’17 Thought of the Day

Interesting Times Ahead

| 50Pips
“If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.” – Nick Cave
Old time blog readers have sat through more than enough rants about who looks at the Dow when talking about the market so we’ll avoid going down that route but it would be a shame not to save this tweet and add the accompanying chart:

Back to trader talk, here is where we are in terms of context:

Now that Apple earning are out of the way and as discussed in our latest weekly outlook video, we’ll have to see how the data flow into the rest of the week shapes up. Overall the ramp higher continues but as we have been highlighting (keep an eye on updated charts posted on Twitter), there are still a lot of signs of weakness in many tech names and the transports chart is downright ugly.
Very nice action on Crude at the key pivotal 50 level, keep an eye on 48.20s for the next leg of this move as it tries to get some traction.
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

Waiting for NFP

| 50Pips
“It is better to be late, and catch the right worm, than catching the snake’s tail.” – Benjamin Lee
Highlighted in our latest weekly outlook video, the real action is probably waiting for us towards the back end of the week. As discussed, context is key and markets have a tendency to press the pain trade as far as possible, especially in low liquidity o/n times and  as market participants wait for high risk events to hit the wires.
Experienced traders understand that markets tend to behave in a healthy manner the majority of the time but this does not mean that they do so all the time. Even if this latest comment may seem trivial, it is very hard to build a long-term career as a traders unless one really understands this and adapts accordingly. We’ll keep the rants for the Daily Webinar 😉
Nothing much to add from what we discussed, so we will just leave you with a selection from our chart book:
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

All About Follow-Through

| 50Pips
“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.” – Rosalynn Carter
More cracks showing or just air-pockets around sideways actions at highs? That’s the question. Regular readers know where we stand on this and what we believe this means for the VIX > upside pain as velocity of move is clearly to the upside not the downside.
As discussed on Twitter yesterday, ‘Tis but a scratch! Not even a flesh wound… but things could be getting interesting, especially on NDX. Don’t forget to keep an eye out on individual names for early signs of traction: Amazon, Nvidia and so on…
In terms of sectors we would like to continue to stress that we are focusing on IYT and XLF for clues. Charts are on the Twitter stream and we’ll continue to try our best to keep posting ideas and real-time updates throughout the day.
We are still looking for DAX to fill that gap into the 12040s and will keep a close eye on the the psychological 12000 level from a day/week/month close basis.
Fingers crossed for an interesting day and we’ll look to go through a detailed chart run-down in the Sunday outlook video.
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

The Chop Zone

| 50Pips
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
We have been talking about expecting to see the VIX spike into the 13/15+ area before it manages a sub 9 daily close but little did we know that the fight would be concentrated inside the 10 to 9 range. Talk about chop and tight compression… as we have been saying, it’s just a waiting game; who is going to give up first.
On the currency front, as highlighted in recent video outlooks and charts, the focus remains around those 200WMA for most pairs with DXY giving you the best overview of the gravitation pull/pain trade currently in play.
In non 200WMA currency news, we would also start to keep an eye on this very important structural resistance on cable.
On the tech front, despite this aggressive o/n Nasdaq ramp (can’t stop won’t stop), we would still be keeping an eye on NVIDIA today and into the end of the week.
Note for active 50Scouts members: make sure you keep an eye on your inbox for a free pass to tomorrow’s daily webinar session (make sure to check your spam folder too).
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

Mid Week Update

| 50Pips
“The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.” – Benjamin Disraeli
No change to what we discussed in our latest weekly outlook video as we head into FOMC. Remember that what is going to be interesting is not necessarily how markets react today but how they close the week/month. If you are not familiar with FOMC reactions, a useful exercise is to go back in time and see how price reacted not only on the day but more importantly, in the next 24/48 hours.
Apart from the usual suspects, here are some of the charts we will be discussing today:
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

Focus on Tech

| 50Pips
“Lucky fools do not bear the slightest suspicion that they may be lucky fools – by definition, they do not know that they belong to such a category.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Following the release of the Alphabet numbers yesterday after the close, focus will be to see on how US markets will open and if we get any kind of follow-through on the initial knee-jerk selling that came through.

Latest weekly outlook video highlights where we are at and what we are focusing on into FOMC this Wednesday. Clearly, the most interesting chart dynamics that are playing out are on the DAX.

Interesting to also look at DXY on weekly and monthly time-frames to help with the bigger picture view.

As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

Friday Roundup

| 50Pips
“The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.” – Osho
Everyone is focused if waiting to see if the S&P and the Nasdaq Futures can put in another positive close today to make it 11 in a row… from the stats we have seen floating around, the run to 11 on the S&P has extended only once in something like the last 20 years but as they say; records are made to be broken right?
Looks like time is running out on our call for a vix spike this week but then again, would not be the first time we have be wrong and as you can imagine, the longer they keep a lid on it, playing ‘whack-a-mole’ with that 10 mark, the more explosive the spike will be when it comes… we are not in a hurry. Plenty of patience here.
We posted some key charts this week, don’t hesitate to look back and in case you missed them, you can also check out our weekly outlook video and the F.A.C.E. Interview.
Here are some charts for today:
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

No Limits

| 50Pips
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” – Bruce Lee
Pretty sure that Bruce Lee wasn’t issuing a subliminal message to a future generation of central bankers but who knows… stranger things have happened.
As we discussed in our latest outlook video, today should mark the start of the real action this week or at the very least, action on decent volumes and not this low volume churn that we had anticipated.
Here are some of the charts we will be focusing on today:
As always there is no substitute for real-time/live action; if you are interested in attending a daily morning call into NY with a more detailed live discussion on all the charts and ideas we highlight/review in the outlook video and here on the blog, you should check out our Daily Webinar Group.

F.A.C.E. Interview

| 50Pips
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dale Pinkert of Forex Analytix.
Should you be interested, you can listen to the interview here:
Once again, I would like to thank Dale and the team at Forex Analytix for having me on the show.
Hope you enjoy our chat!