Friday higher

The Hoot 
Actionable ideas for the busy trader delivered daily right up front

• Friday higher, low confidence.
• ES pivot 1381.75.  Breaking above is bullish.
• Next week bias higher technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias down.
• ES Fantasy Trader standing aside.

Recap

The sell-off continued on Thursday with the Dow dropping another 121 points to close on the lows of the day. And to make matters worse, the Nightowl's Internet connection has been flakey all day long.  I'm now getting download speeds more like dial-up than cable which greatly limits my ability to download charts.  And after spending forty minutes on hold listening to a recording telling me how important my call was to them (which is a lie - if my call was important, someone would have answered right away), some clueless script-reader in Bombay told me they had no reports of problems in my area.  Well you've got one now!

Now I don't want to mention any names, but their initials are Time Warner and if they don't fix this soon, I'll be switching to Verizon's 4G LTE, which runs at about double the speed of Roadrunner.  So tonight's data is going to be a bit limited, but I think we'll still get the gist of things.

The technicals (daily)

The Dow: It was disheartening to lose another 0.94% after yesterday's dive, but the bearish stochastic crossover did not lie.  At 12,811 we're now below the lower BB.  And next support isn't until around 12,630.  But at this rate we could easily get there in one day.  And with indicators still not oversold, there's still no reversal signs on this chart.

The VIX:  Really the only bright spot tonight is the VIX, which in an unusual move fell 3.09% even as the major indices also moved lower.  And the harami hanging man looks bearish, an idea supported by the stochastic which formed a bearish crossover.

Market index futures: Like last night at this time, tonight all three futures are up at 12:56 AM EST with ES higher by 0.38%.  Today's further losses dropped ES very near oversold territory and sent the stochastic to a level from which a bullish crossover would be expected, though it's not begun forming yet.  We're also real close to the 200 day MA at 1369.42 now.  But whether the positive overnight action can generate any follow-through on Friday remains to be seen.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the pivot drops again from 1401.58 to 1381.75.  This big drop combined with ES trending higher leaves us just below the new pivot and ES looks like it's getting ready to stage a raid on it.  A successful breach would be bullish.

Dollar index: On Thursday the dollar posted a tiny 0.02% gain but looking at the chart it looks more like a loss with a red candle in a cross between dark cloud cover and bearish engulfing.  The indicators remain overbought and I still think the dollar's due to move lower soon.

Euro: And the euro extended its slide on Thursday, now longer than anything since last May, and remained solidly inside its descending RTC.  However, we do seem to have something completely different tonight as the overnight candle is actually green and forming a bullish engulfing pattern.And at 1.2784, we're now very close to finally exiting the RTC.  If we can close above 1.2794 on Friday, we'll have a bullish setup.  The indicators remain quite oversold, so we're due for it.

Transportation: And finally the trans continued lower on Thrusday as I had expected stopping at 5054 which is a support line.  However, the indicators are only halfway from overbought to oversold so there's no real reversal sign here yet.


Accuracy (daily calls): 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points

April      7      9      2                    .438
May       10      7      3           2        .632  
June       8      6      6           1        .600     632
July      11      2      6           1        .857     917
August     8      6      8           1        .600     -78
September  8      6      5           0        .571     -19 
October    8      5      8           0        .615     208
November   2      1      3           0        .667     193

     And the winner is...

I'm going to go waaaay out on a limb tonight and call Friday higher, mostly on the strength of the futures and the currencies.  I think there's also some good economic news from China, though I can't really access much since my Roadrunner connection finally gave up completely.  I'm finishing this post by tethering my Galaxy S3 to my PC, sort of the information equivalent of running a backup generator.

ES Fantasy Trader

Portfolio stats:  the account remains at $194,250 after 69 trades (54 wins, 15 losses) starting from $100,000 on 1/1/12.  Tonight we stand aside again.  I'd like to go long, but I don't see a real compelling edge at this time.

Thursday uncertain, bias lower

The Hoot 
Actionable ideas for the busy trader delivered daily right up front

• Thursday uncertain, bias lower.
• ES pivot 1401.58.  Holding below is bearish.
• Friday bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias down.
• ES Fantasy Trader standing aside.

