Timing Techniques for Commodity Futures Markets: Effective Strategy and Tactics for Short-Term and Long-Term Traders
In Timing Techniques for Commodity Futures Markets, expert stocks and futures advisor Colin Alexander explains how to make money in all market conditions. He shows you how to set up monthly and weekly charts with indicators that determine which markets may be worth trading. Then he shows daily and intraday charts tell you when to pull the trigger and get into a trade and stay until market action generates an exit signal.
Introduction:
The purpose of this book is to show how to use some of the best trading tools in conjunction with each other. Chapter 2 addresses the essential question of how to define a trend. Chapters 3 to 5 consist of the building blocks for charts, price rules showing when specific price action delivers a signal to pull the trigger on a trade, and how to look at candlestick charts.
Chapters 6 to 12 discuss intensively the specific application and new uses for the most useful indicators, moving-average convergence/divergence (MACD), moving averages, stochastics, and Bollinger bands, and they show how these forces interact with gaps and the theory of support and resistance. Chapter 13 focuses on the best chart patterns that work in all time frames. Chapter 14 covers cycle theory, including time-based, cyclical, and seasonal forces.
Chapter 15 shows how to interpret the Commitments of Traders data—who trades what and how much and how money makes markets move—until it has become too much, up or down, for its own good. Chapter 16 addresses the cyclical and special influences affecting the stock market and trading stock index futures. Chapter 17 brings everything together with an entry checklist: how to evaluate a market in the context of bringing the most effective indicators all together in conjunction with each other.
Chapters 18 and 19 show how to set stops and how to get out of a trade that may have run its course or that may no longer justify retention. Chapters 20 and 21 provide a case study based on a prospective long position in blendstock gasoline and one based on a short position in copper.
Chapters 22 and 23 are a culmination of all that has gone before so as to show how to fine-tune short-term trading, whether for the day trader or for the longer-term trader looking to achieve an optimal entry and an optimal exit. Chapter 24 consists of final comments on
aspects of futures trading that extend beyond the immediate techniques of technical analysis.
Contents:
- Industry Background
- Defining Direction: An Established Trend Keeps Going
- The Building Blocks for Charts
- Price Rules
- Candlesticks: A Useful Tool
- Moving Average Convergence/ Divergence (MACD)
- Moving Averages for Direction and Support and Resistance
- Stochastics and the Relative Strength Index (RSI): Overbought/Oversold Indicators
- The Magic of Gaps: Three Bars Open and Go!
- Support and Resistance: Horizontal Barriers
- Diagonal Support and Resistance
- Bollinger Bands
- Chart Patterns That Work
- Cycle Theory: Time-Based, Cyclical, and Seasoned Forces
- Commitments of Traders: Who Trades What and How Much?
- Stock Indexes: The Prime Vehicle for Day Traders and Position Traders
- The Entry Checklist
- Stops: Theory and Practice
- Getting Out of the Market: The Exit Checklist
- Case Study: Buy
- Case Study: Sell Short
- Short-Term Trading Techniques
- Final Thoughts