You shouldnât need a reason to enter your trade as such. The set up you use should suffice. Your system should have a set up a stop and a target. Once in a trade you can move the stop closer to your entry or above and your target if your criteria for doing so are met. If you have done your homework the system will have been back tested and will have a statistical edge. What you want to keep track of are your reasons for overriding your system. Do you have a target for BKS?
duhMentor: I dont have a hard target/profit (I set an automatic sell for $23 ), but I generally wait for my system to show that the trend has reversed (broken down). I'll post here when I sell or if I get stopped out. I know this may seem unorthodox, but I also (being a software engineer) created my own TA indicator that I've been using to support my system. The results of my trades shall speak for themselves (no need for me to hype anything up). Just wait and see ...
I guess what would be more accurate is that standard TA does not work. However, advanced TA especially stuff you start to develop yourself can and does work. The problem then comes can you follow your own system? Can you take the losses when your stop gets hit, and let your winners run to target? This is the difference between sim and real life. In sim there is psychological pressure or pain of losing or winning real money. Here is a previous stock trade that I did, I was watching the stock HUN trading at $ 6/sh. The merger of the company failed, and the stock fell to $ 3/sh. So we have a 50% retrace, but fibs by themselves don't work. So then I look at the dividend, HUN was paying a 11% dividend. So assuming they could continue to pay it, even if the price of the stock did not go up, I would be doing better than 95% of all traders just by buying and holding the stock. Next, I saw that HUN was waiting for a legal victory that would be worth more than its market cap. This became an easy buy with multiple confirmations. And of course the stock went down after I bought it, however, by getting long at my price, I my stop was never even close to being hit. Well, HUN won some legal victories, the stock doubled, and I got out at $ 7.50/sh, of course the stock is higher but I captured a good portion of the trend, and made over a 100% profit on the trade. This trade combined FA and TA to generate a profit. On a small stock account size, I made $ 10,000 profit last month. I now have more money to wire to my futures trading account.
Quote from zanek: I've seen TraderZones post his negative and unhelpful rants before. I like how he can tell me nothing I know will work (as if he knows anything about what I've backtested or discovered ). Anyway, I do have an edge, but we shall see if I can capitalize on it. I think TraderZones is just looking for attention to be honest (a troll). Just because TA doesnt work for him, doesnt mean it doesnt work for anyone else. TraderZones, please give an example of a system with an edge since you're claiming to know so much, otherwise shut the eff up. I think you had the best quote about your personal judgment and knowledge of trading: "I traded my first stock in Jan 2009 and made $10k in the first month months then lost $25k in Feb 2009. I had no idea what I was doing... at that time and was just buying on hunches. I stopped trading from March to Sept and decided to learn TA and get a better footing on how the market works. I've just started trading again in mid September. I have a great system...
Quote from zanek: but the cynical part of me also wonders if its just for others to jump on the trades). Oh, please. This is nauseating. There are few people here who want to jump in on a newbie's backtest and dream...
Zanek, you are in "stage 2" of learning to trade. It is still a losing stage so I suggest you trade the smallest amount of real money possible in each transaction. You can get to stage 3 by writing down specific entry and exit rules. (You may think you have that now, but they are not specific enough.) Judgment can be part of the rules, but it is really 10% of it or less, not 90% of it. You reach stage 4, the first profitable stage, when you have specific quantitative evidence of how these rules give you an edge. It is a long journey with no real shortcuts. Please keep things in perspective and always be kind to your family!
I can see TraderZones has nothing of value to say. I've seen you post on dozens of boards, writing inflammatory remarks everywhere. TZ: I see you constantly calling dozens of other people names on here all the time (eg: Jack Hershey, etc). Are you really that juvenile ? Do you really have nothing else better to do than troll people ? I'm not going to respond to you after this, mainly because I'm all about learning new things and using my time efficiently, arguing with you achieves neither of my goals and is a complete waste a time. Feel free to go troll someone else. Putting TraderZones on ignore. His respsonse are not even worth reading anymore.
Yes, since you have a backtested system that is really good based on high losses, ad few months off, I trust your judgment. But you will still be gone in a few months.