Something really odd is happening to me in another thread, so I need loons. Enjoy loons with me, whomever still reads this thing.
You look for the birds. They're gonna help you...those birds. You'll see, good luck." --Eli Wallach, Wall Street 2, 2010 movie
We'll just continue to disagree on that. 1) the performance bond amount on futures has no affect whatsoever on the trade setup, or the potential loss. 2) Depending on broker/fcm, the increased overnight performance bond requirement can be a momentary accounting entry, with reduction to intraday-trade requirements immediately following. YMMV depending on broker/fcm. AMP and some others operate this way. All intraday margining policies are not created equal.
Rare pre-Friday update...Continuing from trade #76... As you can see, I entered on Tuesday and a bit on Wednesday on those trades. My targets were a bit too high. I finally got sick of them and bailed tonight, because something in my gut said "Don't be in there overnight on NFP day." I reduced my targets tonight, and of course the original targets got hit, and are now rising above. By many points. Something came over me and said "Take profits now, and re-enter after you get a feel for market action after the report.". When you sit in a swing for a few days (or weeks or months) you get to the point where you wonder...What the hell am I fighting for? That happened to me as I watched my positions vacillate between losses and gains since their entry points over the past 2-3 days. If I had just taken the profits each day and re-entered on the dips intraday, as the market was oscillating, I'd have greater profits. I need to get better at that, and soften my stance of maintaining those hard targets. And now...FINALLY, after I take my profits tonight, the positions are screaming north again. Literally blew through my targets 10 minutes after waiting over two days for them to hit, and taking profits where I thought it was a safe place to exit. It is incredible. After the NFP tomorrow morning, I will try to gauge the market reaction and act accordingly. But man o man, I do NOT like this ATH over and over on SP and Naz. That is why I was focusing on Dow. Dow was a cluster because of rotation out of banks this week, ARG!
And @tiddlywinks What you mentioned above was very helpful. It kept me thinking about something I forgot. I keep forgetting about the finer granularity of the micros and the overnight bond requirements.
No action today. Woke up out of sorts and decided to stay out, and flat for weekend. Will revisit on Sunday evening, as futures tend to drift up on half-days like Monday.
Continuing from trade #79... So yeah, we had the holiday drift up in futures as expected. Closed those out on Labor day, was pleased with myself. And took a NQ flier last night for a decent gain this morning right before the dip. Nabbed the profit only 12 points from the top on that one. I love those. But that Tuesday session, I thought I had a good bead on things and entered the SP and DOW again. Well, here we are at close of the week... The ES trade went 6-7 points into profit at some time this week, but my target was 15 points. Been quite a while since we've had a bell-to-bell week like this, so riding the wave again. At least I have options with this being rollover week. I have NQ open to trade with, plus I have the March 2022 contracts to layer in with to capture gains on the current losers. Onward.
So compromised, and thought K, the march 2022 contract should give me a safe cushion of time. But then days like today happen, and well, pfffht. No close-outs, just a new MNQ long from yesterday. Current open positions.
Long time listener, first time caller. Were these trades still put on from a Unirenko? How do you tell when there’s a reversal?
Yes, still using same charts. As far as reversals go, there is never a clear signal to my eyes. It's more about the time of day. My favorite pattern is the mid-morning drop followed by a rise into afternoon, but those have been uncommon in this downdraft. I got it wrong on all three of these entries, and so now I have to sit on my hands and wait, allow the patience to settle in and suffer what I believe will be some more pain. There are some indications on the options desks, apparently, that there is no market support after today's quad-witching. It all depends on the Fed next week now. As an aside, the MNQ trade was taken after hours for an overnight hold, because despite how much I pick on folks like Rickshaw about his bleating on, there is a bit of truth to the theory. The only problem is when it goes wrong, it usually goes horribly wrong. Like yesterday/today.