My experimentation with pair trading stopped today as I simply feel it is too much micro management and gets in the way of my bread and butter game too much. Pair trading is not really a set-up but more or less a trading style that requires full attention. That said, in the distant future I will definitely revisit the idea, what I really need is a filter that scans for favorable spreads from a list of say 50 pairs. For example, around 12 today there was a huge spread between EP/DYN, I have a moving average on the spread between the two stocks for the last hour (20 period on a 3 minute chart), and the spread was trading almost half a point away from the moving average. Now that is a nice set-up and if I can scan for such imbalances it will make pair trading a legit set-up instead of a trading style that I have to give up a lot of time for. Besides, I already have a very nice offense with open orders, sector trading, and daily charts, I should focus more on those for now and try to get more out of it. There is a fine line between a diversified offense and jack of all trades master of none. 13300 shares each way on 10 of 21 shooting, +484 before commissions, +256 after, no bullets. Closed the week 4 and 1, +1650, really wish I didn't have to give up yesterday's game but like the situation with the princess, sometimes it is actually better to have a flaw, a disappointment, a defeat, so you can rejuvenate your hunger and want it more. An interesting aspect of my stat is that I am averaging $322 a day for the year, versus $280 a day in 2001, of course, earlier in 2001 I was making a lot more until April/May slowed me down substantially, but while I know for a fact that I am better than I was last year even if I am making less at equivalent time frame, maybe there is still a chance I can prove that in cold hard numbers come year end . . . Pre-Market: No real news for me. 9:30: Not exactly a great day for the open strategy as the market ripped hard AFTER the gap-up which is the kind of situation that can put a world of hurt in a strategy that wants gap and craps. Lost 5 cents on KRB short, made 1 cent on LOW, made 7 cents on ONE short, made 15 cents on ABT long. Up just $100. 9:40: Uncharacteristic play as I knew DNA had news and some really big sellers but I thought the market will continue to be strong and bottom picked with 300 shares, lost 60 cents. 9:50: Tried WDR on financial strength but some seller pounded him down hard and I scratched. Tried NOR "Bittersweet" Tony Oz reversal and stopped for a 5 cents loss. Bought again 18.50 and held rest of the way for my biggest winner of the day, unfortunately, market came in as the stock traded as high as 19.10, I will be watching this one on Monday. 10:15: Took DHI/PHM on home builder move but sector sold off hard and I scratched. 11:05: Churned the WFT/NE pair and decided this is not for me. I would rather make directional trades than spread money, at least until I come up with a filter for this. My time is better spend on watching for bigger moves, and keep myself fresh for afternoon trading. To be re-visited later for sure but I was down $100 for the day and I wasn't going to lose back-to-back games. 2:00: OSX sold off quite hard for a while and I expected a bounce, had NE/BHI small shares for 30 cents a piece. Scratched BK/TER as the market ran out of juice on the rally. Unfortunately I could not get out of NOR at the top, it is funny how every time I get out at what I thought to be a top of a daily play to save 20 cents, it keeps on going for another point, every time I try to hold on for the bigger move it stops me out and in this case 15 cents from the high was like 25% of the total profit. No princess tonight, as I am not the lucky one, yet the war must go on, and at least until I get into another cold spell, work is just too addictive, and I never want to pause, not even for a brief second. The weekends are tough to endure without her (unless I am lucky that there is a gap to be filled), I can't wait for Monday's game. Team Stats: 10 of 10 Active Traders 88600 shares each way on 36 of 88 shooting (41%) +609 before commissions (5 of 10 positive before commissions) -1570 after commissions (3 of 10 positive after commissions) Top 3 Symbols: PHM, CVX, APC Bottom 3 Symbols: DNA, CCU, GDW
While most of my money is made from fading the open - another technique which is used for opens and is almost the opposite of fading the open - is to try to find stocks only gapping up slightly when the futures open up strong and finding stocks only gapping down slightly -- the specialists for various reasons(read btwn the lines - MONEY) will sometimes open up a stock close to flat when the mkt opens strong -- and then take the stock higher. So this is done by putting out 10 to 20 orders for the open only - like this morning -- I was filled on 3 out of 10 -- IBM,MWD, PG --- they all opened only slighty up and all went higher.
Hey TraderD007, Do you realize you posted the exact same thing about worldco in January? ------- 01-17-02 02:49 PM Worldco Hey Hitman been reading you for a while, intersting stuff but I just want to know if you could shed some light all these fines and penalties that the SEC/NASD...just curious. ----------- Don't you have anything else better to do? Kinda pathetic.
Well, for someone to attempt to make a big stink out of SEC fines regarding minor things such as margin and short sales is pretty lame. Obviously the guy hasn't been in the business very long and is attempting to look like a smarty by quoting such things. Sad thing is... he just ends up looking like a novice. But hey, we need the dumb traders to cannibalize as well, don't we! Shady dealings? C'mon... give me a freakin' break! Firms like CSFB and Lehman will go down before Worldco does. They do stuff that's 10x worse.
(that's the problem) I still think that Hitman's Journals' are in reference to "The Markets", instead of a real woman (infatuation)... We've all been smitten with her charms....
After reading your last months activityt, which I came to enjoy and appreciatee I made certain observations that I felt compelled to state. First, I am not going to call you a loser for being emotiona. In fact, I wonder what it s about those who resorted to name vcalling resorting to same I beleive any first year psych student would tell you that they are so uncomfortable with their own emotions that they simply could resist lashing out. That being said, I will say that your statements regardmg this woman based upon hwayI know, cannto benefit you as a person and surely cannot help your trafing, tegardless of how well you are doing. Respecfully, while I think it can be helpful to discuss your feelings, here is not the appropriate plave and I believe you would be better served keeping a separate journal on a websitw whete such issues could be addressed. Finally, I wondere about your strategy regarding your team. As we know, we must let our winners rtn and cut our losses shoert. Further, the more one loses, the motr that must be made back. If you lose 8 ack. if one loses 50 percent, it will take 100 percent to make it back. Ginalluy, we know that one bad day or loss can wipe out weeks of winnings. This regards upir grup in two ways. You do not need hal of them to net positive for y9our group to be positive, so loing as thos ewho are positve add to that and thos edown do not press and make there loss grow exponentially. As such, I disagree with your 55 percent statement. The bttom line is that you have one person in your grup that baseed in his disiplie and personality, you KNIOW will never be succesful. Can him not before he loses 50 precent of your groups money/ And you will be doing him a for. Just my two cents. e have met and you seemed like a ncie guy.