One of my greatest pleasures is picking up an impending move with little or no evidence. For me, it's like sticking a hand out on a cloudless day and catching a raindrop. I know many folks don't see rallies or selloffs until they're well underway, so this little magic act has turned out to be my greatest edge as a trader.

The ability to see clearly through the market clouds comes in part from years of pure observation. I often drive my students crazy telling them there are no shortcuts in reading market direction. They need to pull up a chair, set their eyes on their screens, and wait a decade or two for it all to make sense.

Hopefully these 10 signals will shave a few years off that considerable learning curve:

Premarket Cha-Cha. Note how the 15-minute index futures are trading relative to their 50-period moving averages on the overnight Globex market. I expect a positive opening for stocks when price sits on top of the average, and a negative one when it lies below. When one index is above and the other is below, I look for intraday rotation between tech stocks and the blue-chips.

Buy Four/Sell Four. I will buy midday pullbacks when market breadth shows more than 1,000 advancing-to-declining issues. I sell midday bounces when market breadth shows less than -1,000 advancing-to-declining issues. When the signal shows up on one exchange but not the other, I limit the strategy to that particular market.

Three TICKs and Attack. I look for a large-scale reversal after the NYSE TICK indicator hits an extreme reading for the third time in a single session (this captures the number of stocks whose last trade represents an uptick vs. a downtick). These days a TICK that prints over 1,100 or under -1,100 seems to turn the market in a hurry.

Creeper. Look for a breakout when price creeps into a resistance level that it's failed to mount on prior attempts. This slow crawl prints a series of small price bars with no pullbacks on the intraday chart. Someone big is buying on the way up and should buy more as soon as the breakout triggers.

Karmic Reactions. Price responds to every high or low on the chart, no matter how old or far away. Take profit and cut losses into big prints from prior years because they'll stop the market dead in its tracks sooner or later. The good news is price action usually goes vertical into a big number, so wait for the last spike whenever possible.

The KLAC Indicator. Almost all short squeezes start in the semiconductor stocks. I keep KLA-Tencor (KLAC - commentary - Cramer's Take) on my screen at all times, although I rarely trade it. Just before a big squeeze, it's usually flashing big green while everything else is still bleeding a lot of red.

Sucker Therapy. Momentum monkeys predict reversals when they chase upticks in the premarket session. I usually sit on my hands whenever I wake up to this type of action because their manic excitement attracts exhaustion. Wait for them to get shaken out in the regular session and then step in to take their stock at a discount.

Silent Alarm. I get out immediately when a market doesn't run as soon as it breaks out or breaks down. The deadening silence is telling me that no one cares about that stock. I'd rather be the idiot on the sidelines than the last one left holding the bag.

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Wave On Dude. Make fun of the Elliott Wave Theory at your own risk. It has saved me more money over the years than any other trading tool or technique I use. The secret is to keep it simple. Start by counting three rallies or selloffs with two "jiggles" in-between. If you see a gap in the middle of the second rally, get out now and ask questions later.

Specialist Stretch. I'm watching a NYSE stock I want to buy on the pullback. The specialist takes it down and down and down. All of a sudden the bottom drops out and the bid sinks an additional 20, 30 or 40 cents with no warning. That's my buying signal because the selloff is over and the stock is ready to move the other way.

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