This is a more useful look for me. No doubt there will be other iterations. This is a start at following the equity too. Albert
I see that we finally got a lower 20 bar low. The first since December 19. That is somewhat of a change. But since I try not to add onto my losers I haven't averaged in here yet. Probably won't. That is the only thing that has kept me somewhat afloat in the past. I am making good change on my penny stocks(long) so I am ambivalent, to say the least, about this short position. Got that darned January effect spooking me but we are so overbought right now we've got to take a break somewhere, huh? We shall see. Albert
So I 've been sitting on these two positions for two months now, just KNOWING that they are going to come back. I get a call from my broker to put up some more money. I say no and he gets me out at the market, not even waitng to see what the market is even doing. aarrgh! This is what the market looked like over the life of the position. Albert
Basically the market tanks. And this isn't even the worst trade!! Wait until I show the Copper fiasco. Albert
Oh well. It is back to the 1 minute charts where thinking is not as likely to get me into trouble. Got to get to using those stops religiously. Start over in 2 days. Albert
question: why didn't broker stop you before (see pic) have you though about stop & re-enter zone (see pic)
The idea to using a full service broker was that I would get some feedback on the trades that I did make, even though there would be fewer of them. I figured that since my main problem has always been hanging onto losers, then having another set of eyes on the account might be a good reality check. You know, something like "dump this corpse, man, and move onto a winner." Hah! As far as I can tell, any broker I've dealt with is only good at getting me out at the top. If I had only used reasonable stops in the first place I would never have needed a broker. So back to the beginning again. Albert
Going to use the last two days closes as pivots and trade above the two long and below the two short. If I have a loser then I will take profits on the next winner whenever the trade gets me back to even. Today, as you will see, this got me short early with an immediate loser, but I just reversed and went long to get back to about even. Didn't trade the rest of the day because of other responsibilities. I'm up 50 bucks on the two trades, but more importantly, I'm back in the saddle and I followed the game plan. Albert
Plan for 02/26/04 Long on the NQ above 1472.50 and ES above 1143.25 and short the NQ below 1463.50 and ES below 1138.75. The only problem is when the close are so close together like today. Then you can use the previous day's close as the stop. No real sophisticated backtesting on this, more an exercise in discipline. Albert