Folks, I hope you all had a great long Easter weekend this past week…I have been traveling for the past week so this is my first opportunity to send out a quick update.

As a reminder, we have our May User Group meeting coming up on May 21st giving us 5 long weeks until the May option expiration series…in our May session we will be discussing hedging techniques for individual and portfolio profiles…it promises to be a very good (and relevant) session…Also, I have posted our previous Synthetics video in our Learning Center under our Strategy tab so for our members, if you have not viewed this session I would encourage you to take a look.

Since many folks are really all gloom and doom on the markets then naturally we’re looking for that to happen…the only question is when would a pullback occur?  And if it occurs what type of percentage drop can we expect? Of course nobody really knows for sure “the when” or”the how much” question, but using simple charting techniques we can help gather “clues” as to possibilities of price action…naturally these “possibilities” are just that but using them to help you chart your course will greatly add in putting the trading odds into your corner while keeping your losses to a minimum.

Using a weekly chart you can see below we are currently in a Elliot Wave 5 Up and appear to be approaching a top…you can see the blue lines that represent our support and resistance zones of 1314 and 1431 accordingly…I have also plotted a potential pull back from a Wave 5 and you can see the plot shows a pull back to 1235 to 1156 which is about a 15% pullback and it indicates a time frame of Aug to Sept this year or in about 4-5 months…we are also seeing bearish divergence in the MACD as well…notice this pullback zone also is in line with the plotted Fibonacci extensions off the lows…using a Weekly Chart is helpful since it takes out a lot of daily volatility and gives you a longer term view…now the market is currently bullish with a potential up move to 1431 before encountering resistance but this still allows for time to pullback to the zones indicated…in reality, this pullback could happen anytime so follow your daily charts accordingly and as always, ensure you’re hedged…more on this in our May session…

Trade Smart — Not Often

hpb

Hello folks, below you will find the update to this past week’s financial markets.  AS a reminder, the format has been changed to make it easier for you to follow along by adding a table of contents to the video.  Also for those of you who are relatively new to this blog post, you can always enlarge the video by clicking on the expand button in the lower right hand corner of the video when it starts playing.

We also had a good Monthly Saturday Session this past weekend and as usual for those of you arriving early got a good seat…

Trade Smart — Not Often

hpb

Hey folks, I just put on a trade today where I am using both Futures and Options together to create a synthetic position.  How would you like to trade a Futures position but without much of the daily volatility and price fluctuation you typically see?  How about a position that automatically hedges your Futures position without using a stop loss? A position that also allows you to play the week to week fluctuation in the underlying security you are trading both to the upside and the downside…

I just put on a Synthetic position in the Corn market playing a bearish position.  I am using Synthetics to make this trade and will go over the trade details at our Monthly Saturday Session this coming weekend…you will quickly find just how important Synthetics can be to your ability to play the market (while you have the position active) both to the upside and the downside with limited risk….the only minor “hitch” is that you must have a good understanding of Synthetics in order to carry this position forward…as you will see, Synthetics can be used in the primary underlying security markets in which we trade (Equities, Indexes and Futures)…

Bottom line, this will be an important session for you to build your knowledge base…going forward you will need to understand Synthetics before you can truly become good at trade adjustments as your positions play out…

I hope to see you at this meeting…remember, if you can’t make it a video recording will be made and posted to our web site for our Members.

Trade Smart — Not Often

hpb

Hello folks, below you will find the update to this past week’s financial markets.  I have changed the format to make it easier for you to follow along by adding a table of contents to the video.  Also for those of you who are relatively new to this blog post, you can always enlarge the video by clicking on the expand button in the lower right hand corner of the video when it starts playing.

I hope you all will enjoy our new format.

Trade Smart — Not Often

hpb

Hello folks, below is this week’s market recap….enjoy!

Trade Smart — Not Often

hpb