Recap

Today was a good day to be short.  Unfortunately, I wasn't.  And thanks to a tag team smackdown by Mario "what a" Draghi and Emperor Nerobama deciding to inflict himself on us for another four years, I took my worst loss today in over a year.  An entire month's worth of profits gone just like that, pffft!  Ugh.  But the Night Owl is nothing if not resilient and tonight we pick ourselves up, unruffle our feathers, and participate in the Running of the Charts, same as every night.

The technicals (daily)

The Dow: Today the Dow fell down and couldn't get up.  And no one to call for help.  We broke through the recent support line at 13,100.  Then we broke through the psychological 13K support.  Then the 200 day MA at 12,992.  And finally the lower BB at 12,907 before reclaiming a few dozen points to end an awful, ugly day.  And this dump wasn't even enough to send the indicators oversold.

If anything, the stochastic appears to be setting up a bearish crossover from a low level.  About the only hope here is for a DCB after such a big one-day move.  Oh yes, and recall that the last time we broke under the 200 day MA was only last June.  And three days later we were right back above it.  So a 200 MA breach is not necessarily instantly fatal.

The VIX:  What's interesting though is that the VIX was up "only" 8.53%  I'd have thought it would go higher than this.  But it was still the highest close since last July.  And even that wasn't enough to send it to overbought levels or hit the upper BB.  This chart still has some easy room to run higher, I'm afraid.

Market index futures: Tonight all three futures are actually up at 1:00 AM EST with ES higher by 0.29%.  Whether this is a sign of an impending rally or just a DCB, at least the carnage seems to be over - for now.  Still, I'm concerned that we gave up the psychological 1400 level today.  ES right now is sitting on the next support level at 1392.  We'll need to see this one hold up by morning or we're headed lower.  Next support is the lower BB at 1382, then the 200 day MA at 1369.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the pivot plummets from 1421.42 to 1401.58.  While that still leaves us below the pivot, at least now we're a lot closer.  But not close enough to be encouraging just yet.  Still, I'd want to check this out early Thursday morning for signs of an attack on the pivot.

Dollar index: I missed this one badly.  The evening star failed to produce and the dollar instead gained 0.19% today.  But it did that one  red candle sitting on the upper BB and just managed to cause a bearish stochastic crossover.  I still think there's more downside to come here.

Euro: Meanwhile, nothing new in euro-land.  The move lower continued again today as the euro kept right on sliding down its descending RTC all the way back from October 17th.And the overnight is just continuing the trend, now down to 1.2757.  And there's no support in sight until 1.2700.  The weekly chart's not looking any better either.  Even the monthly chart, which was looking pretty good at the end of October, now has a bearish engulfing pattern going.  I don't see any short-term move higher here.

Transportation: Along with everything else, the trans cratered today, diving 1.92% in a move that crashed right back under the 200 day MA, dropped out of the rising RTC for a bearish setup, and confirmed the bearish stochastic crossover along with overbought indicators.  Things are looking pretty grim in trans-land.


Accuracy (daily calls):

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points

April      7      9      2                    .438
May       10      7      3           2        .632  
June       8      6      6           1        .600     632
July      11      2      6           1        .857     917
August     8      6      8           1        .600     -78
September  8      6      5           0        .571     -19
October    8      5      8           0        .615     208 
November   2      1      2           0        .667     193

     And the winner is...

The futures seem to be suggesting a bounce might be in order tomorrow, but this is one falling knife I'm definitely not interested in catching, since none of the charts are particularly bullish and some are downright bearish right now.  On the other hand, after such a big run lower, I'm wary of going short for fear of getting whipsawed.  Therefore, I'm just going to call Thursday uncertain with a bias lower.

ES Fantasy Trader

Portfolio stats:  the account remains at $194,250 after 69 trades (54 wins, 15 losses) starting from $100,000 on 1/1/12.  Tonight we stand aside again, for reasons described above.  The big move happened, we missed the bus, oh well.  That's better than getting caught on the wrong side of that kind of action.

Wednesday lower

The Hoot 
Actionable ideas for the busy trader delivered daily right up front

• Wednesday lower, low confidence.
• ES pivot 1421.42.  Holding below is bearish.
• Rest of week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias down.
• ES Fantasy Trader standing aside.

