Almost got stopped out of my remaining half short position, but fortunately the 118 level which was previously support held perfectly as resistance. No change in my stop, we'll see what happens.
I will keep my knowledge to myself from now on. Good luck gents. DO YOUR HOMEWORK I will be back in the spring of 2004.
Was that you in the previous post, I take it, you're now long Sept Bonds with a close this Friday at 116'21? So what is the 'point'?
Just proof of the fact that watching the money can force a person to make silly trading decisions. I continue to feel that the bonds have topped out and the market direction is down. The challenge is how to stay short even though the market is going against you. In hindsight (of this most recent trade as well as other swing trades) I am realizing more and more how important it is to employ a more mechanized exit strategy. My entry strategy has become almost second nature, but I find myself grappling for a sound strategy to get out of a profitable trade.
The fact is that on Friday when the market is making it's low no one knows that those prices are the lows. In addition, at that time I had sitting on a 4+ point profit. (Short since 120'16). The market could have done any number of things (go up, go down, stay the same) when it was at 116'16. The point is that I had a trailing stop to protect the profits. incidentally protecting profits is NOT A ROOKIE MISTAKE. Because of my previous recognition that the Bonds could possibly be heading back up to 118, I decided that when the I saw an opening range breakout up (117'24) in the bonds on Tuesday that I would go along for a quick scalp; what I really did was recapture some of the money that was lost on the previous move against me. I wouldn't call that a ROOKIE MISTAKE either.
Closing out my long position here with a few ticks profit. This was probably not the smartest trade. If you look at the continuous daily US chart, there is support at 115'27, the high made on 3/12/03. My take on the bonds is that they make sharp downward moves and then go into a consolidation phase. Standing aside for now.