Gold, Oil & Indices (Equity & Bond Indices)

May I chime in regarding scalping? Technically speaking, scalping is only if you trade inside the b/o. It is - technically - exactly like front-running, but legal, since you 'front-run' public information, ie. order book volume. Whereas front-running is illegal since the offender has insider information about an order that is not (yet) public knowledge. Although this is very hard to prove, so it is very widespread.

It is a retail traders' misnomer to call scalping everything that you deem to be small fast profit taking. That is to say, faster than your usual tf. Transaction speed has nothing to do with it though. If you want to sound professional, stop saying 'scalping' since you can't do that from an ordinary retail account. A more accurate description would be high-frequency (this is a bit different, but for general purposes it'll suffice), high-turnover, micro-timeframe, micro-range, or simply fast trading. If you use high leverage along with this you might call it fast & furious trading, but that doesn't sound professional either.

Regarding comds. Whereas wide spreads are conducive for scalping, you also need balanced volatility and liquidity structures for the market too. So comds are much riskier than the majors and the rewards are not necessarily there to justify it (as opposed to the majors). Simple position trading on 4hr/dailies is arguably the best for these. In my experience it is always the ruin of traders (pro or retail) who engage in this kind of micro-tf trading is that sooner or later, but rather sooner, due the 'constant' cash flow they'll turn an mtf into a position trade (several days or weeks) into an investment (years). Small profits and big losses. You need a very solid, proven game plan to survive (avoid) this, so be warned. And black swans happen every other week or so in a micro-tf. But if you can handle the high risk intelligently, you'll reap the high rewards.

Sarah and Jacek. I haven't ever looked at silver from a scalping perspective. Looks like it played the daily fib pivots quite well so far today. Went down to MS1 from the open, then back slightly above the PPV (pivot), then down to S.1, then up slighly above MS.1 and now just back down to MS.2 at 34.

You could be onto something here. I shall keep an eye onit :-) I only scalp when I am bored. Mind you, there is scalping and scalping. Some regard a scalp as 10 pips, some 20/30 pips and some 70/120 pips etc etc. What is a scalp ?! Ashraf scalp would be 400 pip lol. Just winding you Ash :-)

Thanks dave... Silver is really confusing... gold somehow tradable but silver it could go in any direction u are very right. gold silver and crude all move together relatively. at the moment i trade silver only when its either extreme low or extreme high levels its very hard to trade it when its in between... I read an article about shanghai gold exchange cutting silver margin requirments its quite interesting to see what would this week unfold for silver! :)
http://www.sharenet.co.za/news/Shanghai_gold_exchange_to_cut_silver_margin_requirements_/3221517685e72110809b7bf7b70b2b37

have i heard somebody mention 600 in SPX again?..even if that potential daily h&s eventuates, thats only 1100-30 in my books.. for now 1300 on intraday basis..

Sarah, can you spell the word dynamic ?

Analysing gold, silver and crude is going through a "challenging" period at mo. When is it ever not challenging but you know what I mean. Little shy right now posting thoughts as we need to be very dynamic with our trading. Some of the moves are >$20 one hour candles !

I am watching the various correlations closely but volatility renders them a little whippy.

For gold the immediate parameters are long above 1516.5 or short below 1477.7. My bias is to the short side for a possible visit to potential target levels at 1455, 1438, 1422, 1416. No point in looking beyond that. Above 1516.5 would be test of the 1529.5 high expect a reaction and possible reaction also at 1532/33. Target levels at 1542/45, 1551 and 1563 before any test of the high at 1576. It could fail below the high at c.1563 or any of the lower targets. If it took the high out well that's a different matter and we can start making fresh projections.

Silver is crazy stuff with the wide range candles so potentially dangerous (I don't know your level of trading expertise). Silver most always broadly follows gold although on this occasion silver topped out before gold and the pattern is not matching gold. It may have made its low for the time being. My bias is neutral until I see what happens on monday.

Parameters are long above 39.48 or short below 32.30. Its low is already sat on the trend line support from August 2010. If it breaks that it is likely to move fast but there is a 78.6% level just below at 31.33.. Below that we have the 28th Jan low at 26.38 for 100% retracement of the last daily chart swing up :-) I would need more pattern first to be able to make upside projection levels.

Hope this helps.