Quote of the Day

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

                                        - The Who
 
Recap

...we just got fooled again.  After all these long months of hoopla, of mind-numbing blather, of two billion dollars just flushed down the toilet on ads that I hit the mute button on the instant they appeared on TV, of trying the decide between the Demicans and the Republicrats, nothing has changed.  Nothing.  The Empty Suit has proven remarkably resliient to attempts to dislodge him from the White House, the Democrats still control the Senate and the Republicans still control the House.  And America remains on the road to socialism.  All I can say is thank heavens for term limits.

But back to the market - talk about uncertain.  The Dow up 133 points today?  What the heck was that all about?  The only explanation I heard was that it was relief that the uncertainty was coming to an end - even though at the time, no one knew the outcome and even if one had, there's still no clarity of what the eventual winner was going to do to handle all of our looming problems.  So what now?  Let's take a look at how the charts voted and what that may mean for Wednesday.

(And Blogspot's spell checker seems to have gone on strike, so I apologize in advance for any typos).

The technicals (daily)

The Dow: The Dow's bizarre move up today brought it right back up to the upper end of its recent range areound 13,240 with a candle that looked just like the one three days ago.  Only now we're closer to overbought.  So I guess the logical next step is back down to 13,100, almost like there was no election at all.  I certainly don't see the Dow posting any further gains after tonight's disappointing news.

The VIX:  The VIX gave us a reversal doji yesterday and that was confirmed with a full bearish evening star pattern today that took us back under the 200 day MA .But we also got a bullish stochastic crossover, along with another one in the futures, so it's not a given that the VIX will continue lower from here.

Market index futures: Tonight all three futures are down at 1:05 AM EST with ES lower by 0.37%.  ES was apparently tracking the Electoral College numbers, declining as Romney moved ahead, gaining when Obama began the catch up, and then going into ventricular fibrillation when the winner was announced.  That brief episode seems to have resolved to the upside though and the trend has been higher since 10 PM.  However, like the Dow, this now leaves us at the upper end of our recent range, around 1425, a level ES has assaulted three time in the last four sessions, and failed each time.  With indicators more overbought than oversold right now, there's no reason to believe ES can run any higher on Wednesday.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the pivot jumps from 1410.00 to 1421.42.  With ES trending lower all evening, we broke under the pivot right at midnight, although it made a brief failed attack on the new level a few minutes ago, just before 1 AM.  That makes two bearish factors here.

Dollar index: As I expected last night, the dollar moved lower today, dropping 0.16% with an interestin gap-down spinning top that neatly retraced half of yesterday's gap up.  With this pattern and overbought indicators, it would seem that the dollar has lower to go from here.

Euro: And the euro gave us a bullish harami pattern today, closing at 1.2821.  But it really took off around 9:30 this evening and now stands at 1.2864.  I'm hard-pressed to find a reason since our news wires are flooded with nothing but election news tonight and this move came before the winner was announced.  It might have something to do with Greek elections - who knows.  In any case, the move was enough to boost the euro right back through its 200 day MA and on out of its descending RTC for a bullish setup.  Any trade closing above 1.2827 on Wednesday will be a bullish trigger.

Transportation: Today the trans took off with a 1.56% jump that broke through resistance at 5163, continued through the upper BB at 5198 and ended only at the next resistance level of 5212.  But it also brought the indicators into overbought territory and gave us a bearish stochastic crossover.  I'd say the trans may be out of gas here and headed lower.


Accuracy (daily calls):

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points

April      7      9      2                    .438
May       10      7      3           2        .632  
June       8      6      6           1        .600     632
July      11      2      6           1        .857     917
August     8      6      8           1        .600     -78
September  8      6      5           0        .571     -19
October    8      5      8           0        .615     208 
November   1      1      2           0        .500    -120

     And the winner is...

...the looting class.  As for the market though, modulo the election, if we assume that we remain stuck in yet another trading range, then the next move will be down.  In fact, the overall impression I'm getting from the charts tonightis that you'd hardly know anything big had happened.  And as I said up top, nothing really has changed.  I just don't see the market rocketing higher on these results and the "uncertainty removal" factor was already baked in today.  And there are enough bearish technical signs to give one pause about going long here.  So I'm just going to go with that and call Wednesday lower.

ES Fantasy Trader

Portfolio stats:  the account remains at $194,250 after 69 trades (54 wins, 15 losses) starting from $100,000 on 1/1/12.  Tonight we stand aside again.  Although I do think the market's going lower on Wednesdya, I'm not willing to commit any money to a trade, not when I'm already in a comfortable profit position YTD.  I'd rather wait for a more convincing edge.

