FuturesTechs Blog

We’ve been asking 1131.50 to do a job as support and in the main it’s obliged.

The couple of times we haven’t held this level, yesterday being one, we’ve got down to 1127 before bouncing neatly.

We get the hint. We’ll be bulls above 1127, moving our green SkewBar area down to here.

But the market has been going sideways for a while now, and we want to see a move through 1153.50 sooner rather than later please.

We can then look for 1174.75, then 1200, then 1216.75, the latter being the YTD high from late April.

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Below are Support (S1 to S7) and Resistance (R1 to R7) levels. On our daily reports we also include a chart, and our unique “SkewBar” giving you an instant snapshort of the current short term trend.

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R7  - 1174.75

R6  - 1166.25

R5  - 1159.50

R4  - 1153.50

R3  - 1146.50

R2  - 1144

R1  - 1139.75

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S1  - 1137

S2  - 1132.75

S3  - 1127

S4  - 1121.25

S5  - 1117.25

S6  - 1114.75

S7  - 1105.75

The bears had the better of things yesterday as we sold off from 1134.50 to 1117.50 in European trade. When the day session kicked into life we caught a bid for a while, trading up to 1132.25 before a Shooting Star on many of the shorter term charts (15, 30 and 60 minute) put the kybosh on the bulls fun and gave us a reversal that saw us back 1117.

1117 was a bold support, and is at S2 today as we continue to hold above here. I have now made it my “trend change” level and the level that signals a down-leg in the making.

There are other bold supports to see off if/when 1117 is breached though. 1113.50 is the widely watched (but much maligned by me) 200 day moving average. 1103.50 is the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of the September rally.

R7        1150.50
R6        1147.50
R5        1144
R4        1140.25
R3        1134.50
R2        1132.25
R1        1126.75

S1        1121
S2        1117
S3        1113.50
S4        1109
S5        1103.50
S6        1098.25
S7       1086.25

For our full report, including Automated levels, Chart, and our unique “SkewBar”, clearly defining the current trend, please ask for a Free Trial using the buttons above.

This is a quick summary of important candlestick patterns. It’s presumed that you know the basics of candles: if you don’t, see the article links in our Members Area.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

1. Bullish Marabuzo

Number of candles: 1.

Description: long green candle which opens near its low, and closes near its high.

Implications: BULLISH.

2. Bearish Marabuzo

Number of candles: 1.

Description: long red candle which opens near its high, and closes near its close.

Implications: BEARISH.

3. Doji

Number of candles: 1.

Description: candle which closes near where it opened.

Implications: REVERSAL.

4. Shooting Star

Number of candles: 1.

Description: candle which closes near where it opened, at the bottom of the period’s range.

Implications: BEARISH REVERSAL (in an uptrend).

5. Hammer

Number of candles: 1.

Description: candle which closes near where it opened, at the top of the period’s range.

Implications: BULLISH REVERSAL (in a downtrend).

6. Hanging Man

Number of candles: 1.

Description: candle which closes near where it opened, at the top of the period’s range.

Implications: BEARISH REVERSAL (in an uptrend) (only weak effectiveness)

7. Inverted Hammer

Number of candles: 1.

Description: candle which closes near where it opened, at the bottom of the period’s range.

Implications: BULLISH REVERSAL (in a downtrend) (only weak effectiveness)

8. Bullish Engulfing Pattern

Number of candles: 2.

Description: green candle with a lower open and a higher close than the previous candle.

Implications: BULLISH REVERSAL (in a downtrend)

9. Bearish Engulfing Pattern

Number of candles: 2.

Description: red candle with a higher open and a lower close than the previous candle.

Implications: BEARISH REVERSAL (in an uptrend)

10. Harami

Number of candles: 2.

Description: candle with a real body contained within the range of the prior real body (which must have moved in the direction of the prior trend).

Implications: REVERSAL (only weak effectiveness)

11. Dark Cloud Cover

Number of candles: 2.

Description: red candle with a higher open than the previous candle, but a close in the bottom half of that prior candle.

Implications: BEARISH REVERSAL (in an uptrend)

12. Piercing Pattern

Number of candles: 2.

Description: green candle with a lower open than the previous candle, but a close in the top half of that prior candle.

Implications: BULLISH REVERSAL (in a downtrend)

13. Morning Star

Number of candles: 3.

Description: long red candle followed by a small-bodied candle which gaps lower. The third candle closes in the top half of the first candle.

Implications: BULLISH REVERSAL (in a downtrend)

14. Evening Star

Number of candles: 3.

Description: long green candle followed by a small-bodied candle which gaps higher. The third candle closes in the bottom half of the first candle.

Implications: BEARISH REVERSAL (in a downtrend)

Graham Neary MSTA (graham@futurestechs.co.uk)

I, like many technical analysts, place quite a heavy reliance on Fibonacci levels, especially for “bigger picture” calls and direction.

So what’s it all about? FuturesTechs members have a couple of articles I wrote a few years back that they can access in our Members’ area that explain things (I hope) quite well.

Take a look at the number sequence below:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144.

The eagle eyed amongst you would have spotted how this sequence (called the Golden Sequence) comes about:

1+1 = 2

1+2 = 3

2+3 = 5

3+5 = 8

etc etc

Now divide the numbers in the sequence by the number preceding it. You will find that it comes out at a constant 1.618. This is known in mathematics as “Phi” (with a big “P”).

Now divide 1 by 1.618. What do you get ? 0.618.

Some pretty amazing symmetry, eh?! This number is called “phi” (with a small “p”).

Now look at your body. You have 5 fingers with 3 bendy bits on the end of your arms, that also have three bendy bits, that are stuck to your body that has 5 things sticking out of it (arms, legs and head just in case!!). All numbers in the Golden Sequence. There are plenty of occurrences in Nature as well (see the aforementioned articles in our Members area for more).

The most common usage of Fibonacci numbers in the financial markets is when things are retracing a big move, and this is what I thought I’d talk about today, because we’ve just busted through one such level in the Bund Futures.

You see between March 17th and June 19th this year (2008 in case you are reading this in years to come!) the Bund has sold off from 118.51 to 109.65 (using the adjusted continuation charts that we favour for Bond contracts). The market then started to rally, and once this got going we started to target 113.03, because at this level the market would have taken back 38.2% (100-61.8, in case you’re wondering!) of the weakness. This is the first big Fibonacci retracement line. On July 15th we got to a high of 112.88, so just 15 ticks away from our Fibonacci level, and the market promptly fell over. We posted a Shooting Star on that day , a strong reversal pattern in Candlestick analysis (highlighted on the chart below, which you can click on to enlarge). We sold off after this and within a week or so we were back testing the lows from mid June.

The rally that we’ve seen since July 23rd has seen us back testing this key 113.03 level once more, and today we’ve broken above here, on Trichet, and we’ve posted a strong reaction higher to boot.

The way we work here is to look for the 50% and 61.8% retracements as the next targets above once the 38.2% retrace is out of the way, so in the Bund our targets are now 114.08 then 115.13.

Finally I’ve been on the box again, so if you fancy listening to me blabbing on about Brent Crude and the Bund Futures then Click here.