I am patient on both winners and losers, scaling out of both. A large part of how I do that is the history I have with the stock. FNM has given me some wallopings the last few fills, so I try to cut the size down a little quicker now if he shows size against me right away. But, I also know that he will really try to shake you out and is a stock that can run huge in your favor, so it's a tricky one to trade. Here's how I traded FNM today: Long 5700 at 54.15 I immediately put a sell out for 1500 at .22 He dropped the bid to the fig pretty soon after opening and the offer came down too. I thought "oh-oh here we go again". I kept an eye on it while I worked the other positions and his market was coming up a bit. I had stuck an offer for 1500 in at .10 that was filled at .12. This was just to reduce my risk, since he didn't go my way right away and was maybe playing some games. My .22 offer was hit with price improvement, filled at .30. This is always a good sign. I don't remember what he was showing, but I sold 700 at .35 at 9:36. He was probably stalling around that level a bit. He then really spread the market out with an ask somewhere .59 or .70, I don't remember, but I had a .60 offer in there for only 500 shares, thinking he could really jump. I threw in a mrkt order for 500 more to get whatever print he did. Filled .55 and .65. I had only 1000 left and let it run, selling market at .94 grossed $1560 on him, or an avg of .27. Seems weak when you see that the stock moved $1 from the opening print, but being too greedy can bite you too. Just the way I play them. DOW has also kicked my ass the last few times. I was short 4700 at 45.40 and was bidding in the low 30's but he wasn't co-operating. Covered 1000 at .35 at 9:32:25 and 800 at .31 at 33:56. He must have showed something that made me think he was going to jump higher because I covered 2000 at .38 at 9:35, leaving me short 900. I let him get away from me then as I watched other positions and didn't notice how much it was against me. Only 900 shares so I wasn't watching as close. I saw him do a small gap down and nx'd the offer at .66 at 9:42. Lost 54 bucks or -.01. +-.02 is a scratch for me. Like I've said many many times on these threads, opening orders is just a strategy that gets you in with a bit of an edge. It's still totally about trading. If you don't know how to trade, you'll get creamed. I key off the spoos a lot, don't pay much attention to open book, and not at all on the larger stocks. I'm not much of a tape reader and have developed a good gut feel over the years. I am not afraid to lose money and am not greedy about making it. I have a lot of stats that I can fall back on with confidence and don't get phased by the bad streaks. All pretty basic stuff really. Corey
Thanks for the great detail. IMO, this is the best post in the history of these journals. Lemme digest it. nitro
What would you have done, after he dropped the bid to the figure, if it traded small at 54; then he made the market 53.5-54.0 and put up a piece at 53.5; then made it 53.0-53.6 and printed it at 53.0; kept it there for maybe 30 seconds; then made it 52.5-53.0; printed it at 52.75; then it traded in a tight range, say 52.7-53.10, for the next several hours. Such a scenario happened to me in FNM just a couple of weeks ago....I just called it a bad day. Of course I ONLY did 3000 shares on opening (my max size). You have major cajones to do the size you claim to do (up to 9000?) in any stock on the opening...for fear that such a scenerio could occur and your stuck.
My god, Oz you are unbelievable. Lescor comes on here and opens up to his methods and you automatically assume he's lying? Go play somewhere else.
lets say you get filled on 20 stocks, how do you follow this, and put in all these orders after they open?
You absolutely have it WRONG! I have the utmost respect for Lescor and his trading ability and we've corresponded several times. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "claim to do"...just a bad choice of words...I certainly wasn't implying he was lying. Know what you're talking about before you open your mouth.
I chat with lescor, and his private conversations mimick everything he has posted on here. He is an excellent trader, who is willing to take down size in stocks he feels he has a good edge with. He keeps detailed records so that he knows how well a particular stock is performing for him. Yes, there is risk trading size, but most of the great traders are able to do it and manage the risk. Like he say, he has a lot of statistics backing his trades so he is able to continue to trade even through periods of drawdowns. Oz, sometimes "they" get the best of you. The important thing is to "live to figh another day" When I suffer a large loser, my only goals the next day is to just trade and make some money. Validation that I am still able to make money trading. That's how I deal with my losing days. My worst one was -30k last year, S got the best of me.
That scenario gave me the willies just reading it. I'm guessing Lescor got spanked on it too, seeing as he said FNM has given him some recent whacks. I'm sure his account is large enough to weather such uncommon setbacks though. Losing 10K on a multimillion dollar account, while painful, is still not going to take you out of the game. Size (and cajones) is all relative...
In that scenario, I immediately assume that there is some news that I've somehow missed and I'd be trying to bail on most of my position quickly. If he spread the bid down .50, I'd see where all the ecn's were piling up and join or step in front of them, trying to entice some buyers. FNM is also bad for showing wide spreads then not printing anywhere near as bad as shown, so I'd have some offers in the .65-.70 range too. If he printed at .50 then dropped it another .50 then it's "oh shit time" and I'm bailing wherever I can get out. Usually this means spraying orders all over the place, looking for bids to hit wherever I can. I've only ever been caught in trades like this with news though, which is why I try to pull anything that sounds remotely significant, or if I play, it's on much smaller size.