Trading Silver in the Dead of Night

Here’s a piece of advice for frustrated day traders: try night trading. While we’d be the first to concede that scalping at any hour of the day will never be easy pickings, many opportunities that we see in the middle of the night seem less challenging than the ones served up intraday. An obvious reason is that there just isn’t as much competition. To be sure, the predators who work the graveyard shift are not the kind of guys you’d want to sit down with at a poker table. They have special skills, like the adaptations of lizards and insects that live in the desert. For one, they are experts at gauging exactly how markets will react to news that hits the tape when relatively few are watching. This in turn allows them to get out of the way of buyers or sellers when mini-stampedes occur in relatively illiquid markets. By “fading” the action in this way, stepping aside when the panic-stricken come a-charging, DaBoyz are able to maneuver their prey into trading with them at atrocious prices.

Implicitly, that’s what we all want as traders – i.e., for the guy on the other side of the trade to discover immediately after it has been consummated that he’s been hosed. As it happens, our proprietary Hidden Pivot Method is well suited to traders who want to avoid being the patsy. It offers an effective way to sniff out the swing highs and lows where the other party to a short-term trade is likely to regret it. Look at the Silver chart above and you’ll see how very subtle such opportunities can be. By our lights, the area highlighted in yellow was the best place to buy Comex March Silver futures when bullion markets were at their absolute deadest early Wednesday morning. We used a technique called “camouflage” to identify a buy signal at 29.345 (a.k.a. point ‘X’) that triggered at exactly 2 a.m. Eastern. A 10-minute ride to the peak that followed would have been worth $675 per contract, although we should mention that exiting at the top would have required both luck and skill. If you’re interested in developing the latter, consider taking the upcoming Hidden Pivot Webinar on January 11-12. For further details, click here. And if you want to follow Rick’s Picks trading recommendations, which are updated in real-time around-the-clock, click here for a free trial subscription.

Information and commentary contained herein comes from sources believed to be reliable, but this cannot be guaranteed. Past performance should not be construed as an indication of future results, so let the buyer beware. There is a substantial risk of loss in futures and option trading, and even experts can, and sometimes do, lose their proverbial shirts. Rick's Picks does not provide investment advice to individuals, nor act as an investment advisor, nor individually advocate the purchase or sale of any security or investment. From time to time, its editor may hold positions in issues referred to in this service, and he may alter or augment them at any time. Investments recommended herein should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor, and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company. Rick's Picks reserves the right to use e-mail endorsements and/or profit claims from its subscribers for marketing purposes. All names will be kept anonymous and only subscribers’ initials will be used unless express written permission has been granted to the contrary. All Contents © 2011, Rick Ackerman. All Rights Reserved.www.rickackerman.com