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Saturday, May 19, 2007

Uranium Index, Week 18

No update last week due to various personal reasons.

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This current downtrend is rather strong, because uranium stocks have gone down despite two increases to the uranium spot prices.
Note that the Uranium Futures have also drifted downwards for the past two weeks, although they seem to have stabilized in the past few days.
The overall market still remains in an increasingly overbought state, so there may still be more downside risk in store for the uranium index. The uranium index needs to re-claim the 27000 in order to break the current downtrend. A more likely scenario is range-bound, sideways movement for the next month or two to repair the damage caused by this latest correction.


Index Value: 25,753.46
Best Performers: EMC
Worst Performers: SXR

Uptrends intact: CCO, UEX, EMC, UMN, U

Index Performance:

Week 18: n/a
Since inception: +28.76%

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Much Ado About ..... A Lot

Trading is in my blood.....

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Well, despite the various chores of driving to the doctor's office, picking up the medications, I still find myself drawn to trading whenever I have a chance.
For the past couple of days, I have been squeezing some trading time in whenever I get the chance. The latest pattern is trading in the mornings, and then do the doctor stuff in the afternoon..... which means that doesn't leave much time to post up charts, oh well.... hopefully this is only a temporary phase.....
I've also been hanging out at the OMNI site. The majority of the OMNI trades contain a lesson - either information about what the market is (or is NOT) doing, or some more insight into the style and approach of the OMNI. It's been a good learning experience to say the least.
There's one article that I have brewing in my head, but I am still trying to find the time (and motivation) to write it. We'll see what the next few days bring....

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Update

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There has been a health issue in the family for the past month now. This coincides with the drop off in the frequency of my postings. Up until yesterday, it was manageable. But now, it seems this health issue requires more of my attention.
As a result, I'll be able to blog even less frequent than I am now. It's a shame, because I enjoyed blogging on this trading journal of mine, and also interacting with other traders in the community. I really don't know when I will have the time to get back to posting regularly to my trading journal, but I'm sure that day will come back soon enough. And it will be obvious to everyone when that day comes....

I should be able to have enough time still to do some trading (at least the morning session), but even that's not a guarantee by any means. I can only take things one day at a time. But for now, devoting more time to this health issue is the higher priority.

Money will solve many, many of the world's problems. However, money will not be able to solve health issues (and also patience, discipline issues). Cherish and appreciate your health.

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Sunday, May 06, 2007

Uranium Futures

The Trading session for Uranium Futures has begun, but.....

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Trading in Uranium Futures has IPO'd, so to speak.
The symbol is UXM7 (base symbol is UX, the contract is for June07 settlement).
As of 1014pm, the latest bid/ask is 1@13200.00/5@14475.00.
However, note that not 1 contract has traded yet.

This obviously bears more monitoring. I'm not sure what to make of this until I see some actual trades take place.

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Saturday, May 05, 2007

Uranium Index, Week 16

uh-oh.

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Looks like the Uranium Party is in trouble. My Uranium Index is now in a short term downtrend. The Uranium Futures will start trading in a couple of days, so that will go a long way in telling me whether the index can break out of the downtrend or not.
The one encouraging sign that I see is the V-bottom that was put in this week. I did not trade any of the components in my Uranium Index this week, but I did observe some heavy volume in the latter part of the week. Heavy volume is good - especially on the upside of the V-bottom.
However, the V-bottom did not break out of the downtrend, so my index is not out of the woods yet. I would like to see it climb back comfortably above 27500 before I would declare a resumption of the uptrend. The other scenario here is that my index could just go sideways for a little while, bouncing around between 25000 and 27000. We'll just have to see what the market wants to do.

Once the Uranium Futures start trading, we will see more volatility in the uranium prices which will inevitably spill over into the uranium stocks, strap on to your seat belts.


Index Value: 26,488.13
Best Performers: CCO, AXU
Worst Performers: PWE, U

Index Performance:

Week 16:          +0.65%
Since inception: +33.30%

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Thursday, May 03, 2007

One Habit is Not Enough

One Habit is not enough to make you a Highly Effective Trader.

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Just in case you haven't noticed by now, my blog is cluttered with futures charts, trades, and reviews. It could be interpreted as an obsession with futures trading, but I prefer to think of it more as a passionate committment.

Today, I had one of my best days since I started trading futures, and it was a reminder of why I am doing this. I am passionate about trading, even despite the previous slumps that I went through, and the recent "tuition" that I've paid to learn how to trade futures. I have such an undying thirst to become better, to perform better at trading, whether it be futures, options, or equities. And this passion is the fuel for my committment to become that better trader. So for me, practicing the habit of being committed every day is easy.
However, what I have learned is the somewhat obvious point that committment to the vocation of trading is not enough to become a Highly Effective Trader. Becoming a Highly Effective Trader is about practicing all of the 8 Habits, not just one. In fact, I am beginning to see that the 8 Habits are interdependent with each other.
For example, without a sense of committment to your vocation, all the patience in the world will not help. Or, without practiciing discipline, all the committment in the world will not help you. Without a sense of self-confidence about your trading performance, you will find it harder and harder to begin with the end in mind. And without practicing all of the habits, you will find it hard to maintain your sense of self-confidence.
If you are weaker in one of the habits (like I feel like I am weaker in practicing the habit of patience), then it will tend to drag the other habits down with it. For example, a lack of patience will negatively impact trading performance, and that will negatively impact your self-confidence.

So, it is not just a good thing to practice all of the 8 habits of the Highly Effective Trader, but also a necessity.


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SP500 analysis

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Neural Market Trends is giving away $100 to a reader who can make the closest prediction of the S&P500’s closing price for Friday May 4th, 2007.

With no overhead resistance, and the SP500 today closing near its highs, I think new ATH's are a given for tomorrow (Friday). The question of course is how high will the SP500 be above today's closing prices. Unfortunately, a lot of this will hinge on the Jobs Report set to come out tomorrow before market open. Add to that the tendency of traders to close out their positions at the end of the week, and the picture becomes more clouded.

Given all that, and how I have an affinity for round numbers, I will go with 1505 as the closing price for the $SPX tomorrow.

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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Copper Analysis

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Copper reclaimed the 360 level to preserve the uptrend. But now I think it needs to break above 370 in order to preserve the bullish sentiment. The more likely scenario would be more sideways action between resistance (369-370) and support (348 - 350).
A break below 345 would now be considered weakness.

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Today's Futures Trades

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The silver trade was a mistake, I was using a mental stop and it cost me.



In the first copper trade that I made, I was unwilling to risk the profits that I had at that point in order to gain more profits. If I was willing to risk all of my profits, (by leaving my stop @ the previous bar low), then I would have captured much more. But I actually had a bearish bias at the time I sold, and never would have thought it would continue climbing up to R2.

There was a lot of money to be made in ES today. Unfortunately, I was pre-occupied in the morning, so was unable to follow the OMNI to short @1492.


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