Challenges

One of the challenges of today's markets is that there seems to be more periods of consolidation between vertical moves. Of course it depends upon your timeframe but there definitely seems a lot more pauses in activity.

This brings with it the requirement for discretionary traders to stay focused while they are waiting for a trade to develop. The old saw: "Being flat is a position" comes to mind. It's hard to do if you have the mindset of trying to make a daily profit target.

You can take from the market only what it is willing to give. Forcing trades will not make the market play nice.

This morning's (London time) Light Crude chart had a good early move and then nothing good for 6 hours. Without some sort of computerised assistance in identifying that the trade was setting up, the second trade was hard to catch.