My picks for Wednesday, Sep 21, 2005: The format is (Last Close/Stop/Tentative Entry). LONGS GOOG (307.91/289.15/306.42), KONG (11.39/10.20/11.30), LOGI (40.24/37.23/39.98), VTIV (26.43/23.3/26.23), BMRN (9.10/8.30/9.09) SHORTS MICC (18.66/19.75/18.81), TUES (27.75/30.55/27.90), ADRX (15.60/18.66/15.84), JAKK (16.39/17.53/16.66), MOTV (6.66/7.27/6.70) Good Luck to everyone Wednesday!
I don't agree with setting your stops TIGHT at all. Stop loss position must be relative to current volatility and recognized support/resistance levels.
On some occasions it is better to not place stops at all. Having them thight doesn't give you much probability of staying in the trade: usually 50% of my trades go somewhat against me before turning in my direction and 2-3 cents stp would put me out of quite a few profitable trades.
And amongst SR and volatility volume could be another parameter to take into consideration when placing stp. Of course if you have the facility that triggers your stp when changes in volume occour.
I only said that because he said he's been at this for three weeks. To me, the biggest thing an intro trader can do to help themselves is to NOT lose money right off the bat. I'd rather see someone 50 small losers in a row than a bunch of winners at the start. Again, that's just me.... -The New Guy
Not hedging, but a system that is designed to make money in a bear market. Long only systems (obviously) make their best money when the market is going up. If you have say, three systems, one that is for bull markets, one that is for bear markets, and one for a sideways market then you can potentially smooth out your equity curve, assuming you can identify the trend well enough to capitalize on it. I guess it's a hedge for your system, in a sense. -The New Guy
A good example of this is spydertraders journal. He started with the Jack Hershey Equities system, and at some point realized that when some criteria aligned, it was actually a signal to short the stock in question, rather than go long. He spent the time, did the research and came up with a mini system that operates on top of his long only system. Overall, that journal is a great read too. (but really long). There's some very interesting stuff about how Jack approaches building trading systems which is pretty cool. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38777&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 -The New Guy
Results as of Wed, Sep 21 Of the 29 stocks, 8 met, or exceeded the 4% goal. One was stopped out. The format is (max gain, days held): TOMO (+9.2%, 2) XTO (+4.0%, 2) OSIP (5.7%, 2) COLM (+5.4%, 2) TUE (+10.5%, 1) gapped up 4%, so not tradeable - Disqualified ADRX (+5.6%, 1) JAKK (+4.0%, 1) MOTV (+6.0%, 1) MXH (-5.4%, 3) So far, winners = 11 losers = 2 20 stocks are still being watched.
Bitstream, watson1 : thanks for your take on the stop debate. I am thinking along those lines as well. thenewguy: I appreciate your comments. I am listing stocks to sell short too. It was just the first day that I did not have any. I have actually been at this more than 3 weeks. Mostly just investing, not trading. I'm okay when it comes to theory, but my problems lie in implementation. For example, I had ALGN short at 6.77 3 days ago. And I covered at 6.75 yesterday. Now its 6.27. For some reason, I just can't think straight when I've got my money on the line. But, I am improving slowly.