Cerlogic COT Positioning Monitor

Here’s what’s improved:

• Two data sets — Futures Only and Futures + Options Combined.

• More markets …

Read more

Read more

Markets trend can be determined on many timeframes. But for trading, we primary use the two: short-term trend / daily trend, and the medium-term trend/ weekly trend. Either uptrend or downtrend, these rules apply to both.

1. Cross. The 8 EMA crosses above/below the 21 EMA.

2. Confirmation. Two consecutive full-body candles close above/below the 21 EMA after the cross.

3. Holding. From there on, price stays above/below the 21 EMA to remain in an uptrend/downtrend.

Anything else is sideways in our book, and sideways means no trade.

Please see the refined version of the Indicator :

Cerlogic Trend Indicator - Version 2.0

Examples below $SMH $SPX

Read more

They’re not. Used properly, options are one of the most strategic tools in the market. The trend tells us when. Options let us decide how. Before we enter, we know exactly what we can lose, what we can make, and where we’re wrong.

Of course, options won’t make a bad idea good. But they can make a good idea much better.

Lawrence McMillan’s Options as a Strategic Investment has been around since 1980, 5 editions in, and it’s still the reference. It’s over 1,000 pages long, so it’s not a weekend read.

Everything is in there. Covered calls, spreads, butterflies, ratio spreads, backspreads, straddles, index and futures options, volatility and hedging. For each strategy, McMillan explains when to use it, when not to, and what to do when the trade goes wrong. That last part is what most books skip.

I won’t spoil it by describing what it’s about, but it’ll hit different for each one of you. It’ll hit different again when you go through it a year from now.

We’re all different, we all have different psychology, and we change, so what you take from it now won’t be what you take from it later.

I wish someone had told me to read this book. Instead I got upsold by promoters and gurus who did nothing for me except give me years of torment.

After all these years, I’m convinced that any person with drive can find their way in this business, and there are hundreds of ways to make money in these wild markets.

When people say “I’m terrible at this,” I’ve found it usually means they haven’t found their best way of approaching these markets yet.