I use futures but they stop trading 15 minutes before open while E mini continues. I keep an eye on e mini due to heavy arbitrage as it will usually be the same.
Take the spot price of the S&P (spx or inx on most systems) add Fair Value (found at www.programtrading.com)...then compare that to where the Eminis are trading at about 9:25Am NY time for your Over/Under calculation. Good Luck!!
Thanks. i usually have my orders in by 25 after. I'm not automated so I don't think I could change them fast enough.
Nothing good for a while on the OO's. Today I had 26 orders, only 1 fill with 1 looser. Got EDS long at 55, covered at 54,80. Spoo's headed up so I bought it again at 54,81 with a decent bid, soon showed 54,99 ask, leaned on the 54,91 bid (and hoped on 95), but he left me in the back of line and filled me at 54,85 when I had to cover with a f.... market order. Well usually don't get in a stock twice, it's not my style but heck I wanted my money back Ok, I still believe my stats, it's just been a week between the rock and a hard place.
Decided to stay with BMY (I accidentally bought it prior to the opening), and did well with LLY and VIA.b. Holding 2 others, but should net pretty well today.
Today I did a HUGE NO NO and it worked in my favor --it could have easily been the opposite. Need to get more sleep next time. I forgot to update my spreadsheet's prices from previous day. I know a guy who had a problem with using Redi and it didn't update prices once. He ended up losing $50,000 in just a few minutes. I was lucky due to the selloff I got a few longs and market went higher on majority of them. I also took off a lot of stocks today as there was more news than usual on some so instead of having 50 just had 30. Filled on 12. Made about .45 overall For a few minutes was up over a point and a half. It's great I was able to walk away without being killed, market orders across the board took away a lot of profit. I was really worried about why I was being filled Long on stocks that are opening up--that's not normal. So I'm posting my lesson so that maybe others can learn from it. ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK YOUR PRICES!!!!!!!!!!!! Robert Tharp
Is my last month's profits going down the tubes. I have been increasing size gradually, and then over the last few days, a bit more aggressively. Lost about 2 bucks today. IB's NYSE connection went down again, but I don't think it was a huge factor, as I got filled on 5 shorts and one long and the market took off to the upside from the bell. KSS and LOW were the killers, -86 and -56. My equity is intact from when I began this program, and if I had been trading the size I traded today from the beginning, I would still be up signifigantly. I will scale back size a little from here, and see what happens. Going to buy some compost and get stinky in the yard. See you guys Monday. (edit: I guess I wish it was Friday. I'll be back tomorrow.)
Don (and everybody else), I took BMY off my list this morning because of the news. Reuters reported, "BMY ... warning its 2002 profit may fall up to 46 percent on weak sales of major medicines." BMY turned out to be a winner today, but it could have easily gone the other way, if the specialist had not opened it so far below the previous day's close (opened amost $8.00 lower). Do you take stocks off your list if they have significant (out of the ordinary course of normal business) news? Or, do you play everything on your list? Did anybody else take BMY off their list this morning? What sort of news does everybody consider significant enough to eliminate a stock from your opening orders? I have been checking to see what kind of effect news released during market hours the previous day might have on the opening price. My hypothesis is that "traders" (but more likely, "investors") who only make their decisions after the market closes may take news that is released during market hours into consideration and therefore have an influence (based on after/before market orders) on the opening price and the direction of the price movement after the open. However, after some research, I now think that my hypothesis is incorrect. It appears that any news that comes out during market hours gets factored into the price before the close. Now, I am only considering news that comes out after the market closes or before it opens. Anybody have any thoughts on this? One more thing... I have been thinking about the upcoming earnings season. In the past, I have observed that often the price of a stock will start moving one or two days in advance of an earnings report, anticipating the likelihood of a positive/negative report. I have been eliminating stocks from my list when they post a positive/negative surprise. However, I have been considering eliminating stocks from my list which also meet the consensus estimate. I have also thought that it might be prudent to eliminate stocks from my list one or two days in advance of the earnings report, to negate the potential "anticipation effect." Anybody have any thoughts on this? How do all of you handle earnings reports? Whew... that was a major brain dump. I probably should have posed these questions one by one, on an issue by issue basis in separate posts, but once I got going, I couldn't stop. I am interested to read any thoughts on these issues.
I took BMY off my list the day after the disaster - There are so many others with relatively "stable" openings, why mess with a falling knife? I try not to get to married to anything (except my wife ) If it "stabilizes," it will become a candidate again. nitro