TLDR Tuesday Watchlist at the bottom of the post.
Today’s results:
Today was, well, boring. The writing was on the wall for today’s price action (if you can call it that). In yesterday’s newsletter, Stocks in No Man's Land. Where to Now?, I wrote:
“…we are in no man’s land and need more information. If tomorrow is a choppy mess, it’s ok to sit it out, take profits super quick, exit out of choppy/losing trades, etc. Make things easy.
We’ve had a massive run the past 3-4 weeks and are due for some chop. Don’t be surprised if the chop comes this week.”
I took 3 losing trades today. All small losses. I alerted trade today with the position sizing being small down to lotto size. In hindsight, I’m upset with myself for taking that last trade. I got impatient as we often do when the market is slow and choppy. The key is to keep your losses small!
Let’s say you’re killing it and your portfolio is up 50% from the past 3-4 weeks. It makes zero sense to make a huge bet when you know the market is slow and choppy. We can all see it. We can all feel it.
For tomorrow, expect more of the same leading up to Powell. JPow starts speaking at 12:00pm EST. I feel the general consensus from market participants is not to expect much. But, the jobs report from last week could throw a curveball. If the Fed sees low unemployment as an issue for fighting inflation going forward, that could lead to more comments about aggressive hiking and stamping down wage growth.
Whatever Powell says, frankly, it doesn’t matter for us day traders. We are here to see the market move. We can leave the prediction models for the hedgies and fintwits.
The goal for tomorrow is to be patient if the market is slow. Then leading up to Powell, have both short and long trades queued up and ready to attack it we start seeing major movement. That doesn’t mean you size up. It means have your setups already planned out so no thinking takes place and you simply react to price action. Size will come once the direction or trend is more clear.
#ES E-Mini
Upside: **4180**,4215, 4260, 4300
Downside: 4110,4080, 4050, 4020*, 4000,3980-3975, 3950, 3915*
Snoozer of a day, but one important thing did happen. We saw a test and hold of 4100. While it was low volume it did still hold and more volume never came in trying to push price under 4100. Similar to leading into Monday, if 4080-4100 holds tomorrow,