Tuesday uncertain

The Hoot 
Actionable ideas for the busy trader delivered daily right up front

• Tuesday uncertain, pending election.
• ES pivot 1414.00.  Holding above is bullish.
• Rest of week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias down.
• ES Fantasy Trader standing aside.

Recap

It wasn't looking too promising early on as the Dow sank right out of the gate, but then it slowly ground its way higher to finish up all of 19 points, thus redeeming my call for a higher close.  Tonight's even tricker, with our one chance to send Emperor Nerobama into retirement finally on our doorstep.  How will Mr. Market react?  He'll no doubt try to play it coy, but the charts don't lie so let's get to them.

The technicals (daily)

The Dow: Today the Dow was back to its doji ways, handing us a spinning top, the fifth reversal signal in seven sessions.  But it remains stubbornly  rooted to the 13,100 area, having opened or closed there for eight straight now.  So what I said last night remains true tonight - with this level acting as support and with indicators still only just coming off oversold, the Dow seems to have more upside potential than downside risk from here.

The VIX:  Last night I said the VIX "could go lower" today.  Right now I have no idea why I said that as the VIX instead gained 4.72% today, vaulting right back over its 200 day MA.  But in doing so it formed a very clear evening star doji.  On the other hand, this move also bumped it right out of the descending RTC for a bullish setup and the stochastic formaed a bullish crossover today.  So all in all, I need to take a wait & see attitude towards this, esepcially considering that tomorrow is Election day.

Market index futures: Tonight all three futures are up at 1:00 AM EDT with ES higher by 0.09%.  ES is now pretty congested in a range from 1400 to 1415.  The only tendency I can spot is that we've been putting in higher lows for the past five days.  The only downward sign I see is that the stochastic just formed a bearish crossover so I'm a bit leery of calling ES higher at this point.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the pivot drops from 1414.00 to 1410.00 even.  That, combined with ES drifting higher in the overnight now puts us above the pivot for the first time in a while - a bullish sign.

Dollar index: Last night I wrote "it's possible the dollar could still go higher on Monday" and it did, tacking on another 0.20% on a gap-up evening star that formed entirely above the upper BB.  Combined with highly overbought indicators, I'd say the dollar is getting kind of overextended here and is due for a pullback on Tuesday.

Euro: Meanwhile, the euro's decline continues unabated, remaining in a descending RTC back to October 17th.  After breaking under the 200 day MA on Friday, it was unable to recover today, closing at 1.2793 and continuing lower again in the overnight.  And while the indicators are oversold, they're not that oversold and the euro has no support until around 1.2714 so it's not out of the question that the slide could continue again on Tuesday.

Transportation: I was right about the trans moving higher today too, as they rose 0.27%.  That was just enough to remain inside the rising RTC.  However, we were stopped just shy of the 200 day MA and the stochastic is beginning to form a bearish crossover.  And it looks like there's a double top forming around  resistance at 5165.  So tonight it's questionable whether the trans can move higher again on Tuesday.

Sentiment: Once again it's time for the latest weekly TickerSense Blogger Sentiment Poll.  We continue to track the poll to see how well it performs.  Here's the updated cumulative list for this year:

Wk.# Week   % Bullish  % Bearish  NightOwl SPX  Accuracy

  1  1/3        46         21        +     1258   1/1

  2  1/9        56         37        +     1278   2/2

  3  1/17       41         33        +     1289   3/3

  4  1/23       46         32        +     1315   4/4

  5  1/30       48         31        +     1316   5/5

  6  2/6        56         30        +     1345   6/6

  7  2/13       48         31        +     1343   7/7

  8  2/21       44         32        +     1361   8/8

  9  2/27       48         24        +     1366   9/9

 10  3/5        43         26        +     1370  10/10

 11  3/12       46         32        +     1371  11/11

 12  3/19       46         29        +     1404  11/12

 13  3/26       39         29        +     1397  11/13

 14  4/2        42         21        +     1408  11/14

 15  4/9        25         46        -     1398  12/15

 16  4/16       26         48        -     1370  13/16
 17  4/23       30         48        -     1379  14/17

