I wouldn't say dead yet. I'm up more this year than all of '04 for opening orders, and I do it old school, all manually. August has been dead for me though, I'm barely profitable, which is better than previous Augusts, which have been flat to negative.
I have to agree with lescor on this one. This year has been good, heck I have had my single best day ever. August has been tough, if you don't tend to your losers, they become very large losers. The specialists seem to be playing some games as well. Slightly profitable here as well, but it is better than having a losing month! Other strategies are working well, and there have been some nice moves in the market. Good trading! Mike
I think Mike has it right..... I still maintain a small group of stocks especially during boot camp periods, only up $300 or so today. I left a lot on the table with HPQ. Don
Another great opening in news stock. It is GM today, 50 cents move before stalling...Good result: 8 winners and 1 losses for a net of 1100. Liquidity is terrible on some thin stocks e.g. EAT yesterday second print is immediately 24 cents out of the money. Spec is playing a game?
7 fills, +536 net. LYO was the pleasant surprise for me. Was scanning my orders page after I was done (doing my "idiot check") to make sure nothing slilpped through the cracks and there's LYO not even open yet. Caught a quick 28 cents. It has been a mediocre month though. I'm up but not a ton. 2 steps forward, one step back seems to be the theme.
The trend in opening orders is clear. Volatility goes down by the day, and opening prints gets slimmer. With more people doing the same it deterioates, and risk/reward gets worse. Sure you need more strategies and im sure many do well in opening orders, but that wasnt the point. The point is that it dies slowly each day. ORM
But that can be said of any strategy that depends on market volatility. In fact I would guess that there are less people involved nowadays because of the shrinking volatility. The reward may be smaller, but so is the risk, precisely because of the shrinking vol, so it's relative. My R:R ratio hasn't really changed over the years. I would say that the opportunity cost is higher now for playing oo's though. The window of opportunity to catch big moves is largely limited to the open and if you are tied up with oo's you miss out. Just my opinion and observations.
Just a $300 day again...Since this is the last day of boot camp, I think I will add stocks to my list again, which should generate more money of course. After Labor Day, the volatility should pick up and allow for higher returns. Nothing lasts forever, that's true, but this has been working since 1979 (for me anyway). Before the end of this year, how about we talk about other working strategies? Outside enveloping and pairs trading is a start...anything else out there? Don
1 small short loser yesterday, -55 Today a bit better, 1 long and 1 short winner, +218 Don't forget: Steelers @ Redskins tonight; have a good weekend all.
last trading day for me was wednesday... got greedy and got smacked.... gs upgraded the oil service and i didn't cancel as i should... oh well.. off to drop my daughter at college...gonna make it a long weekend.... come to think of maybe i should have gone to college...