I have been away from ET for some months now because I got sick of all the negativity and bashing of TA in particular from people looking to sell a useless book related to Surf. I think the anger I felt from these idiots was entering into my decisions in trading so I left. I dont know how long Ill be back but decided that this time I might start a small Journal. This will NOT be an all encompassing Journal of all my trades. Just some that I think could spark some interesting and hopefully productive discussion and in particular may show how TA can be used to see when certain sectors and stocks are heating up over others. My methods are based off of weekly, daily, and hourly charts. I swing trade based off of 100% TA. I will post stock trades periodically with exact entries, and stops and I will post charts as well. These will NOT be all of my trades in my accounts....just a few I think are interesting and promising. You can assume I am trading a $100K account just for simplicity sake and you can assume that all my trades will determine number of shares based on 0.75% RISK of my account ($750) in this case. So if I am risking $750 I will take 750 / (Entry price - Stop Loss price) = # Shares Traded. So if entry is $100 and stop loss is $99 that would be a $1/share loss and I will buy $750/1 = 750 shares. If stop were $98 then 375 shares traded,.....etc. I will NOT vary from this unless I designate otherwise. I have a full time career and do NOT trade for a living. You can view that as a positive or a negative I really do not care. I trade mostly off of EOD charts with entries focused on hourly charts. I will sometimes post stocks shortly after I have made a trade and sometimes before depending on how time allows at my job. If you choose to believe I made the trade or not when I post after the fact I really do not care either but this will NOT be a paper trading journal. You have my word that these are real trades I enter into whether you believe it or not is up to you. I am selling NOTHING. I want and expect NOTHING. A LARGE part of the reason for this Journal is simply to keep me always looking for stocks and sectors that look interesting. Part is to spark productive discussion and part is to prove that TA has a place in trading and can often times signal BIG moves in stocks before others see them. I have been consistently beating the market with my methods but again I am not here to prove account balance or anything of the sort. I will not resort to childish games. I encourage people to disagree with me but if I feel posts are becoming personal and attacking just to be negative I will not respond. I think trading like most things in life does best when we are surrounded by positive people and constructive thoughts although they do not always have to agree with mine. Thanks for understanding, Eganon
First trade is BOX. I entered this trade on Friday near the lows of the day and thought this was an interesting chart and was one of the reasons I thought I should start a Journal to share this chart with people on ET. BOX - LONG @ $18.83 and STOP at $18.36. First target price $21.50 and second Target $25.
Second Trade is ACHC. I have placed a BUY order which hopefully will be filled tomorrow morning. ACHC - LONG @ $47.13 and STOP = $44.26. First Target = $55
"posting trades either before or shortly after". Anyone can go through a list of names after the weekend, pick stocks that made a low and went up on Friday, verified those same stocks were not subject to weekend events, and then come out on Monday during the European trading session, just hours before US open and post those trades. Not trying to be personal here but what value are you believing you are adding here? If it's for yourself then the question begs why you need a public forum to keep you accountable or motivated. Is your own account not worth enough the effort to put in the hard work? Why would you need a public journal for that? If you intend to help others I am afraid what you posted so far is not particularly helpful. Anyone can download a PDF on basic TA and read for 1-2 hours and get the same basic ideas you are trying to present here. Otherwise, posting trades days after they assumably happened makes very little sense imho. And if you really don't care whether people believe you or not about your real account (vs paper trading account) why would you state a fictitious account balance and dollar amounts. All you need to do is post percent stops and targets or even absolute levels. Just saying, a few things are not adding up. Not that I care, just pointing out that the logic does not quite compute. But good luck with your journal and if you posted trades closer to entry and exit then that would be tremendously more helpful.
If you read the first 2 trades one was taken LONG Friday before this thread and one is still unfilled. I also DID place absolute value stops and targets. My trading time is anywhere from days to months. This is not a day trading journal. So if you think I posted after I checked out the charts then so be it. But my trades may be profitable immediately and still get stopped out. The charts are posted to show what I consider good and interesting setups for trading bases purely off TA.
EG! Welcome back sir. It must have been my plea in the STHH thread. https://elitetrader.com/et/search/6606609/?q=surf's+gone&o=date&c And pumpanddump.... I realize you are "new" here so allow me to chime in.... the OP has posted numerous realtime winning trades in the past and more importantly... he has bent over backwards to educate anyone here with a desire to learn more about T/A including myself. And might I add that his insights and the many things he has shared have saved my dumb ass several times from entering option-centric swing trades that would have turned out to be huge disasters for me. You see, I'm smart enough to know I know diddly... and I'm also smart enough to know when to shut up and listen. Lets not chase away a true forum asset this time around. Keep it positive mate. -Thnx.
When I was reconsidering coming back to ET I did see your post on that thread and I laughed. Thanks for the kind words VanZandt. How are things with you? Trading well? I hope you are not still shorting the entire market. LOL? You know I am kidding with you right?