 18  4/30       44         32        +     1403  14/18

 19  5/7        23         50        -     1350  15/19

 20  5/14       32         44        -     1353  16/20

 21  5/21       30         52        -     1295  16/21

 22  5/29       35         42        -     1318  16/22

 23  6/4        32         48        -     1278  16/23

 24  6/11       28         40        -     1326  16/24

 25  6/18       39         26        -     1343  16/25

 26  6/25       38         46        -     1335  16/26

 27  7/2        41         40        -     1362  16/27

 28  7/9        42         38        -     1355  16/28

 29  7/16       44         32        -     1357  16/29

 30  7/23       33         42        -     1363  16/30

 31  7/30       43         22        +     1386  17/31

 32  8/6        52         28        +     1391  18/32

 33  8/13       43         21        +     1406  19/33

 34  8/20       46         31        +     1418  20/34

 35  8/27       39         29        +     1411  21/35

 36  9/4        31         38        +     1407  22/36

 37  9/10       54         29        +     1438  23/37

 38  9/17       63         22        +     1466  23/38

 39  9/24       52         30        +     1460  23/39

 40  10/1       39         39        -     1441  24/40

 41  10/8       52         34        +     1461  24/41

 42  10/15      41         32        -     1429 

 43  10/22      38         41        -     1433

 44  10/29      36         43        -     1412

 45  11/5       44         33        -     1414

Again, the SPX number is the closing price of the S&P on the Friday before each new poll comes out.  The "NightOwl" column is how I voted.  Since the poll is for 30 days out, after the first four weeks we're able to see how well we did.  This week we see that my bullish call on 10/8 was wrong, the S&P now being lower than then. I'm using the column "Accuracy" to track my calls.  So now with 8 weeks to go in 2012, I'm 24 for 41 or 59%.

This week we got a sentiment reversal after two weeks of a bearish majority, basically putting us back where we were on October 15th.  I voted bearish again, putting me in the minority of participants. I note though that the SPX is now near some monthly support and the weekly chart looks like it may be turning bullish soon.  If this continues, I may change my vote to bullish next week.

Accuracy (daily calls): 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points

April      7      9      2                    .438
May       10      7      3           2        .632  
June       8      6      6           1        .600     632
July      11      2      6           1        .857     917
August     8      6      8           1        .600     -78
September  8      6      5           0        .571     -19
October    8      5      8           0        .615     208 
November   1      1      1           0        .500    -120

     And the winner is...

I'm not really seeing much enthusiasm technically for going either up or down tonight.  No doubt lots of people (me included) are just sitting on their hands waiting for some election results to give the market some direction.  Because of this, I'm just going to call Tuesday uncertain.

One possibility is that the market will go higher once the results are announced no matter who wins.  There's been a lot of blather on TV about how the outcome could be a tie, but I think that's just pundits with too much time on their hands.  So I'd be wary of going short here but I'm not quite ready to commit to the long side either.  It's just more wait & see.

ES Fantasy Trader

Last night's long trade wasn't looking too healthy early on this morning, but it eventually went profitable so I figured it was time to get going while the getting was good.  Good for just three quarters of a point perhaps, but hey, I'll take it.

Portfolio stats:  the account now rises to at $194,250 after 69 trades (54 wins, 15 losses) starting from $100,000 on 1/1/12.  Tonight we stand aside in the face of Election Day.  There's no point trying to second guess this one..

SLD    10    false    ES    DEC12 Futures     1409.25    USD    GLOBEX    11:03:16
BOT    10    false    ES    DEC12 Futures     1408.50    USD    GLOBEX    01:16:14

Monday higher

The Hoot 
Actionable ideas for the busy trader delivered daily right up front

• Monday higher, low confidence.
• ES pivot 1414.00 .  Holding below is bearish.
• Rest of week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias down.
• ES Fantasy Trader going long at 1408.50..

Recap

Last Thursday night, it looked to me like we could go higher unless the jobs reports were bad.  Well the numbers didn't come out particularly poor, but we went down anyway, with the Dow essentially erasing all of Thursday's gains with a 139 point dump.  With the Presidential election coming up in two days, it's sure to be a, shall we say interesting week on Wall St.  Let's see if there are any clues in the charts.

The technicals (daily)

The Dow:The Dow just seems to love that 13,100 level.  We've started or ended there for the last seven sessions in a row now.  Friday's action left us right back there once again.  The good news is that we're back to oversold and the excursions from this level have been more to the up side than down.  With no real bearish signs here, I'd say this chart looks positive right now.

