February 22 2010 Overlay and Commentary

The price action has been just plain tough lately. Had I traded perfectly today I think the best I could have done would have been a scratch.

I had an unusual amount of messages today asking if I knew what the heck was going on with direction.

If you look at my prep you can see that I had everything covered except what happened. It was a very basic open but turned tricky in a hurry.

The read was not bad and the zones were respected but the action completely contracted. This type of premise can usually be anticipated.

The best play was a short off the highs. It was impossible for me to short at the open because the structure was overwhelmingly up and there was a tight congestion at resistance.

After the pre-market probe, I was reluctant to buy the 1106.00 inside support area and quick to short any break of the area.

I got clipped out twice today entering short on pattern breakout setups between 1105.00 and 1104.00. The trades looked excellent to me but went nowhere.

I also got long just off the bottom after the first short did not work but scratched that on in the grind.

Breakouts are not working well in this environment. The short side is not going anywhere and the long side is a total grind. It is worth noting that the breakouts I have been taking have been rather weak pattern setups.

I am rapidly working on adjusting my entry points and am going to refrain from entering too far from an initiation point of a move. I think this is prudent until normal volume and action comes back.

We will see how this works for the remainder of the week.