Getting my act together

Discussion in 'Journals' started by gutsytrader, Sep 24, 2006.

  1. Just saw an interview with Zanger and he says he only trades about 6 months out of the year as the rest of the time the market is not trending and it is too difficult to make money. He says the market puts in two good trending periods on average a year and he tries to be involved in them and sit out the rest of the time. Maybe your method works well only about 6 months a year like zangers (though maybe for you it is the non trending time?) and you should sit out when it s not conducive to making profits, drive rig or whatever then press when market conditions are favorable. Eventually develop a strategy that works in market conditions where your main one doesn't but until then stay out and save money to increase your stake when the market is working and also to get extra time in studying the market without being involved (keep up with it just not real time) Wishing you success.
     
    #181     Jan 15, 2007
  2. I'm trading fulltime again starting today. I did some papertrading last week to get back in the swing of working during the day. It looks like market conditions are more favorable than they were in November. I'll start posting with some regularity again and see if I can finally "get my act together".
     
    #182     Jan 16, 2007
  3. bidask

    bidask

    hi gutsytrader,

    where can i find Street Trader? i did not find it in a google search. i think the name is too popular.
     
    #183     Jan 16, 2007
  4. I got it on a burned cd from the pro. It's a esignal plugin so you can probably get it by contacting esignal and getting a download.
    If you have a charting package you won't be impressed.
     
    #184     Jan 16, 2007
  5. bidask

    bidask

    i thought Street Trader lets you do 6 second charting whereas other charting packages only go as low as 1 min. how do you do the 6 second thing you described?
     
    #185     Jan 16, 2007
  6. It's 6 sec. updates for whatever data has arrived. If there is no data, you see blank areas in the charts. Takes awhile to get used to it. If I had some money I'd buy a charting package and play with the tick updates. I'm sure it could do the same thing.
     
    #186     Jan 16, 2007
  7. bidask

    bidask

    does anyone know how to do this in esignal? i don't think this is a trivial thing, but maybe i'm wrong. the time stamp would have to be synchronized and accurate for all datafeeds.
     
    #187     Jan 16, 2007
  8. Hey gutsy,

    Good to hear that you are back. I tried to watch your system a little bit after market... I have a question, say the institution is planning to buy a basket of stocks... First it sells the first basket to hit the stops to lock in the price with ES. Between the selling the first basket and buying the futures, shouldn't there be some time lapse in order for the institution to take advantage of the down drift? I mean are you looking for one event following another? Or are you supposed to see both events happening at the same time (same bar)? Thank you for your help.

    Regards,
    William
     
    #188     Jan 16, 2007
  9. bidask

    bidask

    i see how executing trades this way avoids slippage. can someone argue that it's also a way to front run customer orders? first drive the market down by shorting, then buy futures (front run), then execute customer's order.
     
    #189     Jan 17, 2007
  10. I'm not the expert, just trying to copy one. From what I've seen in my trading I usually have only a few sec to get the best shot at making money. A couple of days ago I saw a short at 1439.00. I swinged around and forgot I didn't have my DOM display up. I one-clicked starting it and did a sell market. The whole thing took less than 10 sec. My fill was at 1438.25. Within a minute price was at 1437.50. So timing is critical. If I were a big institutional trader I'd want as little time as possible between doing each activity. All I think they're trying to do is clear out the stops above/below what they're trying to do so there won't be pressure against their position when they initiate it. I don't think they're trying to speculate while putting on a position they intend to hold for months/years.
     
    #190     Jan 18, 2007