We sit a couple of feet from one another in our "control room" - and his input is often filtered thorough my posts. Any specific questions can be asked and answered. The question about getting out with a smaller profit goes back to the basics of trading styles. I get pretty busy after the opening and I prefer to be flat within a half hour or so...my brother often times "reads the overall market" - and if he is comfortable with a short position from the opening (even though it is trading higher) he will put a bid in at a price he feels comfortable with (generally a few cents from the round, big number). When I see strength in a sector, like the drugs stocks yesterday, I will take a small profit. If I were to continue trading all day, I would have added to a short position (pretty good intra-day trading despite the volatility these days). I'll tell Bob you asked about him!!
S&P Cash: http://finance.yahoo.com/ And for daily "ohlc" history: http://chart.yahoo.com/d? (symbol ^spx)
No fills today on my openings, bummer!! I narrowed the envelope to .8%, will probably go down to .7% tomorrow. "Edge" - how did you fare today?
Don (and everybody else of course), here is my plays for today: PG, short at 77,65, exit at 77,80 LOOSER JNJ, short at 58,68, exit at 58,70 SCRATCH UTX, long at 62,90, exit at 62,85 LOSSER In the aftermath here is how I analyze these trades: PG looked strong right after the start, went down 5 cents but kept hitting the ask, should have covered earlier as strong as it felt today. JNJ, had 20 cents after the initial move, tried to squeeze another 5 cents out of it, but it firmed up and I entered a market order to cover at 58,50 where he had 10,000 on the ask. He just left me hanging going thru three more levels up, and finally filled me at 58,70!!! Bad trade on my behalf, taught myself a lesson not to use market orders unless it gaps up. UTX looked heavy and didn't show any promise early on, covered which I felt ok with.
Short story today, no hits on my openings. Though HDI got hit from my watchlist and would have been a nice trade
Let's make it easy for everyone. We should take turns. Don Bright why don't you go first. Just do the calculations for us we'll pick our own stocks all you have to do is do the calculations. You do it on Wednesday I'll do it on Thursday. If you do it I'll give on Thursday what stocks that have been working for me.
I think the calc is pretty simple. I'm just asking, because on my spreadsheet which I'm using to follow this on paper, I have 14 fills out of 42 names, so I thought it a little unusual that neither of you guys would have a fill. I'm using a 1% envelope around FV, that is half a percent above and half a percent below.
Mg why don't you cut your envelope a little. You may want to cut your size if you cut your envelope and vice versa. Just a suggestion The Shortee