Tricky Monday

Today was what I call a 'typical Monday'.  It's April fools' day, so that may have been some warning, but frequently on a Monday I see this type of action, and have often thought it's because professional money are testing the market.  But that's just my reasoning and I could be wrong.  Monday sometimes has a sideways movement, with conflicting signals, so it can be very tricky to trade, and I've often thought I'm going to keep away from the markets on Mondays because of this.  Today I kept well out of it, although I was looking for trades, but my sister-in-law was here so I probably wasn't focusing properly either.

Below is a 10 minute chart of the Dow Jones.  At Point A we see a giant shakeout (or so it looks).  At this point I'm looking for confirmation that this sign of strength is going to work out, in either a test back down into the lower area of that bar - looking for a low volume down-bar closing middle or high to tell me supply has dried up.  And you could say we see this at Point D, but the volume is a little too high, and at this point I'm feeling unsure.  After the bullish shakeout at Point A we then get what looks like an upthrust at Point B, so a little reluctant to go long, then at Point C, in hindsight it's no demand, but we have all that strength in the background - high volume on a down-bar at Point A, so I did not act on Point C to go short.  But, sod's law, it shoots down.  It reacts to the 'shakeout' at Point D and goes up but hits no demand at Point E and more or less goes sideways after that.

So, to myself, a tricky day to trade and pleased I sat on my hands and kept out of it to face another day.  I'm working away for two days this week so will be back Thursday to take a look (after my social engagements that day!)