El Cazador you mentioned Ken Wolff, are you member of his trading room? Is he any good? In my cyber travels I've come across a few that say he isn't effective anymore. I'm curious to know your experience is.
Hitman sorry for the late reply I have been very busy the last few days....I recently extended a friend of mine a trading line and have been teaching him side by side....the last few days I have been trying to instill into his brain that the consistency and success he seeks as a trader is more a product of his mentality than his chart reading skills....this is very hard when the kid gets my hit list every morning and has yet to get kicked in the teeth or have any type of draw down...right now he his actually operating with the optimum mentality but that is only because he has not experienced any pain....and we both know its right around the corner! But anyway, Before I get into the patterns themselves I think I should first briefly describe my approach, routine, expectancy, etc... My approach is very simple and straightforward, I use no elaborate indicators or set-ups at all. All of my set-ups are keyed off of the price/volume action on the daily in conjunction with S/R levels, an oscillator, and the bb's..... Basically I have 3 different methods and close to 20 set-ups that all come together to form my voice or style if you will. 1) Trend Resumption - I exploit strongly trending stocks that are experiencing counter trend moves (pull-ups and pullbacks) and then attempt to enter just as the longer term trend begins to reassert itself... 2) Counter Trend Moves - I love to squeeze shorts! I exploit overextended markets in either direction and then attempt to enter just as profit taking and/or short covering begin to take hold.... 3) Continuation - I basically ride the backs of the big boys, I look for certain clues on the daily's to tell me when the big boys have been moving in or out of a market and attempt to enter on continuation and take a free ride..... Second; all of these set-ups are discretionary and not mechanical. I have back tested all of these set-ups/strats using my tradestation and almost all have returned negative results. To me this is a product of three things, my mentality, my trade management, and third market timing. Now you said in your post that you want to trade stocks and set-ups in which you do not have to watch tick by tick the futures, while I understand fully what you mean, to make these set-ups work for you, you will have to make sure you are on the right side of the market. Third I think we should get into expectancy/opps... From June-August I have had 96 plays (not including swings and intraday set-ups)...54 of which were winners/6 scratches...and 36 losers....my avg. gain was 2.4R and my avg loss was .8R....throughout this whole period I have not had a gain of more than 6R.... By breaking down some of the #'s I want you to understand that this is not an approach in which you are not going for HR's, most gains fall in the 1.5-3R level, hit and run, hit and run...what I seek is consistency! As you can see with my results through the summer I have gotten that...A snapshot of my equity curve shows a nice and steady climb with very small troughs....I will never get rich with any one trade or month for that matter but at the same time can never go broke overnight either....Also I wanted you to see the % of winners to losers...this probability allows me to risk a considerable % of my equity on each play (1.5%)..The natural distribution of wins and losses can bring a streak of 4-5 losers in a row, but not more than that...If I get more than that I'd say there's a 99% chance that there is a problem within myself and not in the set-ups themselves...What I like so much about my Also I wanted to point out that this is a pretty focused approach...I am not taking 10-15 plays a day...the most trades I have had during the last 3 months was 4... sh*t my girl is breaking my balls im gonna have to cut this short....read over what i have said so far and let me know if your interested in learning more about my approach and set-ups....if so i will get back to you tommorrow or maybe we can find a room to talk or something PEACE and good trading, Commisso
Commisso, Thanks for taking the time to discuss your methods. I ask that you continue to expound upon your approaches and patterns in this public forum as opposed to taking it private. Many people enjoy what you have to say as well as how you say it.
Commissio: Thanks a lot for the reply. As Magna said, if you can, please share it on this public forum but for my own sake if you have to e-mail me privately that's fine also E-mail me with an AIM name or something and we can talk. My questions: 1) While I understand the basic 3 categories of your set-ups, my question (as with the tile of this thread) is simply how do you use something on a daily chart and translate it into intraday trading. My understanding of your set-ups is that they work for swing trading, and can be used in day trading with some specific parameters. If you can dissect a trader or two it will be very very helpful. 2) What type of stocks do you trade? The number 2 guy I mentioned does very thin stocks (nothing more than 1 million shares a day, most under half a million), my understanding is the specialist in those stocks don't play as many games and support/resistance information are more accurate. Not to mention it is harder for institutions to get out of those stocks without leaving a mark. 3) Bread and butter set-ups from the daily's. I have heard a lot of good things about Jeff Cooper's book. I wonder if you can share a couple of most reliable set-ups (this might be asking for too much I know). What kind of set-up's on daily charts are most effective USED IN INTRADAY TRADING? A lot of the patterns I noticed are useless, say a perfect double bottom pattern that just broke out, next day it could be a follow through, or it may be smacked back in . . . My point is intraday traders typically trade off intraday charts, swing traders off daily's . . . The guy's result at my firm opened my eyes and hence the quest for knowledge continues . . . Thanks!
