As Silk already pointed out, there is not much aggressive buying and selling going on right now. I have a friend whose dad is an owner/partner of a specialist firm in NY. Over the short run they are not making any money either. For the last 3 months they have been flat to down on the month. They said there is almost zero institutional activity going on right now. About 90% of their volume coming in is program trades, but no institutions accumulating or dumping large quantites of stocks that would actually move a stock.
Scalping listed stocks still works consistently in any market. It's not glamorous and you won't put up sexy five digit numbers but you can be net positive a few hundred to a thousand bucks a day until the market gets better.
Silk, I've been in similar situations in the past when one my main strategies suddenly stops working. I would continue to trade in full size hoping that the next day would be the DAY that everything starts back up and I would start regaining my losses. It would usually take a big whopping loss for me step back and revaluated. I'm sure your loss tolerance in this case is very high, given the gains you've made in the past. I have no idea when institutional activity will pick again and I'm not at all convinced that the iraq war is the main problem here. My suggestion is just to cut back size dramatically until you see a few good weeks where sectors become active again. I know this will cause you to miss out on some good sized gains during those few weeks but I think that worth the saved losses. I always approach things with the worst case scenario in mind and plan according.
Scalping from a few pennies to whatever I can take out of the market, bro! Just trying to keep it real and go with the flow!
I have noticed that activity is down to a crawl. In fact, last week, I did not trade on monday or on wednesday. Not one trade. The downtime is great though. I am doing a ton of reading, 10k's and conference calls that I missed out on during January when I was going bonkers. In markets like this, it's key to know when to trade and when not to. In fact, quite a few quality traders whom I know have taken the month off and don't intend to come back until the war starts. Why would you want positions now when Blix or saddam can come on tv and move the market 2% in a few minutes. It is just too much risk.
A sharp trader such as yourself must have some understanding of the mechanics of his particular trading strategy/techniques. What has changed recently that your strategy no longer works?? Do you know? have you done the analysis? In a dark room, lie flat on your back in total silence and visualize your trade. See it in your minds eye, play it out in your mind, what is happening? Why is the trade failing? What is no longer working? Pleasee you must be in total silence and the room dark with no other sensory experience except pure thought (sensory deprivation) Einstein called this a Gedanken Experiment. Try it. Let us know what you find. Good luck.
there are still plenty of good moves to be had in the first 2 hours. Don't complain all, just figure it out.