MakisSwingTrader: August 2016

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

SPY

Updated at 9:09pm due to labeling error and target omission.

SPY-15MIN

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Monday, August 29, 2016

Since yesterday morning I have been unable to gain access to my trading platform. For a few years now, TD Ameritrade stopped offering StrategyDesk as one of its charting platforms. After acquiring ThinkorSwim in 2009, they were slowly moving away from StrategyDesk. Shortly after that, they took StrategyDesk off their website even though they were still updating it for existing customers. But a few years ago they sent out messages through the StrategyDesk platform saying they were no longer going to be updating it after a given date. But given that I had the program in my computer, I was able to babysit it by moving it from one computer to the other and also saving a backup copy in an external hard drive knowing full well that if anything happened to it I was out of luck. So I have been using it even though it couldn't be updated. That did not bother me because the updates really were of no benefit to me. All I wanted was a good charting platform. Something good and simple to draw lines and make money. Nothing fancy.

The problem is that when I was unable to login yesterday, I thought it was just a minor problem that was going to be resolved as was the case in the past. Little did I know that the borrowed time I was living on had finally come to an end. I knew this day was going to come, though it took much longer than I expected. With that, I'm grateful. The problem is that I did not spend time trying to familiarize myself with another platform offered by TD Ameritrade such as thinkorswim, Trade Architect or TD Ameritrade's own generic charting tool. I played around with thinkorswim in the past for a few minutes here and there but it was never anything serious because StrategyDesk was working just fine, and change is not easy. I knew thinkorswim was going to be my backup but I just wasn't ready.

So I will spend the rest of this week trying to familiarize myself with this cumbersome thinkorswim system. Please bear with me as I try to resolve this. It will be an erratic week because all my saved data is gone, and because I'm learning a new system. But I hope it isn't going to be as chaotic as I expect. I so hope I get a surprise from StrategyDesk so I can at least try to recreate my old platform in the new with all my saved data as I make this much needed transition.

SPY-15MIN

Friday, August 26, 2016

SPX WEEKEND REVIEW

For about six weeks now we have seen an extremely boring market that just doesn't want to move. The worst part is that the sideways action has been in a narrow range. The good news is that bulls have had enough time to rest. This is also coupled with the fact that the price action the past four days should serve as enough reason for bulls to now jump in since they tend to do nothing unless compelled by bears to act. Now that bears did something (if you want to call it that), it is time to watch bulls react and take the market out of this state of boredom.

SPX-MONTHLY IV