I'll have to agree with you totally on this point. I'm starting to just take a stock off the list for a week or so after a magor event and give it time to settle down. VZ used to be one of my money stocks, almost a sure bet when filled in it. I upped my share size in the stock and tightened the envelope a bit to get more fills. Lately it's been a dog and I'm now at a reduced size in it until I see improvement. A few weeks ago it was MO, a stock I neve got filled in. Then got it short a couple days in a row and got smoked each time. It's an ongoing learning curve, this trading thing.
Sold Citigroup on the opening, made $600 ....watched others make a bunch today, as promised....new ideas for larger orders...I'll cover some at the expo this weekend, and then chat about them here next week..... Hope to see you guys at the expo!! Don
in response to don's post, and looking ahead, i was thinking about using scale orders in order to get bigger - say 3-5k shares. it's either that, or grow laterally by trading more stocks. or maybe both anyway, today was decent. really blew one trade - a short, that went about 10 cents against, up through .50, so i got out as the market was strong. it fell a point from there. the other two i had perfect exits in, as they were longs and plunged soon after i got out. went +22, +19, -6 overall. i'm up the first two days since i cut my list. being able to watch the tape is certainly helping. on a side note: SBC hasn't been as bad as i thought of late, but i still show a couple of recent losers (which i count as when a stock goes more than 10 cents against you off the opening print)
Unforunately I slept in this morning. I woke up and looked around in shock to see daylight (I'm in CA) walked into the office right at the bell. I need 30 minutes to do research for my opens...check news, charts, and so forth so today was nothing. The 2 traders I've been training next to me did pretty well though. Normally they copy me trade for trade for trade. They decided since I wasn't there that they would do half of the opening orders I normally do. They used the same envelopes I had used the day before and were long heavily off the bat. When futures kicked up higher than canceled all short orders and were lucky to get no fills for shorts. They peeled out and hit market to close out all of their positions when the futures had that gap down. One of them made .50 (This is per share) after commissions and the other accidently had a limit order on RIG so that he couldn't get out. He lost .05 after commissions but had he hit limit he would have been up .45. If they did my entire list I imagine they would have made a point. Robert
Small day today....in the Long Beach office....heading to Anaheim to get set up....see some of you there!! Don
Liquidity isn't around today. It really sucks when you are up over $850 from your opens you hit the close all at market button and end up just $100 Well still positive so I 'll take it Robert