Friday, May 29, 2009

Quick Gap Fade

Here's an example from Thursday's open of a gap fade trade setup that I posted a year ago. You never know when these setups are going to occur and with the recent bullish trend for the past few months, these have for the most part, not had a great performance record.
Nevertheless, on the heels of Wednesday's slide into the close, the relative odds favored continued weakness into the Thursday open, so the gap was a bit of a surprise.
I've found that the best risk/reward for these trades typically plays out between 9:32 and 9:45, and while I can't precisely define what's going on during this time period, after watching these things for 30,000 hours or so I kinda got a feeling about them.
This chart is showing 1 minute bars, although I watch 2 minute bars simultaneously on another chart.
The opening bar is quickly faded down, initially suggesting weakness, but I'm not ready to go yet. The ensuing litle hairy top (white circle) followed by the parabolics SELL at 9:46 is my cue to enter and is confirmed by the 1 minute NYAD which has fired a parabolic SELL at 9:43 (not shown).
I'm short at 34.84
My first downside target is the PP pivot, which isn't much of a trade, but the Qs indulge me and quickly blow right through PP, with only a a short pause before cascading down to hit S1 by 10:10.
The Qs then flash a little hairy bottom before the parabolics fire a Cover, and with the NYAD now flat, I decide to cut an run at 34.32 at 10:13 as the Qs pop up off S1.
That little run was only 27 minutes but yielded a nice .52 cents or almost 2 cents a minute, which was better than I'd hoped for. Those who've followed me for a while know that 1 penny/minute is my normal expectation for a return on these types of trades so this was a pleasant surprise.

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