You just gotta love these openings when hundreds of traders all head for the door at the same time. Opening orders were great a year ago... now it's just another diluted strategy used to fill training classes and churn commissions. IMHO.
I'm so glad you think that (perhaps you will help "unclutter" the openings), since our people are doing very well with them. We have added the automation, and the traders are making serious money. With the millions of shares trading, and the thousands of stocks, it is virtually impossible to dilute this technique. If and when it doesn't work, we will go onto something else. This strategy has been working for decades, sorry if you have trouble with it. I'd be interested in hearing what you feel is making serious money for traders these days....we can all learn from one another. Unless, of course, you simply like to attempt "bashing" for lack of something else to do. Don
Don's opening strategy works, I myself backtested it manually with a basket of around 20 stocks over a 1 month period and the average winners where around 60-70%. This strategy is basically similar to the opening gap strategy used by Nasdaq daytraders. Remember, opening strategy bets on extremes and hopes for a return to the mean. If it fails you take the loss, it you win just keep the winner until the mean is reached or your profit target is reached. I will try to further backtest this strategy going back in time for 2 more months to see how it performs, but due to the nature of this strategy it has been a winning strategy since it was invented (with proper money management, of course). Thanks Don for contributing trading ideas to this forum.
I appreciate the support, it gets a bit boring hearing from the (few) naysayers. There was a lot of backtesting done by one of the magazine contribtors a couple of years ago (TASC), and they did well even though they had a major flaw in their thinking...they were not adjusting for fair values, etc. Trading on the same side as the NYSE specialist is always a good way to go, and the gaps on the OTC will work based on simply pullbacks. Thanks again, and keep up the good work! Don
4 wins out of 5 fills. Net of 67 cents after comish. The loser was SGP which I am beginning to dislike- it flushed down 19 cents from the open, got out about half way back, lost 12 cents and it went straight up another 43 cents from my exit. Coulda been 5 for 5 pretty easily.
Good Job!!! Keep it up.... To everyone: OK, I go in to the hospital tomorrow at 5:30 AM....so do well, and I'll be back to you sometime next week. Make lots of money!! Don
Fletch I remember when we met at the Online Trading expo. Yes indeed the market was better a year ago for this. I wasn't very happy to find it on a thread and get discussed to a tee, then other traders start posting spreadsheets and such. Which stocks are working!!!!! and which ones they get screwed on. I've noticed that the gaps are less than they used to be before these threads really started and I have to also allow for less profit. Unforunately this is the general nature of the market. Everyone flows to what works...it eventually doesn't work........a lot of traders start to lose money and quit the strategy than eventually a strategy works again as less are doing it. Nature of the market. There is nothing you can really do about it. With message boards and the internet the cycles might be a lot faster now though. The dilution of strategies is why I am now VERY protective of things I do in this marketplace when I find something is working really well. I'll teach traders in my office ONLY and have them sign non-disclosure agreements about what is going on. Robert Tharp
Corey, Just a clarification... on your final calculation, I think you made a mistake in your explanation. When you said, "I take the result of that calculation and divide it into the spx cash price and express it as a percentage." I think you meant, "I take the result of that calculation and divide it BY the spx cash price and express it as a percentage." Is that right? In the first instance, the "percentage" would have been a huge number. Right?
Die, thread, Die!!!!!!! seriously, I have tried to be a lttle circumspect about comparing notes on which stocks are working or not. I think everyone should do their own due diligence and backtesting. The most liquid names, it probably doesn't matter, but some are certainly going to be impacted by numbers of traders using the same technique.