Fed Raises Rates and Gold Rises in TurnThe Fed today announced an increase in the Fed rate. This was not a surprise. What was surprising is the Gold rally that followed. In fact, Gold blasted through all resistance levels, including the 6 and 8 day moving averages, the 50 day moving average and the 21 weekly moving average.
The Heikin-Ashi chart also shows a dramatic change of direction (see below)
Now the question is where is Gold going. First, when price breaks the 6 day moving average, statistically speaking, there is a high probability will price will hit the 21 day moving average. Right now, that's at ~1230. My next target would be the top Bollinger Band. That's currently at 1265. This is what I call a coast to coast trade. After that, well, we'll evaluate that in the days to come.
The last chart tonight is the Volume Profile chart. Notice that the short and intermediate term POC is at 1230. This will act like a magnet to price and makes another good target.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trade at your own risk.
Ichimoku_trader
Natural Gas Closed Under the 6 Day Moving AverageNatural Gas fell today in trading to end the day under the 6 day moving average. This could be the first sign that the bull move over the last 2 weeks is over. With price closing right at the 8 day moving average and the top of the Ichimoku Cloud, we also had the first red Heikin-Ashi candle in 9 days.
My strategy calls for waiting for a close under the 8 day moving average before I go short.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trade at your own risk.
Gold moves sideways in Prelude to Fed MeetingAs the United States and the rest of the world wait to hear if the Fed will raise interest rates tomorrow at 2:00 pm EST, Gold continued moving sideways right at the 1200 price level. Price did remain under the 6 day moving average and under all other significant moving averages as I have been pointing out this last week. In addition, we have now finished our 10th red Heikin-Ashi candle in a row. So while the bear run is still intact, anything can happen tomorrow.
On the volume profile, we are still waiting to see if price will go back and fill in the area at the low volume node around 1190.
Volatility will probably return tomorrow and move the needle on Gold to set up the next run. Stay tuned and good luck trading.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trade at your own risk.
Gold Moves Sideways in Light TradingAs the Fed meeting is scheduled for this coming Wednesday, trading was very light today for the precious metal. Price hovered just above the 1200 mark after hitting a high of 1210.9. That price level coincided with the 6 day moving average as well as the 21 weekly moving average. You can see those levels on the chart as the purple cross and gold dot respectively. Until price closes above the 6 day moving average, I will maintain my short positions.
Note that Monday was the 9th red Heikin-Ashi candle.
As I had written about last Thursday, there's a low volume node on the volume profile at 1190 and that's where Gold had traded to on Friday. That's still a level of interest. Watch how much support it provides if and when price gets back down to that level.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trade at your own risk.
Gold Keeps Falling, Breaks Below 1200Gold slowly consolidated today after selling off 5 points at the start of the overnight session. Then at the end of the day, price fell through the magical 1200 level (magical only because it's a nice round number :-) ). We now await the non-farm payroll numbers tomorrow at 8:30 am EST. If the ADP numbers yesterday are an indication, this number may beat the 200k forecasted.
There are now 6 consecutive Heikin-Ashi candles (see my indicator at bottom of chart) and price has solidly moved past all moving averages and the Ichimoku Cloud. There are 2 key support levels coming up. The first is at 1190 which is a low volume node on the Volue Profile chart (see below). The second is @ 1177.5, which is the 23% fib retracement from the election night high. This also corresponds to another low volume node at 1170 on the volume profile.
Disclaimer: This post is for information purposes only. All trading is at your own risk.
Natural Gas Closes at the 21 Day Moving AverageNatural Gas moved up today, completing the closing of the Gap from Sunday night. Trading right at the 21 day moving average, there are mixed technical signals of its next move. Green on the Heikin-Ashi and a rising Stochastics are bullish but trading at the top of the 4 day range and in the middle of the Ichimoku cloud are Neutral at best. Also, the weekly chart below shows that price has closed a gap from 3 weeks ago. Overall, I remain flat until further confirmation.
Disclaimer: this post is for educational purposes only. Trading is at your own risk.
Support Levels Fail to Contain Gold's DeclineGold closed the day at 1208.1, down 7.5 points. As I called out in last night's post, there were 4 levels of support today that could have stopped Gold's decline. However, as a continued sign that the bear move is well underway, none of those levels held. To remind you, those levels were:
Gold Support Levels
Lower Bollinger Band - 1214.70
21 Week Moving Average - 1212.80
50 Day Moving Average - 1210.70
38% Fib from Election Day High - 1209.30
With the Fed meeting a week away, it looks like "Sell the rumor, Buy the news" is in full swing.
Notice that on last Wednesday and Friday there was strong buying off the lows to end both of days at the top of the daily range and that each day was followed by strong selling days that closed at the low of the day.
Now, for the last 2 days, there hasn't been any pretense from buyers that they are trying to buy up the market.
On the Volume Profile chart, it definitely looks like price is heading to the low volume node at 1190.
As I mentioned in my post this morning, my first profit target at 1209 was hit and I closed some of my current position.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trade at your own risk.
Natural Gas Moves Sideways Underneath the CloudNatural Gas rose slightly today, gaining just .012 points. The Heikin-Ashi turned from green to red and there are now 2 decreasingly smaller Heikin Ashi doji candles. Price has now touched the 6 day moving average 2 days in a row. I am still flat but looking to enter a short position if price does close below the 6 day moving average.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trading is at your own risk.
