The week starts out 'interesting'. Gold is only a few cents from the 'magical' $1600 level. I think the only magical level is $10,000, and the musings on when that gets taken out. If it does, and the moves were proportional, that prices gas at the pump around $30/gal and crude around $400. Imagine food prices then. The Swissie is exploding, and the EUR/CHF just set another new record low, as parity is now the talk. And this has our futures down a whopping 1.75 points. Wow, pretty scary, the ES down 1.75 points.

Now here's where it triggers nicely, gives the look like it may go down, then snap traps all the suckers and kills them. Watch and see... I'd rather see it follow through to the downside, but I know these characters, and know what they like to do to suckers, and I don't trust them...

Originally posted by jimkane

This 42.75 high is a critical rollover spot, but I just can't see it. I'm trying, and I'm ready, in case, but the MRRD's are just so dominant in the market right now, I can't see them letting it go. Not after they took it down earlier. But, we'll see. Maybe...

Hard to believe a few short weeks ago no one wanted GOOG in the 470's, now at about 620 they can't get enough of it. In a few weeks time... CMG missed earnings and started to dump in the aftermarket, it's now at another new all-time high, the aftermarket trading not visible on the regular charts at all. I have many other examples. So it goes...

1.75 point range for over an hour and a half. 2.75 point range for going on three hours. I love how great the afternoon trading has been lately. One thing is for sure, when this coil uncoils...

My odds:

99% chance this breaks up

1% chance it breaks down

Good odds they sweep the stops, maybe both sides. Probably, though, the best overall strategy for them is a quick sharp break down followed by a very sharp, fast snap up with follow through. Let's see.

Little mini fake up...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Unreal.

aapl .886 at the high

Okay, here comes the move down. Snap fake? If so, it's a double stop sweep and up it goes.

Is this going to surprise me and sell? I just can't see it. 42.75 holds and reverses it? All I can see is the stop sweep...

Okay, it totally looks 100% like it is about to dump. I think it will be a trap, as it is too obvious. Truth be told, though, I never try to guess my way out of a range, I don't really care what it does, and I'm just hanging around until the close to see what they do with it.

If they dump this into the close I am going to be the most surprised trader in the universe. Happy, but incredibly surprised.

I guess what I am saying is that not every time price hits a line, or lines confluence and price hits them, it's an area that produces a potential trading edge. With experience one can make an attempt at filtering out these areas that just don't have the right look to them. I'm not really talking about subtle, almost invisible variations here, I'm talking about 'obviously has potential', and 'obviously looks totally wrong'. This is frequently something that can be seen by eye real easily, but is very, very hard to program into a computer. I wish I had a chart example off hand for you, but I don't.

Originally posted by tx_ches

Jim, what do you mean when you say "our eyes would say the geometry is not good." How can geometry be bad?

I'm not convinced the algo's are using the same median lines as roofer all the time. On the QQQ's, I drew 2 other sets before I saw roofer's set and even after I drew another set. So all together there were 4 sets with lines going into his areas. The algos could easily have programmed in 2 of them without using the more minor swing low that roofer used.

How heavily do you think the algos rely on measured moves? It seems like I see a lot of median line sets that capture a measured move. I wonder if that is what the algos key on when it is looking like they key on a median line set?