Its really quite simple... get a chart out in any time frame.... a series of higher lows and higher highs means that you are witnessing an uptrend... reverse it for a downtrend!! KISS
chartwiz, That's a harsh characterization of Ken. You don't know him and you cannot know his motivations. Also, how can you conclude anything regarding his methods after only a brief review of a couple of room transcripts? Don't you think a more careful consideration is in order before we jump to your conclusions? ProTrader1
*Final Post* ... thanks all ... It's excellent to ask about specific reasons/rationale behind any traders' strategy, eg the nuts and bolts of how they determine and manage their entries and exits, *this* is a positive thing about the message board here. thx Vadym, agree, glad to see again some congruence, agreement on sound trading strategies. I fully think it's a good idea to learn from a variety of people who know how to trade. Traders should try out all the services and read all the books, in time you will see that effective traders agree on methods that work (eg buy high sell higher), and we agree on methods that do not work (eg stochastics for entries). After years of doing this, you learn, through patient trial and error, and experimentation. Keep it up vadym, looks like we agree on strategy, good luck w/your traders etc, nice to see you also like to buy highs and sell lows, that's my cornerstone too, try it in combination with using previous day's high/low as entry triggers, let me know if you come up with refinements, improvements in the months ahead, would be good to get your take on it. cw, I stand behind what I'm working to accomplish in the room, which is to help traders learn how to trade. I believe my trade entries and exits are reasonably successful as well, and handily outperform most other places, though this is of secondary importance at best to me, in what I'm trying to accomplish at my place. The most important thing is - are traders learning new specific trading techniques, refinements, improvements, from whatever room you're in? One thing I do, which you all might want to consider, is doing a daily or weekly "trading lessons learned", eg ask all the traders, what new things have you learned this week in the room, about trading strategy, technique, what are you getting better at etc? This helps traders share with each other, and is a good weekly recap on key learning points, eg "ok we learned about volume reversals eg that JNPR gap down reverse play to the fibo earlier in the week" etc.. Not generic things like "keep small stops" or "better bored than broke", though I suppose for new traders they need to learn that. The pro stuff is more interesting, to see traders learn and be able to replicate your posts, your sector timing calls etc, that gets me feeling good. Bo, appreciate it re size tips, I copied your notes, will try to learn it that way... good insights re moving to larger size trading, you make excellent points re units not dollars, scaling the risk and stops etc .. thanks dattrader, others for the support, appreciate it... again, I'm not some supertrader market wiz, don't claim to have all the answers...I've just worked really hard to try and figure this thing out , and show others, and what I came up with is a strategy that seems to weed out chop entries and get me in on quick breakouts reasonably consistently, which is the goal. re trading strategy and why .5 or .6 etc, there's so much to cover, let me briefly cover it, and I'll work on expanding a free page at my site later with a lot of chart examples to clarify... (it's tough just using text).. My trading strategy in a nutshell: 1) Best trading opportunities exist when the COMPQ and the stock you're trading is trading outside of the previous day's range. Moderate ALL trading activity based on answering this question: Is the COMPQ a) within the previous day's range (poor trading opportunities) or b) outside the prev day's range (better opportunities). Hunting for reversals is not the way to go, at least only 20% of attempts should be reversals/pivots, for first few years of trading. 2) Use the TRINQ as a key indicator for net buy/sell pressure to help you determine whether "the force is with you" for longs or shorts, eg trinq < .7 for longs, over 1.5 for shorts (everyone asks me about the trinq, get toni turner's excellent book, she does a super job of explaining it, a must-read etc) 3) Keep most of your trades to within the 'outlier' sectors, eg long in one of the two strongest sectors for the day, not a sector that's in the middle. So if our SOX (+1.8%)and NBI (+1.35%) are up the most, and GSO (0.7%) is not, then when deciding "which to go long with, all are making 2d highs, eg KLAC HGSI ADBE", you'd give preference to KLAC, since it's in the strongest sector, based also of course on volume, time & sales indicators as well. 4) Know your stock's average intraday trading range (AITR), and play the fibo retracements within that range, eg EBAY has a 3-4 point range, you would likely not go long if it's already run 3 1/2 points off a mid range gap open, even if that takes it near the 2d high entry point. Common sense. A lot of conditionals like this, to be aware of. Again, I like stocks with a 2-4 point intraday trading range, much easier to correctly get a +1/2 to +.8 out of those, than one like AMZN with a 1.5 pt range. Two-Day Breakout High/Breakdown Low Entry technique - more tips: Best time for longs is to buy strong stocks getting stronger as they are breaking out over the previous day's high. I use a safety buffer to help avoid false breakouts/double tops of at least .2 over the previous day's high. The net price of the stock should be .5 to .6 over the whole number, eg I will buy 51.6 on a volume breakout, I will likely not buy a 51.2 or 51.3. Remember too to factor in the avg trading range for the stock, I tend not to enter a stock if it's extended to over 2/3 of its average trading range, unless there's exceptional volume and/or COMPQ action. The main point, the underlying rationale, is to buy on a continuation run over the prev day's high, as long as all the other signals are in support of the trade, eg sectors still strong, sector chart making new hod, time & sales at least 70% net favorable in the direction of your trade (for longs, eg 70%+ of trades going off at the inside ask or higher), TRINQ hasn't just spiked up on you, eg it's still down at .7 or lower, COMPQ in an uptrend over prev day's high etc... Speed: you need to be able to rapidly scan these signals within a few seconds and make a go/no-go decision on the trade. (I'll post a more detailed how-to step by step page on the site later).. Common