Oh ye of little faith.

This is a thirty minute chart of Fortescue, and you can see (or you would if I could get this chart to display better) where I got the buy signal on Friday. This is the sort of trade that I'm hanging out for and once I got the buy signal at 263 there should have been no problems in holding the long through to the close. Obviously, I was leaving early and sold out but it's instructive to see that the second guessing I did initially was driven by my overall bearishness and not by any clue from the price action.

I'm encouraged though, that I commented at the time that the pattern was implying acceleration. Next time I'd like to approach this set up much more aggressively.

Here is the chart for Woodside and the set up I was pleased to take. Early on in the day there was a sell signal and as the stock failed to fall it seemed clear that the consolidation from the 11th would hold. I cut the short on the fifth bar of the day which was a doji bar and went long on the break. I'm using a simple trailing stock but as I get more comfortable I'd like to hold some of a position like this with a bigger stop and have the chance to add on the second bullish entry signal near the end of the day.



The next chart is Rio Tinto and it shows an interesting set up I was watching.





The stock came out of suspension to report that they'd sold some of their crown jewels to Chinalco at what might be the bottom of the cycle. I was pretty bearish and was happy to get a sell signal at 4990. The next bar showed indecision as the stock rallied a little but finished in the middle of the range. The following bar was a bullish bar with a very small range. While there was no appreciable rally (and I took my short position off with some relief), it had been an hour since the break of 4990 and rio was showing no signs of the heavy selling I was expecting.
I wondered if I should buy a break of that small bar but felt that I would be manufacturing a trade. I actually would have made a little out of the trade but what's more interesting is that it's probably a pattern worth looking at in future. My logic is that there's a clear break which fails to follow through followed by a small range bar in the reverse direction and then acceleration once the market realises the stock isn't breaking down. In essence, it's the same process in operation as in the wpl trade but without the satisfying bungy jump shape that you got there.