How did you do on today’s Fed day?  Days like this can remind us why volatile conditions can either be very rewarding or very draining for your account.  Let’s see what happened and where the dust settled:

On the intraday chart of the DIA, the Fed announcement (they cut .25 to 2.00%, as expected) came at […]

Rectangle consolidation patterns can lead to amazing profits and are relatively easy to recognize on a chart.  Let’s learn more about this chart pattern.
Eaton Corp (ETN) recently broke out of a rectangle consolidation pattern, which gives us an example of how we could trade such chart patterns.

Sears Holding (SHLD) broke a long-term rectangle that led […]

IBM has been roaring its way to new highs recently to levels not seen since 2000.  Let’s see the chart of this impressive stock, which has made new highs as the stock market indexes fell in 2008.  In fact, its lowest point this year was early January!

Price broke above what can be considered a pennant, […]

The DJ Transportation Index ($TRANS) is outperforming the Dow Jones index, which is an interesting development that has implications for Dow Theory.

Dow Theory stresses the ‘confirmation’ between the DJ Transports and the DJ Index itself (meaning both must make a higher high to signal a ‘Buy Signal’ and vice versa).
According to the theory, the Transportation […]

Not long ago, I discovered Andrew Horowitz’s website The Disciplined Investor which probably has become most known for its Podcasts.
So far, Andrew has hosted 54 episodes and has addressed a wide variety of topics, including many interviews with fellow bloggers and financial minds in the industry.
Most impressive to me, he recently interviewed former Labor Secretary […]

There’s an interesting confluence of support coming in on the Dow Jones and S&P 500 Averages.  Let’s look:

S&P 500:

On both charts, three proposed trendlines have all come together to a point, which sits just under the current index prices.
It’s interesting to have such a confluence.  Also, the key 20 and 50 period moving averages also […]

In my trading, I utilize moving averages to determine trend, support/resistance, and price structure.
The example today from the FOREX Australian Dollar / US Dollar cross (AUD/USD) showed an excellent example not only of how price can respect its key moving averages, but of momentum divergences as well:

This is a 5-minute chart of the cross, which […]