Nikkei down a cliff

Huge selling on the NIKKEI today.

The daily Tenkan is at 14640 and it might be the last line of support here, as the cloud is another 1600 ticks away.

Gold trades

Gold had some huge swings today and I couldn’t really capitalize on them. The day ended positive, but with some dumb trades in between and my psyche telling me to close trades near breakeven, even if the charts told me otherwise. Have to work on that one. But having my last trade move 12$ against me wasn’t something I like to see and then seeing my short entry at 1369.50 holding for nearly 3 hours before I caved, moved my stop below 1369 on another breakdown attempt, seeing me stopped out and finally having Gold really break that heavily defended level, felt like a slap in the face.

Trades are connected by lines. Blue doted lines show a profitable trade, red doted lines a loss. I made 79 ticks today in Gold on a day Gold had a range of 600 ticks. I did something right by exiting a trade in the red right before Mr. Bernanke started to speak, as I see myself not as gambler. That 100 tick spike up would have brought my losing position way up into the green. Unfortunatly spikes tend to go either way, so it was better to reenter a bit later, even if I then missed all of the fun above 1400.

Market Overview

First daily glimpse at the markets

(left to right: Euro, Pound, Yen, Australian Dollar. Second row: Gold, Platinum, Silver, Oil, 30yr Bonds)

The US-Dollar is up, as all markets are trending down with the exception of Oil, which is trading above the cloud, and they are doing so for some time. Ichimoku is not looking for tops or bottoms, still countertrend setups may reveal themselves in the shorter timeframes.

60 Minute charts

15 Minute charts

The Euro has support at 1.2890 and has room to test resistance at 1.3020 – 50

The British Pound has an event risk today with the BOE minutes revealed later. The Yen may get some life later today with Kurodas speech. Charts mirror market sentiment. News can turn that around on a dime, so wait for the news and assess the news 5 minutes after the event.

The Daily Australian Dollar is in a very strong downtrend, which will continue, if interest rates and the US Dollar continue to trade higher.

Gold seems to try for a double bottom with 1370 as support today.

Platinum has downside risk, as news support from looming strikes at south african mines seems to fade.

Silver saw the heaviest damage on Sunday night and has further room to the downside, even if 21.75 - 50 should support.

The whole metals group will decline further, if the appriciation of the US Dollar and interest rates continues. Might be interesting to take a look at this Marketwatch article, discussing the odds of Mr. Bernanke stepping down in August 2013.

Gold on the move

Gold posted a remarkable reversal yesterday, which is rippling upwards through the longer and longer timeframes.

1400 is capping the move for now with the daily cloud coming into play. If you take a look at the 60 minute chart, you notice the hesitation at the 1382 level, a resistance formed last week. Expect further resistance at 1414, 1425, 1440 and 1468. To enter on the long side I will use the support levels forming on the 15 and 30 minute, right now at 1389 and 1380.

Oil follow-up

That was a sweet oil move today in the direction of the 60 minute trend I mentioned earlier today.

Stalking oil

That’s what I’m looking at, when I’m looking for a possible entry

We see a small daily, a large 60 Minute, a small 30 Minute and a large 5 Minute chart.

Ichimoku tells you at a glance where we are. Just ask yourself: Are we above or below the cloud.

The 5 Minute is down, the 30 Minute is about to break the cloud, the 60 Minute has broken the blue line, called Kinjun_Sen, but is still above a huge blue cloud, some 80 ticks away. The daily looks flatish.

The trendtrade on the 5 Minute is short, but it was a short around 96.10 and we are trading 40 ticks below, the 60 Minute might turn into a test of the cloud support, especially with the strong rising cloud seen at the time of the US premarket open.

Longer term trends take precedent, so instead of chasing I will place a long at 95.05. Maybe we get a spike down into the cloud.

Or I take the recross of the red line (called Tenkan_Sen) above the blue line (Kinjun_Sen) on the 5 Minute for a resumption of the longer term trend.

Ichimoku Kinko Hye

Recently I was introduced to Ichimoku Kinko Hye charts and it was an eye-opener. 

My charts now look like this:

and on another screen I have an overview of the instruments I’m following

An good introduction to the Ichimoku Kinko Hye can be found here