The Simple Life

I'd be lying if I didn't confess to being a mite perturbed about the dismally incorrect signals that the technical indicators have broadcast recently including the VXX PDQ model posted Monday. But HEY!, it's a learning experience and I'm always striving to learn from my mistakes.
Two years ago I had the opportunity to actually talk privately with the Donald for about 15 minutes and, despite his public image as a bit of an arrogant arse, I found him quite personable and open. I was lamenting a recent trading slump at the time and he simply said, "Don't beat yourself up, just promise yourself that you'll learn from this down period, apply what you learn and strive to to do better next year." Nothing profound there, but the words stuck with me and have served me well as a sort of self-improvement mantra.
Which brings me to today's post. While not seeking to sound like a broken record, I always go back to the tried and true if the technicals are confusing.
And, in my toolbox of high probability daytrade setups, my favorites are the oft posted VIXEN and NYAD crosses.
Shown above on 5 minute bars is today's picture perfect launch of the GE/NYAD cross at 10:45.
As of Friday's close I was prepared defensively for a Monday down day. When it became apparent that we were much more likely to see a bullish trend day, I wanted to gooble up a few scraps and, for my money and risk tolerance, these are the easy money trades.
With the 3 MAs in the lower window continuing to track higher this was a multi-hour trade and I was expecting a fade late in the afternoon as the NYAD flattened and then ultimately turned down . . . so I was looking for a signal to exit
I haven't mentioned this before but one of the very short term technical trackers I use is a channel of the SMA8 highs and SMA8 lows (2 blue lines). Through the course of a few thousand trades I've found violations of the channel extremely helpful as both entry and exit triggers, and in today's example (white circle) the violation of the channel corresponded with a parabolic SELL, the cross of the 3 lower SMAs and the beginning of the afternoon downtrend.