So the end result was up about 430 USD on the day. I'm probably done with bonds for the day. I'll probably buy a stock or two and call it a day. I'll check briefly around the 0930 report.
Busy with stocks. 1026 CST Bought 2 ZB at 111 24 based solely on the fact that the ZN's were making new highs. This will be a very quick few tick trade. The leading indicator in this case was the ZN. I had an opportunity to buy at 111 24 and I saw that the ZN's were already an equivalent of at least a few ticks higher. Absolutely money in the bank trade. Target is 111 27 to 111 29 followed by 112 02. Once again, this is meant to be a quick trade, I may settle for just 2 or 3 ticks. 1035 CST OK, per earlier posts I try to avoid having price go back to my entry. I manged to get out with 111 26 a few minutes ago. Done for the day. I couldn't resist the above trade. Anytime you see that you have to jump in.
0810 CST Long at 112 19 and 112 20 on the ZB's purchased at 0740 CST. I'm looking for a re-test of the highs at a minimum. We've only manged to sit at 112 21 with a brief kiss of 112 20. My thoughts are that we may have a flight to quality given the stock index issues due to China. 0730 report was favorable to bonds as well. 0818 CST Out at 112 20 when I had the chance. 2 min chart was weak. I still will be looking to buy, rather than sell.
Post market commentary for Tuesday 27 February 2007 (DOW down 416.02) Days like today only come around once a year if even that. To be honest, I don't quite remember a day like today since I started posting. I've talked about redemption days and the importance of getting them right because they cover over a multitude of your bad trades (sins). Today was a redemption day on steroids. I don't even think a day like today has a name. I'll say something a little harsh, and I'm only trying to point out a very important issue. Other than a scalp short here or there, if you did anything other than buy long, and buy long with your eyes closed today, you need to carefully reconsider your whole approach. My comment quoted above says it all, "Looking to buy" and "flight to quality". After the previous post, I took a brief scalp short trade based on the 2 min chart. As you know the ZB didn't stay down there near 112 13 for long. Once it became obvious that the post 0730 report low would hold, I started scaling in buying 1 to 2 lots all the way up to 112 24 and then stopping. My target was 113 00 or better. The end result was an exit at 112 28 when it looked like we wouldn't break 113 00, and another exit on the remaining half at 113 01. I had to call it a night at that time, but this is the one time I wish I had been able to stay up. I didn't post because up until my exit I assumed the day would be uneventful. After all, a drift down in price followed by price moving up 8 ticks from the 0730 report high is nothing to write home about.
Hi John, After a huge day yesterday, do you have any bias into today's trade? Would you treat today more differently than other 0730 news day? jim
Jim, Sorry for the delay. I know it is after the fact, but my bias for today was short. I have not traded today. Had I traded today, I would have made a scalp buy on the 0730 report for only 1 - 3 ticks due to what I see as a likely entry, BUT between 0757 and 0803 on the 3 min, I would have been short. Based on a quick read of the chart, that is what I would have done early in the day. I would have treated today like any other day with the exception that I would expect the volatility and range to be greater than usual. Sorry that I don't have more for you. Pretty standard observations. John
Post Stock Market Crash Commentary A question came up on Spydertrader's equities journal regarding how to trade after a crash. My initial response was to treat a crash day the same way I've documented here that I treat the post 0730 CST report spikes. I wait for the retracement to buy or sell, i.e. wait for a few bars after the spike move up or down. I've given the matter more thought, and based on intuition only I've decided to stand aside on stock trading for awhile. I'm almost exclusively focused on the buy side with stocks, and I don't feel right about buying here. This could be a mistake, and I hesitate to bring the "gut" into play as the stock system I've been following there is very objective, but something doesn't feel right to me. My thoughts are, (and I hesitate to share these thoughts as I feel they are alarmist), that the worst is yet to come. So for now, I'll be concentrating only on bond futures and the index futures for a couple of weeks to a month.
Post market commentary Friday 02 Mar 2007 I've attached my trades for today in a HTML file. I think I've finally conquered the "V" days today. Unfortunately I was only trading small size today due to testing a new software package. The package I was testing is named MarketDelta. I've tried it on and off over the last couple of years, and each time I've been impressed with it, BUT each time I found that it would conflict with my existing style. Eventually I found it to be best used simply to get a feel for what the Bid/Ask is at the various S/R points. The problem with that is for a single indicator, that you could come close to matching via other methods like Ensign's equivolume etc, I decided to consolidate with what I already had and did not continue my subscription. Today, as my NN was down (due to hardware issues) I decided to revisit MarketDelta. I'm glad I did. While I would have made some of the trades I did, and I would have come out profitable today, I believe it is responsible for half of my approximately 500 USD profit today. By the way did I mention I only traded 1 - 2 lots today? What did I do today? I maintained my standard view of the following: 30 min candle chart with pivots and equivolume, 3 min candlechart with equivolume, and 1 min Amibroker chart with various indicators based on NN studies. Next I kept MarketDelta up with the YM, ZB and ZN, and simpy checked it when the 1 min Amibroker chart gave me a signal. If price was within the sweet spot of S/R, and follow through buying/selling I took the signal. If not I waited. The primary difference is that MarketDelta didn't conflict with my trading. It complemented it. It appears that they have made substantial improvements to the software. I'll have to study it more but this time around, I believe I could trade off of it alone. I suppose that might be the main reason why I discontinued it last year. I wanted a second unrelated trading signal/system, and last year I wasn't able to see MarketDelta do that for me. Attached please find my trades for today. Please notice that almost all of them are very small, less than 6 ticks. Since the crash I've found that other than the day of the crash, it pays to take profits quickly. The reason for the very small profit on the last trade of the day is that I had to retire for the evening. Otherwise the last trade of the day would have been a minimum 6 tick profit per contract. I've made this point before and I'll make it again now. You don't need to trade large size in order to make big money. You don't need to trade more than a few times in a day in order to make big money. You don't need to trade all day in order to make big money. You don't need to capture a lot of ticks in the bond market in order to make big money.
HTML file is not accepted. Here is a cut and paste: Execution Records from Interactive Brokers LLC Action Quantity Underlying Comb. Description Price Currency Exch. Date Time BOT 1 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 5/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 07:55:11 + SLD 3 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 4/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 08:17:01 BOT 2 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 2/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 08:34:24 SLD 2 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 USD ECBOT 20070302 08:38:35 BOT 2 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 112 29/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 08:44:52 BOT 1 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 112 30/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 10:13:16 SLD 1 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 1/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 10:30:21 BOT 2 ZN false JUN07 Futures ZN JUN 07 108'260 USD ECBOT 20070302 10:57:28 BOT 1 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 3/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 11:01:27 SLD 1 ZB false JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 113 4/32 USD ECBOT 20070302 11:26:41 SLD 2 ZN false JUN07 Futures ZN JUN 07 108'265 USD ECBOT 20070302 11:26:47 Execution Summary from Interactive Brokers LLC Contract Comb Buys X Sells Net Avg (BOT) Avg (SLD) Exchange List ZB JUN07 Futures ZB JUN 07 false 7 X 7 0 113.018 113.076 ECBOT ZN JUN07 Futures ZN JUN 07 false 2 X 2 0 108.812 108.828 ECBOT
john, What do you use as your data feed for MarketDelta? In the past, I've found that IB's trade price in relation to the bid/ask price was not very accurate. And using Delta with IB sometimes gives wrong results. jim