Hammers and shooting stars are, along with 3-line breaks, my favorite candle patterns.

Here's an example of a successful hammer pattern that correctly identified the bottom of FITB on Monday, October 27th for a quick 1-point reversal upside long:

http://www.DaytradingUniversity.com/...B27Oct2008.gif



For more, be sure to get Steve Nison's "Beyond Candlesticks" book, and watch our videos at www.TradingVideos.com and www.StockTradingSuccess.com

-Ken

I was right about the Oct 20th bottom week, during which I bought $54,000 worth of stocks (all cash no margin); I'm predicting that we'll see some sell pressure soon; so I sold partial/complete positions in some positions today (SPY, QQQQ etc), while getting in long on others. For me at least, it was a great time to lock in profits on those that had moved nicely (DDR, MGM, LVS) and rotate capital into others (SHS etc) that had sold off sharply and are now bouncing.

Anyways, since there's a bunch of recent winning days, I sold to lock in profits for my largest-gaining positions, and am expecting a RED day or series of days soon.

If the rally continues upwards unabated, I can always buy in on continuations, eg after bullish cup patterns and 2d high breakouts, 3 line breaks, and hammer pivots w/volume on oversold bounces. But now I believe is a good time to lock in profits, so I did that on a handful of positions today. My $54K account is now up to just under $64K, nearly 10 grand up in less than 2 weeks. Gotta love this volatility. Now I've got to scale up and trade some size. Most of the positions I put on were all small share sub-100 share, to diversify risk... which means just modest win potential.