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Trading Diary
May 1, 2004

These extracts from my daily trading diary are for educational purposes and should not be interpreted as investment advice. Full terms and conditions can be found at Terms of Use.




USA
The Dow Industrial Average intermediate trend is drifting lower. Support at 10250 has been penetrated, completing a bearish double top. But light volume and a weak close indicate a lack of momentum.




The primary trend is up. There is no strong momentum on the latest secondary correction. At this stage it appears that support at 10000 will hold.
Twiggs Money Flow has crossed back below its signal line. A fall below the March 24 low would be a strong bear signal.




The Nasdaq Composite is testing support at 1900. A fall below this level will signal a strong secondary reaction but not necessarily reversal of the primary trend.




Twiggs Money Flow has fallen below the March 24 low, giving a strong bear signal.


 



The S&P 500 respected resistance at 1150 before falling through short-term support (at 1115) on strong volume. The intermediate trend is drifting lower and we are likely to see a test of support at 1090/1087.




A fall below 1087 would not signal a primary trend reversal: primary support is at 960.
Twiggs Money Flow, however, has fallen to a new 3-month low - a strong bear signal.





NYSE Bullish Percent Index

The Chartcraft Bullish Percent Index has retreated to 71.02%. A fall below 70 will signal a Bear Alert.


Treasury yields

The yield on 10-year treasury notes broke through resistance at 4.50%, signaling the start of a primary up-trend. This has been followed by a pull-back to test the new support level. A rise above 4.67% would add further confirmation of the trend change.

The yield differential (10-year T-notes minus 13-week T-bills) is a healthy 3.5%; with long-term investors demanding a healthy premium for tying up their capital.






Gold

New York: Spot gold has fallen to $386.80, breaking through support at 390 and signaling reversal of the primary trend.




 
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ASX Australia
The All Ordinaries completed a small double top with a fall below 3420; a bearish sign. Friday's weak close and big volume, however, signal strong buying support above 3375.




The primary trend is up. A fall below support at 3150 would signal reversal.
Twiggs Money Flow displays a bearish divergence, signaling long-term weakness.






Keyboard Shortcuts

Incredible Charts offers a number of shortcut keys to streamline charting operation. These work mainly with the Function keys, F1 to F12; so make sure that [F Lock] is activated on your keyboard. I have highlighted the most useful keys (in bold) below.

Charting Module:
  • F1 - Opens the online Help menu at Getting Started
  • F2 - Securities >> Refresh Current Security from Server
  • F3 - Securities >> Search By Code
  • F4 - opens View menu
  • F5 - opens File menu
  • F6 - File >> Open Project >> Default project file
  • F7 - View >> Price Daily
  • F8 - View >> Price Weekly
  • F9 - View >> Price Monthly
  • SHIFT + F7 - View >> Equivolume Daily
  • SHIFT + F8 - View >> Equivolume Weekly
  • SHIFT + F9 - View >> Equivolume Monthly
  • F11 - File >> Save Chart as Image
  • F12 - File >> Print
  • Left Arrow - toolbar button: Scroll Back
  • Right Arrow - toolbar button: Scroll Forward
  • SHIFT + Left Arrow - toolbar button: Scroll to Beginning
  • SHIFT + Right Arrow - toolbar button: Scroll To End
  • Up Arrow - toolbar button: Select Previous Security on Active Watchlist
  • Down Arrow - toolbar button: Select Next Security on Active Watchlist


Stock Screens:

  • ENTER - Submit button on the Stock Screen Input Page
  • F1 - Opens online Help page at Stock Screening
  • F2 - Refresh (Reload the Input Page) button
  • F3 - returns to the Stock Screen Input Page
  • F6 - Chart the Selected Security
  • F7 - Create Watchlist Automatically Adding Top 20 Securities
  • F8 - Create Watchlist Automatically Adding All Securities
  • Left Arrow - stock screen results: Previous Page
  • Right Arrow - stock screen results: Next Page
  • SHIFT + Left Arrow - stock screen results: return to First Page



Display Part Periods

This question continually crops up: "How do I get the Weekly or Monthly charts to update daily instead of weekly or monthly?"
If you use weekly or monthly price bars or indicators, the chart will only adjust at the end of each completed week/month. To reflect the latest partially-completed period:
  • select File >> Advanced Features >> Display Part-Periods
A word of caution: Indicator signals may reverse as the period progresses. For example: a weekly Stochastic indicator may show a crossover above the oversold level on Wednesday but the crossover disappears by Friday with two days retracement. 

For this reason I use daily indicators wherever possible. For example, use a daily MACD with settings of 130, 60,45 instead of a weekly MACD with settings of 26,12,9. However, with indicators that use highs and lows, such as the Stochastic, daily and weekly trading ranges are completely different.





About the Trading Diary has been expanded to offer further assistance to readers, including directions on how to search the archives.

Colin Twiggs


After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars
 I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me.
It always was my sitting.... My sitting tight!


~
Edwin Lefevre: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923)
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