The VIX:  On Friday the VIX posted its biggest gain in nine days, but even that was just 5.39% - not enough to escape the admittedly short descending RTC as the index continues to see saw its way lower.  With indicators more oversold than overbought and the 200 day MA just above at 17.76 providing some resistance, I'd say the VIX could go lower on Monday.

Market index futures: Tonight all three futures are up at 1:18 AM EDT with ES higher by 0.21%.  Like the Dow, ES has been wanting to return to the 1407 level, here for nine straight days.  If you look at that line, you'll see that the excursions have been wider to the up side than the down side.  All this back-and-forth has left the indicators totally confused but there's really nothing in the candles right now suggesting a major dump in the works.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the pivot drops from 1415.58 to 1414.00 even.  Even with ES drifting a bit higher, we remain below the new number, so that's bearish.

Dollar index: Friday the dollar gapped up out of its recent ping pong trading range to gain 0.68% and close a bit above its upper BB.  This brought the indicators back to quite overbought levels but also caused a bullish stochastic crossover from a high level.  This chart isn't 100% clear, but it's possible the dollar could still go higher on Monday.

Euro: The euro remains in a descending RTC back to October 17th and on Friday took a big dump to close at 1.2831, just below its 200 day MA at 1.2842.  This keeps it oversold and in the overnight, it appears to be staging something of a comeback, now back up to 1.2837.  If it can break back over the 200 MA, now `1.2841, I think it has a good shot at posting some gains Monday.

Transportation: The trans which were looking so good on Thursday, blasting through their 200 day MA, blasted right back down on Friday giving up 1.11%  However, that wasn't enough to drop out of the rising RTC and it kept us out of overbought territory.  I don't consider this to be a reversal lower warning and think that the trans could go higher on Monday.


Accuracy (daily calls): 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points

April      7      9      2                    .438
May       10      7      3           2        .632  
June       8      6      6           1        .600     632
July      11      2      6           1        .857     917
August     8      6      8           1        .600     -78
September  8      6      5           0        .571     -19
October    8      5      8           0        .615     208        November   0      1      1           0        .000       0

Performance:

Here are my performance stats for the first ten months of 2012.  The first two columns are for my trading account.  The next, "ESFT", is the ES Fantasy Trader.  Following that I've now added the results for my IRA.  The last is the Dow, my reference benchmark that I try to beat or at least match.

 Date    Trading, Month  Tr. YTD  ESFT YTD   IRA YTD   Dow YTD

 

1/31/12       7.41%        7.41%   -0.50%     6.18%     3.41%

2/29/12       3.67%       11.35%    7.88%     9.02%     6.02%

3/31/12       1.76%       13.31%   29.88%    10.05%     8.16%
4/30/12       2.35%       15.97%   41.75%    10.90%     8.17%

5/31/12      -1.92%       14.23%   26.63%     4.91%     1.45%

6/30/12       4.33%       19.17%   40.38%     2.80%     5.44%

7/31/12       2.96%       22.69%   76.00%    10.98%     6.49%

8/31/12       2.75%       25.64%   66.25%    13.16%     7.17%

9/28/12       3.59%       30.15%   80.88%    15.37%     9.98%

10/31/12     -2.59%       26.77%   93.88%    14.04%     7.21%

 This month we see that I was handed only my second losing month this year so far, mainly because I did very little trading in the face of so much market uncertainty.  The results therefore reflect the hit I took on my base net long positions (which I maintain to avoid running afoul of the SEC PDT rules) - and that's even after doing some successful hedging.  My IRA, which is more conservatively invested, also lost money, but only half as much as my trading account.  In any event, both are still outperforming the Dow nicely.  But all things considered, I'm not sad to see October done and gone.

     And the winner is...

I'm going to go out on a limb and call, once again for a higher close on Monday. but mostly because I don't see all that much downward pressure right now.  The current situation reminds me a bit of what we had going in the overnight into last Thursday.  It wasn't looking all that promising, but we were at the lower end of the recent range where some support existed, and the market rallied the next day.  Of course this time we've got the election coming up in two days so that could change things a bit.  We'll see.

ES Fantasy Trader

Portfolio stats:  the account remains at $193,875 after 68 trades (53 wins, 15 losses) starting from $100,000 on 1/1/12.  Tonight we cross our fingers and go long at 1408.50.  This trade is somewhat speculative but the odds are more favorable than not it would appear.