You are just waiting to blow up. This is the worst type of trading. Full account in one position w/ no stops. Take it from a guy thats been around the block a few times.. this is not how professionals trade. You are just playing and pissing around. --MIKE
What ever happened to the %5 hard stop loss rule? I dont mean to be hard on u... but i see this as an educational experiment we all can learn from. --MIKE
Still long my KRY from 2.8, down 8 cents right now. 2% profit target is still active. I guess I would like to address the issue of me not sticking to my 5% equity stop that I introduced in my first post. In my oppinion, it is wrong to place stops (and profit targets for that matter) at static locations. Traders are taught to let profits run and cut losses short, with my swing trading method I have a different mentality. I cut my profits at 2% due to the nature of my method, I'm looking to catch corrections in a down trend. Over time I have developed chart reading techniques to locate these opportunities, and I have found that they consistently offer 2% on average in a day, I am very satisfied with this return. Regarding exiting with a loss, I despise placing a hard stop at say 5%, think about it, it makes no sense. What I have found to work several times more effectively in exiting positions that did not reach the 2% profit target the first day is simply to re-analyze the position every day. I try to take a fresh look at the chart, if it looks like something that I would buy that day, then I hold the position, otherwise I sell. This has worked well in the past simply because I trade with NO EMOTION! This is key, if you let even a smidgen of emotion or bias get in the way, you will be missing some of the stories of the chart; this will result in holding an incorrect position. Hope this clarifies my mentality to those that say that I will fail and this is 'bad trading'. Another note, the reason that I can confidently say that I trade with 0 emotion is because I trade with capital that I simply don't care about. This is key, I am not 'scared money', I trade with no fear. I view this equity as if it is play money, it allows me to keep a level head and trade correctly.
How do you reconcile the following two quotes? "In my opinion, it is wrong to place stops (and profit targets for that matter) at static locations." "I cut my profits at 2% due to the nature of my method, I'm looking to catch corrections in a down trend." It just doesn't seem consistent to "re-evaluate" the risk side daily but not the reward side of the trade as well.
I cap my profit for a simple reason. I am unable to watch the markets during the day, only take a few peeks every few hours. The moves I am catching are usually correctionary in nature, and tend to last 1 day max usually. I have found that 2% is both small and large enough to catch the majority of the move the majority of the time. If I had a strategy that attemptd to catch the start of a larger move, then I would definately take off the profit cap, but so far I have not found something that consistently works other than a method which requires monitoring of the stock during the first hour of the day.
Closing out my KRY tomorrow, limit at 2.78, no longer like the price action; looks like the correction is over, I had simply jumped on the move a day early.
Ahh! Totally blew my mind that I was still in a position today, didn't realize until about 3 and hten I remembered I didn't put in my sell order, kinda bummed, exited MOC at 2.57, took a bad hit, will have to keep my memory in check next time 12/10/03 No Position Equity: $2,339.94 -3.256% since 11/25 3 winners 1 loser
Why you didn't exit KRY during 12/8? Did you cancel your sell limit order? (daily range @ 12/8 was 2.70 - 2.96 $)
If you place a trend line which is connecting lows from 10/3 and 11/26 then wou will realize that KRY break out through, the day before you bought the stock. On 12/4 KRY created falling gap which is also bearish signal and you are saying that you still like the chart!?