the Line – 5 Ways You Can Use Trendlines to Improve Your Trading Decisions. Now through February 7, you can download the 14-page eBook free. Learn more here.
"How to draw a trendline" is one of the first things people learn when they study technical analysis. Typically, they quickly move on to more advanced topics and too often discard this simplest of all technical tools.
Yet you’d be amazed at the value a simple line can offer when you analyze a market. As Jeffrey Kennedy, Elliott Wave International’s Chief Commodity Analyst, puts it:
“A trendline represents the psychology of the market, specifically, the psychology between the bulls and the bears. If the trendline slopes upward, the bulls are in control. If the trendline slopes downward, the bears are in control. Moreover, the actual angle or slope of a trendline can determine whether or not the market is extremely optimistic or extremely pessimistic.”
In other words, a trendline can help you identify the market’s trend. Consider this example in the price chart of Google.
That one trendline — drawn between the lows in 2004 and the lows in 2005 — provided support for a number of retracements over the next two years.
That’s pretty basic. But there are many more ways to draw trendlines. When a market is in a correction, you can draw a trendline and then draw a parallel line: in turn, these two parallel lines can create a channel that often "contains" the corrective price action. When price breaks out of this channel, there’s a good chance the correction is over and the main trend has resumed. Here’s an example in a chart of Soybeans. Notice how the upper trendline provided support for the subsequent move.
For more free trading lessons on trendlines, download Jeffrey Kennedy’s free 14-page eBook, Trading the Line – 5 Ways You Can Use Trendlines to Improve Your Trading Decisions. It explains the power of simple trendlines, how to draw them, and how to determine when the trend has actually changed. Download your free eBook.
This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline How a…
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DARK HORSE HEDGE 7/11/10
by ilene - July 12th, 2010 1:39 am
DARK HORSE HEDGE 7/11/10
By Scott Brown of Sabrient, with Ilene of Phil’s Stock World
A holiday-shortened week combined with little news provided the backdrop for a light volume positive week with the major indexes posting 5% gains. Earnings season begins Monday July 12, starting off with Alcoa Inc. and followed by dozens of other companies. The S&P is bumping up against several technical resistance lines. After falling over 13% since the April highs, last week’s recovery pushed the SPX to 1077.
On the chart below, our trend line drawn through the April highs and June rebound-highs indicates that the SPX is right at trend-line resistance. The 50-day Moving Average also looms just above as another possible resistance area.
[Chart by Free Stock Charts]
The 14-day RSI at 42.4 remains below a more bullish 50, and the 12-26-9 MACD at -13.6 remains shy of a bullish signal line at zero. Factoring in the lack of volume in last week’s 5% rebound (and possible lack of conviction), the chart-evidence leads us to believe that the market isn’t ready to continue the uptrend in the short-term. Notice all four positive days last week had volume below the 50-day Moving Average. Greater declining volume on Thursday and Friday isn’t particularly encouraging.
Analysts are projecting that second-quarter earnings of S&P 500 companies rose 42 percent, according to S&Ps Silverblatt. Investors will again be watching the earnings and revenue figures along with guidance as concerns over a double-dip recession remain. The Dark Horse Hedge maintains a SHORT tilt in our Long/Short approach to achieving higher Alpha (return over benchmark return) and Sharpe Ratios (return for each unit of risk taken) with a low Beta (correlation to market move and direction--i.e. we’re striving for less correlation to market movement).
We will be watching the trend lines and technical signals this week to add new posititons. If the market struggles and can’t penetrate the trend line, we will likely recommend adding 2 SHORTS and 1 LONG position. In contrast, if the market reacts well to early earnings announcements and can break through the trend line, it is likely that the RSI and MACD will confirm a move through the 50-day Moving Average and provide reason to go to a BALANCED position by adding 2 LONGS.
We are continuing to hold our previously entered (July 1, 2010) short and long positions:…
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Three Change In Trend Chart Patterns To Profit From
by Chart School - March 23rd, 2010 1:49 pm
Three Change In Trend Chart Patterns To Profit From
Eventually all trends change. If you are short at a market low you need to know when to cover and get out. Likewise if you are long at a market high, here too you need to know when to get out. This is where Change In Trends patterns come into play.
A Double top is just that. There are variations to this pattern though. One such variation is that of a shake out high. This is where an issue breaks above the prior high by a smidge and then rolls back over much like a shake and bake. The other variation is that of a continuation high. This is where an issue is further along in a correction then goes thru a rally period much like a snap back rally then proceeds to put in a double top an rolls over.
Below is a recent example of a name we shorted earlier in the year and below that is a continuation double top example
Below is DRYS in a continuation double top. As you can see the issue has been in a correction for months then gets a retracement rally and that retracement rally ends with a double top.
Trend Line Breaks
This is rather self explanatory in the sense that it’s simply all about a trendine break. Just remember bigger is better. The bigger the pattern in time duration and scope the better. Just take a look at TSL from January.
First Thrusts Down
This is when an issue is in a clearly defined uptrend that all of a sudden falls to either a prior support level or the 50 day average as in the case below (The Blue Box is the first thrust down), then it proceeds to make a rally attempt (Everything above the pink line). We call that rally attempt a snapback rally
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site
