Day Trade - Toyota MTR CP ADS (Public, NYSE: TM)

Following the HCPG Blog and sampling a couple of their subscriber service emails has made me focus more on trading S/R at key MAs. If you trust the setup on the daily sufficiently to enter at a price extension/extreme (but at S/R where a reversal/pause is likely), you can sometimes get amazing entries. Today for example I had a great entry on TM (daily left, 5min right) off of the 200 day SMA. The nice thing about a good first entry is that it gives you confidence to reposition or add on the first retrace.

Edit: For the order fill highlighted, I intended to highlight my initial short fill (avg near 80.50) but instead highlighted the closing of a partial long position carried overnight. The previous day's long was initiated following a gap up and triangular consolidation breakout. It ran into stiff resistance at the 200 day SMA. That is how I knew that price level was in play.

Amgen Inc. (Public, NASDAQ: AMGN)

AMGN daily had a nice setup today with respect to the 50-day MA. Often when price gets sandwiched between a couple of key MAs on the daily, it will ping-pong between them. Today AMGN broke down from the 50-day MA and moved toward the 200-day MA with a nice setup on multiple timeframes (15min "h" pattern). RIMM is also currently bouncing between key daily MAs.

Nice Setup Relative to 5-Day MA - SRS

SRS (inverse real estate ETF) setup nicely today relative to its MAs. It opened with a WR first 15min bar which is an early indication of increased volatility. The second 15min bar closed above the 5-day SMA (orange/peach colored MA). The third 15min bar was strong and took out the 30min ORH. The next four 15min bars were a pullback that culminated with a hammer-like bar off of the previously broken 5-day SMA. The high of that bar also lined up with the 30min ORH. The entry was a rebreak of the ORH. After some resistance at the morning high, it broke out and easily hit the 62% extension of the 30min OR.

The location of the hammer-like bar (7th 15min) was in an ideal location relative to the 5-day SMA and the 15min 20EMA.

Failure Leads to Fast Move - Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (Public, NYSE:ABX)

Entered ABX long on a mini base & break. Price rallied up to R2 - whole $ level and carved out a tweezer top reversal, putting the position into a slight loss. As price exit the retracement zone, I sold twice the size for a short. Failures usually lead to fast moves and that's exactly what ABX gave us. Took a partial after 3 WRBs and exit balance at S2. ABX is a usual suspect for me and I mentioned gold in last night's technical post.

Someone requested that I explain how I use MAs. I use them for support/resistance. On the 5 minute chart below, we note that price never closed above the downsloping 5 EMA until the primary target S2 was met. Price and the EMA are like magnets, so if price gets too far ahead of the EMA, expect a retracement.

Crossovers are good indicators of the bias. If the EMAs crossover above price it is very bearish and vice versa.