The market witnessed a sell-off with two hours left in the trading session as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank would begin reducing its market stimulus program. As I've mentioned before, I don't follow fundamentals and news for my style of trading, with one exception, Federal Reserve announcements. Why is that?

Most economic news is released pre-market or 30 minutes into the session, which rarely affects what I do. Any volatility caused by economic news will typically widen the spreads and potential stops, so it naturally keeps me out of new trades. But Fed new is released during the afternoon trade. I typically don't take new positions the last two hours of the session, because it's increasingly unlikely to hit a big target during the session the later I enter a trade, but I will likely already have on multiple positions during a Fed announcement.

So what do I differently to account for market volatility caused by Fed announcements? First, I stop taking new positions earlier than usually. I don't want to take a position shortly before the announcement and get whipped out of the trade. Second, I like to move in my stops. With two hours left in the session, some open positions will already have at least breakeven stops. If I don't have a breakeven stop, I look for a reason to squeeze in the stop, such as the consolidation in DTV above the Central Pivot. Third, with the stops at or near breakeven, I want to play with the house's money. I can't predict which way the market will turn, but if I have both a long and short position, I can often benefit from one of the positions while closing out the other. We had a position in HFC that already broke through the Central Pivot target with a trailing stop on the back side, but the volatility knock us out at the trailing stop.

DTV LONG 63.03 62.97 $(0.06) Trail hit.
FNP LONG 22.48 22.34 $(0.14)
KMX LONG 47.88 47.96 $0.08 Trail hit.
NNN LONG 36.78 36.78 $-
HFC SHORT 44.91 44.55 $0.36

Total of $0.24 per share. Multiply average share size to estimate gross earnings. 1000 shares per trade would be $240 gross earnings for the day. $10.01 per share for the month. 1000 share per trade would be $10,010 gross earning for the month.

Wide-range bar setups for the next trading day. The day trade setup is only good for the upcoming trading session.

Entries, targets, and stops are based on the day's likely inflection points, and natural support and resistance. Avoid trade until bid/ask spread narrows.

Partial or unedited list of setups. Complete or edited list goes out by email. Subscribe to the distribution list here.

Bullish Long-Side Setups

YELP Yelp Inc

Bearish Short-Side Setups

ABV Comp De Bebidas Das Americas
AEP Amer Electric Pwr
AMT American Tower Corporation
EQR Equity Residential
FE FirstEnergy Corp
HCN Health Care Reit
HCP HCP Inc
HIW Highwoods Properties
LLY Lilly (Eli)
OKE Oneok Inc
PCL Plum Creek Timber
PNW Pinnacle West Capital
SO Southern Company Inc
TGT Target Corp
THC Tenet Healthcare
WMT Wal-Mart Stores

Dave Mecklenburg is Publisher of TigerSharkTrading.com.