Hitman, I don't have the capital to trade along with you guys. This forces me to trade in the areas you are talking about. Because I frequently trade these type of stocks I can tell you when it seems most likely when they will move. My observation is this: Thin or low volume stocks seem to rise on earning percent suprise. Big institutions like this and will jump on them....also if they fall out of favour....they will equally dump them. So I look for either a good % suprise or a bad one and trade accordingly. This helps prevent me from watching a chart that dosen't move hour after hour. Most likely the set up that you have will work just fine and your usual bells and whistles will trigger ok. But remember, being there when the big guys get there or leave there is the key. I have found that earnings percent suprise works for me along with a significant increase in volume either way.
Hitman I guess the best way to explain what I am doing is to give you some examples of winners and losers that I have had over the last two weeks..... Before we get into them I 'll attempt to answer some of the questions that you asked in your reply.... 1) I trade all stocks, thin and thick alike. My set-ups exploit the psycology of the participants in a market, as such a short squeeze will occur just as much in a stock that trades 250k a day than one that occcurs in sebl, cien, jnpr, etc.....Also since my account has grown considerably it has become a real pain in the a** for me to move in and out of a stock that trades 250 a day....I do find that I get the best moves in the thinner ones < 1 mil a day, but there are also drawbacks, such as sitting and having the futures tick up all morning and my stock is crawling which can occur often with alot of the smaller tier stocks, also slippage is a main consideration..... 2) You asked me how I specificaly apply daily charts to intraday trading....I think you will get a better idea after viewing a couple of my trades from the last 2 weeks, but as for the logic behind it....basicaly you can say that I am riding the backs for the first couple waves of pressure after people start moving in or out of a stock that has triggered a longer term set-up....I am basicly getting a free ride on other participants beliefs that a market will rise or fall over a longer tf than i am looking at....they are looking for multiple points over multiple days, and I am looking for a pt or two as they pile in or out, manifesting their beliefs about the market...As an example I will show you a chart of cls, most people that were shorting or selling theyre longs were doing so expecting the market to test its prior lows it printed a few days before, knowing this I wanted to exploit their beliefs that the market would test the lows and take small piece of that move.... 3) You asked about Jeff, and his work is fantastic! But I don't think it would be right to post his set-ups on a public forum such as elite....we can discuss his set-ups over the email or some other private forum....
The 8/27 bar represents the set-up..... CLS made a rather sharp move lower on heavy volume (see obv and thick white line I drew CLS than put in a low and made a 3 day pullup on low volume (see thick pink line on vol) CLS then stalled out and put in an extremely tight narrow range bar @ the confluence of its 20day EMA and 38.2% retracement of the swing down. ( see blue mvg avg. and dotted white line and the circle around the 8/27 bar) This sets-up a fatigued rat/with a coiled spring as the trigger, and the probabilities suggest if the market takes out the low of the prior day it may come down and test the lows. I am not betting on it testing the lows Hitman rather I am betting on others manifesting their beliefs that the market will test it lows..... Heres the chart;
The next morning the market gapped up a few cents and then got immediately smacked down to take out yesterdays lows, at the same time the market was going with so I entered.... Now usualy with a play like this I will @ least take half as soon as it breaks the 8ema on the 5's....In this case the ducks were quacking so I fed them (see the vol spike right into round #) Simple as that, lil less than 5R's (5*1.5% of my account) in an hour....now this was one that worked wonderfully, needless to say they don't all work this well Hope this gives you a better understanding of how I use daily charts for intraday trading Hitman....I will post a few more a lil later tonight if you'd like.... PEACE and good trading, Commisso