Gold Continues Moving Lower and Peaks through Bottom of CloudGold closed down 9.8 points today and poked through the bottom of the Ichimoku cloud. There is a lot of support at this level though so we need to see if price will hold here or will the bear move continue. Of note is that Wednesday opens with the 6th consecutive day of red Heikin-Ashi candles.
Support Levels
Lower Bollinger Band - 1214.70
50 Day Moving Average - 1210.70
21 Week Moving Average - 1212.80
38% Fib from Election Day High - 1209.30
While its too early to predict where the bottom of this move might be, let's keep our eyes on the .272 fib extension off the Election Night high to the December low.
The volume profile is showing a low volume node at 1190. That would be a good short term target if price continues to move lower.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Trading is at your own risk.
Gold Descends Through the CloudGold sold off today, shedding 8.5 points to close at 1225.5. As Gold moves through the cloud, note that at the bottom is a confluence of the 50 Day moving average, the Weekly 21 period moving average (gold dots) and the lower Bollinger Band. January 27 was the last time that Gold met the 50 day moving average and that bounce led to the year's high. Let's see what happens at that 1210 - 1220 level.
Gold Closes Below Moving AveragesOn Friday, Gold closed below the 6, 8 and 21 day moving averages to descend into the Ichimolu cloud for the first time since the end of January. The support at 1222 held up but the buying was not strong enough to force price back above the 21 day moving average. The close below the 8 day moving average the day before generated a Sell signal in my strategy and I am now long. I will talk about targets and where this bear move might be heading later in the week.
Also note that I have written a new indicator that plots the Heikin Ashi bar color on the bottom of the chart. As you can see, there were 3 red Heikin Ashi candles to end last week. Before those 3, there was a yellow Heikin Ashi candle which I have coded to show Heikin Ashi dojis.
Looking at the weekly chart, we can see that last week broke the trend of 4 consecutive up weeks. Not only was last week a down week, the candle is an outside candle signaling that a change in direction is about to happen. It is worth noting though that while price closed well within the Ichimoku cloud, it did close above the 21 weekly period moving average and that there has not yet been a change of color on the Heikin Ashi candles. This will have to change before we can definitively say that the bull run is 'officially' over.
On the volume profile chart, you can see that price tried to move higher up the profile but then came back down and ended last week right at the long term POC. The next few days should confirm whether or not price will be moving below the POC or not.
Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposed only and does not constitute trading advice. All trades you take are at your own risk.
Ichimoku PaintbarI very much like the Ichimoku approach but don't like all the lines on the chart so usually only use the Clouds. Here is one way to keep track of one aspect of the Ichi method without the chart clutter, namely these paint bars calculated as follows:
The 9 bar donchian > 26 bar donchian = up color;
The 9 bar donchian < 26 bar donchian = down color;
The 9 bar donchian == 26 bar donchian = neutral color.
I have included notes about how to put it on a chart in the code; basically I recommend using hollow candles without borders.
On the attached chart I have the Ichimoku Clouds along with the vwap. I find this makes a very clean chart with quite a bit of information, especially when the messages conflict or converge.
To tell the truth, I still prefer to just work with the clouds for support / resistance guidelines, but these paintbars are a nifty way of including more information without cluttering up the chart. Enjoy.
PS I just realised I published this as an idea instead of as a script. Will go do that now.
The End of the Gold RallyGold sold off sharply today, dropping 15.5 points and closing under all 3 moving averages on the chart, the 6 day, the 8 day and the 21 day moving averages. Gold now seems determined to head south. The first target should now be the lower red bollinger band.
Chart update: now that the bull run is over, I've removed the intermediate and short term waves from the chart. In it's place, I've added a fib retracement that spans the date range from election night, 11/8/2016 through the present. It's very clear that Gold was not able to break through the .618 retracement level and is now trading at the .50 level.
Gold is now knocking on the door of the Ichimoku cloud. With 2 strong red Heikin-Ashi candles, odds are that price will now move in to the cloud. The conservative trader will want to wait for price to emerge on the downside of the cloud before going short. More aggressive traders will want to go short now, placing stops at the 6 day moving average.
The Volume Profile chart shows that the long term and short term POCs have move down and it is at this level the price closed today. This is more confirmation that the bull move is over.
Gold Falls and then Rallies Off the 21 Day Moving AverageGold sold off in the overnight session to tag the 21 day moving average. The precious metal then reversed as the New York markets opened up and rallied to close between the 6 and 8 day moving averages. On the whole, gold rose a modest 1.5 points today. Today's doji shows that once again gold seems to be in a holding pattern and moving sideways. Although since this wave started at the end of January, all selloffs have been met with enthusiastic, if not aggressive, buying.
The Heikin-Ashi chart is more bullish and shows that price is trading above the Ichimoku cloud and that the Chikou Span (lagging line) is also trading above price and the cloud. While overall bullish, it's important to observe that today's Heikin-Ashi candle was a red candle. This followed a Heikin-Ashi doji candle the day before. All adds up to some level of uncertainty.
The volume profile chart is also bullish. Notice that the short and long term POCs are right at the same price as the 21 day moving average. That acted as a magnet for price today but then repelled price upward. This is very bullish suggesting that there is a pool of buyers camped out at the POC.