Trader problems: a) way too slow daytrading, just examine the charts for your data, you'll see that roundtrips do need to be under 10 minutes on average to take the best clip out of each run... daytrading is for fast people, most are not and b) not using the right equipment, eg bringing a knife to a gun fight. Have at least 2-3 monitors, t1/dsl/cablemodem and a dat broker and esignal or realtick etc, common sense, many don't have the sensitive, quick instrumentation needed to compete effectively, and are using a blunt instrument when it's a scalpel that's needed. other tips: - don't 'buy 9's', eg 49.5 59.5, as will likely get resistance at decade numbers, wait instead for .5 over decade number - look at volume/volatility patterns, personally I tend to prefer midweek mornings, eg tue-thur 9:40am til 11am my primetime -market tends to reverse roughly every 8-10 minutes on the opening 1/2 hour, eg 9:38/40, 9:50, 10am, so plan on roundtrips within these time windows - do most of your work premkt each day, eg I'm up 90 minutes before the market starts, looking at technical entry points, volume patterns, micro support/resistance lines, so I can be prepared for the bell. When I first started trading, it was the other way, I'd just jump in and be in "reaction mode" starting 9:30, that doesn't work. Do a lot of premkt TA work daily, so you can focus your energy on managing your executions/dynamic position sizing, the "how" not "whether or not to", which you've already gotten some initial idea of, premkt, for your core trading basket. swing radar list jan-feb: keep an eye on PCLN CNET DCLK ENE Ok folks, well that's it for me, I will try not to post much anymore.. as it looks too commercial for a vendor to be posting on the board here, the only reason I initially posted was in response to the kent calhoun/texas identity confusion thing (a surefire way to get my dander up lol).. ok all, best wishes for a happy new year's - I'm taking a vacation to Hawaii. (inside joke). take care all, have a good one - ken
I have been in several chatrooms and for the most part my experience has been very good (including chatrooms run by some of the people who post in here...Brandonf of #mainstreet, Bo Yoder at Reality Trader T/A room) The best advice I can give to people in chatrooms run by quality people that I have just mentioned is to learn all you can from the quality of education that both of these rooms offer. Secondly, if you take calls given by a guru, you must make the call your own. What I mean by that is that you should go through all the mechanics of the setup, the stop, the target, the partial area, how many shares should I take that the guru goes through. Then and only then is can you manage the trade for yourself (your ultimate goal is to find and manage your own trades). Both Brandon and Bo are good mentors to those young traders looking for a way to safely learn the art of trading. I happen to be a trader who has benefited from the knowledge and mentorship from both of these fine traders. And for further information, both of these rooms are supported by another fine trader in each of those rooms who are equally good at mentoring in Toni at #mainstreet and Russ (Snoop) at Reality Trader T/A. So in either case you are getting two mentors for the price of one.
Ken, thanks for your time, and "free" info. A true statement of your character. Not many people share there tricks of the trade and experiences. {especially for free}
If you want to be part of the objective testing that I am doing, feel free to participate (see prior posts for details). Simply send me premarket entry / exits / stops, and I will execute live trades and post the results ...I have 7 participants so far, and hope to have a couple of more.
Yes, Ken, thanks for your input. I'd like to see you post more but I understand your reluctance. You mentioned you would post your Dec room transcripts. I would still like to see them. What you espouse seems reasonable. Your transcripts would provide some proof as to its efficacy. ProTrader1 PS I too would like to see you takes Don's offer.
I thought I had come to a revealing conclusion. Anyone who is called Ken must run a useless chatroom. Ken Calhoun is blasted here and Ken Wolff is blasted in the Absurd Trading Strategies thread. Because I do not have the wisdom to sort the wheat from the chaff I had regarded them all as suspect. But then my friend Chartwiz (who did invite me to comment) ruined my theory by getting into a p***ing match with Pejman. However, I am not exactly sure that Pejman is or has been a chatroom guru (he certainly seems to be part of the in-crowd), although he does seem to be selling a chatroom as he makes the transition to hedge fund manager. I certainly hope he does not fall between two stools. In fact I am losing track of all the players and the hats they wear because, for example, we now have DATTrader telling us he is "involved in the industry". Very cryptic. Would the knowledge-for-rent participants all stand up and identify yourselves please? May I highlight out a couple of issues for my friend Chartwiz so he does not miss them when he next replies. Don't let Pejman get away with that "it takes me 90 minutes to put on a 90% daytrade position" stuff. You trade size too man, don't let him forget it. Also, his entire long term analyis is clearly out to lunch as he doesn't know any better than to use logarithmic charts! Please explain it to him as you did to me. I agree with you completely in questioning his reliance on long term analysis when the short term trend is unclear. I tried to pin him down on this in another thread, but he would not explain or I am to dense to understand the depth of his thoughts. Perhaps you have the background to phrase the enquiry in a way that will bring a more illuminating response. Besides, he appeared to call you lazy for enjoying your holiday just because you read the market as uncertain while was taking the last chance to implement his master plan. Please don't take this the wrong way Chartwiz, but some might consider it rather churlish to criticize Ken for using stone-age techniques such as trading breakouts without helping him to master such modern methods as bull and bear flags. This was an ideal opportunity to point him to your site. I am beginning to rethink my position on vendors here. Perhaps the entertainment value they provide when they really get going is worth the aggravation of their promoting.
Duff, your half the entertainment yourself. Your also a great bomb- tosser as well. I remember when this sight was educational. Lets get back to trading and educating eachother.... or Barrons going to have to start deleting threads.