But that is speculative trading, and while I agree there is more opportunity, it is hard to teach somebody to do it. Just ask all the hedge funds fighting to get some alpha these days...
I try to average about $50K per year, trading about 10 minutes on the open....but the most important part is showing new traders that they can do this simple strategy, at a very simple level (less than 10 stocks), and make some money while they're learning. I trade 10+ pairs everyday after the opens, and that gives me enough additional trading money to "keep the family fed." And, it makes me feel good to see new people smile and start the day with a positive attitude (and, I'm very fortunate, I don't need the money at this point in my life). All the best!! Don
1 fill / 1 long -50.00 dow blocked nsc...etr...mwd...pep today was a good day to get the hell out of the way....
Poor week, and entirely my fault. Traded the opens absolutely horribly Mon - Wed. Finally pulled my head out but too little too late to save the week. Mon 1 win, 2 losses -523 Tue 2 losses, -218 Wed 1 loss, -245 Thu 1 push Fri 2 wins, +145 Have a good weekend all.
It seems that I am not the only one to find out that the Opening game is getting very tough to make money today. Fortunately I cut down the sizes gradually from 3000 - 1000 to 500 and yet still losing money everyday or the pattern would be small wins a couple days to be wiped out by big loss on one day. This used to be the opposite. Now, I will give it a rest for a while... Definitely other style would have given more edges compared to the situation of Opening game today. I still did my analysis everyday on a godd universe of stocks (about 150 including both big and midcap) and found out that if we got our fills it is usually a struggle to make more than 10 cents. On the contrary shakeout are very common and stocks would go against our position for a quick jump of 15 - 20 cents. Don, or anybody else have any theory or explanations why is this the case? Maybe the spec has figured out our game or the new algorithm are in place.
There is too much competition and OO are losing their edge. You are also competing with automated programs which do like 100 OOs at once and help you exit automatically. No human can match the speed of these programs but humans do have an edge of tape reading. http://www.pairtrader.com/products.html Check out the OO Automated Program.
I recall one of the founders of pairtrader.com, Steve Slavin, quitting this game and going to work for a bank since he wasn't making any money using his own firm's strategies. This fact alone does not give one much confidence in their products or trading methods.
Don, you haven't posted your trading result since last Wednesday, just wondering... And I thought this thread was supposed to be a journal.
Up $250 on Thursday, Friday got a bit "convoluted" (due to my trading before the open, a "no no" on an opening stock). I did take a $450 loss on Friday on the other openings. Today, I waived doing my openings so that I could stand behind each of the "test pilots" and see how they were handling things (good thing as it turned out, LOL). Back to you all... Don